Return From the Inferno (30 page)

"They have been through several major wars sir," Erste offered by way of explanation. "They have been known to take rather desperate risks in the past."

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"But who is leading them?" the Amerikafuhrer asked bluntly. "Who could it possibly be? Hawk Hunter?"

The trio of officers stood stone silent for a long moment. Each one knew that a Harrier jump jet had been spotted both over Dragon's Mouth the night before as well as at Bundeswehr Four earlier that day.

But they weren't about to tell that to the Amerikafuhrer.

"It is impossible, sir, that the outlaw Hunter is involved," Zweite declared finally. "He is long dead."

251

"Yaz" tried his best to pull the fighter pilot helmet down over his head, but the damned thing was just too small.

He'd already attempted to widen the hard plastic material by hand and even considered heating it, but it was still useless. The crash helmet was just not his size and no amount of poking and pulling was ever going to make it so.

By comparison, his flight boots were two sizes too big. So was his flight suit itself. The multitude of safety straps and belts were enough to heft the garment up on his small frame, and wearing three pairs of socks did away with the sloshing sensation in walking in the oversized boots. But the helmet was going to be a problem.

He felt like a fool wearing the costume. But like everything in the past few weeks of his life, he knew it was necessary for his own survival. Though never totally comfortable in his new role of Elizabeth Sandlake's boy toy, he was wise enough to know that being a sex slave was better than being just a plain old slave. And though he was getting tired of eating oysters three meals a day and concerned that all the Vitamin E was turning his skin a little too pinkish, it was better than cleaning up fish guts, or regreasing toilet mechanisms, or ripping apart the Great Ship's massive sewage ejection pump.

He just wished he didn't have to dress up like his old friend Hawk Hunter all the time.

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He took a deep breath, let it out, and then with a lot of effort finally forced the helmet down over his ears and into place. Instantly he felt like his head was in an ever tightening vise and that his teeth were slowly going to grind together until they popped out.

With little more to do to alter his strange wardrobe, he waddled out of his dressing room and down to Elizabeth's love chamber. Slipping inside, he saw both Sandlake and her companion, Juanita, lounging on the massive waterbed, blithely fondling each other's breasts. He heard them both gasp when he walked in. An instant later the unmistakable scent of myx reached his nose.

"You tease us," Elizabeth cooed to him. "We've been waiting too, too long."

"I'm sorry," "Yaz" croaked, feeling a pain equivalent to several impacted molars. "This uniform, this helmet, it's just not my size."

Both women giggled, not from amusement but from the myx. Their eyes were watery and dreamy. Their bare chests were heaving. Their legs were twitching spasmodically.

Another day at work, "Yaz" thought.

Elizabeth leaned over and kissed Juanita full on the lips.

"What shall we play today?" she asked the dark Spanish beauty.

"Let's chain him up again," Juanita gushed.

Elizabeth climbed off the waterbed and retrieved a set of fur-lined chains from her closet. "A capital idea!" she declared.

She strutted across the room and grabbed "Yaz" by the crotch. "I hope you've taken your vitamins today," she told him mockingly.

"Yaz" gulped audibly as she attached one end of the chains to his wrists and then fastened the other end to a pair of eye-hooks high over her waterbed.

"Our captive audience," Juanita laughed, as she put a hammerlock on "Yaz's"

rear end. "Once again,

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we'll see how tough these fighter pilots really are. . ."

As they took turns undoing the myriad of zippers on his flight suit, "Yaz" was unable to do anything but stand by helplessly and let them have their way with him. Once the majority of his body was exposed, the two women began to fondle him in earnest.

Then came a sudden knock on the cabin door.

"Who is it?" Elizabeth singsonged, the myx absolutely roaring through her system.

The door opened, and the Captain of the Great Ship himself took one step in.

"A very important message for you, your majesty . . ."

Elizabeth stopped in midstroke. Suddenly she was up off her knees and back into her witching mode.

"Important enough to interrupt me!" she screamed at the man.

The captain quickly nodded. "I believe so, My Lady," he said nervously. "It is direct from Zweite."

Elizabeth grabbed a blanket from the bed and covered her naked breasts. Then she ripped the message from the man's hand and dismissed him with nothing more than a cold, hard stare.

"This is a conspiracy!" she shouted once the captain had departed. "Every time I want to have some privacy, something like this happens!"

She tore open the sealed envelope and quickly read the message. Suddenly the blanket dropped from her grip.

"At last!" she declared. Her face filling with intoxicated euphoria once again.

"Good news, My Lady?" Juanita asked expectantly.

"Yes, my dear," Elizabeth said softly. "Everything is finally in readiness for our ceremony. We have been cleared to proceed."

Juanita instantly perked up too. "That is wonderful!"

"It gets even better," Elizabeth went on. "As a wedding present from Zweite, the Fourth Reich has surrounded a large

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force of United American rebels and are in the process of annihilating them."

"Again, very welcome news, My Lady," Juanita chimed. "The perfect gift."

"Get dressed," Elizabeth ordered Juanita, happily crumpling the message and tossing it against the wall. "We must go to the communications room at once and send our reply."

With that the two women climbed into their dressing gowns and hastily left the room, leaving a very confused "Yaz" helplessly hanging by the fur lined chains, his helmet feeling tighter than ever.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, one hour later

Major Frost was alive and well and dreaming about rolling around in a room filled with shaving cream when he was roused awake by one of the crewmen aboard the long-range P-3 Orion airplane.

"Sir, we're getting a new transmission. You'd better hear it."

Frost rolled out of the incredibly tiny fold-away bunk and sleepily bounced his way tip to the airplane's communication station. He'd never flown in an Orion before, and up to this time, he considered himself blessed. The durable, anti-submarine aircraft was cramped, noisy, smelled of engine exhaust, and bathroom disinfectant. It was also the roughest riding airplane he'd ever been in. He'd been aboard the damn thing for fourteen hours straight, and this flight was his ninth mission in as many days.

Now he hoped this aerial marathon was about to pay some dividends.

He finally reached the communications shack to find the pair of radio specialists excitedly pushing buttons and taking notes.

One of them handed him a pair of headphones.

"They've been broadcasting on an irregular sequence for the 255

we'll see how tough these fighter pilots really are . . ."

As they took turns undoing the myriad of zippers on his flight suit, "Yaz" was unable to do anything but stand by helplessly and let them have their way with him. Once the majority of his body was exposed, the two women began to fondle him in earnest.

Then came a sudden knock on the cabin door.

"Who is it?" Elizabeth singsonged, the myx absolutely roaring through her system.

The door opened, and the Captain of the Great Ship himself took one step in.

"A very important message for you, your majesty . . ."

Elizabeth stopped in midstroke. Suddenly she was up off her knees and back into her witching mode.

"Important enough to interrupt me!" she screamed at the man.

The captain quickly nodded. "I believe so, My Lady," he said nervously. "It is direct from Zweite."

Elizabeth grabbed a blanket from the bed and covered her naked breasts. Then she ripped the message from the man's hand and dismissed him with nothing more than a cold, hard stare.

"This is a conspiracy!" she belleven bowed once the captain had departed.

"Every time I want to have some privacy, something like this happens!"

She tore open the sealed envelope and quickly read the message. Suddenly the blanket dropped from her grip.

"At last!" she declared. Her face filling with intoxicated euphoria once again.

"Good news, My Lady?" Juanita asked expectantly.

"Yes, my dear," Elizabeth said softly. "Everything is finally in readiness for our ceremony. We have been cleared to proceed."

Juanita instantly perked up too. "That is wonderful!"

"It gets even better," Elizabeth went on. "As a wedding present from Zweite, the Fourth Reich has surrounded a large

254

force of United American rebels and are in the process of annihilating them."

"Again, very welcome news, My Lady," Juanita chimed. "The perfect gift."

"Get dressed," Elizabeth ordered Juanita, happily crumpling the message and tossing it against the wall. "We must go to the communications room at once and send our reply."

With that the two women climbed into their dressing gowns and hastily left the room, leaving a very confused "Yaz" helplessly hanging by the fur lined chains, his helmet feeling tighter than ever.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, one hour later

Major Frost was alive and well and dreaming about rolling around in a room filled with shaving cream when he was roused awake by one of the crewmen aboard the long-range P-3 Orion airplane.

"Sir, we're getting a new transmission. You'd better hear it."

Frost rolled out of the incredibly tiny fold-away bunk and sleepily bounced his way tip to the airplane's communication station. He'd never flown in an Orion before, and up to this time, he considered himself blessed. The durable, anti-submarine aircraft was cramped, noisy, smelled of engine exhaust, and bathroom disinfectant. It was also the roughest riding airplane he'd ever been in. He'd been aboard the damn thing for fourteen hours straight, and this flight was his ninth mission in as many days.

Now he hoped this aerial marathon was about to pay some dividends.

He finally reached the communications shack to find the pair of radio specialists excitedly pushing buttons and taking notes.

One of them handed him a pair of headphones.

"They've been broadcasting on an irregular sequence for the 255

past ten minutes," the radioman told him. "It's going out on both UHF and VHP.

Primary code, under a secondary scramble signal which we've sorted out."

"Is it in English or German?" Frost asked, putting on the headphones.

"Both," the radioman replied.

Frost had to wait a moment, but soon the broadcast in question came screeching through the headphones. It was undeniably a woman's voice.

"Daylight . . . daylight. Sunrise has been scheduled. High tide. Ocean storm.

Return. Return. Storm Birds. No lightning. No thunder. No clouds. . ."

Frost listened as the message repeated twice more, and then went into the German translation.

"What's the decode?" he asked the radioman.

The officer had already scribbled out the decoded message. Frost read it over and felt his jaw drop. Suddenly he knew that the long trips in the cramped, smelly Orion had proved worthwhile.

"We've got to get this to the New Jersey at once, he said.

256

The roads leading to the out skirts of Bundeswehr Four were so clogged with Fourth Reich military equipment that dozens of vehicle radiators were bursting like small bombs, due to engine overheating.

Five divisions of the Fourth Reich's best troops had the small city surrounded, nearly fifty thousand heavily armed soldiers in all. An infantry division from New Chicago had sealed off the city from the north, with another from the Illinois-based Bundeswehr Five taking up positions to the west. A reinforced mechanized division of the Amerikafuhrer's own personal NS Guards had established a line ten miles to the east of the city, and another Fuhrerstadt division was stationed just to the south of them.

It would be the Bundeswehr Four Home Garrison who would spearhead the operation. They were presently jammed up on the Victory Road fifteen miles due south of the city.

That the impending action had been planned and implemented so quickly was a tribute to the famous Fourth Reich efficiency, or so it seemed. Their propensity for creating monstrous traffic jams notwithstanding, the gathering of so many forces on such short notice had convinced the NS commanders that they'd pulled off some kind of logistical miracle, like corraling hundreds of actors for a grand Wagnerian epic performance on just two days notice. In doing so, the stage was now set for the annihilation of the fledgling United Americans, and, it was hoped, an end to their brief but stinging resurgence.

The element of surprise was essential to the upcoming NS operation so no aerial reconnaissance had been done of the target city. As it turned out, none was really needed. The NS Signals Intelligence units had been monitoring radio traffic coming from Bundeswehr Four since the United American occupation began. Much of it involved calls back and forth to stations just over the border into Free Canada and contained mundane military matters such as ammunition stockpiling, fuel reserves, and food distribution. The NS had happily learned from these radio transmissions that much of the UA's large helicopter force was inoperable due to lack of fuel and parts. It was also apparent that an agreement to supply these much needed items via an arms dealer in Nova Scotia had fallen through, further isolating the occupying force.

The most recent intercepts were even more advantageous to the Fourth Reich.