“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Rangsdorf saluted the General.
Wayne sped the jeep along and turned south in a path opposite the main entrance of the base. The roads of Oberkoblenz were empty.
“Bingo,” Wayne said as he saw a large, grassy airfield with different types and sizes of airplanes parked on it. He swerved the vehicle sharply to the left, onto the airfield, and then drove it up beside a single-engine, two-seated airplane. Wayne climbed out of the jeep and into the plane’s open-air cockpit. Thirty-eight yards away was an equipment shed. “Go over there and see if you can find two parachutes,” he persuaded Linda.
“Parachutes?”
“I went flying in a small plane like this with a friend once. I think I can fly it, but I’m not sure about landing it.”
“Glad to hear it,” Linda said sarcastically.
“Hurry up! Let’s go,” Wayne urged.
“I’m going, I’m going.” Linda ran to the equipment shed.
“Let me see,” Wayne thought aloud as he viewed the cockpit’s instrument panel, “all I have to do is what I saw Joey do when he took me flying with him.” He pushed a button on the control panel. Nothing happened. “Shit!” He tried flicking a switch up on the instrument board. The propeller commenced spinning as the aircraft’s engine came to life. “Alright,” Wayne said with relief.
Carrying a parachute in each hand, Linda ran back to the airplane, “I found them.” She tossed them into the cockpit and climbed aboard and sat next to Wayne.
Wayne pushed a lever down. The propeller spun faster as the plane’s engine worked at its full capacity.
A young Nazi private approached the plane, “Where is your authorization?”
Linda stuck a gun in the private’s face, “It’s right here.” He raised his hands and backed away slowly.
The small plane started to taxi away from the other parked aircraft and towards an open area of field.
A caravan of five military transport vehicles, holding a squadron of elite Waffen-SS soldiers, led by SS Sergeant Rangsdorf, screeched up to the naive private.
Rangsdorf, sitting in the lead automobile, inquired, “Has anybody entered this area within the last ten minutes?”
“Two people,” the private nervously answered.
Rangsdorf’s right eyebrow twitched, which was its habit when he became agitated. He asked, in a strangely subdued manner, “What did they look like?”
“They were young, sir,” the private, avoiding eye contact with the SS Sergeant, said. “A big man and a woman of average height with dark hair, sir.”
“You idiot!” Rangsdorf shouted. He raised his favorite pistol, one his grandfather had passed along to him, and fired it. The young man dropped to the ground, dead.
The single engine flying machine approached takeoff speed.
“I should tell you,” Linda said, “I’ve never been in one of these things before.”
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing to flying,” Wayne assured her. “It’s safer than being in a car.” He pulled the cockpit flight wheel towards him.
The airplane, with its refugees, lifted off right above the heads of the seasoned Sergeant and his Waffen-SS troops.
“You can fly this thing, right Wayne?” Linda tensely asked as the plane elevated.
Wayne glanced at the flyer’s compass, without paying attention to the words his passenger had spoken, “Just have to fly east to the Atlantic, then head south.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Wayne,” Linda said with annoyance. “You can fly this thing, right?”
“Well, we’re up in the air, aren’t we? It is not going to do you or me any good if you work yourself into a tizzy about flying. Now, sit back and enjoy the view.”
Fifteen minutes later, Waffen-SS soliders loaded onto a large F-343. SS Sergeant Rangsdorf was the last one to board. The pilot fired up the aircraft’s two sturdy engines.
With the last of the sun setting on the horizon, the fugitives were soaring over a glimmer of lights. “Almost there, almost there,” Wayne said pepping himself up. He looked out of the airplane and at the terrain that he glided so high above. “Want to know something, everyone down there?” he raised his voice. “Soon you’ll be yuppies driving BMWs and Mercedes, instead of Nazis.” He paused. “Why doesn’t that sound right?”
Linda was quickly turning green in the face. “Wayne, can you please keep it steady?” she asked. “I’m getting really nauseous.”
“She’s as steady as I can make her. It shouldn’t be much longer.”
The F-343 neared the coastline of the ocean. Next to the pilot, Sergeant Rangsdorf became fidgety, “Can’t we go any faster? We should have overtaken them by now.”
“I’m flying her as fast as I can, sir. This airplane was not built for speed. I think we should radio for backup.”
Rangsdorf fixed his iron gaze upon the pilot and said, “Are you suggesting that I am not able to handle the situation myself, Corporal?”
“No, sir,” the pilot bit his tongue.
A bleep sounded from the airplane’s radar tracking system and a small red dot appeared on its screen.
“I think we’ve got them, sir,” the pilot stated.
The Sergeant, envisioning a promotion as a reward for his capture of the fugitives, nodded his head, “Good. Very good.”
Nestled beneath the compact, piston powered plane, the bright lights of New Berlin City shone in the distance.
“New York, I’m coming home,” Wayne joyfully said. “I think I can see Times Square from here, or what used to be Times Square. Dick Clark would drop a big apple from there every New Year’s Eve to ring in the New Year. The streets would be lined with loads of people, not to mention the bums, pimps, hookers, and peep shows. That’s New York, not New fuckin’ Berlin.”
Mocking a German accent, he added, “They probably call it the Big Weiner schnitzel now.”
Linda slung her head over the side of the plane, vomited the small amount in her stomach, and she went pale.
“Are you okay, Linda?” Wayne asked.
“I am never getting in an airplane again as long as I live,” she said firmly.
Wayne heard the roar of the F-343’s double engines, not far off in the clear sky. “Damn! Don’t these guys ever give up?” he grumbled. Wayne slipped on a parachute and told his partner, “Put on your parachute.”
“You mean right now?”
“Right now. Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Just in case.”
The pilot of the F-343 glimpsed at his radar-tracking screen. He informed his superior, “Sir, we are almost on them.”
“Almost is not good enough,” Rangsdorf snapped. “I want to be on their asses.” The large F-343 nosedived.
The SS Sergeant ordered his gunner, “Fire on them.”
Bullets flew in the direction of the small plane. “Duck down,” Wayne said. He pushed in his flight wheel, causing the airplanes to swiftly fall away from its nemesis.
“Keep on them,” Rangsdorf barked.
From his position in his cockpit, Wayne was able to see the F-343’s gunner, with machine gun in place, preparing to fire on him. “Hold on!” Wayne shouted above the noise of the engine.
“What are you going to–”
Wayne pulled his flight control wheel all the way out, making the plane loop in the sky.
“Whoa, shit!” Linda exclaimed.
The Nazi gunner fired a hail of bullets at Wayne’s small plane, piercing the window of the aircraft and nailing Wayne in the shoulder.
“OW!” Wayne screamed and the plane tipped downward. Struggling, he leveled out the plane. Fresh blood
