Armageddon (88 page)

“Roger. Altimeter three zero point zero three.”

The NCO behind Ed Becker handed him further weather.

“Big Easy One this is Jigsaw. Ceiling one hundred feet, visibility one eighth of a mile.”

“Oui vey,” Nick whispered.

Stan pretended he didn’t hear the transmission, kept working around Scott on the control panel.

“Ask them if they have the high-intensity lights to maximum?”

“This is Jigsaw calling Big Easy One. Lights are on full. You are over Wedding Beacon. Turn right to a heading of ninety degrees, maintain fifteen hundred feet.”

“This is Big Easy One. Right ninety degrees, altitude fifteen hundred.”

Fog-entombed Tempelhof grew deathly silent. The theodolite measuring the ceiling tried vainly to pierce the thickening fog. Airman Ed Becker studied the blip on the radar screen with a growing ache in his chest and back. The blip was approaching the base leg.

“This is Jigsaw. Turn right to a heading of 180 degrees, maintain fifteen hundred feet, perform prelanding cockpit check.”

Stan repeated the instructions.

The clock in the dark room ticked, ticked, ticked. Strange glows cast from the screens put an eerie color on their drawn faces. The blip inched along the scope.

“This is Jigsaw. You are approaching final leg.” Ed Becker calculated a correction for wind drift. “This is Jigsaw. Turn right to a heading of 276.”

Ed Becker’s job was done.

“This is Jigsaw. Stand by for final controller.”

Master Sergeant Manuel Lopez of San Antonio had Big Easy One in the precision scope.

“This is Jigsaw calling Big Easy One,” said a mixture of Texas drawl and Spanish. “How do you read me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“This is Jigsaw. I read you five square. You need not acknowledge further instructions.”

Everyone in the shack gathered behind Sergeant Lopez’s chair. His job was to keep the plane on proper azimuth, an imaginary line in the sky that ran to the beginning of the runway to keep the craft at proper glide.

“You are a little right of center line. Correct five degrees left to 270.”

The blip on the precision scope was now in dead center, heading at the runway.

“Big Easy One, you are on center line six miles from touchdown and approaching glide path.”

The million-candle-power krypton lights could not force the fog to yield.

“Big Easy One, ten-second gear warning.”

Nick pushed the gear handle. The nacelle doors reopened and the plane shuddered as the gear extended.

“You are in the glide path. Begin descent at 550 feet per minute.” Lopez watched the glide scope as it settled high. “You are above glide path one hundred feet, increase your rate of descent.”

The flaps were set. Stan and Nick had completed the final check and reported to Scott. Nothing left now but that voice and Scott’s nerves. Scott focused himself on the instruments, thought of, but gave up, the idea of a stick of gum. The other two looked outside into nothing. Stan flicked on the wipers. No light at all.

“This is Jigsaw. You are cleared to land. You are four miles from touchdown ... you are drifting slightly below the glide path ... adjust rate of descent up twenty-five feet ... turn right to 272 degrees.”

Beat ... beat... beat... beat ...

“Big Easy One this is Jigsaw. You are one mile from the end of the runway approaching GCA minimums and coming up on the cemetery. You are on center line, excellent rate of descent ... you are a quarter of a mile from touchdown ... you are on the glide path ... on center line ... you are fifty feet above glide path over the runway. Take over and land.”

Lopez closed his eyes and prayed.

“I see the lights!” Stan cried.

Scott saw the runway lights rush by! His speed was high due to excess turbulence and altitude at the end of the runway. He had all the power off. Big Easy One cannonaded far down the runway.

Scott shoved the nose wheel down and as it bounced hard on the runway he started gingerly hitting the brakes as the plane careened, slipped closer to the end.

They hit the overrun. Scott plied the brakes as hard as he dared. Big Easy One halted two feet from the railroad track siding.

They sat for several seconds. Stan took off his earphones and got out of his seat. “Wise guy,” he said.

“Smart ass,” Nick said.

The fog was so thick that the
FOLLOW ME
jeep which drove them to Operations became lost en route and ended up in the old Luftwaffe pistol range two miles on the other side of the second runway.

“Sorry, Captain Davidson, no takeoffs after dark with three engines, no three engine takeoff from Tempelhof. No way to fix a fuel leak at Tempelhof.”

“I know that, goddammit. I helped write the manual. I want the first ride back to Rhein/Main or Y 80.”

“Sorry, Captain Davidson, operations are closed down.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Go to sleep, I think, sir. We’ve arranged quarters for you and your copilot at the Columbia Club and your engineer at Transit Airmen’s Quarters. We trust you will be comfortable.”

“Dammit, I’m supposed to start my leave tomorrow.”

“It is ceiling zero. And please bear in mind that Berlin is blockaded by land and sea. I suggest that you do not try those routes.”

“All right, wise ass, I want to phone Wiesbaden.”

“Sorry, Captain, you need a priority to get a phone line out of Berlin.”

As he left in utter defeat he turned at the door at the harassed young officer. “I don’t like you,” Scott said.

Chapter Thirty-four

H
HDEGAARD
F
ALKENSTEIN HAD
a lightness of heart and a happiness she had never known before Scott picked her up.

Things are on the way, he thought, as they drove into the countryside.

She had not been into the villages and forests for longer than she cared to remember. She had never traveled with this feeling of wonderment. How lovely it was. How lovely Scott Davidson was. Hilde’s eyes glowed with the discoveries that came from her daring to open locked doors.

At the end of the first day’s drive they decided to stop for the night at Rombaden, about halfway to the Bavarian Alps.

Over the Landau River from the city, the Four Seasons Hotel had rooms available to American officers. Hilde remembered being in Rombaden once with her father in the early days of Hitler. It was a big Nazi city then.

The Four Seasons was a bit seedy from the lack of upkeep and new replacements and the uniforms were threadbare, but there was still a touch of the old elegance.

Scott was warm. Scott was understanding. He brushed away all awkwardness by taking separate rooms on different floors.

Dinner was only adequate, but the aristocratic service made her feel like a queen.

They drove across the bridge to Rombaden and for the next hours engaged in pub-crawling along the wild and reputed Princess Allee filled with the bawdy, the singing, the risqué.

They were happy crossing back over the Landau to the hotel. Off the lobby a great fire roared in the seventeenth-century fireplace and they sipped cognac, which Scott knew the bar could find if they really wanted to.

It was cozy and dreamy. Hilde cuddled close to Scott and lay her head on his shoulder.

For Scott Davidson, the long-awaited, long-denied sign was being given. World flyer and past master of the moment of woman’s surrender; triumph was close at hand. He allowed Hilde to loll in her joy, let her approach the delicate moment. He must do nothing to deter her own train of thought. He became deliberately passive.

Hilde’s inner conflict began the moment she decided to go away with Scott. She began to realize that she deliberately invited temptation in the hopes of having him. She remembered so many things now. The voices, the sounds, the smells. Scott was American. He was a big man and he smelled good. He was clean, like they were.

“Honey, we’d better turn in,” he whispered. “We have a long drive tomorrow. I’ll see you to your door,” he said in pure Virginian.

He turned her lock.

“Good night, Scott. It has been a most beautiful day.”

“Good night, honey,” he said boyishly.

Hilde took his hand and brought him into her room. Scott, like a little child, allowed himself to be led. Hildegaard’s embrace had none of the calculation or sophistication of a trained lover. She was crazy with desire.

Scott knew her eruption had to come from the liberation of long-imprisoned emotions. Careful, he said to himself, careful, Scott. He handled her with deliberate slowness ... and then they were at the bedside.

Even in this mad moment Hilde longed to cry out, “I love you, Scott,” but she could not do it. She writhed with passion, fearing that her declaration would be a sign of weakness.

She almost cried in desperation, begging him to assure her that he loved her. But Scott gave no word. They lay, side by side, like a pair of animals unable to declare love.

As suddenly as Hilde’s passion rose, it collapsed. She rebelled at his touch. They lay stiffly, awkwardly, dumbfounded, silent.

Hilde spoke first ... a harsh whisper to ask him to leave. Scott did not like men who either pleaded with women or tried to manhandle them. Even at the brink, a man has to keep his pride. He had guessed wrong before ... he guessed wrong again.

Scott left her without a scene, got into his car, returned to Princess Allee, and drank himself into a stupor. Near dawn the German owner called for the American Constabulary, which established that the captain belonged at the Four Seasons and returned him to the hotel.

Scott’s fingers felt the big, soft down pillow. It took a long time for him to fight his eyes open. The room was in shadow light from an opening in the drapes. He sat up, ever so slowly, held still until the thumping in his head beat more quietly, and smacked his lips to get rid of the foul taste.

The fire in the fireplace was nearly out. Scott moaned and shivered to the window, pulled the drapes open. The Landau River flowed below him. “Christ, where am I?” The Four Seasons Hotel ... Rombaden ... Hilde! Ugh! The marble floor of the bathroom chilled his feet. He dunked his head in the water basin, examined himself in the mirror.

Hilde!

Hilde was packed and waited in the lobby for a taxi to take her to the train station in the city across the river. Scott Davidson approached with that damned boyish innocence with no trace of anger.

“I guess we should sit and talk,” he said.

“I don’t want a scene.”

“Only women make scenes,” he said. “Besides, I’m a sick man. Hilde, sit down. The one thing you should know is that, come hell or high water, I’m a gentleman.”

She walked to the fireplace and edged onto a couch. “You are a clever man, Captain. I would suppose that your memoirs should rank with the greatest.”

“Hilde, I don’t get it. You know what I am and you went away with me ...”

“Stop it,” she demanded. “It is true that I love you and I need you. And I do thank you for arousing feelings in me I did not know I possessed. Scott, you are a fighter pilot by instinct. Your life is only for the moment of the kill.”

“Then take me for what I am.”

“For you, Scott, the kill is the beginning of the end. For me, love is going to be the beginning of the beginning.”

The hall porter came and told Hilde a taxi was waiting. Scott said she would be ready in a few moments.

“If it will give you any consolation,” she said, “this trip was my fault. It was unforgivable of me to put a little boy in a candy store and tell him not to touch.”

Scott felt a need for a few light, face-saving remarks. “See you around.”

“You are never to call on me again,” she said firmly.

Scott saluted, grinned. “If you knew what you were missing, you’d cut your throat.”

“My dear Scott ... so would you.”

Hilde left. Scott watched her disappear. As the cab drove off he seemed to remember faintly the tear-filled voice of his wife telling him that someday he would crash and it would be monumental; for when Scott Davidson got dumped a hundred people whose hearts he had broken would be standing on the side lines and cheering.

Nick Papas prepared the dining-room table for a payday card game. The captain came in.

“What the hell you doing back?”

“Phased out.”

“Finished?”

“Kaput. That’s baseball.”

“You still care for her?”

“Hell no.”

“It’s just as well,” Nick said. “Pour yourself a belt and sit down because I’ve got some poop for you. Remember Chuck Ames?”

“Airways, Philippines.”

“That’s right. Saw him last night in Frankfurt. He’s just been transferred here from Berlin. Anyhow, he’s been in Berlin from the first day of occupation.”

“So?”

“He was here a couple weeks ago looking for housing and all that crap. He was at the Scala Club and he saw you there with Hilde.”

“I didn’t see him.”

“He took off. Tell you why. He had met Hilde in Berlin over a year ago. Only then, her name was Hilde Diehl, and she worked in a joint called Paris Cabaret. Scott, them damned women fool you every time ... she was a hooker.”

Chapter Thirty-five

A
MAID LED
G
ERD
to his Uncle Ulrich’s study. He was surprised by the austerity in which the Oberburgermeister of Berlin lived, although it was in keeping with his political image with the people.

The idealists such as his uncle were necessary for that transition period Germany was going through to keep the occupation authorities content. Soon enough, Gerd thought, the German people would look to the new generation of businessmen such as himself who were rebuilding Germany from its ashes. The Ulrich Falkensteins would pass on and no one would replace them.

Ernestine entered. “Hello, Gerd, won’t you sit down?” He made himself comfortable, lit an Ami cigarette. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” he said tersely. “It would please us if you paid us a visit.”

“I see.”

“It is Father’s idea and I agree. We should try to become a family again.”

“I am sorry,” she said. “I will never go to your home so long as Hilde is not welcome.”