Amerika (30 page)

Fatt nodded at us to keep moving, lest we get caught up in somebody’s story. And  it  almost  worked  until  a  tall,  haunted-eyed,  neatly-bearded  man stepped in front of Fatt and me and barred our way.

‘Gentlemen, when is your return flight, please?’

I looked at Fatt who looked at me, so I said, ‘Five-thirty tomorrow morning, weather permitting of course.’

The man’s face tightened and he glanced over his shoulder at a woman and two children who sat perfectly still on the crowded bench, staring forward. But you could tell they were watching every move he made and listening to his every word. His desperate eyes locked with mine.

‘Sir, I have reservations for this flight and now they are telling me they cannot locate them.’

‘I’m sorry, but -’

‘Forgive me for being so abrupt, sir, but our lives are at stake. If we do not get on that flight...’ He blinked quickly, as if something had lodged in his eye but the enormity of what he just said made him choke up.

I looked at Fatt, who with the slightest twitch of his cheek muscle gave me the go-ahead.

‘Your name, please?’ I said quietly.

‘Kreiser. Oscar Kreiser.’

While Fatt escorted the crew out of harm’s way and to the taxis and the waiting hotel, I walked with the man back to the ticket counter. The crowd parted upon seeing my uniform like the Red Sea did to Moses, allowing us to move to the head of the line.

The ticket agent gave me a weary once- over. Even though I had shaved and cleaned up as best I could on the plane, I was still a little rough-looking around the edges. The agent was too, for that matter, but being a stolid German, he didn’t show it nearly as much.

‘Jawohl, kapitan?’
Bored to death.

I sent him my most winning smile. ‘Say, where’s my friend Oscar’s tickets?’

‘Bitte?’

‘
Herr
Kreiser’s tickets for the Baltimore flight tomorrow morning.’ I held up four fingers. ‘Four of them. Hand them over. I need to check them against our manifest.’

He shook his head. ‘We have no such record of that name.’

I smiled even more. ‘Sure you do, you just misplaced it, that’s all.’

‘No, I am positive.’

I pulled out the manifest from our inbound flight, pretended to read it, and then tucked it away. ‘Explain to me why the heck we’re showing their names for the Tail Suite?’

A quick blink of surprise, and I knew exactly what was going on with this joker. Everybody in this room had money, some more than others. Hard cold cash was changing hands around here as fast as the refugees could shove it into someone’s hands, who could pull enough strings to get them a space on the clipper. How much this clown had gotten from somebody to bump Kreiser and his family off the flight I don’t know, but I was damned if I was going to let him get away with it.

‘Let me see your manifest.’ I said gruffly. ‘I want to sort this out for my friend.’

He still hesitated, so I said, ‘Where’s your supervisor? I’m sure he can help me since it’s obvious you can’t.’

A quick eye-blink. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ He fussed and fiddled with some paperwork, but I knew he was just killing time. I had tumbled this shark’s racket and he knew it. No way was he going to slip off my gaff hook now. Time to flip him into the boat and sure enough, he reached under the counter and pulled up four slips of paper.

‘
Ach,
someone has made a transposition error,’ he said. ‘It happens sometimes, especially with all the confusion lately. I am most sorry,
Herr
Kreiser.  Here are your tickets.  Be here at the terminal four o’clock tomorrow morning at the latest. Enjoy your flight,
danke schön
for flying with Lufthansa, and please excuse me I have other customers who need my assistance.’

He couldn’t wait to get away. Sure, he’d catch hell from whomever paid cash for Kreiser’s seats, but that was his problem, not mine.

We cleared the crowd and came to a stop. ‘How you doing, Oscar?’

He clutched his tickets like they were four sheets of gold. ‘You have no idea...’

‘I do. And three days from now you’ll be in America.’

‘America,’ he said softly.

He made the word sound like music.

The  scene  at  the  Aviz  hotel  in  downtown  Lisbon  was  the  exact opposite of the Lufthansa reservation desk. Instead of the strident, tense atmosphere and high-pitched voices filled with anxiety, the hotel lobby’s three-story, gold-leafed walls was a vast space filled with elegantly-dressed guests  strolling  with  a casual  sense of  purpose amidst  towering  potted palms, their countless conversations merged into a gentle, contented murmur. Somewhere in this glittering, palace-like place, two classical guitars tossed a piece of music back and forth like a silk-covered softball.

Portugal’s  declared  neutrality  kept  it  clear  of  the  clutches  of  Nazi

Germany, and Lisbon had become the watering hole for spies, refugees and everybody in between that a global war attracts, including an improbable convention of prominent German scientists gathered for their annual meeting. Despite Europe being in flames, science apparently marched ever onward to the beat of a drum all its own.

From a quick scan of the fifty or so guests in the lobby, none of them seemed the scientist-type. Then I laughed at myself. What the heck did I know about what the well-dressed scientist was wearing that would distinguish him from - say, the two men standing by the potted palm, head- to-head in some intense discussion?

My orders were simple: Fatt and the crew would rest up at the hotel for a few hours, get some dinner, and then return to the Yankee Clipper early in the morning for the lengthy pre-flight procedures. Orlando and I were remain behind to help Ava and Ziggy, when, with scientist in tow, it came time for us to make a dash for the plane just before takeoff.

A scattered popping of flashbulbs lit up the lobby. Like some collective creature, everyone, myself included, swiveled our heads in the direction of the main desk where Ava leaned against the polished walnut and brass- trimmed counter, posing for pictures like she owned the joint. Ziggy stood beside her, beaming and jabbering at the reporters and photographers in a repeat performance of the ‘starlet’ act they’d done in Baltimore, only this time a female Portuguese translator heightened the drama by jabbering Portuguese at the top of her lungs.

People love movie stars all over the world and react the same way when they’re around them. What did it matter that Ava James didn’t speak Portuguese? Everyone understood the international language of dazzling beauty, and in this she was fluent. Hard to imagine this elegantly dressed, highly made-up, glamorous woman wearing a dirty blouse and slacks, on her hands and knees digging for gold in the Florida Keys.

But I guess that’s why she was a movie star. She could be anybody in the world she wanted, and still, somehow, stay Ava James.

She spotted me and gave me a quick wink before she brandished her cigarette holder in the air like a saber and shouted at me, ‘Sam, darling!’

Right on cue, Ziggy frowned and tried to restrain her, as if not wanting this to happen, but she shrugged him off like an annoying fly and swept toward me. The photographers swiveled as one, following their favorite target.

‘Where’ve you been hiding, you naughty, naughty, boy?’

I had no trouble acting sheepish and tongue-tied because I was, even though we’d rehearsed this routine a few times while we were stuck at Horta. There had to be a reason for our being together. This was it: movie- star-falls-in-love-with-dashing-pilot.

She twirled around to face the reporters, and as she gushed away in English, the translator rattled away in Portuguese.

‘Captain Carter promised to show me Lisbon and I’m holding him to it. Aren’t I, captain?’

I made a polite salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

Her laugh was rich and deep, ‘Get a load of this man’s manners.’ She took my arm and snuggled close.  ‘Stick around, I just might keep you.’

A burst of Portuguese. The translator said, ‘He is your new boyfriend?’ A sprinkle of appreciative laughter. Her lips brushed against my cheek then she turned to her admirers. ‘What do you think, folks? Should I keep him?’

More flashbulbs.

Ziggy said sternly. ‘Time for our meeting, darling.’ She sighed. ‘If you insist.’

She gave me a quick kiss. On my lips this time, and then twirled away to head for the elevator. The press followed her like a flock of bees, leaving me stripped of my thirty seconds of fame by being kissed by a movie star. What surprised me when she did was her smell. I had expected a tidal wave of heavy perfume to match her equally heavy makeup. But instead a fresh, light aroma that, for lack of a better word, smelled like happiness.

I left that mystery hanging because I had exactly ten minutes to get to my room, clean up and meet up with Orlando, and head for dinner. After that we were to lay low and wait like a pair of Al Capone’s bodyguards until ten o’clock, when Ava would spirit the
Herr Doktor
to her room and the ‘heist’ would begin.

The word choice had been Ziggy’s, who had, to everyone’s surprise, gotten into the spirit of things ever since his drunken spree with Inspector Bauer back at Horta. Gone was the fretful, ever-worrying little nebbish. In its place was a brash, confident little Napoleon, intent on conquering the world. To watch him dismiss the reporters in the lobby with a confident wave of his imperious hand was to see Bonaparte himself standing at the gates of Moscow, demanding the Czar’s immediate and unconditional surrender.

The very thought of such a thing made me wince. Where the French emperor had failed, a German one was about to succeed. Moscow, like Washington D.C. had a smoking bomb crater to mark the passing of the Nazi hobnail boot. But where the United States had signed a Neutrality agreement, Russia had remained defiant; content to let hundreds of thousands of its citizens fall under the rule and reign of Nazi warlords, and worse for many of them, suffer their butchery when the SS Death Squads laid waste to village after village.

Stalin and his Politburo had abandoned Moscow and hightailed to a hiding place beyond the Ural Mountains. And while the Nazis had pursued him, they had still not destroyed him. At least not yet, and Juan Trippe’s words came back to me:

‘Hitler hesitates... Why?’

The answer apparently lay somewhere deep inside the head of the
Herr Doktor
Professor, and our job was to get him out of Lisbon, back to Couba Island and find out.

I checked my watch for the millionth time, which was probably Orlando’s limit, because he said, ‘You’re making time stand still by checking your watch all the time.’

‘Nervous habit.’

‘Pray instead?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Then I will, if you don’t mind.’

He closed his eyes and together we sat in comfortable silence in my hotel room. The last time I checked my watch it had said, 11:28. I never got another chance because the phone rang and I jumped as if shot.

Orlando smiled, ‘The power of prayer.’

Ava’s voice was tight with excitement. ‘He’s here.’

‘On our way.’

The original plan to have adjoining rooms hadn’t worked out. We weren’t even on the same floor. But a creaky elevator ride moments later and  we  were  heading  down  a  crowded  corridor  filled  with  Germans speaking in boisterous, unmodulated voices, edged here and there with insane giggles - your typical convention crowd doing its conventional, after- hours thing.  We managed to dodge and weave our way past them without colliding with their wobbly trajectories, that is, until the last two, who plowed into us like we were flimsy roadblocks begging to be hit. Drunk? You bet. How else could they have misjudged someone Orlando’s size, or been so stupid as to growl at him?

‘Schwarzie, Raus!’

But to Orlando’s credit, all he did was gently grab both men by their shoulders, turn them in the direction of their departing friends, said ‘
Auf Wiedersehen
, brothers’ and nudged them on their way. They took one look at him and then staggered away in pursuit of the departing mob. The corridor quieted. The storm had passed.