Now this man was walking right toward him, accompanying several UA officers. He was tall, dressed in an all black flight suit, carrying a laser-sighted M-16 and wearing a black futuristic crash helmet.
Flipping up the visor on this helmet, the pilot made his way down the line of Fourth Reich prisoners, studying each one. When he reached the spot in front of the medical officer, he stopped and leaned over him.
“Doktor?” he asked.
But the medical officer could not hear him. Instead he pointed to his injured ears and shrugged.
The pilot asked again. “Sind ihr Doktor?”
Again, all the medical officer could do was shrug.
It was obvious that the pilot was growing more angry with him by the second.
“Are you a doctor?” the pilot demanded. “We have injured men out here …”
The medical officer was getting the gist of the message, but far be it from him to volunteer his services to the enemy—especially in his hearing-impaired condition. So he simply shrugged again.
Suddenly the pilot leaned over, grabbed him by his tunic collar and gave him a hard slap on the side of his head.
“Are you a Goddamn doctor or not?”
Suddenly the German felt the buzz leave his head. His eyes went wide, and so did his mouth. The sharp, hard slap had had an instant miraculous effect.
“Danke! Danke!” he began screaming with joy.
He could hear again.
Chapter Forty-one
Fuhrerstadt
THE TRIO OF FOURTH Reich Field Marshalls paused for a moment before entering the Amerikafuhrer’s chambers.
“What if he doesn’t agree with our assessments?” Dritte asked, nervously fingering the silver-plated Iron Cross hanging around his neck. “He may choose to see it all in a much different way. And then …”
“He can be dealt with,” the aggressive Zweite declared, harshly cutting him off.
“Perhaps,” said Erste. “But then again maybe not. Then what?”
Zweite sniffed at the concerns of his compatriots.
“Then we just kill him,” he said, lowering his voice a notch. “Right here and now.”
Erste and Dritte gulped audibly as Zweite knocked once and entered the huge ornate room. The Amerikafuhrer was lounging on a long couch located at the far end of the pinkish room. He was wearing a long satin dressing gown, tackily decorated with gold-leaf swastikas and many items of jewelry.
“Your Excellency, may we talk with you?” Erste said. “It’s very important.”
The young, rather girlish blond-haired man motioned the three officers to come forward.
“You all look worried,” he said in his singsong voice. “I think I can tell when you are worried.”
“We are definitely not worried, sir,” Zweite countered. “Just the opposite, sir. We are supremely confident.”
“But something has happened,” the Amerikafuhrer said. “All that shooting last night. What was it all about? I’ve been trying to get a straight answer all day.”
The three Nazi officers hesitated for a moment.
“The United Americans attempted a prison break last night, sir,” Erste finally said. “At the Dragon’s Mouth. Using helicopters and deception.”
The Amerikafuhrer was clearly stunned. “Another one?”
Zweite quickly stepped forward. “Yes, but our Tod Schadel troops killed most of them,” he lied. “Many of the prisoners died too. Killed by the guns of their own countrymen.”
“They killed their own people?”
“Yes, sir,” Zweite replied. “In fact, we believe this was the point of the whole operation.”
The Amerikafuhrer tugged nervously at his frilly Nazi gown.
“But why would they do that? What was the point?”
“Propaganda,” came Zweite’s quick reply. “As you know, sir, these Americans crave the martyr image.”
The Amerikafuhrer turned to Erste, the man he trusted the most.
“How many American helicopters were involved in this operation? One? Two?”
Erste gulped. “Several dozen …”
“Several dozen?” the top Nazi leader asked, incredulously. “How could several dozen helicopters get through our air defenses?”
“They destroyed a key radar station,” Erste admitted. “One still under construction about thirty miles down the river. They were able to fly low after that, and gain entrance to the city’s airspace. They were covered with strings of ceremony lights, just like our other aircraft. This way they came in … well, unnoticed, sir.”
The Amerikafuhrer’s face turned pale then red.
“Just like that?” he demanded.
Once again the Marshalls chose not to speak.
“There must be someone held accountable for this,” the Amerikafuhrer declared. “The officers at the radar station. Or their superiors. Someone.”
Zweite stepped forward again and clicked his heels. “I will order a round of executions in the morning,” he declared. “And that will be the end of it.”
The Amerikafuhrer sighed heavily and reached for a banana from his overflowing fruit bowl. Dritte stepped forward and toadily peeled the banana for his high commander.
“What else?” the young man asked his officers, his tone indicating that he really didn’t want to hear the answer.
“We have had more enemy activity, sir,” Erste told him frankly. “Up north. In Bundeswehr Four …”
The Amerikafuhrer stopped eating the banana in mid bite.
“What kind of activity?” he demanded of the three.
“The kind which plays right into our hands,” Zweite piped up. “You see, the United Americans have made their move, Your Excellency. Just as dictated on the plans we secured.”
“Explain that,” the young man said. “And do so quickly.”
Zweite took a deep breath. “We know from the secret documents recovered in the Argentine air crash that the United Americans were planning on attacking and holding a section of our territory. The idea behind this rather desperate strategy was to incite a public uprising.
“Now, it is obvious that the Americans covet the territory around Bundeswehr Four.”
“That’s insane!” the young leader erupted. “Even I know it would be foolish for them to try and carve out a piece of territory in the middle of our empire.”
Zweite began sweating profusely. He had a loaded derringer in his uniform pocket and at the moment it felt like it weighed a ton.
“Sir, this is obviously their way of trying to surprise us,” he stammered. “Instead of going for a piece of coastal territory, they’ve gone for something, well, unpredictable. Something reached by helicopters and not amphibious craft. They’ve always been known for their unpredictability. The captured plans are rife with it.”
“It’s true, sir,” Erste interjected. “During the Circle Wars, the Americans wore their unpredictability like a badge of honor. In fact, they’re so damn unpredictable, that they are now very predictable.”
The Amerikafuhrer let out a long sigh. “But these captured plans you so religiously adhere to,” he said. “Do they not also contain references to purchasing tanks and other heavy equipment?”
“Yes, sir,” Erste replied quietly. “And we believe the Free Canadians might be aiding them on just that aspect. In fact, Free Canadian cargo planes were seen above Bundeswehr Four district earlier today.”
The Amerikafuhrer raised his hand. “Were they fired upon?” he asked urgently.
“No sir,” Erste replied just as quickly. “They were quickly identified by our troops as cargo planes and therefore, they held their fire, per the “Noninterference” decree. Besides, we know what firing upon the Canadians would involve and we have come to expect some minor Canadian involvement. They have traditionally given aid to the Americans, but we believe it is simply to mollify their own people, many of which yearn for the old, rather democratic days.”
“The Canadians do not want an all-out war with us,”
Dritte dared to say. “They have too many people to protect. And they know that is a path we do not want to walk either.”
“And what path do we want to walk?” the Amerikafuhrer asked wearily.
Zweite spoke up once again.
“We know what the Americans’ plans are, sir,” he reiterated, the small gun seemingly burning a hole in his uniform pocket. “We are now prepared to match them step for step.”
“How so?”
Zweite calmly cleared his throat.
“By sending a very strong force against them, now!” he declared. “We can send five divisions against Bundeswehr Four immediately and surround them. It will take much less time than if we had to battle them on the beaches of the East Coast. Once they are encircled, we will blast away with these rebels. We can use our superior artillery, our superior tank strength. We can even use the Schrecklichkeit Kanone at Indianapolis. We will strangle them. We will crush them. And believe me, news of our victory will carry far and wide. Every sputnik in the territory will know the story. We will broadcast it, day by day, on the Volksradio. It will be both a stunning propaganda victory as well as a military one.”
The Amerikafuhrer looked to the other two officers.
“Do you both agree with this strategy?” he asked them.
Both men hesitated for a heartbeat or two. Then they nodded.
“It is a sound plan,” Erste said.
“Very sound,” parroted Dritte.
The Amerikafuhrer sighed heavily once again.
“Then do it,” he hissed at them. “And do it before my wedding. Do you understand?”
All three officers clicked their heels in agreement and then turned to leave.
“But there’s one more thing,” The Amerikafuhrer said, reaching for another banana.
The three Reich Marshalls stopped in their tracks.
“I was under the impression that the United Americans were leaderless,” the Amerikafuhrer began, sucking on the un-peeled piece of fruit. “Despite their elaborate secret plans, you still consider them a ‘rag tag army.’ However, now with their two raids on our prison and their activity up in Bundeswehr Four, doesn’t it indicate some rather complicated military coordination?”
“They have been through several major wars sir,” Erste offered by way of explanation. “They have been known to take rather desperate risks in the past.”
“But who is leading them?” the Amerikafuhrer asked bluntly. “Who could it possibly be? Hawk Hunter?”
The trio of officers stood stone silent for a long moment. Each one knew that a Harrier jump jet had been spotted both over Dragon’s Mouth the night before as well as at Bundeswehr Four earlier that day.
But they weren’t about to tell that to the Amerikafuhrer.
“It is impossible, sir, that the outlaw Hunter is involved,” Zweite declared finally. “He is long dead.”
Chapter Forty-two
Aboard the Great Ship, somewhere in the Atlantic
“YAZ” TRIED HIS BEST to pull the fighter pilot helmet down over his head, but the damned thing was just too small.
He’d already attempted to widen the hard plastic material by hand and even considered heating it, but it was still useless. The crash helmet was just not his size and no amount of poking and pulling was ever going to make it so.
By comparison, his flight boots were two sizes too big. So was his flight suit itself. The multitude of safety straps and belts were enough to heft the garment up on his small frame, and wearing three pairs of socks did away with the sloshing sensation in walking in the oversized boots. But the helmet was going to be a problem.
He felt like a fool wearing the costume. But like everything in the past few weeks of his life, he knew it was necessary for his own survival. Though never totally comfortable in his new role of Elizabeth Sandlake’s boy toy, he was wise enough to know that being a sex slave was better than being just a plain old slave. And though he was getting tired of eating oysters three meals a day and concerned that all the Vitamin E was turning his skin a little too pinkish, it was better than cleaning up fish guts, or regreasing toilet mechanisms, or ripping apart the Great Ship’s massive sewage ejection pump.
He just wished he didn’t have to dress up like his old friend Hawk Hunter all the time.
He took a deep breath, let it out, and then with a lot of effort finally forced the helmet down over his ears and into place. Instantly he felt like his head was in an ever tightening vise and that his teeth were slowly going to grind together until they popped out.
With little more to do to alter his strange wardrobe, he waddled out of his dressing room and down to Elizabeth’s love chamber. Slipping inside, he saw both Sandlake and her companion, Juanita, lounging on the massive waterbed, blithely fondling each other’s breasts. He heard them both gasp when he walked in. An instant later the unmistakable scent of myx reached his nose.
“You tease us,” Elizabeth cooed to him. “We’ve been waiting too, too long.”
“I’m sorry,” “Yaz” croaked, feeling a pain equivalent to several impacted molars. “This uniform, this helmet, it’s just not my size.”
Both women giggled, not from amusement but from the myx. Their eyes were watery and dreamy. Their bare chests were heaving. Their legs were twitching spasmodically.
Another day at work, “Yaz” thought.
Elizabeth leaned over and kissed Juanita full on the lips.
“What shall we play today?” she asked the dark Spanish beauty.
“Let’s chain him up again,” Juanita gushed.
Elizabeth climbed off the waterbed and retrieved a set of fur-lined chains from her closet. “A capital idea!” she declared.
She strutted across the room and grabbed “Yaz” by the crotch. “I hope you’ve taken your vitamins today,” she told him mockingly.
“Yaz” gulped audibly as she attached one end of the chains to his wrists and then fastened the other end to a pair of eye-hooks high over her waterbed.
“Our captive audience,” Juanita laughed, as she put a hammerlock on Yaz’s rear end. “Once again, we’ll see how tough these fighter pilots really are …”
As they took turns undoing the myriad of zippers on his flight suit, “Yaz” was unable to do anything but stand by helplessly and let them have their way with him. Once the majority of his body was exposed, the two women began to fondle him in earnest.
Then came a sudden knock on the cabin door.
“Who is it?” Elizabeth singsonged, the myx absolutely roaring through her system.
The door opened, and the Captain of the Great Ship himself took one step in.
“A very important message for you, your majesty …”
Elizabeth stopped in midstroke. Suddenly she was up off her knees and back into her witching mode.
“Important enough to interrupt me!” she screamed at the man.
The captain quickly nodded. “I believe so, My Lady,” he said nervously. “It is direct from Zweite.”
Elizabeth grabbed a blanket from the bed and covered her naked breasts. Then she ripped the message from the man’s hand and dismissed him with nothing more than a cold, hard stare.
“This is a conspiracy!” she bellowed once the captain had departed. “Every time I want to have some privacy, something like this happens!”
She tore open the sealed envelope and quickly read the message. Suddenly the blanket dropped from her grip.
“At last!” she declared. Her face filling with intoxicated euphoria once again.
“Good news, My Lady?” Juanita asked expectantly.
“Yes, my dear,” Elizabeth said softly. “Everything is finally in readiness for our ceremony. We have been cleared to proceed.”
Juanita instantly perked up too. “That is wonderful!”
“It gets even better,” Elizabeth went on. “As a wedding present from Zweite, the Fourth Reich has surrounded a large force of United American rebels and are in the process of annihilating them.”
“Again, very welcome news, My Lady,” Juanita chimed. “The perfect gift.”
“Get dressed,” Elizabeth ordered Juanita, happily crumpling the message and tossing it against the wall. “We must go to the communications room at once and send our reply.”
With that the two women climbed into their dressing gowns and hastily left the room, leaving a very confused “Yaz” helplessly hanging by the fur lined chains, his helmet feeling tighter than ever.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, one hour later
Major Frost was alive and well and dreaming about rolling around in a room filled with shaving cream when he was roused awake by one of the crewmen aboard the long-range P-3 Orion airplane.
“Sir, we’re getting a new transmission. You’d better hear it.”
Frost rolled out of the incredibly tiny fold-away bunk and sleepily bounced his way up to the airplane’s communication station. He’d never flown in an Orion before, and up to this time, he considered himself blessed. The durable, anti-submarine aircraft was cramped, noisy, smelled of engine exhaust, and bathroom disinfectant. It was also the roughest riding airplane he’d ever been in. He’d been aboard the damn thing for fourteen hours straight, and this flight was his ninth mission in as many days.
Now he hoped this aerial marathon was about to pay some dividends.
He finally reached the communications shack to find the pair of radio specialists excitedly pushing buttons and taking notes.
One of them handed him a pair of headphones.
“They’ve been broadcasting on an irregular sequence for the past ten minutes,” the radioman told him. “It’s going out on both UHF and VHF. Primary code, under a secondary scramble signal which we’ve sorted out.”
“Is it in English or German?” Frost asked, putting on the headphones.
“Both,” the radioman replied.
Frost had to wait a moment, but soon the broadcast in question came screeching through the headphones. It was undeniably a woman’s voice.
“Daylight … daylight. Sunrise has been scheduled. High tide. Ocean storm. Return. Return. Storm Birds. No lightning. No thunder. No clouds …”
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