Amerika (19 page)

I fumbled with my Pan Am Master Pilot’s wings. They slipped off my uniform chest with surprising ease, considering how hard they had been to win in the first place. I held them in my open palm and slurred, ‘For dereliction of duty, despite repeated warnings, your services to this airline are hereby terminated, effective immediately. Please surrender your wings, captain. Aye, aye, Mr. Preister, sir!’

I tried to casually flip them onto his neat-as-a-pin desk, but because I was falling down drunk they fell onto the carpet instead. As I bent over to pick them up, I lost my balance and fell to my knees. Fatt tried to help me up, but I angrily shook free. This was my tragedy and I wasn’t letting anybody steal my thunder. 

I  vaguely  remember  walking  out  the  door, pleased with my performance, as if sacrificing my career would somehow compensate the sacrifice of my wife and son. All three of us were dead now, except I had to go on living.

Fatt’s voice brought me back to the present. ‘You dropped something back in Miami.’

He opened his hand, and there, in all its gold and blue-enameled glory gleamed my Pan Am Master Pilot wings, surrounded by a crown of laurel leaves and three stars in a center bar denoting the airline’s highest rank. I’ll give Trippe this; the man knew how to stir your heart.

Fatt shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited to see what I would do.

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘Water under the bridge can’t come back.’

A familiar voice said softly. ‘That doesn’t sound like the man I hired thirteen years ago. Back then you would have given Jesus a run for his money and walked on water with him.’

Juan Trippe stood in the open hatch leading to the wing tunnel, a smile on his face and a gleam in his cold, calculating eye.

You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, but better to perish than live as slaves.

-Winston S. Churchill

H
ow long my former boss had been standing there I couldn’t tell.

Juan Trippe always had an unnerving stillness about him. Even when he was doing the talking, it felt like he was listening, gauging his delivery, calculating its effect on the victim. Of average height, black hair slicked back, eyes so dark they glittered like coal, his face, no matter how close-shaven, had the bluish- tint of whiskers waiting to jump out the instant the razor passed by.

Impeccably dressed as always - even on this hot, dark Louisiana night - in a grey suit, white shirt with enormous French cuffs so starched and bright they hurt your eyes, and a light purple silk tie, Tripp could have been a well-heeled banker on a business call. Since he had been my employer, I automatically felt like standing at attention, but at the same time wanted to slam my fist into his complacent, half-smiling face for doing business with the same enemy that had murdered my family.

I chose the safest path I could think of.

‘Mr. Trippe.’

‘Captain Carter.’

‘Mr. Carter, now, if you don’t mind.’

He nodded but said nothing, just stared at me, and by God, I refused to look away. Over the years, Trippe had destroyed more business enemies than I had friends with that relentless stare of his. Not only could he see into your soul, he was fully capable of reaching in and squeezing the life out of you unless you went along with his proposed deal. All of it done with a half-smile, of course, and a dry handshake when he won. And he always won.

Not this time, I promised myself. This time I was looking into his soul instead. After what felt like a lifetime of silence, I said, ‘You son-of-a-bitch. I gave my life to Pan Am and you sold it like a whore to Berlin.’

He tilted his head to one side and smiled slightly: a master of the deal. Well, damn it, so was I, at least in flying boats. I swept my hand around the flight deck. ‘And whatever you’ve got going on here can’t be worth a damn because you’re behind it. Am I right? You’re the mastermind?’

He spread his hands slightly. ‘I’m a tiny cog in a very large machine, Mr. Carter.’

‘Bullshit, Mr. Trippe. I knew you when, and you’ve never, ever been a small cog.’

‘May I explain?’

‘No, because once you start talking you’ll never stop until the other guy surrenders.’

He laughed, which was about as rare as snow in the desert. ‘May I say one thing only? I promise to stop after that.’

A mistake, but I nodded for him to go ahead.

‘It’s good to see you again, Sam. And believe me, I’m sorry about what happened to you and your family.’

Without thinking, I hit him as hard as I could and he went down like a sack of rocks.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Fatt said.

‘Get up you bastard,’ I shouted.

Trippe rolled over onto an elbow and rubbed his jaw. ‘If it’s all the same, I’ll stay put.’ He spit some blood, turned to Fatt. ‘You offer him his wings back?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He shook his head. ‘I thought that might help.’ He ran his tongue across his teeth as if to count them. ‘Apparently not.’

I was halfway down the stairway before Trippe shouted, ‘Sam Carter,

God damn it, at least hear me out!’

Never in all the years I’d known Juan Trippe had his RPM ever risen above a low idle. Nothing could get his emotions on the table, and yet, here he was cursing at me and I started laughing.

‘What’s so damn funny?’ he said.

‘You.’

There stood the president of Pan American Airways mouth bloody, looking down at me from the flight deck, his eyes bugged out like a Goo- Goo doll.

‘Mr. Trippe, I didn’t think you believed in God, let alone have him take the trouble to damn me.’

We ended up sitting at the Master’s station, Trippe in the captain’s chair - of course - me in the other, while Fatt leaned against the Navigator’s table, silent as a library lion. To Trippe’s credit he let me lay it on the line without saying a word, about how I’d let my work get between me and my family, about how I should have called in sick that day and saved Estelle and Eddie, and how Pan Am was a ruthless company run by ruthless men who were in cahoots with even more ruthless Nazis, and how I was good God- damned if I was EVER going to get mixed up with him or his company again.

When I finished Trippe sat there, for once not staring into my soul.

Instead he regarded his calmly folded hands as if they held the answer. Finally he said, ‘You’ve been through some damned hard times, Sam, and I’m sorry you feel that Pan Am was the cause of it.’

‘I don’t think so, I know so.’

He nodded.  ‘Yes, of course you  do. Decisiveness is the key to a captain’s character. You’ve always displayed that, even when you were completely wrong. Like now.’

I could feel my face getting red and my hands curled into fists. Trippe instinctively put his hand on my forearm. ‘Before you sock me again, hear me out.’

I looked at him and then Fatt, who said, ‘Maintain your heading, kid. At least long enough to listen what the man’s got to say.’

I nodded, not because I wanted to, but because, I confess, I wanted if only for a little while to be in the presence of these two men again. As a young man they had acted like bookends to support my dreams of conquering the sky and in doing so, conquering my fears along the way.

Trippe held up a neatly manicured finger. ‘One, I didn’t sell out to the

Nazis. Just made it look like I did.’

‘Those swastikas on the clippers’ tails look pretty real to me,’ I said sharply.

He gave me that blank look of his; no eyebrows raised in surprise, no furrowed brow to show emotion, just peaceful and still.

‘Two.’  He held up a second  finger.  ‘When the Neutrality Act was declared, I knew the only chance America had to survive the coming darkness was to fight back, instead.’

‘Against atomic bombs? Good luck.’

‘You’re right, it would seem hopeless. Except...’ he hesitated, looked at Fatt and then back at me. ‘Except, what if they’re bluffing?’ He leaned forward and held me with those dark eyes of his. ‘What if they have no bombs left? What if they’re using the shadow of a sword that no longer exists to conquer the world?’

‘You’ll find out when they drop the next one.’

‘Precisely my point!’

He slapped his hand on the table. ‘And why haven’t they? Their famous
Blitzkrieg
has driven the Russians back across the Ural Mountains. Stalin’s in hiding, they’re like ripe apples on a tree ready to drop, but Hitler hesitates.’ He sat back and held up his third finger.

‘Hitler hesitates. Why do you think that is?’

‘No idea.’

‘I do.’ He slapped the table again. ‘That’s why the
Dixie Clipper
is here. That’s why my other clippers are flying back and forth to Europe with…’ he held up his fourth finger, ‘Pan American crews, including the good Captain Fatt here.’

‘But Lufthansa owns them, right?’

He smiled. ‘In time of war, businessmen circle their wagons like the pioneers did against marauding Indians. Krupp Steel has a long working relationship with United Steel. Farber chemical with DuPont. Lufthansa with Pan Am. We don’t want to jeopardize those relationships when peace returns.’

‘The good old boys club, right?’

‘If you insist, yes. But in Pan Am’s case, Klaus Heinemann of Lufthansa and I have an agreement; he gets the Boeing clippers, but we crew them. His pilots don’t know the first thing about mastering the ocean in flying boats the way our crews do.’

‘So, you have a deal with Lufthansa...’

‘And  because  of  it,  we  now  have  a  way  to  further  our  plan  of extricating a certain Very Important Person from Lisbon, Portugal.’

‘Our first landfall on the southern Atlantic route.’

‘Correct, captain, and it’s there that our man will be waiting for us, forty-eight hours from now. And if we get him out successfully, he will help us change the course of history’

‘One man?’

‘Caesar did. So did Lincoln.’

‘They were politicians. What’s he?’

‘A nuclear physicist.’

A long pause. Trippe turned to Fatt and said mildly, ‘I just realized I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘I’ve revealed top secret information to an outsider. What ARE we to do?

He puffed meditatively on his cigar. ‘We sure as hell can’t let the good captain leave Couba Island now.’

‘C’mon, you two…’ I warned.

‘Orlando Diaz too,’ Fatt added.

Trippe said, ‘We’ll need to impound Captain Carter’s plane.’

‘Like hell you will!’

I turned to go, but was stopped by the rumble of boots pounding up the crew ladder. Seconds later, two armed men the size of Orlando burst onto the flight deck, weapons in hand, trained on me. Fatt smiled like the Cheshire cat and waved them a casual salute.

‘Boys, please be so kind as to escort Captain Carter to the briefing room.’

You can argue with a Thompson submachine gun all you want, but you’re never going to win. I spared myself the effort and followed Patton’s goons out of the
Dixie Clipper
and onto the dock. Nobody paid us the slightest attention as we passed, as if men with weapons at the ready were the most common thing around. And the case of Couba Island, true.

Fatt caught up with me and we marched together in silence past barracks,  a  mess  hall  and  then  approached  a  two-story  building  with soldiers going in and out of it like a stream of ants.

‘What are you people doing around here?’ I said.

Fatt shook his head. ‘Sorry. Need-to-know rules apply.’

‘Well, I damn well need to know if I’m going to help you.’ He chuckled. ‘Joining the cause are you?’

I pointed to the two soldiers flanking me. ‘What choice do I have?’

‘Good point.’

‘What  Trippe  said  about  the  clippers  and  Lufthansa...  he’s  on  the level??’

‘A carpenter could use him and the line would be true.’

‘Everybody thinks he sold out.’

‘Water off a duck’s back. Besides, ever known him to get the short end of a business deal?’

‘Grabbing a nuclear physicist doesn’t sound like a business deal to me.’

‘That’s because you’re not Juan Trippe. Even taking a crap is business to him.’

I laughed at this, but then remembered how my fist felt as it smacked against his face. ‘I really popped him one.’

‘Had your reasons. Just picked the wrong target. Now you’re going to get the right one and send him to the moon.’

‘The scientist?’

‘Hell no, that’s just part one of our little story.’

The guards hurried up the wooden steps. Two more soldiers stood at attention, barring our path. Fatt reached inside his uniform jacket and pulled out a laminated card and flashed it at them.

‘Evening, boys. He’s with me. Nice night, ain’t it?’

They let us pass into a long, dimly-lit hallway. Our armed escort vanished into thin air, mission accomplished.

I said, ‘You must have had your pick of the cream of the crop to fly this mission. Why me? ‘

‘Because you’re the best pilot Pan Am’s got, next to me, remember?’

‘But I don’t work for you guys anymore, remember?’