Black Sun Reich Part 6

"Ja, only worse. It's not that those areas are dead. It's what is living there. Or more accurately arising there. Creatures out of nightmares, long thought blessedly extinct from the world. New monsters. Changed things. Worse than your chupacabras."

Deitel kept craning his neck about, nervous and unused to speaking without fear. He kept his voice low.

"For several years Reich engineers have been working with the surviving remnant of Imperial Russia to reclaim the d.a.m.ned Lands for eventual rehabilitation and resettlement. They've barely made a dent, and never venture farther than a kilometer into the interior. In their work at the edges, our scientists found that the diseases and poisons wrought by the war-the biological and chemical weapons-didn't just kill. All of those toxins and bacteria and all of the carnage of the war seem to have given rise to . . . things . . . creatures . . . in some cases what may have been men . . . whose bodies and minds had been twisted and-is there an English for it? Morphed?

"Mutated?"

"Ja. Into creatures beyond our darkest imaginings."

Rucker snorted. "Which is saying something, considering it's German's imagining."

Deitel paused and scowled.

"What? Brothers Grimm is some spooky stuff, Doctor."

"Ach. Meanwhile, the inner circle of the SS, the Black Sun, has been sending agents around the globe for years, searching for everything from Atlantis-"

"They're looking in the wrong place on that one . . ."

"-from Atlantis to mythical and supernatural artifacts that they could turn into weapons," Deitel said. "The creatures recovered from the d.a.m.ned Lands provided SS scientists insight into how to create other monster men that they could use as soldiers. The nachtmenn was their most successful experiment so far. But they are transgenic creatures. Project Gefallener is something else entirely."

"Nachtmenn. Ugh. I've seen one at a distance at the French eastern frontier. Painful to look at. Unnaturalness to them," Rucker said.

Deitel, in guarded tones, explained how some new artifact or toxin-something, the details were either unknown or not being shared at any level-had been brought back from the Balkans and applied to the transgenic experiments.

Canaris, Deitel explained, was now convinced that Black Sun and SS scientists were trying to create an entire army of mindlessly loyal warriors. They wanted to make creatures that could not be stopped and could not be reasoned with. Killers immune to mercy; unholy things that would carry Hitler and Himmler's vision to all corners of the earth.

Only, Canaris surmised, the n.a.z.i masters were dealing with powers they could not control.

Rucker turned up the collar of his leather jacket despite the mild May evening weather. His rough edges reflected his West Texas ranch upbringing, which often served as a useful camouflage for a keen mind oriented toward engineering and science. Despite what the dime novels and movies would have people think, flying was less about reflex and instinct and more about precision and mathematics. So Rucker wasn't given to superst.i.tious nonsense. He liked things he could quantify.

On the other hand, he'd been around the block, as the flappers say. Since the war, he'd been to more remote corners than many geographers knew even existed, and he'd seen acres of strange. He knew there were things in this world that science couldn't explain. He'd seen it with his own eyes in Asia and Africa and right here at home.

And he knew from other experiences that the n.a.z.i occultists and their counterparts in the Union States wanted to tap those eldritch forces, whatever they were.

But was any of it true? Rucker didn't like to think of himself as holding a grudge, but he didn't trust Germans to this day. They were either at your feet or at your throat.

But the story just played a little too fantastic for him, and also, he just didn't want to care either way because it was none of his business in the first place. Lysander was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for continuing to pull him into these kinds of things.

"So this is the story you may full well have thrown your life in the Fatherland away for? Why?" Rucker asked.

Deitel hadn't put it into words. It was just something he knew.

"Herr Kapitan, I love my nation. I believe in Deustchland uber alles. In my veins flows the blood of Prussian n.o.bility. But I am not a n.a.z.i. I am a doctor. I didn't choose for the n.a.z.is to come to power in the Fatherland. And as proud as I am of my lineage, I didn't choose to be a highborn son of Prussia. But I did choose to take an oath to save lives and do no harm. If the price of saving lives is that I never again see my beloved country, then I will pay it."

Rucker c.o.c.ked his head at the doctor as they walked.

"Is there a princess awakened by a kiss in your backstory?"

Ach. The Texan was infuriating. But there was no point protesting.

Deitel realized there was almost no one around.

"How much farther to this destination?" he asked.

"Two more blocks. Tell me something, Deiter-"

"Deitel. Dr. Kurt von Deitel."

"-is this really worth your life? I mean, do you realize that this isn't just some German version of whatever you call a fraternity prank?"

Deitel noticed from the corner of his eye that Rucker had casually unsnapped the strap to his holster. He felt the blood drain from his face and a coppery taste in his mouth, but he kept walking.

"Because it would be a shame to get killed without even being aware of how real this all is," Rucker said. "Something like this, you could end up corpsefied and you wouldn't even see it coming."

They kept walking, but now they were staring right into one another's eyes. Deitel didn't even realize he was holding his breath, wondering at each step when-and why-Rucker was about to shoot him down right here on this dark side street. But he could see in Rucker's cold, hardened expression that someone was about to die.

Then, somehow, Rucker's face showed a change of expression so slight he couldn't even describe it, but that told him not to turn around, to keep walking like everything was normal.

There was a clicking behind them. He saw a blur, heard steel sliding on leather while Rucker yelled "Down!" and then a gunshot went off next to his right ear. Then another. He saw a man in a black suit and fedora fall to the ground twenty feet behind them. A machine pistol clattered to the ground next to the body.

Rucker picked Deitel off the sidewalk by the neck of his coat.

"Run!"

A car screeched to a halt at the curb and four men jumped out, chasing the pilot and the doctor. At a glance over his shoulder Deitel saw black suits, broken noses, and heavy brows.

"Rucker, they found me."

"Run, Deitel! Stay low. They're not trying to kill us. Me, maybe, but not you. They'll want you alive."

That was worse than being shot in the back.

The two turned a corner and ran smack into another pair of SD men.

Deitel froze, while Rucker dove into the two men without a moment's hesitation, swinging and brawling like a boxer. He'd knocked one down and had the other by the collar but dropped his pistol. In no time the four pursuing goons caught up. They took Rucker by sheer force of numbers. Not wanting to draw even more attention, the SD men holstered their weapons and went to work with their fists. They worked Rucker over like lumberjacks swinging at a stubborn redwood. But Rucker kept getting back up.

Deitel realized he was seeing something, no, two things, he hadn't before-someone standing up to German agents, and someone standing up for him.

The moment was ruined when someone stuck a suppressed Walther 9mm pistol in his face. Deitel lowered his head.

That's why he didn't see the four newcomers until he heard one of them shout, "Hey, Fritzie" as they fell on the SD men. A full-on alley brawl erupted. The Germans weren't accustomed to men who fought back and fought back well. The flurry of fists didn't last long; the SD withdrew. As they retreated, the last SD man guarding Deitel turned his pistol at Rucker, who was struggling mightily to get to his feet with only mediocre success.

Everything slowed to a crawl.

Deitel saw a body throw itself in front of the pistol and heard its owner's voice holler "Nein!" It was curiously like his voice. Then it came to him: it was his voice. He heard the suppressed German's Walther PPK's pop, then heard a deeper explosion like a cannon, followed by several more. The SD man's chest seemed to cave in.

Deitel turned to see three of the newcomers and Rucker extending smoking pistols in the direction where the SD man lay, now well and truly ventilated.

"d.a.m.n, Kid, you walloped the h.e.l.l out of that kraut," Rucker said to one of the men with him when the roar of the shots died. It was a boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen.

"Figured four to one wasn't really fair for an old man like you," Kid Boyington replied.

Another of the newcomers grabbed Deitel's shoulder roughly and glared.

"So this kraut is with you, Fox?" the man asked Rucker. To Deitel, he sneered, "That it, Hans? You with Fox?"

Rucker pulled the man away from Deitel roughly.

"Yeah, Lindy, he's with me. Mind your manners," Rucker said. "Oh, and his name is Kurt. Dr. Kurt von Deitel. Don't forget it."

Rucker put a hand on Deitel's shoulder and smiled through the blood dripping from his nose. "Thanks, Doc. Taking a bullet like that. Didn't think you had the heuvos."

Deitel smiled back.

Wait. What?

He looked down at his body and noticed the hole in his suit jacket just below the breast pocket. Gott! I've been shot! He must have been in shock since he didn't feel it yet. Frantically he tore off his jacket, but there was no blood on his white shirt.

"Clean miss," Rucker said, "but not for lack of you trying to catch the thing."

Deitel felt his legs go and he sat straight down on the cool sidewalk. Now the adrenaline came, way too late.

"You know," Rucker finally said, picking up his cowboy hat from the ground and easing it back on his head, "Here I thought you were just some anemic little fancy boy from the dandy side of Germany."

"Um, thank you?" Deitel said, still processing what had just happened.

"But you got some big bra.s.s ones clanging down there, don't you?" Rucker said, yanking Deitel to his feet. "C'mon. First round at Dutchy's is on me."

Deitel was still shaking from the adrenaline rush, staring off into the distance. He got his bearings and stood.

"Will . . . will there be tacos?"

CHAPTER FIVE.

Dutchy's Bra.s.s Monkey Austin Texas Freehold The beer was cold, the bluegra.s.s trio was loud, and the logs in the brick oven were flaming. The sign outside read DUTCHY'S BRa.s.s MONKEY, and there was in fact a bra.s.s monkey as the centerpiece of the bar.

There was also a real monkey. It smoked cigarettes.

A sign above the door said FLIARS ONLY, but they'd let Deitel in, and he was still wondering about the spelling. The walls of Dutchy's tavern told the whole history of heavier-than-air aviation in pictures, old advertis.e.m.e.nts, and actual aeroplane parts. It ran from Glenn Curtiss's first powered flight in 1901 to the transoceanic pa.s.senger planes of today. The ceiling fans were made from the early wooden propellers that were used until 1917. There was no place for lighter-than-air memorabilia. Most notably absent in the bar was anything relating to the history of airships, which rose to primacy in the late 1800s and even today were the dominant form of air transport for both people and goods.

Fliers weren't fond of airship men and vice versa.

A wing from a 1910 civilian biplane-all wood frame and canvas-decorated the wall above the water closets. The tabletops were made from pieces of high-test aluminum composites salvaged from more modern planes. The alloy was the Brazilian discovery that changed airplane design and construction fundamentally, especially in the closing days of the Great War.

Pictures of individual pioneers in flight engineering and flight itself were cast about on the walls. Here Curtiss. There the Wright Brothers. On a shelf apropos of nothing was an old hand crank from the dawn of the biplane era. Of course, there were pictures of aerial squadrons from the wartime Texas Volunteer Group, set amid rather raucous graffiti that served as a memorial to downed fliers.

Deitel found two pictures of the 315th Mighty Fireflies. In the first there were ten men-including Rucker-posed in front of a Curtiss Hornet biplane. It was dated August 1917. The second showed eleven men posed in front of a Curtiss Dragonfly, one of the first combat monoplanes. It was dated February 1918. Only five of the men from the first picture were in the second; the survivors looked like they'd aged ten years.

Centered over the bar was an engraving on a stone slab. Even Deitel recognized it-the commandments for aerial combat as written by the very first man to master aerial combat, German ace Oswald Boelcke.

DICTA BOELCKE.

1. Try to secure advantages before attacking. If possible keep the sun behind you.

2. Always carry through an attack when you started it.

3. Fire only at close range and only when your opponent is properly in your sights.

4. Always keep your eye on your opponent and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.

5. In any form of attack it is essential to a.s.sail your opponent from behind.

6. If your opponent dives on you, do not try to evade his onslaught but fly to meet him.

7. When over the enemy's line, never forget your own line of retreat.

Deitel felt a little mauled and manhandled by all the hearty backslaps and the drinks they kept pushing into his hand. He'd asked for schnapps and got Tennessee whiskey. He'd asked for a lager and got Tennessee whiskey. The four men who'd come to his and Rucker's rescue in the alley were all telling loud stories with bold and boisterous laughs. They all seemed to welcome him in their rough way-except the one they called Lindy, who still glared at him whenever their eyes met.

Claire Chennault was the oldest of the group, probably in his mid-thirties, so they all called him Pappy. All but the youngest of this group, the fifteen-year-old mascot they called Kid Boyington, had served together in France-Jim Doolittle, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Lindy. They wore leather flight jackets over their civilian clothes, with patches that proclaimed 3RD TEXAS VOLUNTEER AIR GROUP-MIGHTY FIREFLIES.

Chennault's booming voice cut right through the noise of the bar and the band's volume.

". . . when from nowhere this red Fokker triplane buzzes the aerodrome-we don't know what happened to the spotters. Anyhow, it drops Rucker's boots and cap. We all figured the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was the one what shot the Fox down," he said, clapping Rucker on the shoulder. "So Lindy here, who just arrived over from Dallas, gets on the thirty-caliber machine gun, and as the kraut flew back over to dip his wings, he opened up on the Fokker, smoking him.

"Which wasn't kosher," Chennault added for Deitel and Boyington's benefit. "But he was seventeen and a greenhorn.

"We're all standing around shocked at what just happened. Captain Blackadder, our Royal Air Corps liaison, is cursing a blue streak at Lindy. And then when we hear this voice from overhead yelling, 'Don't shoot me, you miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!' we look up and there's Rucker floating down, a bottle of the Baron's cognac in one hand, and the Baron's Dachshund cradled in the other. In his socks and not much else."

The whole table roared even though it was apparent they'd heard the story dozens of times.

"He taken Baron Richtofen's favorite plane, his best hooch, and his dog," Chennault said. They were all laughing so hard they were banging the table and wiping tears.

After another round of drinks and stories and, eventually, when the other fliers cleared off, Deitel finally had a chance to ask what the h.e.l.l had happened in the alley.

"It was a Gestapo bag team," Rucker explained. "They would have gunned me down and taken you away. It's pretty clear now-whatever is going on with the information you brought us, the Gestapo and the SD know something. Just not sure what or how much."

The prospect was frightening, but weighed against duty, was a small matter.

"How does an armed SD team get into Texas?" Deitel asked.

"Probably by way of the Union States. Brought in by members of the Texas Bundists," Rucker said.