“Good morning, Father McKenzie!” came the chorus from the children in the classroom as soon as they saw him.
“Good morning, children,” Fitz responded, giving them a quick and sloppy hand gesture that approximated the sign of the cross. “Is everyone well today?”
“Yes, we are …” came back the unified reply.
There were fifty-five of them in all—kids from four years old to seven. Orphans mostly, they were brought to #5781 shortly after the invasion to be “reeducated” in the ways of the European fascists. Four hours every morning, a constantly changing parade of Nazi political officers came to the school and filled the little heads with fascist garbage. The emphasis was on the life and times of Adolf Hitler, who was God Almighty for the Fourth Reich. For four hours in the afternoon, Fitz took over and taught them everything from English to math to science and spelling.
It was by the strangest quirk of fate that Fitz had become their teacher. After he’d bribed his way out of a POW holding center up near Decatur and assumed the only disguise available to him at the time (he had hidden in an abandoned church for two weeks), his wanderings took him into New Chicago. There, he had barely escaped a curbside execution by some Fourth Reich soldiers who mistook him for a rabbi. Dragged to the local military police station, he employed his considerable verbalizing skills to convince the harsh officers that he was not only a priest, but a Jesuit priest, an educator, a molder of men’s minds.
“Rabbis we kill outright,” the officer had told him. “Priests and ministers, we allow to work themselves to death.”
Fitz was shipped to Bummer Four the next day and assigned a variety of duties. Tending the flock was one; teaching the kids was another.
He’d been at it for four months now, and couldn’t help but grow fond of each one of his students. He also felt enormously sorry for them. The Nazis were experts at twisting minds—the younger the better. It was part of the grand scheme to prepare these youngsters as the first generation of New American fascists, homegrown human machines built and oiled by the Fourth Reich.
Of course, Fitz was doing everything in his power to derail that outcome. And the kids, though young and somewhat disenfranchised, were smart enough to be willing accomplices. He never pushed them on it, but he knew that they realized their morning propagandizing was a crock. The sure sign came during his first week as their teacher. Announcing that it was art period, he slyly instructed them to draw pictures of the “world’s worst villain,” just to see what would happen. Almost every kid produced ghastly renditions of Hitler. Some with knives sticking into his head; others with bullets being shot through his eyes; several with a hangman’s noose around his neck. It was a violent reaction, for sure, especially for such young children. But it also spoke volumes about what they considered the truth.
From this spark, Fitz ran an everyday drawing period, always instructing them to draw the world’s worst villain, or the man they hated the most. Invariably, they produced pictures of Hitler, or Bummer Four’s top military governor, or their morning “reeducation” teachers. After each art period, Fitz would collect the drawings and destroy them, making sure never to miss one. If he did, and the authorities found one, then he had no doubts that they would execute the child responsible and him. Probably on the spot.
“What do you want to do first today?” Fitz asked the children after he settled behind his creaky desk.
“Drawing!” came the inevitable chorus.
Fitz smiled broadly. It was their little secret.
“OK,” he said, “And what do you want to draw?”
“Villains!” came the reply, as the kids scrambled for their crayons and paper.
But just then, one of the older kids raised his hand.
“I’m sick of drawing villains,” he said.
Fitz felt a sudden cold feeling swell in his stomach. What did this mean?
“What would you want to draw?” he asked the boy.
The kid thought for a moment and then replied. “I’d like to draw a hero. But I don’t know any …”
“Do you know any heroes, Father?” another kid asked.
Fitz bit his lip. He had been anticipating such a moment. But should he take the next step? If he did, it would be a dangerous one, for both him and the children.
But he knew some things were worth the risk.
“OK,” he said finally, getting up from behind the desk and taking a seat closer to the children. “Today, we’ll talk about heroes.”
“Do you know any?” one of the kids asked excitedly. “Have you met any in person?”
Fitz felt an embarrassing mist come to his eyes. “I’ve known a lot of heroes,” he replied. “Great men who were always trying to keep this country free.”
The kids were very excited by this time, though smart enough to keep their voices low in a conspiratorial way.
“Tell us about the greatest hero that you knew, Father,” one of the youngest kids asked, nearly awestruck. “Tell us what he was like.”
Fitz moved his chair even closer to the eager students.
“All right,” he said slowly. “Let me tell you about a man named Hawk Hunter …”
About the Author
Mack Maloney is the author of numerous fiction series, including Wingman, Chopper Ops, Starhawk, and Pirate Hunters, as well as UFOs in Wartime: What They Didn’t Want You to Know. A native Bostonian, Maloney received a bachelor of science degree in journalism at Suffolk University and a master of arts degree in film at Emerson College. He is the host of a national radio show, Mack Maloney’s Military X-Files.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1990 by Mack Maloney
Cover design by Michael Vrana
978-1-4804-0673-5
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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