had splattered like paint onto the flight wheel and covered Wayne’s shirt.
“Are you okay?” Linda peered out the window, trying to get a read on the other plane.
“They got my shoulder,” Wayne said, regaining his orientation after the aerial acrobatic he had just performed. “And no, it’s not a flesh wound this time. I feel something lodged in there.”
“Let me take a look,” Linda offered.
“Can’t worry ‘bout it now,” Wayne retorted. The predatory aircraft buzzed along at only 200 meters away just off to his left. “Can you keep an eye on them?
Linda replied, “I have been but I think I’m going to puke again. Next time, I’ll stick with a car.”
Sergeant Rangsdorf had his face pressed up against the front window. “Clip him.”
“What?”
“I said,” Rangsdorf maintained his calm, “I want you to clip his plane.”
“But sir, that could be suicide… for us.”
The Sergeant put his hand up to his cap, with its proud SS insignia, straightened it out on his head, and, in his dark tone, said, “Need I remind you of the penalty for failing to obey an officer’s command?”
The pilot didn’t have to think twice.
“No, sir,” he reluctantly said. “Hold on, this might get tricky.”
As the web of lights of New Berlin City glistened a mile below, the Reich F-343 closed in on the propeller plane, flying toward it in a sweeping motion with its big wings tilted at a forty-five degree angle.
Wayne steered his little flyer away from the F-343, but couldn’t shake him.
“What the fuck are they trying to do?” Linda watched in amazement as the F-343 got closer and closer..
“Whatever it is, they are absolutely insane.”
“Can you land?” Linda, her hair ruffled by the wind, anxiously questioned her pilot.
“Not yet. Not in the middle of New York. I’m looking for an field or something. Maybe an interstate.” Wayne again attempted to break loose of the F-343. The horsepower of his weak engine, unfortunately, was no match for it.
A loud screech and a horrific bump shook the small propeller plane. The left wing bent significantly from the impact of the deliberated collision. In an instant, Wayne’s plane, with an out of commission wing, spun from its level position with the Earth’s surface to an off centered seventy degree angle. With its right wing almost lateral to the ground below, it quickly lost altitude as gravity sucked it down.
To keep from falling out of the airplane, Wayne and Linda clutched hard at their seats. “We’ve gotta jump,” Wayne hollered.
Linda glanced down. “Oh god. Oh god. I don’t know if–“
“Yes, you can, damn it! We made it this far. There’s nothing to it. After you jump,” Wayne pointed to her parachute’s rip cord, “pull this cord. Now come on, JUMP!” he pressured. “The plane’s going to crash.”
Linda inhaled a deep breath, “Here goes nothing!” She lept from the cockpit. Wayne immediately followed her.
They plummeted through the atmosphere downward to the polluted planet below. Linda looked around as they fell, mesmerized by the sight.
“Pull your cord,” Wayne screamed at her as loud as he could with the wind rushing by his face. Stunned, Linda yanked on her ripcord and her chute was released. Wayne jerked on his cord, too. They proceeded to gently glide toward the Hudson river. The echoing boom of a small airplane crashing into an office building and bursting into flames rang out.
“Land this aircraft at Karl Goring airport,” Sergeant Rangsdorf, who had seen the refugees’ chutes open, instructed his pilot.
“They think they have nine lives,” he gritted his teeth, “but that will soon change.”
The Doenitz River, named for the Grand Admiral of the Reich Navy during the war and the head of its successful, deadly U-boat campaign, was silent except for fresh, tiny air bubbles that rose to its surface, and the rustle of two rather large pieces of umbrella shaped nylon fabric floating on its water. Two people surfaced, gasping for air.
Wayne spat out a mouthful of brownish liquid. “See new countries, or the countries that you thought you knew, learn new languages, get killed,” he sardonically said. “All you have to do is call Doctor Hoffmann’s time travel services.” Eyeing the murky river that he dog-paddled in, he observed, “Well, this river is just as dirty under Nazi rule.”
“I actually jumped out of an airplane. My first time in an airplane, no less.”
Wayne said, “You did great, Linda. Except you should have pulled your cord quicker.”
Linda ignored him, “We’re sitting ducks here. Let’s head out.”
The two of them struggled out of the water with their chutes. They bundled them up and began to wring the polluted water out of their clothes.
“I need to get to New York Uni-,” Wayne stopped and corrected himself, “the Center of Aryan Studies.”
“This city’s going to be crawling with Nazis after our little escapade,” Linda said. “Trust me — it would be way too risky to go anywhere near there now. I know a place where we can hide out for the night.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Wayne stated solemnly. “I don’t want to wait; I can’t wait. What I have to do is too damn important.”
“Are you sure that Hoffmann lady will be there?”
“I can figure out how to work the time machine, if I have to.”
Linda looked at his wounded right shoulder, swelling badly. “You need to have that taken care of,” she said.
“I’ll worry about it later,” Wayne stubbornly insisted.
“It’d be best to stay off the city streets as much as we can,” Linda gave in and sighed. Her feet started to walk along the riverbank. Wayne trailed close behind her.
They had only made it half a kilometer when the bright illumination of a helicopter searchlight cut through evening sky and enveloped them. “This way,” Linda trotted off, away from the shore.
The fugitives meandered their way into the dim, shadowy city streets. The helicopter kept a close tab on them with its spotlight.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Wayne asked.
“All too well,” Linda replied. They moved deeper into the maze of concrete and steel mountains. The building exteriors were adorned with fat, colorful balloons strung together like precious necklaces of pearls and banners with propagandized slogans, such as the one that read: THE FUTURE-FREEDOM, FATHERLAND, BLOOD AND SOIL! The abundant swastika flags were softly caressed by the limp spring breeze.
Wayne leaned his body against the wall of a brick building. “Hold on,” he said, rubbing his throbbing shoulder and trying to breathe. He was lightheaded from adrenaline crash and exhaustion. “Why all this parade crap?”
“Tomorrow’s some bullshit holiday,” Linda said. “Victory Day. It’s nothing more than the Nazis telling themselves how great they are. We only need to go a bit further.”
The searchlight lit the former slave laborers up like a pair of well-decorated Christmas trees. Sirens could be heard in the distance, headed closer in their direction.
“This way,” Linda said and directed Wayne down a narrow, quiet street lined with small shops. The searchlight persistently followed. The owners had long since gone home to their households; most had closed shop early in preparation for the next day’s big celebrations. Linda stopped and nodded at a manhole. “That’s where we need to go. Create a diversion while I remove the cover.”
“What kind of diversion?” Wayne, still feeling dizzy, asked.
“I don’t know. Run around or something. Then, once I’m in, join me as soon as you can.”
Wayne, thinking fast, moved quickly down the street and flung his left arm in the air to get the attention of the helicopter controller. It worked. The bright spotlight kept on him like a cat on a mouse. He rolled his body under a parked Volkswagen, part of it shrouded, even with the powerful illumination that sliced through the sky, in pitch blackness, thanks to the shade thrown off by a nearby tall building.
Linda, having slid off the heavy manhole slab, lowered her body rapidly into the ground.
“I’m in, Wayne,” she said with just enough volume necessary for her partner to hear.
Wayne crawled out from underneath the vehicle on its dark side. The searchlight stayed fixed on the Beetle. Wayne ran to the manhole. He entered its opening and slid the manhole cover back in its proper place just in time
