Return From the Inferno (5 page)

Fitz took a closer look at the man. He was probably close to ninety years old or more. He was rail thin, with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. By contrast, the girl was no more than twenty-five or so. She was small, thin, with red hair, boasting a streak of blonde.

"Yeah, well, strange things have been happening all over," Fitz replied.

At that moment, his prayers were answered. He reached between his bunk mattress and spring and found a half filled field flask of wine.

He quickly retrieved some small cups and poured out three meager helpings. The old man sipped his cup while the young girl downed hers in one shot.

"More will be coming," the old man said. "You might save more souls than ours in the days ahead."

The water boiled and Fitz prepared three strong cups of tea. But just as he turned to serve them to the soaking pair, he heard an engine backfire. He looked oat the window and saw an NS scout car appear on the far side of the bridge.

"Damn," he whispered under his breath, spilling some boiling water on his hand.

He turned to the old man and girl.

"If they catch you, they might shoot you," he told them. "I'm going outside to try to stop them. Stay here. Don't move."

He ran out the door and down to the control house. He'd returned the bridge to its up position after the incident in the river. Now he pushed the bridge release valve to lower it again. But as was the usual case, nothing happened.

He slapped it again. But still, nothing.

The driver of the patrol car blared his siren. Fitz could heat angry screaming coming toward him from the opposite side of the river. He hit the release valve again and was immensely relieved to hear the resultant clank of the bridge mechanism finally clutching into place. Slowly, the span began to lower.

Fitz tried to shake the excess water out of his hair as the patrol car rumbled across the creaky span. He was hoping the vehicle would drive right on past.

It didn't.

"Been baptizing again, priest?" the officer yelled down at him from the gun turret as the vehicle screeched to a halt.

"No, just bathing, sir," Fitz yelled back over the unmuffled engine noise.

"Clean body. Clean soul."

"Raise that bridge," the officer ordered him. It was obvious that he was in some kind of hurry. "And until further notice do not let anyone across who isn't a member of our armed forces. Do you understand?"

"No one?"

"No one!" the officer screamed down at him. "Or I'll shoot you myself."

With that the patrol car roared off.

"No one?" Fitz was left to ask.

He returned to the shack, scratching his head, yet thankful the NS had not decided to search his place, just to harass him.

But when he got inside, he found that it didn't matter.

The old man and the young girl were gone.

The Reich Palast

The First Governor opened his eyes and saw the empty canteen of myx on the pillow next to him.

He felt a tear roll down his sleepy face; he loved the myx so. To see it gone was truly heartbreaking.

He looked at his feet and found one of the young girls curled up there. She was either asleep or unconscious. Her X-rated black lace bra and garter belt outfit at least a size too big for her teenage body.

A turn to the left found the second girl-a brunette, possibly a year older than the blonde girl at his feet, but certainly no more than that. She was naked, and a slight stain of myx was evident on her breasts. The First Governor immediately reached over and sucked it off her skin.

The room was dark and it smelled of liquor, smoked cocaine, 40

and body sweat. He had no idea what time it was, nor did he care. He remembered drinking the myx, watching the incredible orgy in the main dining hall, and then dragging the two young -girls back to his luxurious bedchamber.

There they drank some more of the hallucinogenic mixture and he had his way with them.

Now he supposed it was midmorning, but again he couldn't really tell. As usual, the curtains were pulled tight across the massive bedroom windows, and they never allowed even a single point of sun into the chamber. That was the way he liked it: dark.

He licked some more of the myx stain from the brunette's tiny breasts and then lay back to enjoy whatever reaction even this minuscule amount had in store for him.

He closed his eyes. . .

Suddenly there was a dark figure standing over him. It was a man. He was dressed all in black, and wearing a black hood over what might have been a helmet, complete with an opaque visor.

The First Governor shivered once. This was not what he was expecting. The figure before him was exuding power, strength, control. All three frightened the Fourth Reich high commander.

"What . . . what are you?" he whispered, frightened, to the strange form in black. "Are you a dream?"

"I am the ghost of Finn MacCool," the apparition hissed, his voice sounding oddly mechanical. "Have you ever heard of me?"

The First Governor immediately wet the bed. "I'm ... I'm not sure . . ."

The ghost moved closer to the stricken officer.

"Is it worth your life to remember?" it said.

"Finn MacCool... was ... an old ... Celtic . . . warrior," the First Governor stammered, somehow remembering his student university studies in mythology from forty years ago. "The divine leader of the Fianna and the soldiers of destiny. Am I correct?"

The spirit didn't respond. A long silence seemed to indicate that the First Governor was correct.

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"What . . . what do you want?" the First Governor finally blurted out.

"I want you to say your prayers," was the reply. The eerie, static voice was driving a wedge right through the petrified Nazi's psyche.

"You've been sent ... to kill me?"

"I am here to save you," came the words that sounded like steam.

The First Governor let out a long, relieved breath. Strangely he could see it leave his mouth in the form of a blue mist.

"How . . . how can I be saved?" he asked the frightful figure.

The black ghost loomed even closer to him. Now it was almost as if it was hovering over the huge bed. "You must find a man of water," it said.

42

Both Itchy and Bone were used to flying with hangovers.

It had to do with their aircraft's oxygen supply. Nothing cured the morning-after like a few gulps of the Big O. So the first thing both of them did after climbing into their respective F-105s was to lock in their oxygen hose and then start breathing deep. Instantly their heads began to clear and their stomachs began to settle.

They never expected to party so hard with the Fourth Reich soldiers. Before leaving their main base up near what used to be called New Chicago, their squadron commander had told them that the Fourth Reich soldiers were, in his words, "prissy little girls." Nothing that Bone and Itchy saw the night before really dispelled that notion too much. It was just that these New Nazis really hung the rag out when it came to boozing, nose candy, and fucking young girls.

And as far as giving them some myx free of charge, well, that was a mistake Itchy vowed never to make again.

But all in all, the business trip had gone well. The Cherrybusters had their pounds of cocaine, smack, and crack. The Fourth Reich had their load of young beauties. For the air pirates, the dope meant they'd be able to get some hard currency, which in turn meant they'd be able to buy more airplanes, which in turn meant they would be one step closer to reestablishing some of their former dominance in the skies over North America.

43

With obstacles like the United Americans-and especially the late Hawk Hunter-out of the way, as well as the nod from the Fourth Reich, the air pirates were free to expand their operations up into Free Canada as well as down into Mexico and Central America.

In a word, their future looked "bright."

Itchy and Bone rolled their garish F-105s to the end of the Aerodrome's main runway and waited for the gigantic 747 jumbo jet to take off. The huge airliner made the best of the Aerodrome's three-mile-long main runway, lifting off a little shakily after a 12,000 foot roll and slowly banking toward the north.

Bone and Itchy went next, their antique Thunderchiefs ripping through the midmorning hot air and lifting off in a particularly ragged, one-two fashion.

Once airborne, they quickly kicked in their afterburners and caught up with the jumbo, taking defensive positions slightly above and behind the flying behemoth.

It promised to be a short flight from Bundeswehr Four to New Chicago, an hour at the most.

The skies were clear, the weather perfect for flying. Although both Thunderchiefs were equipped with AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, neither pilot expected to fire any. For them, the skies above Fourth Reich America were virtually enemy free.

The jumbo reached 25,000 feet, and would stay there only a few minutes before starting its descent toward New Chicago's main airport. Itchy actually found his mind wandering back to the night before; the tidal wave of booze, drugs, broads and debauchery. He imagined similar scenes happening all over the eastern part of the country as the Fourth Reich tightened its vise grip over the population. Why, he wondered, had people bothered all those years with things like morals? Ethics? Laws? Decency was a drag, man. A dead-end street.

Whether you live your life good or bad, you still die. So what's the point?

He felt a pleasant chill go through him. There was definitely a new order settling down across the continent, one which held promise for people like him. But it would be survival of the fittest and he would have to reach out and grab whatever he could. That was okay-he'd been doing that for most of his life anyway.

He made a routine flight check call over to Bone, who was barely paying attention himself.

44

"This is a fucking milk run," Bone called back over. "Don't bug me with this flight status crap."

Deflated, Itchy knew his pain in the ass wingman was right. Kick back, he told himself. Just fly the fucking mission, land, eat some steak, score some myx and then find something young and cute to deflower. Enjoy this new life in Second Axis America.

An instant later, they got the Mayday call from the jumbo.

Thirty-two men in an NS convoy witnessed the incident.

The seven-vehicle column had just unloaded a supply of barbed wire and electrical shock equipment to a civilian concentration camp forty miles south of New Chicago and was heading north again when they spotted the jumbo jet and its two escort fighters passing overhead.

As many would later testify, the big 747 appeared to be smoking from its left-side wing. One of the F-105s-later identified as Bone-pulled up close to the stricken airliner, almost as an attempt to get a closer look at the cause of the smoke. Meanwhile the second F-105, the one piloted by Itchy, began firing its weapons wildly in the general direction of the two other airplanes, almost as if he thought they were being attacked.

As the convoy of Atlantic soldiers watched in horror, the 747's left wing suddenly burst into flame. The big airliner began to veer over, clipping the close-in fighter in the process, causing it to explode almost immediately.

The convoy had drawn to a halt by this time and all of its members saw the jumbo slowly flip over on its back and plummet, slamming into a field about four miles away. The shock wave created by the frightening crash was enough to perforate the eardrums of some of the transport troops, causing them to bleed profusely. Those that were able, rushed to the crash site, but realized quickly there were no survivors.

The last anyone saw of Itchy's F-105, it was streaking off to the east; its weapons firing, as if chasing some phantom aircraft.

45

Chapter Eight

The small shack shuddered as the pair of Tornadoes streaked overhead, their engines screaming as they turned on final landing approach.

Inside the shack, Fitz was drunk again. He was sitting on the floor, two bottles of recently secured homemade wine beside him on this young, brutally hot night. The roar of the Wabash River now returning as the background noise for his solitary inebriation.

He knew he was drinking too much-but what did it matter? Just about everything he'd ever considered valuable was gone. Long gone. His country. His businesses. His women. His comrades in arms.

His friend. . . .

Yes, even the nagging suspicion that somehow everything would be okay if only Hawk Hunter was still alive was slowly draining out of him. Hawk was gone. He was dead. He had to face it. And gone with him were General Jones, the Cobra Brothers, Ben Wa, JT Toomey, Catfish Johnson, Elvis. All of the brave men who had fought so hard, sacrificed so much to keep America free, were now little more than cosmic dust. The only irony was that he was the last one left.

During all those years of fighting he was convinced that he would have been one of the first to go.

Life was cruel, he thought, finishing the last of the second bottle of wine, and wiping his brow with a damp rag. And the universal joke was that few good intentions go unpunished. They had tried though. They had given it their best effort.

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They had made history. But what good was that, if there was no one to tell the story to?

He crawled up on his bunk, stared out at the brilliant sunset and heard the words of a long-ago poem drift across his mind: Other spirits having flown, • . / too will fly to the west some day.

I hope it's damned soon, he thought.

He located the third of his wine bottles, uncorked and took an unhealthy gulp.

He hoped this one would put him to sleep. With everything else in his life lost, sleep is what he craved the most. He did a slow boozy scan of the shack.

Even in his drunken state he made sure that he'd left no evidence of his stillborn sabotage plan lying around the hut. Not that it would make much difference. The fire was gone from his heart, extinguished by the overwhelming, invincible brutality of the Fourth Reich and too many bottles of bad wine. He was now a prisoner. A shepherd. A gravedigger. A teacher. A bridge tender. A lifeguard. A slave. A drunk.