Down now to her lacy brassiere and panties, Terah smiled coyly.
“Hmm. It’s a thought. I was planning to put on this coverall Howard gave me because that dress was uncomfortable. But it’s not like we don’t have time. And maybe it will shut you up,” she said. “The whole world isn’t like the Freehold. Us, the Brazilians—we’re in a corner against enemies and even allies who don’t like the way we do things. The Brits now want us to impose their labor standards, for God’s sake. Not to mention the fact that at least one in every three Freeholders wouldn’t care if Austin did more than it’s allowed as long as it was for the good. Just . . .”
Dammit. Here we go again, Rucker thought. He knew better. Against his better judgment, and knowing how painful it would be later, he took Terah into his arms. At least it stopped their pointless bickering.
She was right on one point: if nothing else, this was the one thing they were good at together. Where their bodies met, so did their minds. In these moments, they could forget all the baggage and focus on the moment. Time enough to fight later.
“Allons-y,” he said.
Despite racing due south at more than 320 miles per hour at 40,000 feet, the H-3 was being followed at a discreet distance.
Otto Skorzeny was at the controls of the matte black Focke Wulf XR-22, the experimental three-engine plane complete with pressurization technology and superchargers.
“Next stop, airspace of the Texas Freehold, aka the Tropical Empire,” Skorzeny said to himself. “And me without my bathing trunks.”
CHAPTER NINE
Aboard the H-3 Racer
On approach to Airstrip One
Watching the blue and white swirls of the Caribbean four miles below and the blue and white swirls of the tropical sky above, Deitel felt . . . well, he wasn’t quite sure. He thought that if he could set aside the armed, daylight raid on the U.S. presidential mansion, the killing of an American ambassador—albeit, a pedophile—an attack by an SD hit team imported to the Freehold by Texas Nazis, the whirlwind trip from Colombia to Texas to New York and back to the Caribbean in just over a day, and the whole “airport that floats two miles up” thing, then he could say that things were getting back to some level of normalcy.
The very fact that he could even attempt to set aside this list and think in such terms, though, made Deitel worry that the insanity infecting the Freehold weltanschauung was somehow contagious.
He made a note to add that question to his ongoing epidemiology research.
Deitel and Rucker had given Terah a preliminary rundown on what they knew about Project Gefallener not long after they left New York air space. When Hughes stopped at an aeroport in the Confederate States capital of Richmond, Virginia, for fuel, Terah had gone to work, calling in a few old favors in the CSA foreign office. She sent a lengthy and encoded wireless message to the Prometheus Society detailing the materials and documents she would need to have shipped from Austin to Airstrip One.
Now they were on final approach to that same generically named but otherwise magnificent floating airport, which was currently cruising twenty miles off the Cuban coast and forty miles north of Jamaica. Both island nations were allies—Jamaica had recently petitioned for annexation into the Texas Freehold, while Cuba had become the eleventh state of the Confederacy in 1908.
Upon landing, the events of the past thirty-six hours finally caught up with the team. Rucker, Terah, and Deitel dragged themselves to Airstrip One’s hotel, where they spent a good twelve hours just sleeping. The quiet hum of the airstrip’s generators and the thinner atmosphere two miles up made it the most restful slumber Deitel had ever experienced.
He wasn’t quite sure if Rucker and Terah had taken separate rooms, but he’d requested a room as far from the other two as possible.
Just in case.
The next morning, Rucker was up early fine-tuning the Raposa. He said if he was going to take her across the Atlantic, he wanted to check every moving part.
“The Atlantic?” Deitel asked.
“Yeah, big blue wet thing over in the direction of the sunrise,” Rucker said.
“Yes, but . . . never mind.”
Deitel also learned that Hughes had departed overnight to Cuba on his own business.
Just before 8:00 A.M., Rucker, Deitel, and Terah met in the French bistro—forward and overlooking the bow—for breakfast. Strong cappuccinos accompanied perfectly folded omelets loaded with garlic, bacon lardoons, and bits of salty cheese. Thick cuts of smoked slab ham, crusty croissants, and French bread with fresh churned butter accompanied half a dozen tropical juice shooters and tall, thin glasses of the potent Coca-Cola on ice.
After breakfast, Rucker got a radio message that Chuy was on approach to Airstrip One, bringing Tracy along with him. Deitel, who felt like he’d established a solid rapport with Chuy early on, looked forward to rejoining the exceptionally cultured and continental Brazilian. As different as their backgrounds and races were, he felt a sort of kinship, owing to Chuy’s refined demeanor and continental mannerisms. He especially looked forward to meeting Tracy, wondering what kind of amazing woman it took to capture the heart and hand of so charming a Latin peacock as Chuy Lago.
With Terah deep in research in Airstrip One’s library level, Rucker and Deitel were on deck to meet Chuy when he landed. Chuy had piloted yet another crate in the Far Ranger Air fleet—a medium-range civilian version of a British De Havilland Wasp. Despite the long flight from Rio, he climbed out of the craft looking fresh and immaculately groomed. As usual, the mocha-skinned giant was clean-shaven, smiling, and looked dapper in a double-panel silk shirt, mink-lined leather jacket, and embroidered jodhpurs tucked into elaborately engraved Spanish caballero boots. The sash would have been too much on anyone else, but not Chuy.
Then another gentleman—a surprisingly tanned ginger in a bright yellow sweater, a ruddy leather coat, and white pants—climbed out of the underbelly hatch. Chuy’s copilot for the flight, Deitel assumed. Deitel kept looking at the two hatches.
Rucker was hugging the ginger copilot. That’s when Chuy grabbed Deitel’s shoulder.
“Ah, you Teutonic tiger, you survived your first trip to the old U.S. of A? I should have known. There is a tigre under that mild-mannered cordeiro exterior,” he said in his deep, singsong baritone.
“It’s good to see you again, Herr La . . . Chuy. I’m anxious to meet Tracy.”
The Brazilian pilot laughed his deep laugh. “Indeed.”
Deitel looked around again at the Wasp, expecting Chuy’s wife to climb out. He didn’t even notice the ginger until the man was grasping his hand.
“Cheers, Dr. von Deitel. I’ve heard so much about you,” the ginger said, his English accent crisp and distinct. “We have something in common—I’m a physician’s assistant.”
“Yes, nice to meet you, sir,” Deitel said. “So where is . . .”
And his voice trailed off.
Deitel looked at Chuy, then at Rucker, and then at the ginger.
Finally, Deitel found his voice.
“Um, Tracy?”
“Why, of course, old boy,” Tracy said excitedly.
Chuy and Rucker didn’t blink or seem phased. Actually, they looked amused. This was another of their jokes?
“I, um . . . that is, er . . . you’re Tracy? You’ve been married to Chuy for three years?”
Tracy grasped Chuy’s hand and squeezed it. “Three years and three days.”
Chuy gave Tracy a peck on the cheek.
Deitel just didn’t know what to say. If he had any thoughts on how libertine or decadent these western societies were, he did not consider them now. He chose the most appropriate and polite option—he said nothing.
“No worries, old boy. Yes, we’re benders. Nothing to be embarrassed about for you or us, yes?” Tracy said. “But I expect that it’s not exactly what you expected.”
Deitel nodded and smiled a stiff grin.
“But life would be very dull if everything occurred as expected, no?�
�� Chuy finished.
Deitel, well, he was Old World. He had to ask.
“You’re serious? You’re not having me on?” he asked, though very respectfully.
“Well, it’s not exactly common—more common in Brazil than the Freehold,” Chuy said. “But the Freehold has its share of pansy clubs. William Haines is the biggest screen star in Cabo Madera, after all, and he’s made no secret that he bends. Married to Jimmie Shields.”
“And a tall drink of water Jimmie is,” Tracy said in a teasing voice.
Chuy poked the English ginger playfully in the ribs and then put his arm around him.
“So . . . um . . . you’re sure then?” Deitel asked, cringing at the stupidity of the question.
“Last I checked” Chuy said.
“It’s not even legal in Britain, and one suspects it’s the national past time of at least half of all British men,” Deitel said.
Rucker laughed at that one.
“Well, here it’s a church’s business who gets married, not the law, so long as everyone’s of age,” Chuy said. “We have a wide variety of churches.”
And there it went—that sense of normalcy. It crept in over breakfast, and then it slipped away like trying to hold mercury. Not that falschamenn, as they were called in Germany, were unheard of—especially among the upper classes, or as part of the boarding school experience. But to engage in such brashly open deviancy was, well, unseemly in most of German society even before the rise of the New Order.
Oddly, though, this wasn’t the strangest thing Deitel had seen since his arrival in the Western Hemisphere. So there was that.
Rucker checked his watch.
“Doc, you and Tracy stick around. Lysander should be arriving in about twenty minutes. Chuy and I need to go finish prepping the Raposa. Terah has a private conference room set up for one P.M. for the briefing.”
“The Terror?” Chuy asked, his expression unsettled for the first time.
“Don’t even start,” Rucker said as they headed off the to the maintenance deck. “Yeah, she’s here.”
Deitel didn’t know what to expect when he was stuck one-on-one with Tracy—an English bender. No, that wasn’t very polite. He was Chuy’s . . . um . . . He was Chuy’s, and proper manners meant he shouldn’t take notice. Even though in his mind he was already seeing all the coming awkward silences. The start/stop cadence of forced fraternization and obligatory laughter. He groaned inwardly.
Twenty minutes later and Deitel’s sides hurt from laughing.
Tracy’s medical knowledge was impressive. The man knew horses like a professional breeder. And they even talked about their mutual fear of heights.
None of that mattered.
Tracy Lago knew the best dirty nurse and dirty medical schoolteacher jokes Deitel had ever heard.
When the PA announced that the charter from Austin would be landing presently, he was giving Tracy his own cynical take on the New Order and its mustachioed master—expressing criticisms that had been bottled up inside him for five years now.
“What I still don’t get is, how did the little man not get into art school? I mean, all you have to do is open the door, really,” Tracy was saying. “The only thing that’s more of a joke in terms of university concentration is the ‘education major’ they offer in Union States.”
“Ach. I don’t know. But I’m sure somehow the Hebrews were to blame,” Deitel said. “He manages to blame them for everything, anyhow.”
Tracy paused for a moment.
“Before Lysander gets here,” he said, “how is Rucker holding up? You know, with the whole Terah thing?”
“It is difficult if not impossible to say. When I first saw them together, it looked as if she’d kissed him and then hit him with a closed fist,” Deitel said. “Or hit him and then kissed him.”
The Englishman nodded. “That sounds about right.”
“On the flight here, they spent most of their time behind closed doors, and at least some of the noise they made was not amorous in nature,” Deitel said. “When I asked Rucker if he felt okay, he said, ‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I?’ And nothing more. Except, ‘Shut up, Hans,’ which is what he calls me when he’s avoiding my questions.”
“West Texans are like that. The more they feel something, the less they show it,” Tracy said, putting out his cigarette. “They have only two moods they let the world see: happy or angry.”
He could see Deitel didn’t follow.
“You have to remember where they come from, how their country was forged, and what kind of people it took to tame that land. Texans don’t live in the softer, subtler pastels. They live in the bold primaries,” Tracy said. “The Brazilians, too. It’s why I moved here. That, and Chuy. They’re a passionate people. Not wild-eyed, uncontrolled passion, mind you. Focused passions. Their edges honed.”
The doctor nodded.
“What happened with Terah and Rucker?” Deitel asked, out of genuine concern rather than voyeuristic curiosity. Okay, maybe there was a little of that in there, too.
“You’re probably asking the wrong man. Or the wrong type of man,” Tracy said, and Deitel raised an eyebrow at his joke. “But she is beautiful and passionate. It probably doesn’t help that she’s a little crazy, from what I’m told.”
“When I first saw her,” Deitel said, “she’d just carved letters into the forehead of the American ambassador to Hawaii.”
“Well then, probably not the best first impression. But remember, that was a rational act.”
“That’s strange. I thought I just heard you say desecrating a body was rational,” Deitel said.
“It’s for the family of the little girl that monster defiled,” Tracy explained. “He took the girl’s innocence. Terah took his life and signed her work. It’s not an ethic I grew up with—I’m from the east end of London—but as I understand it, it settles accounts.”
A little silence followed.
“What do you think of this practice, though?” Deitel asked.
Tracy lighted another cigarette and considered his answer.
“If you’d asked me five years ago, I would have said it was a revolting and barbaric practice. What one expects of the primitive colonials,” Tracy said, mocking his own English accent. “But then five years ago I was living in a country where you can have damages assessed and levied against you for defending yourself against a burglar. It’s a country where men like me are subject to taunts and physical assault. By people on the street. By police. All for whom we love. So my perspective on what’s barbaric and revolting has evolved somewhat.”
Deitel didn’t know what to say to that.
“Well maybe you can tell me one thing—the name Rucker’s friends call him—Fox. Is that his true name? Is it a common name?” Deitel asked.
Tracy pursed his lips.
“Well, you didn’t hear this from me, but Fox is not his given name. It’s a nickname he picked up in flight school, from what Chuy tells me.”
“Oh, like he was crafty as a pilot?” Deitel asked.
“Not exactly. You see, during the initial evaluation at the flight school Rucker went to, there was a checklist of basic skills you had to pass on day one. Physical Fitness, Flight Orientation, Basic Controls, Instrument Reading, and so on. Each identified by its initials—PT, FO, you get the idea. A student pilot would get a check if you passed and a red X if you failed,” Tracy said. “Well, apparently Rucker wasn’t exactly a natural. He failed Flight Orientation five times before he got it right: FO-X. Other students made it a nickname to razz him, but he wore it as a badge of honor. He just wouldn’t quit trying. That’s what I think is so special about him. Once he sets his mind to something, he will not stop.”
Deitel suddenly looked pale.
“Mein Gott,” he said. “I’ve been flying across the country with a man who failed the first day of flight school five times.”
Tracy smiled.
“But he passed the sixth. Come, Doctor, let’s go and greet Mr. Benjamin.”
Lysander Benjamin and his most talented Difference Engine technician, a bookish little man by the name of Jonathan Biel, brought the two crates of materials that Terah requested by radio. With an hour before Terah would be ready for her briefing, Deitel, Lysander, Tracy, and Biel took an early tea together on the westerly observation deck.
Benjamin, Deitel learned, was a Jewish immigrant to Texas from the CSA. His great uncle, Judah Benjamin, had served as president of the Confederacy from 1868 to 1876. Lysander, incidentally, was named after President Benjamin’s successor and close friend, Lysander Spooner.
Lysander attended Oxford and then the Sorbonne in the late 1880s. As a mechanical engineer with a decidedly entrepreneurial bent, Lysander had built and sold several successful small businesses in the CSA. He retired relatively young and traveled the world for more than five years. When it came time to settle down, he chose to emigrate to the Freehold. Asked why, he said the women were the most pleasing.
Lysander had a much larger perspective than most men his age, who usually have minds in the process of contracting. Lysander thought that Rucker had been only half right when he’d explained why the Freehold and its sister nation of Brazil had remained neutral in world conflicts over the past seventy years. There was far more to it, he argued, than the ugliness and guilt after the San Marcos Massacre.
It came down to money.
“Freeholders want customers, not subjects,” Lysander said.
“And yet your sphere of influence is called the Tropical Empire,” Deitel said.
“They do have irony in Germany still, yes?” Lysander asked with a twinkle in his eye. “In the last days of the nineteenth century, a company out of Lamar, Texas, called Cactus Jack’s Tropical Sun Goods and Sundries, started opening franchises in just about every country on the far horizon. He’d go anywhere people wanted fresh tropical goodies and had the money to pay for them.”
Cactus Jack’s wasn’t the first franchise exporter or global delivery firm. And Cactus Jack himself wasn’t a native Texan or Brazilian—he was an immigrant from Corsica, of all places. He was just a genius at branding.
Black Sun Reich: The Spear of Destiny: Part One of Three Page 13