Amerika by Paul Lally Read Free Book Online Page A

accomplishment,  and  who  was  I  to  fault  her  for  trying  to  make American food? I mean, she didn’t start the war, she was just a German civilian who’d came over with the troops and was doing her humble job.
    I keyed the microphone. ‘Key West tower, Carter Air four-five is with you, requesting runway and wind.’
    Orlando beamed. ‘Home sweet home at last.’
    At last was right. Twelve hours overdue, but if my calculations were right, Mike Beamer’s lobsters were just arriving at the airport. With luck, Carter Aviation was going to pull a rabbit out of the hat and start earning some money. It had better. Our first loan payment was due in less than two weeks.
    ‘Carter Air four-five, be advised compliance aircraft landing naval air station. Report visual.’
    Two familiar white airplanes, toy-sized at our altitude of two thousand feet, were on final approach for the Key West Naval Air station, two miles off our starboard wing. Key West’s smaller civilian airport lay three miles dead ahead.
    ‘Have visual, will comply.’
    Orlando said, ‘Those Luftwaffe boys are everywhere ain’t they?’
    Like National Airport in Washington, the Key West Naval Station had been designated a ‘Compliance Base of Operations,’ which meant regular patrols of German fighters zoomed in and out, while our U.S. Navy fighters sat  on  the  tarmac,  lashed  to  their  tie  downs  like  so  many  doomed butterflies.
    This particular military ‘no-fly zone’ extended in a two-hundred mile radius to encompass the Florida Straits and Cuba, and up north well past Miami. With the airspace neutralized by fighter planes, Nazi U-Boats completed the compliance choke hold by patrolling the coastal waters.
    If a submarine captain suspected an American vessel of violating the Neutrality Act, he’d send over a boarding party to check its manifest.  If they found anything illegal, a spread of well-aimed torpedoes would send the ship to the bottom. They sank five ships early on, but nothing for the past four months. No surprise there. Torpedoes have a funny way of convincing skippers not to go where they don’t belong.
    I felt a flash of panic. ‘Key West Tower, do you have my flight plan on file? They were supposed to send you an updated version.’
    ‘Roger, we got it a couple of hours ago, and you’re cleared to land runway one eight, wind two-four-zero at ten.’
    The airport came into view and I smiled like seeing an old friend. I had grown up in Key West and had watched it grow from a small, sleepy grass strip to the long, paved runway that it is today.
    ‘Carter Air four-five on final.’
    The crosswind nudged me sideways and I crabbed slightly to keep the runway numbers planted on my windscreen. Any minute now the S-38’s long snout would block my forward vision, an annoyance that grated on my nerves every time I landed or took off.
    ‘I don’t know how ducks do it,’ I said. ‘Flying with their damn bills stuck out there in front.’
    ‘They ways of the Lord are past knowing.’
    ‘Thanks for clearing that up for me. Gear down.’
    ‘Nazi-repaired gear coming down.’
    That cop Bauer was right; from the smooth clicking coming from either side, the mechanism was working perfectly. The Nazi mechanics really had fixed the gear.
    Two hundred feet...the small blue and white shack attached to hangar number two, housing Carter Aviation , flashed past and the blur of a small figure running toward the taxiway. No time to wave, just time enough to feel my heart  lift  in  warm  happiness  at  seeing  my  daughter  Abby  again.  One hundred feet...fifty...cut the throttles. Get ready to swing the nose out of the sideways crab and flare for landing.
    ‘Lord you are the wind beneath our wings,’ Orlando droned.
    ‘Please shut up.’
    Just above stall speed now, needed to make my control movements big and bold as she flirted with the idea of not flying anymore.  Her right wing began lifting into