Amerika

by Paul Lally

  ‘Esau.’ A long pause. ‘A little early ain’t you? And where’s Captain Fatt?’

  I had to say it. ‘Killed in action. Nazi’s attacked Couba Island. We got shot up on takeoff, started leaking fuel over Oklahoma and lost an engine somewhere over New Mexico.’

  A long pause. ‘You mean you haven’t…’

  ‘Affirmative. We haven’t flown the mission yet.’

  He rubbed his long jaw as he digested this. I pressed on with more important matters. ‘Got any shoes? Lost mine during the attack. Been flying barefoot.’

  ‘What size?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Got a pair of boots if you’d like.’

  ‘Much obliged, and we’d also like two thousand gallons of one-hundred octane. Can you handle that, too?’

  He looked insulted. ‘Got a whole barge of it back at the base, just like the general ordered.’ He looked up sharply. ‘What about him? Is he okay?’

  ‘Don’t know. Most likely though.’

  Another long pause. ‘A tough nut. Served with him in the Great War. Just a young captain back then, but even so I knew he was bound for general’s stars one day.’

  ‘What do you say we help him win a few more?’

  One of the first rules of airline command is to have confidence in yourself and your ability to succeed no matter the challenge. Like a stone thrown into a still pond, this feeling ripples out, touches your crew, and gives them confidence too. But it’s a hard rule to follow when you only have three engines. The fact of which Orlando quietly reminded me as he and Ava and I observed McGraw’s crew pulling camouflage netting over the Dixie Clipper, now tied up at the refueling barge.

  From the air, Sentinel Island seemed desolate and deserted; just one more lonely mountain top surrounded by a man-made lake. With clever use of camouflage nets and painted paneling, the McGraw brothers made the fuel barge and the Dixie Clipper vanish into the pale brown and ochre landscape, devoid of greenery of any sort, leaving only the Desert Queen to rest majestically at her mooring, her lights blazing as she exercised her rightful claim as queen of Lake Mead.

  I countered Orlando’s caution with airline captain-like confidence. ‘We can do it with three engines. We’re not that heavily loaded.’

  ‘We will be with full tanks.’

  ‘Look, we’ve got miles and miles of takeoff space. This lake goes on forever.’

  Orlando shook his head. ‘Didn’t you notice? We’re surrounded by mountains on all sides. You may get off the water, but by the time you get positive rate of climb, you’ll plow into a rock wall, guaranteed.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Yes, that.’

  Ava cleared her throat, but didn’t say anything. I bristled a bit, thinking she was criticizing my piloting skills.

  ‘Any bright ideas, Miss James?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Take off with half the fuel. Find a place like Creeley’s, land, take on more fuel, and keep on going, like we’ve been doing so far.’

  ‘We’re already a flying circus. If we do that everybody and their brother will know we’re here, and sooner or later, so will the Nazis.’

  A heavy-set man lumbered down the dock towards us, all smiles, dressed in the dark blue uniform of an ocean liner captain, complete with four gold stripes on his cuffs, polished brass buttons and a master’s cap sitting smartly on his big fat head.

  ‘Captain Carter?’ he said in a high tenor voice. ‘Captain Jacob McGraw. Welcome to Sentinel Island.’

  I took his surprisingly firm handshake and then made introductions all around. He saluted Ava and Orlando as fellow officers.

  Ava said, ‘I heard you and your brother were twins.’

  ‘Indeed we are. Fraternal.’

  Orlando said, ‘Are you on better terms with Esau than your Bible namesake?’

  His eyes disappeared in a smile. ‘Not when we were growing up. But a different story now. Esau manages the passenger side of the business, I handle the Desert Queen - now then, captain….’ His jovial attitude vanished as though he’d thrown a switch somewhere inside that huge head of his. ‘I understand you’ve haven’t completed your mission yet. What are your plans and how can we help?’

  As I laid out my somewhat sketchy plan of refueling and taking off after a long run across the lake, my mouth got drier and drier, because I realized that Orlando was right, we couldn’t clear those damned mountains with only three engines, so I said, ‘You know what? My idea stinks. Anybody got any ideas?’

  The four of us stood in uneasy silence for a long while.

  Captain McGraw finally said, ‘Considering you do manage to take off successfully, what’s time to target?’

  I did some quick figuring. ‘Six hours or so, depending on the winds.’ I turned to Ava. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘The winds would have to be pretty damn good.’

  ‘We’ve been lucky so far.’

  She nodded in affirmation. ‘Six it is, then.’

  McGraw said, ‘Time over target?’

  ‘Three a.m. Minimum folks on site. That’s always been the plan.’

  Jacob pulled out an enormous pocket watch and studied it. ‘So you’d have to take off from here in about thirty minutes, to make this work, correct?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘A very tight turnaround. But as you said, you can’t get your plane off the water if it’s completely fueled.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘We have a dilemma.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m not a pilot, but I think there might be a way out of this, depending on how adventuresome you folks are.’

  My past adventures came to mind: digging for gold in the Florida Keys, flying to Lisbon, giving the slip to Bauer and the Gestapo, escaping from Couba Island.

  ‘I’d say we know how to take a chance or two.’

  ‘You’ll have to delay your mission twenty-four hours. I need time to set up a few things, including a scouting mission.’

  I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. So I listened to what he had to say. When he finished describing his harebrained scheme, I compared it to what we’d done so far and decided if the mission was going to happen at all, it would have to be his way.

  ‘Breakfast at seven,’ Jacob said. ‘We pick up our first trip at 9a.m. sharp, over at the landing.’

  ‘Any chance we can get something to eat? ‘All we’ve had are Ziggy’s sandwiches.’

  Ziggy looked pained, so I added, ‘Not that they weren’t great. It’s just that…’

  Jacob intervened with a sweeping gesture of his four-striped sleeve,

  ‘Your timing is perfect, my dear lady and gentlemen, my brother and I were just about to sit down to dinner when you made your dramatic entrance.’ He extended his arm to Ava. ‘May I escort you to the dining room, Miss James?’

  She looked faintly surprised.

  Jacob continued smoothly, ‘Only a fool wouldn’t recognize one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses.’

  She fingered her wrinkled blouse. ‘Dressed like this?’

  He patted her hand with his dimpled fingers. ‘A princess in rags is still a princess.’

  We learned during dinner that the Desert Queen made three trips around the lake every day and overnight trips on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The lake’s one hundred-fifty-mile shoreline allowed plenty of sightseeing opportunities, although what everybody really wanted to see was only a few miles downstream from Sentinel Island: Boulder Dam; the world’s highest dam that had created Lake Mead in the first place.

  Jacob lifted a cut-crystal glass of red wine. ‘Here’s to Boulder Dam. Without it we wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Neither would we,’ I added.

  The Desert Queen’s dining room was surprisingly spacious and extended across the entire deck. Candlelight reflected off the darkened windows like a thousand stars. I was glad I didn’t have to plot a course using them, because I was already feeling the effects of the wine, and could
barely keep my head from falling into the soup.

  Ava, by contrast, seemed to gather fresh energy as each course was served, while Orlando sat across from me, a calm and silent port in a storm. The professor ate small bites, but never seemed to stop. Mason was still on the plane, standing first watch, and Ziggy couldn’t seem to shut up. He cornered Esau early in the meal and wouldn’t let him go. But the man didn’t seem to mind, watching the Hollywood agent like he would watch a snake oil salesman, with his money safe in his pocket.

  I did my best to rouse myself from the effects of the wine and start a conversation with Jacob about how back east some of the states were planning to secede from the union.

  The captain smiled and shook his head. ‘Not out west. Am I right, Esau? Anybody here care that America’s gone neutral?’

  Esau swung away from Ziggy. ‘Depends on who you talk to. After they dropped the bombs, the governor appointed all his cronies, every one of them a businessman who believes the status quo is the way to go. Don’t rock the boat. That sort of thing.’

  ‘But you’re a businessman, right?’

  ‘I am, but those boys are all hat and no horse. My brother and I are different. We dragged a steamboat down here from Wyoming and turned it into a money-making business.’

  Ava said, ‘You not only rocked the boat, you took it apart and put it together again.’

  Esau managed a smile at that.

  I said, ‘Who’s running for congress in the November elections? Any candidates with guts?’

  Esau worried a piece of food in his teeth, oblivious to table manners.

  ‘It’s ain’t guts they need, it’s another part of the anatomy.’

  Ava said, ‘Don’t be coy on my account. You mean balls.’

  The candlelight made Esau’s blush even brighter. He nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what I mean.’

  Jacob moved smoothly into the conversation. ‘Compliance officers are coming to survey Boulder Dam next week.’

  Ava said, ‘What for? It’s just a dam.’

  ‘Hydroelectricity,’ he said. ‘Two point-eight million kilowatts. Nothing like it in the world, and nothing like Boulder Dam either. That’s why they’re snooping around.’

  I said, ‘What are they going to do? Take it apart and ship it back to Berlin? That’s a hell of a lot of concrete.’

  Jacob snapped, ‘They’ll steal our technology and that’s just as good, the bastards - excuse me ma’am.’

  Ava said shook her head in frustration. ‘I can’t believe we let those people get away with stuff like this.’

  Friedman cleared his throat. ‘Because people like me invented the atomic bomb.’

  Ava leveled her finger at him. ‘But because a person like you is sitting here in this room, that’s going to stop, right?’

  Friedman nodded briskly, almost like he was in school.

  ‘And what if it does?’ Jacob said, his eyes bright with hope. ‘Let’s assume your mission succeeds.’

  ‘It will,’ I said quickly.

  ‘What happens next is my question.’

  I countered. ‘What do you gentlemen think?’

  Esau’s face slowly darkened. ‘Nothing will happen. America keeps moving along, head down, letting Europe go up in flames and Japan rule China’s roost. All of that destruction can go ahead and happen just as long as good old dad can take good old mom and the kids out to good old Lake Mead and have a nice tour of the dam, maybe even have lunch, and shake their heads and cluck about what an awful state of affairs the world is in, not counting America, of course.’

  He paused for breath.

  Jacob grinned at his brother. ‘Don’t hold back, Esau. Tell them what you really think.’

  Esau fussed with his wine and then gulped it down. ‘It just confounds me sometimes what people will put up with.’

  ‘You’re not putting up with it,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not the majority.’

  Ava leaned forward on her elbows. ‘Mark my words, you may be right about men wanting the status quo, but you’re overlooking a simple fact.’ She paused. ‘We have a woman president.’

  ‘But only until November. And right now she’s trailing what’s-his-name...’

  ‘Stanford,’ I prompted. ‘William Stanford.’

  ‘William my ass,’ Esau snorted. ‘’Stinky’ Stanford is Nevada’s biggest success story; silver mines, railroads, steamship lines, you name it; whatever Stinky wants Stinky gets, including the White House when they rebuild it, that is.’

  Ava said, ‘A lot can happen between now and November.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like declaring war against Germany.’

  He stared at her, his mouth half-open. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘War tends to focus the mind, don’t you think? And who wants to change horses when we’re in mid-stream fighting the enemy? My vote goes to the person already in the Oval Office, President Perkins, who had the balls to order this mission, not some rich kid named Stinky Stanford.’

  Esau’s face eased up at the thought. ‘Do you really think we’ll get in the fight?’

  She touched my arm lightly. ‘The Dixie Clipper has to fight first. And then? Yes I believe we will. I don’t know how or when; that’s something people a lot smarter than me are working on day and night to make happen. All we’ve got to do is destroy that plutonium and the machinery that makes it. The rest is up to them.’

  I said, ‘We’ve got to get off the lake first.’ Captain McGraw said, ‘You leave that to me.’

  Esau raised his glass. The rest of us did the same. He carefully looked at each of us before he quietly said, ‘To the Sons of Liberty.’

  ‘Daughters, too,’ Ava said.

  With Ava leading the way, we made our way along the carpeted passageway to our staterooms on board the Desert Queen.

  As much as I wanted to feel fresh sheets and a soft pillow, I said to Orlando, ‘I’ll go relieve Mason. When he gets here, show him his room.’

  Orlando nodded. ‘I’ll relieve you at four.’

  Ziggy said, ‘Let me take your watch, captain.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, I’ll…’

  ‘It’s necessary for me, damn it.’ He took a step forward and seemed to grow a foot taller. ‘I’m sick and tired of being nothing more than a glorified short order cook around here. I’m part of the team and I’m standing watch whether you like it or not.’

  ‘We have guards outside the plane, and…’

  ‘Two men stationed at the nose and two at the tail. I know that. And nobody is allowed on board except crew. Nobody.’

  ‘And make damned sure my orders are carried out. We’ve got valuable cargo on board.’

  He nodded sternly, all business. ‘Affirmative. And I’m to tell Lieutenant Mason that Orlando will show him his room, correct?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  Ziggy saluted and turned to Orlando. ‘See you at four, Mr. Diaz.’

  Orlando, God bless him, saluted back. ‘Roger that, Mr. Ziegler.’

  Ziggy pivoted on his heel and half-marched, half-ran down the hallway.

  As tired as I was, and as cool and fresh-smelling the sheets and pillow were, I didn’t want to close my eyes because while I know babies can’t talk, in dreams they sometimes can. I didn’t want to hear Eddie’s cry again, and I didn’t want to see Estelle’s sweet face again, or her angry face, or anybody’s face, shouting at me about how much they needed me and why couldn’t I reach out and help them?

  No use. I was asleep before I even took my clothes off, and this time Eddie’s voice sounded just like Abby’s, only a little higher in pitch. And for some bizarre reason he was at Couba Island, and he could walk, even though he was only six months old and his little legs were bowed like a cowboy’s.

  I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn’t wake up. At one point I succeeded and stared at the ceiling of the dimly lit stateroom, only to hear somebody breathing.

  Estelle.

  Sitting on t
he edge of my bed, staring at me with the sweetest smile, like when we first met, and I was so happy until I realized I was still dreaming because I awakened with my hands reaching out to nothing but thin air and all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing.

  2:20a.m. by my watch.

  Enough.

  I got up, dressed, left the stateroom, and minutes later was nodding ‘hello’ to a grizzled old cowboy of a guard by the loading ramp next to the plane.

  ‘Heading on board.’

  ‘Okay, captain.’

  ‘Everything all right?’

  He patted his Winchester carbine. ‘Oh, you bet.’

  I glanced up at the flight deck windows, dimly lit from within, and a shadow flitted past. Good old Ziggy on the job. Would probably give him a heart attack, showing up out of the blue like this, but better to deal with a hysterical man in this world than a walking baby in a nightmare.

  From force of habit I climbed the crew stairs smoothly, quietly, acting the part of the confident captain should a nervous passenger happen to see me. The flight deck hatch was open, and as my head cleared the hatch, the first thing I saw were Ziggy’s legs bouncing up and down as he sat at the radio operator’s station. The unmistakable smell of ozone told me the radios were up and running.

  Annoyed, I crouched, planning to pounce on him as I would any novice crew member who wasn’t performing up to Pan Am’s rigid standards. I took the last two steps in a bound, landed with a thump on the flight deck.

  ‘Having fun, Mr. Ziegler?’

  He shot up like a rocket, headphones flying one way, a half-eaten sandwich on a plate sailing the other, staring at me like I was the Ghost of Christmas Past.

  ‘Jesus Christ, ever heard of knocking?’

  ‘Ever heard of standing watch?’

  The tinny sounds of music vibrated the headphones on the desk. I looked at them the same time he did.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Listening to music.’

  ‘You figured out how to operate the radios?’

  He shrugged. ‘I watched you do it.’

  I lifted up the Morse key. ‘Played around with this too, I see.’ He looked ashamed. ‘A little bit.’