Amerika (55 page)

I’m sure Perkins had been briefed on our backgrounds long before we arrived. Presidents can’t possibly know these things in advance. But how they handle the information makes all the difference. Perkins made you feel like you were the only person in the world who really mattered, and that everything you had to say was important, worthwhile and grand. I told her she had my vote in the fall elections. America needed leaders like her if we were to get out of the mess we were in.

‘One vote at a time, Captain. That’s my plan.’

After the pleasantries had concluded, two butlers rolled in an heirloom silver tea service that looked like Paul Revere had finished it just before he made his famous ride. Over sips of the best coffee I have ever tasted in my life  and  delicate  cookies  that  disappeared  in  my  mouth  before  I  even chewed them, Perkins conducted the debriefing as well if not better than General Patton.

From what we told her and what her sources on the ground confirmed, the Columbia River target had been destroyed, the plutonium neutralized, and the nuclear weapons clock reset to zero as far as she was concerned. Professor  Friedman  was  confident  it  would  take  the  Nazis  twelve  to eighteen to weaponize enough uranium to start making bombs again.

The president said grimly, ‘They’ll never get the chance.’

Patton grunted his stern approval.

The briefing concluded, she rose gracefully. With Ava holding my arm, we stood there looking at each other the way you do when the party’s over and it’s time to go home. I was anxious to do just that.

‘My friends,’ the president began. ‘I want to thank you for your bravery, your courage, and your absolute refusal to quit until the job was done. It’s an admirable trait that Americans will strive for in the days to come.’

She took a step toward me. ‘Mr. Carter, you have a commission waiting for you as a full colonel in the Army Air Corps, should you choose to accept it.’ Before I could say anything, she turned to Orlando. ‘The same holds true for you, Major Diaz. If ever we needed help from experienced people like you, we need it now.’

Mason got promoted to lieutenant commander and Friedman was heading directly to a top research job at the Pentagon.

‘Miss James, I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything but a promise to watch all of your movies with the greatest of pleasure.’

Ava smiled. ‘I appreciate that, Madame President, but I’m taking a break from make-believe until this is over.’

‘What will you do?’

She glanced at General Patton. ‘Oh, I think Uncle George will find something interesting.’

He smiled and rubbed his hands together. ‘Don’t worry, I will. But we need  to  celebrate  your  safe return  first  -  all  of  you, for  that  matter  - including you, Madam President. When Helen puts on a feed, she doesn’t spare the horses.’

‘I appreciate the offer, general, but pressing business keeps me from accepting.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘But thanks all the same.’

Patton was instantly grave. ‘I know what you mean, Carter. I’d do the same thing if I were you. Unless...’

He and the president exchanged a quick look. She pressed a button on the desk top. Seconds later the double doors swung open and there stood Rosie and Abby.

‘Daddy!’

She ran to me and I scooped her up in my arms, a skinny, trembling, frightened, crying kid who I kissed and hugged and went weak in the knees and had to sit down. Rosie’s calming hand on my shoulder, her familiar voice, and Ava’s too, and nothing left to do but rub my kid’s hair, tell her that I loved her and cry.

Patton was right. Ava too. Helen Dortch Longstreet hadn’t actually killed a fatted calf, but the food, drink, music and conversation at her antebellum mansion on Couba Island was of biblical proportions. Helen, cigar and all, made the rounds of rooms filled with happy guests, making sure everyone we felt welcomed, especially Abby and my mother, who had stared at a Gestapo kidnapper’s gun barrel for days.

According to the general, the battle for Couba Island had gone pretty much as I had figured. Caught flat-footed by the Kampfschwimmer, his men had been beaten back soundly. But after we flew the
Dixie Clipper
out of harm’s way, he rallied his men and mounted a counterattack that eventually drove the enemy to the beach and those who survived back into their assault rafts for a ragtag escape

In my wanderings through the mansions many side rooms, I came upon Juan Trippe sitting quietly by himself, taking in the celebratory activity with  those piercing  black  eyes  of  his  that  never  missed a trick,  or  an opportunity to advance his airline across the chessboard of big business. He spotted me, and with a fractional nod of his head motioned to the empty chair beside him.

We sat in silence, each absorbed with the conversational buzz and excitement  that  comes  when  a  hundred  people  are  jammed  inside  a mansion filled with strong drink and even stronger feelings.

Trippe cleared his throat and I fastened my seatbelt.

‘Captain Carter, I want you to know that you will always have a place with Pan American Airways.’

‘Thanks, sir. But when I quit, I quit for good.’

‘We need experienced captains like you.’

‘My daughter needs a father.’

Another stretch of silence. Somebody somewhere started singing
Dixie
, and others whistled and joined in. Soon a fiddle took up the tune.

Trippe said. ‘I still can’t believe you pulled it off.’

‘Makes two of us.’

He chuckled. ‘Who would have thought the
Dixie Clipper
could be a bomber.’

‘Not me that’s for sure.’

He cleared his throat. ‘I understand that the President offered you a commission in the Army Air Corps. A full colonel, no less. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Never made more than lieutenant back when I was in the navy.’

‘That’s okay, you’re a general of industry now.’

He laughed and then stood up. ‘My offer still holds. Abby will be grown up all too soon. When that day comes, the captain’s seat is yours, should you ever want it.’

I thanked him, but wanted outside instead.

Except for the blackened tree stump here and there, the deepening twilight revealed no trace of the Nazi attack. I made my way down to the dock to check up on my beat-up little S-38, now moored in the same spot as the late, great
Dixie Clipper
. She looked like a bathtub toy by comparison, but she was all mine - and the bank’s too, of course.

The aircraft mechanics had neatly repaired the twenty or so bullet holes she suffered during the attack. I ran my fingers over the cotton fabric patches but felt no rough edges that would catch in the wind stream and rip them off. This kind of craftsmanship was a fading art, but on Couba Island, alive and well.

Ava’s voice startled me. ‘We’ve got mighty good boys.’

‘They’ll be needed elsewhere soon enough.’

‘How soon?’

‘We’ll find out at eight o’clock.’

President Perkins was scheduled to make a radio address to the nation before a joint session of congress. It wouldn’t be about the budget.

Ava shifted her arm sling and flexed her wrist. ‘They told me to keep exercising without fail.’

‘Still hurt?’

‘Only when I do this.’

‘Don’t do that.’

Her smile was a crescent moon in the shadow of the wing. ‘So, do I call you colonel or Sam?’

‘Either will do.’

‘You accepted the commission?’

‘Surprised?’

She shrugged. ‘I know how much Abby means to you. And you’ve done more than enough for your country, I should think.’

I pretended to examine a fabric patch on the fuselage, but I was really buying time to collect my thoughts.

‘I took that Buenos Aires trip for the sake of my career. I’m taking this commission for the sake of America. Abby will understand the difference. Maybe not today, but one day, I hope.’

Ava touched my arm. ‘I can help her understand if you’d like.’

I took a quick breath and she said quickly, ‘It’s not what you think. I mean as a friend of the family. Nothing more. ‘Aunt Ava,’ if you will. Whatever you want, Sam, I’m happy to do it.’

‘That’s kind of you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But that’s not what I need.’

‘What do you need?’

‘This.’

I took her in my arms.

Where were you the night President Perkins made her speech? My guess is that you were among the tens of millions of Americans across the nation listening to their radios, waiting to hear the ‘swoosh’ of her fiery torch. Me too, except instead of being stuck in Buenos Aires, I was here on Couba Island, with Abby, Rosie, and Ava by my side in the midst of a crowd of determined people long past surrender, determined to fight instead.

Two minutes past eight o’clock, after a breathless introduction by a radio announcer who could have used a stiff drink to calm himself down, the network broadcast shifted to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where President Perkins addressed a joint session of congress to finish what FDR had begun eight months ago. Her voice was clear, calm, insistent and firm:

‘December 7, 1941 - a date that will live in infamy - the United States was  suddenly  and  deliberately  attacked  by  naval  and  air  forces  of  the Empire of Japan.

‘December 8, 1941 – a date that will live in far more infamy, our nation’s political and financial capitals were deliberately attacked and destroyed by Germany.

‘As your president, confronted with Adolf Hitler’s threat to attack even more cities, I declared a state of neutrality to exist between the United States and the Axis powers.

‘I did so to spare tens of thousands of innocent American lives. But in doing so, we nearly lost the very soul of our Constitution. That is why I come to you tonight to announce that the time of sacrifice has ended, the soul of our Constitution is alive and well, and the time for retribution has come!’

Shouting, cheering, applause, all across America I figured. When it finally subsided, Perkins continued:

‘Because of the heroic action of a brave group of American citizens, supported by members of an organization called the Sons of Liberty, and our own armed forces, I come to you tonight to declare that the imminent danger of nuclear attack on our soil has ended.

‘And while I can announce tonight that our nation is safe from the Damoclean sword  of  nuclear  destruction,  never  before  has  there  been a greater challenge to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not only for America but for our allies around the world, who at this very hour struggle against the dark forces of fascist dictatorship.

‘Any delay on our part to join the fight guarantees the victory of savagery and barbarism over peace and prosperity.

‘Therefore, tonight, as your president, I ask members of congress to declare a state of war to exist between the United States and Germany, Italy, and the Empire of Japan.

‘No matter how long it may take to overcome this invasion of evil upon righteousness, the American people will win through to absolute victory and ensure that this form of treachery shall never endanger the world again.

‘There can be no blinking at the fact that by declaring war, our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. But with the unbounding determination of the American people, we shall gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.’