Sky Ghost

by Maloney, Mack;

  First of all, its wing was battered, its fabric torn and rippling mightily in the wind. And its fuselage looked as if it had taken several broadsides from an ack-ack gun at close range. There were giant gaping holes up and down the length of it. Wires were dangling, fuel lines were drooping. It seemed like every critical control link had been severed long ago. Yet the airplane was still flying.

  But it was the view inside the cockpit that Hunter found most disturbing, frightening even. Lancaster and Moon were there, staring blankly back out at him. Not moving, not blinking, and from all evidence, not really flying the airplane. They were just staring out at him, the glow from their instrument panel lighting their faces in a very eerie way.

  Hunter felt a shudder go through him, more violent than the flak waves that were still throwing his little flying bike all over the sky. There was something else very strange here. Both Lancaster and Moon, looking out at him with their unflinching gaze, appeared to be dripping wet.

  Suddenly the sounds of the battle came back to him. More flak was exploding to his right; shot too high and too fast, it went whizzing right by him. But now the Lysander was moving ahead of him. They wanted him to follow them, so he did. Perhaps they knew a place where he could set down…

  But then the airplane began climbing, and as it went up Hunter went up too. He passed through 400 feet, 450, 500…Hunter couldn’t believe his failing FlyBike had enough gumption left to go this high this fast, but it did. Maybe the draft behind the Lysander was such that it was helping the FlyBike along, Hunter didn’t know.

  All that was apparent was, he was getting beyond the range of the huge guns and gunfire from the woods.

  Then up ahead, Hunter saw a very odd earth formation. Whether it was a result of the flood or whether it had been out here in the Ruhr Valley for centuries, they were coming to a mountain that had a strange flattened-off top.

  The closer he got to it, the more it seemed to Hunter like a giant had taken a knife and simply lopped off the mountain’s peak, leaving it unnaturally smooth and level.

  The Lysander made right for the mountain and Hunter felt the FlyBike just go along and follow.

  He actually had to climb to land so he pushed the throttle forward and yanked back on the handle bars and up he went again, one last ride in the elevator, up the side of the strange mountain. He reached the plateau, kicked the engine, leaned heavy on the handlebars and boom! he was down.

  The FlyBike nearly tipped over on contact with solid ground, but Hunter was not displeased. There was no such thing as a bad landing, especially if one’s mode of transport was as shot-up as his was. He simply fell off the bike, rolled once, and then slowly got to his feet.

  Somehow all six bombs were still hanging on the bike. What would have happened if one had fallen—or had gotten hit by a stray flak shell? Hunter shivered again. He really didn’t want to think about what a dangerous thing he’d just done.

  The flattened mountain was a very strange place, too. It was not a result of the flood—this place had been here for years. Hunter could tell by the hardness of the ground and the proliferation of fully grown pine trees anchoring its northern face. It was a forest above the forest, with sheer cliffs protecting it on all sides.

  Now he heard the Lysander again and looked up and saw the airplane circle once overhead and then come in for a landing. Hunter started waving his hands madly—he wanted the pilots to see where he was. But they came in at the other end of the flattened-out peak, forcing Hunter to run about 300 yards over to them.

  The plane was down and taxiing by the time Hunter reached their landing spot, still waving his arms and screaming like a madman. The Lysander pivoted perfectly on its left wheel, and as Hunter approached he saw the rear access door swing open. The plane’s engine never shut off and it was clear that the pilots simply wanted him to jump on board and leave with them immediately.

  But Hunter couldn’t do that. He couldn’t leave the six H-bombs up here. As protected as it was, it would been a simple matter for a German rotorcraft to fly up here and find the cache. And he wasn’t going to let that happen, not after what he’d just gone through to swipe them from the Germans in the first place.

  But there was another reason he stopped short of climbing aboard—even just to speak quickly with the pilots. It was the plane itself. When it first came up beside him in the midst of the ack-ack storm, it had looked to be very badly damaged. Now, seeing it up close, Hunter realized what an understatement that had been.

  There were such gaping holes in the fuselage and wings, Hunter couldn’t see how it was possible the airplane could fly. There simply wasn’t enough wing surface for it to stay airborne. Plus the holes in the skin had severed all of the critical steering controls, as well as the fuel lines and hydraulics. All this hit Hunter like a kick in the stomach and he skidded to a stop just a few feet short of the plane’s open door.

  Don’t get onboard, something was telling him. He chose to take the advice.

  So he ran to the front of the plane and began waving madly up at Lancaster. Finally the pilot saw him and dreamily pointed him out to Moon.

  Now both men were looking down at him. Not waving, not shouting, just staring at him.

  Hunter cupped his hands and started screaming: “I’ve got some extremely powerful ordnance I swiped from the Huns! You need to get word back to my ship that we need a heavy lifter but here as quick as possible. OK? Got that?”

  Lancaster and Moon made no response. Could they hear him? Hunter didn’t know. So he yelled it all over again to them.

  This time, after a few seconds, the two pilots just kind of shrugged, smiled, waved, and nodded their heads.

  Then Lancaster must have given the plane full throttle because it started rolling again. Hunter watched as it began kicking up dirt and dust and smoke. It went into a short takeoff roll and quickly lifted off.

  And that was it. There was no wiggle of the wings, no flashing of the navigation lights.

  The shot-up airplane simply continued to climb, higher and higher, until it disappeared into starry night sky.

  Chapter 34

  HUNTER SPENT THE REST of the night making plans.

  There was a job for him to do here, in this strange but not so strange place. It involved more than just his trying to win this screwy war, or prevent a German invasion of the United States, or even keeping his own sanity intact.

  This job, his life’s mission, no matter which universe he found himself in, was to track down and stamp out the person who had caused so much suffering and human misery back in his old world that he made the most notorious dictators of history look like puppy dogs. And now, that embodiment of Evil itself was here, in this world, a place that needed no more suffering than the one he just left.

  Again, in a way Hunter felt responsible for this human Satan being here in the first place. He had forced him to go on that long ride up toward the comet with him, knowing that they’d all probably be blown to smithereens and thus, at least, the world would be spared two catastrophes, one natural, the other fairly supernatural.

  But how was Hunter to know that they would all fall through a black hole, or a rip in the fabric of time, or whatever the hell their means of entry to this place had been? How could he be expected to know the most hidden, most secret quirks of the universe?

  Still, the facts were these: This piece of human vermin was here, and Hunter’s pledge to find him and kill him back in his old world had made the jump to this place with him as well.

  So he planned, and stayed huddled with the six H-bombs, and waited for the day to come.

  And when it did, the first sound he heard was that of eight engines arguing with each other. The racket was on the wind, blowing across the top of the flattened-out mountain, and Hunter might not have heard such a wonderful sound in either of his lifetimes.

  It was the unmistakable screech of a Beater, the eight-rotored monster that passed for an ultraheavy lift helicopter in this world. He knew the Germans did
not fly these machines—they certainly would have built them better than this. That could only mean one thing; his message had somehow gotten through. And his plan, his new plan, was one step closer to fulfillment at last.

  The only surprise was that there were actually two Beaters coming for him. This was even better for him. He could now fulfill his quest on his own, without endangering anyone else.

  He heard them and then he saw them. The pair of gangling monsters, descending out of the cloudy morning sky, above the faint roar of American bombers heading deep into Germany to attack more targets within the Reich once again.

  Hunter was out in the middle of the flattop, waving his arms like a crazy man as the first octocopter set down.

  The doors on this one opened quickly and 10 heavily armed soldiers poured out. Their weapons up, ready for anything, they were his friends, the squad of young Air Guards from the Circle bases. He recognized them right away. They, in turn, looked at him like they were seeing someone who’d risen from the grave.

  Behind them, another familiar face came off the Beater. It was Payne, looking very smart in a combat uniform and actually carrying a weapon, a first for the bookish officer. He and Hunter greeted each other warmly. Like everyone else, Payne thought Hunter had died a long time ago.

  He quickly put the Air Guards to work, hauling the H-bombs onto the first Beater. Hunter hastily told Payne how he’d acquired the weapons and where, and briefed him on what he’d seen during his days in the flood-soaked valley. Payne seemed rather startled by the appearance of the H-bombs though, as were the Air Guards.

  One little bomb that could blow up an entire city? What kind of devilish weapon was that?

  Hunter assured Payne he would explain it all later, that the most important thing now was to get the bombs out of Germany—but still, none of it seemed to be sinking in.

  “Didn’t Lancaster and Moon brief you on this?” he asked Payne.

  Payne’s face nearly went white. “Who? Brief us about what?”

  Now it was Hunter’s turn to be stumped. “Isn’t that why you came here?” he asked Payne. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  Payne just shook his head.

  “We’ve been out here every day since you disappeared, looking for you,” the officer told him. “When you contacted the bombers the other night, we intensified our search. We went up and down this valley—but it seems no matter where we searched, you were always in another part of it.”

  Hunter was very confused right now, and something in his head was telling him, just forget it, don’t think about it, it will work itself out.

  But he just couldn’t let it go that quickly.

  “Are you saying it was just luck that you spotted me down here?” he asked. “I mean, I must be a hundred miles away from where I was the night I talked to the bomber.”

  “Yes, luck is what you’d call it, I guess,” Payne replied, as confused as he. “I can’t think of another word to describe it.”

  Now Hunter was speechless; not quite sure what was happening here. But then his attention was directed to the second Beater, just setting down nearby.

  “You’ve got a very special guy out here looking for you as well,” Payne told him. “Shocked the hell out of me when he said he wanted to come along. I figured he’d be too busy to spend hours doing search patterns, but he insisted.”

  The ramp to the second Beater was lowered.

  “Who the hell you talking about?” Hunter asked Payne.

  “Well, from what I can understand, he’s the guy who’s been pulling your strings since you arrived in Iceland, if not before.”

  With that, Hunter watched as a figure emerged from the second Beater. He was bent over, with gray hair, and a pipe stuck permanently between his teeth. He moved like a very old man—because he was a very old man. It was Captain Pegg.

  “Him?” Hunter exclaimed.

  But Payne shook his head. “No, not him,” he said. “I mean the OSS guy. The top spy in the country. Him…”

  Hunter looked up to see another man standing in the doorway of the chopper.

  “He’s only known by the code name Agent Y,” Payne told Hunter, but the Wingman wasn’t listening. He was staring at this guy and the guy was staring right back at him, and in a flash Hunter recognized him. In fact, he’d been good friends with him—not in this world, but in the one before.

  He walked over the man just as he was coming down the ramp. They just stared at each other for the longest time. The man obviously felt some strong connection to Hunter too—but he just didn’t know why.

  Hunter, on the other hand, knew exactly why.

  This OSS man. This mysterious agent Y. There was no mistaking it this time. Hunter definitely knew him back in the other world.

  His name was Stan Yastrewski.

  His friends called him “Yaz.”

  “How you doing, Yaz?” Hunter asked him.

  The OSS man looked absolutely astonished and confused at the same time.

  “How could you possibly know my name?” he asked Hunter.

  But Hunter certainly didn’t have enough time to explain it all to him now—if in fact there was anything to explain.

  “Let’s just say it was more than a lucky guess,” Hunter finally told him.

  “Yes, much more,” Y told him. “I was there that first day. I saw you being questioned. I saw you take off to attack those subs. From that day on I was certain that we knew each other before—but I couldn’t remember how or when.”

  “Well, set aside a few days when this is all done and maybe we’ll be able to figure it out,” Hunter replied. “But the important thing now is for you get these bombs back to our guys—and out of Germany.”

  Agent Y seemed to accept this, and told the crew of his Beater to help the Air Guards in securing the six bombs.

  “I think the important thing is that we all get the hell out of here and back to the ships,” the OSS man said. “The Germans will certainly spot us down here, out in the open like this.”

  Hunter took a deep breath. Pegg and Payne had joined them by now.

  “Well, there’s a slight problem with that,” Hunter said.

  “What is that?” Payne asked him.

  “I can’t go back,” he told them. “Not yet. There’s something else I’ve got to do.”

  “Got to do?” Pegg mimicked him. “You’ve been out here for seven days man. The Huns would love to kill you, and all of America thinks your dead. You’ve got to get back right now.”

  Payne and Agent Y were nodding in absolute approval.

  But Hunter was just shaking his head no.

  “I need this Beater,” he said. “And about four hours. I’ll meet you back at the ships then.”

  The three men all looked at him like he was crazy, which in reality, he was, due to his near drowning three days before.

  Payne especially began to protest—but then Agent Y just held up his hand.

  “No,” he said. “Let him go. He knows what he’s doing.”

  Hunter shook hands with them, and then climbed up the steep ramp to the Beater. He took a look at its eight rotors and its very ugly shape and stopped for a moment. He had to fly this thing a long long way.

  “I hope I do anyway,” he whispered to himself.

  Chapter 35

  THE TRIP EAST WAS one of dodging American firebombs and staying low enough so as not to attract the attention of any German fighters.

  Flying the Beater was probably the worst experience Hunter had endured in this strange world. The thing was an unforgiving beast, not appreciative of his infallible piloting skills, and always just one nut and bolt away from going down in a horrible crash.

  But it carried him to where he wanted to go. It took more than two hours, and he’d had to dodge smoke, bad weather and the occasional flak burst to do it. But finally Hunter arrived at his destination.

  He landed the Beater not far from what used to be the Berlin Military Airport.

  Hit particularly hard by
American firebombers, the immense airfield was now littered with the remains of the German Home Air Defense Force. More than 200 fighters of all types lay charred or burning up and down the melted runways. The place had been abandoned days ago. With incendiary bombs raining down on it endlessly for nearly a month, the nonstop conflagration had caused the people who used to work here to flee.

  Hunter left the Beater and began walking. The streets leading into the center of the city were empty as well. Blocks upon blocks of architectural oddities, opera houses, museums, and sex bars. Murals of fake heroic war scenes, painted like advertisements, next to neon signs hailing the best little whorehouse in Germany. All of them burned or burning.

  This place was even stranger on the ground, Hunter thought.

  He walked the streets quickly, seeing everything, looking everywhere. His huge double-barrel .45 pistol was loaded and ready. But there was no one to shoot at. The burning city was deserted, too. Except for one person, Hunter believed. That’s why he was here.

  There was still no doubt in his mind that Viktor had been the impetus behind this latest German attempt to conquer the world. In this strange and different place, Viktor’s brand of evil was still all-powerful. He’d almost accomplished here what he’d almost accomplished back where he and Hunter first came from.

  How ironic then that Hunter would have to cross over into an entirely different universe to finally catch him.

  Or so he thought.

  He reached the center of town, the grand plaza of the New Reichstag. It was enormous, of course—five times the size of the version Hunter had seen in photos from his version of World War II. All Roman columns and white cement, there was a huge Iron Cross centerstage in the roof. The encrustation of steel and cement was pockmarked and scored from all the firebombing, but was rigidly in place nevertheless.

  Hunter studied the plaza from the cover of a nearby building’s front door. It too was completely deserted. A few huge Supertanks sat empty in the square, tracks broken, engines charred and ruined. A crashed Focke-Wulf bomber was nearby too. It looked small in the vast plaza, almost like a broken child’s toy.