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Elvis Saves JFK!

Stories of Alternate History

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

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For Mom and Dad.

Contents

Truth, Justice and the 1962 War Against Evil

Elvis Saves JFK!

The picturephone beeped for his attention.

Elvis Aaron Presley, the undisputed King of Rock 'n Roll, sat back in his big overstuffed Lazyboy, glass of Southern Comfort in his hand. Unconsciously, he ran a hand through this thick dark hair. He was worried. Worried enough that he couldn’t even think about the unfinished deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich sitting on the table beside him. Four kids from Liverpool occupied his thoughts right now. If the projections from his personal Univac in the basement were right, they would rise in a few short months to challenge him for the status of god and spokesperson for an entire generation.

What would he do?

The phone beeped impatiently again. Elvis shook his head at the annoyance. The picturephone, slated for introduction at next year's Worlds' Fair in Seattle, had been secretly issued by the phone company to all members of the Trilateral Commission. Elvis stabbed the acknowledge button with a finger as he held his glass in his other hand.

The viewscreen lit up to show the stern visage of J. Edgar Hoover in a pink frock.

Uh huh. The King curled his upper lip. Nothing surprised him anymore. The '60s were stacking up to be one helluva decade. Elvis leaned back in his chair, glass in hand.

"How are you, Elvis?" said J. Edgar, finally.

"Not bad, Mistah Hoover. How's life at the Bureau?"

"Grim, Elvis. Grim. I've got commies and beatniks breathing down my throat and now JFK wants me to go to war against the Mob, but that's beside the point. Are you free for a special mission?"

Elvis took a hit of Southern Comfort. "What's up?"

"Are you familiar with the events of 7 June, 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico?"

Elvis nodded. "One of those flyn' saucers crashed in the desert, but we managed to retrieve it and the crew --check?"

"That's the story. Two weeks ago, one of the aliens we had as... a guest at Wright-Patterson, broke confinement."

"What? He... it's on the lam?"

"Obviously we can't deal with this through normal channels. There'd be panic.

Civilization would crumble. Morals would suffer. People would start worshipping strange eastern gods and take great amounts of psychedelic stimulants. They might even question authority. It'd be end of the world, Elvis!"

“I know. Might lose some record sales." He thought of those four kids from Liverpool. Maybe J. Edgar could help him there... "We have to find the l'll stinker, an' fast!"

"That's the idea. I'm detailing you another agent who's also cleared for this." J. Edgar broke eye contact for just a second. "There's something else you should know... the alien is some kind of shapechanger."

"A what?"

"The alien can change shape at will. Change from alien, to hat stand, to a Studebaker and back again. Seems to have fondness however, for impersonating Former Vice-President Nixon."

"Holy mother of God!"

"I would prefer you not take Her name in vain," said J. Edgar, crossing his legs.

Sometime later...

Well, holy shit," grinned Elvis. He whistled long and low.

The sign said HEARTBREAK HOTEL. The metal sign, faded and flaking, hung limply in the humid morning air. It hung by two rusting chains from a long low wooden porch of a single-story brick building, which baked in the heat on the side of Florida State Road 523, just off US 41, approximately 50 miles south of Orlando.

J. Edgar said he'd be meeting his contact here. Elvis smiled as he pulled his pink '59 Cadillac Eldorado, convertible top down, into the parking lot. The gravel crunched like gunshots under the four big Goodyears. He noticed another car in front of the hotel: a pale blue '63 Ford Falcon, fresh from the showroom. He noticed the California plates: N. J. He shook his head. Elvis opened the Caddy’s door and got out, looking at the car. Wonder who it is? Somebody I know? Maybe Gus Grissom... makes sense to send an astronaut to catch an alien.

Elvis stopped the car, got out and walked to the bar's front door. The warped and dried out floorboards of the porch groaned under the heels of his cowboy boots. Above his head, the sign creaked on its chains in the nominal breeze that rode up from the Gulf. A carefully hand lettered card over the door informed him that the bar was not open Sundays and that Negroes were not allowed.

The King spat on the porch. He inhaled, opened the door and went in. The bar was dark and a little less warm, with a single ceiling fan battling halfheartedly against the heat. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could make out a single figure sitting alone at the far end of the bar. A jukebox in the corner twanged out a moldy country tune.

The shadow beckoned at the end of the bar. He walked slowly towards it, his cowboy boots sounding heavy on the wooden planks. Sawdust ground under his heels. A faint trace of rancid cigar smoke drifted through the air. Elvis drew up a stool next to the stranger – a woman – and sat down.

"Are you a friend of Edgar's?" he asked.

The woman turned to face him, revealing a shock of platinum blonde hair.

Elvis' jaw dropped. "You! You're dead!"

She winked at him. "Can't believe everything you read, can you now? A fake suicide has always been the best way into deep cover. That’s what they’re calling retirement these days.” She smiled. The dress she wore was short and tight. She extended her hand. "How are you, Elvis?"

He took it. "Pretty fine, Marilyn..."

"Not so loud! This is a safe house, but nothing's that safe!" She raised a finger to her pouting lips and winked again. "Haven't seen you since the Bay of Pigs."

Elvis shuddered. "Lordy, what a mess. Last job I do for The Company." He paused. "You been briefed?"

She smiled.

They'd left the Falcon back at the hotel, and headed south in Elvis's Caddy, on US 41. The convertible's big V-8 hardly broke a sweat as it chewed up the pavement at a steady 70 m.p.h. Elvis leaned back in his seat, the wind blasting through his hair. He looked over at Marilyn, who let her blonde hair free to ride the torrent. Forget everything else: right now was a good time to be alive.

"You reckon that alien's headn' towards Cape Canaveral?" said Elvis.

"Makes sense," said Marilyn. "If you're trapped on a hostile planet and you want to get off... How else are you going to do it?"

Elvis said nothing. Instead, his eyes flashed to the rear view mirror. Damn. He was afraid of that. A long black Lincoln Continental bore down on them... and fast. "Don't look know, darlin'... we've got company."

"Who are they?" asked Marilyn, glancing at the mirror. She reached down into the floor and bought up a Thompson submachine gun. Marilyn yanked back the bolt, cocking the weapon. She held it close to her body; Elvis noticed how the gun's barrel rested between her breasts and the wooden stock between her legs.

He gulped, but pressed on: "Damned if I know... maybe CIA, or KGB.” He gently pushed his foot on the accelerator. The Caddy surged ahead to 85 m.p.h. The Lincoln kept closing on them. Elvis kept his hands on the wheel as he leaned the car into a turn. In the rearview mirror he could see the Lincoln was hanging with them. “Come to think of it, could be even be the American Dental Association: never forgave me over that fluoridation business.”

“Whoever they are, they’re in hurry.” Marilyn kept low as she climbed over the front seat and tumbled into the back, taking the tommygun with her. She lined the approaching car up in her sights but held her fire. She saw the rear passenger window roll down on the driver's side of the car. The Lincoln leapt forward, putting on an incredible burst of speed. Nitrous oxide, she thought.

Elvis gunned the Caddy, but the black Lincoln gained on them.

Something flashed from the pursuing car and whooshed overhead. It slammed into a Burmashave billboard, blasting it into flaming bits of wood and paper.

"They've got a bazooka!" said Elvis.

"No kidding!" said Marilyn. She opened up with the tommygun, her breasts jiggling and nipples hardening with the recoil. Bullets dug into the highway, well short of the Lincoln's front bumper. "Shit! Still out of range!"

The muzzle of the bazooka appeared again out of the Lincoln's window. Marilyn kept hammering away with the machinegun. Bits of pavement exploded just ahead of the car. "They're keeping just back far enough..." She turned head and looked at Elvis, which gave him a hard-on. "Do something!"

"Hang on baby!" He stomped on the breaks.

Several things happened. Even though it was decades before antilock breaking systems were generally available to the public, Elvis' '59 Caddy was specially fitted with ABS, as were the cars of all members of the Illuminati. As a result, Elvis's car just slowed down. The Lincoln, of course, had no such luck. Its tires screeched in agony as they locked up, desperately clawing at the road.

Marilyn, velcroed to her seat, sprayed the skidding car with machine gun fire. It burst into flame and rolled, as the driver took a round through the windpipe and lost control, across the yellow line and into the path of an oncoming Shell Oil tanker.

Elvis tromped the Caddy's accelerator. The car shot ahead, even as the flaming Lincoln merged with the careening tanker truck. Several thousand gallons of High-Test erupted in a blood red mini-Hiroshima mushroom. He pulled the Caddy over and stopped it on the soft shoulder. Elvis turned his head and joined Marilyn watching the flames consume the debris. Even at this range, he felt the heat on his face. "Damn! No-one should have known we were out here!"

Marilyn lowered her gun. "We were compromised."

"Compromised, hell! We was set up!" He gunned the engine. The Caddy's rear tires spun, kicking up gravel and dust.

Still later…

The Caddy rolled up to the main gate of Cape Canaveral. Elvis could see the gantries and towers of ICBM Row shimmering off in the hazy distance. Where was the alien, he thought? Was it already here? An MP in crisp fatigues, pearl-white helmet and a .45 riding on his hip, came out of the guardhouse. He took one look at Elvis and Marilyn and did a double take.

"Hey, aren't you... And aren't you...?"

"What would he be doing here, son?" snapped Elvis, flashing Naval Intelligence ID "Name's Captain Kirk."

"And what about her?"

"She's dead. You never saw her. Clear?"

Marilyn winked at the guard.

"Yes, sir!" The guard snapped off a quick salute. He nodded in the direction of the guardhouse. The yellow and black striped barrier rose in front of the convertible.

Elvis revved the engine. "Thank you. Thank you very much... Just one more thing, soldier - anyone else been through this here gate in the last l'll while?"

"Strange you should ask, sir. Former Vice President Nixon came through, why not an hour ago."

"Put the base on yellow alert, son," said Elvis, in his best military tone learned from his stint in the Army. "Don't panic anyone. That's not former Vice President Nixon... he's an impostor. He's a Cuban commie spy!"

The guard tensed, went as white as his helmet.

"It's okay, he 'parently fooled Mrs. Nixon, too." Elvis winked and nodded at the MP and nailed the gas. The Caddy leapt through the gate. A cold pit formed in the core of Elvis' gut. "It's bad, very bad, Marilyn. That can't be the real Former Vice President Nixon.... he's in Dallas."

"President's in Dallas, too, isn't he?"

The King nodded. "Right 'bout now, with all that Secret Service in town, Dallas has to be safest place on this here earth. So let's keep our eyes out for that l'll alien bastard." They drove slowly down the Coast Road, past the long row of rust red launch gantries that watched over the shoreline like oversized lifeguard towers.

"That's the future, Elvis," said Marilyn, as the Caddy purred along the road. "Soon we'll be on the moon, and not just visiting, but living up there: whole cities, with houses, movie theaters, parks, churches and dry cleaners."

Elvis smiled. But before he could say anything, an MP Jeep screamed up to them its siren screaming and whip antenna bobbing. A field radio crackled in the jeep. One of the two soldiers leaned out, saluting. "Captain Kirk, sir! The Cuban spy...we've got him cornered at the airstrip in one of the hangars."

"Hot damn!" He waved them on. "Let's rock, cats!"

Hangar 18 stood off by itself on the broad concrete desert. It wore the look of serious abandonment: weathered clapboard sides, broken pains of glass and faded paintwork. The weeds growing up between the cracks in the oil-stained tarmac only cemented the atmosphere of something being left to fade away. A ring of soldiers and tanks surrounded it, further cutting it off from the world. An army chopper clattered overhead like an oversized olive-drab horsefly.

"Any idea why he went in there?" asked Marilyn.

The gruff colonel who stood next to her grunted around his cigar stub. "I dunno, Miss. The only things in there are the few bits and pieces from the flying saucers we've retrieved over the years."

Marilyn furrowed her brow in deep thought.

"...Of course, what he'd want in there is anyone's guess," continued the colonel. "These commie spies are all the same... crazy if you ask me. We can take him now, if you want."

"Can't." Elvis, standing on the Caddy's trunk, lowered his binoculars. "Not just yet, anyhow." He'd radioed a coded message to J. Edgar ten minutes ago, now the King waited. And that gnawed away at his gut. He hated waiting. Look what waiting did for Carl Perkins. Sorry Carl, that was the way it went. More people had heard of Elvis in five minutes than had ever heard of Carl Perkins. His mind drifted off to those British kids. What to do...

It was then that five kinds of Hell broke loose.

The windows of the hangar began pulse white-hot and a strange loud, low throbbing sound came from the inside the structure. A wave of tension swept through the soldiers. Elvis could hear the multiple clicks of safeties coming off. The tanks brought their guns to bear. The helicopter came closer. The windows glowed brighter, incandescently, as if the glass was going to melt. Then came the sound. A high-pitched sound - a screech – pierced the air, louder than loud, louder than anything. Elvis put his hands over his ears, but the noise, the numbing pressure against his eardrums, wouldn't stop. He grimaced; he saw Marilyn and the others all covering their ears and wincing in pain.

This was it. The Last Trump. Gabriel, come blow your horn.

And then... Silence.

Elvis looked up and covered his eyes. A shaft of blinding white-hot light had punched through the roof of Hangar 18. Bits of debris - tar paper and wooden beams fell away and clattered to the ground. Overhead dark, menacing clouds began to form, swirling around the axis of the shaft of light as a cool wind, too cool for the season, blew around them. Thunder, laced with lightning, rolled overhead, like something out of Wagner.

"What… the... hell is that?" The colonel looked up.

"Good question, colonel. An’ hell just may have everything to do with it, " said Elvis, slowly.

"No telling how high up that thing goes," said Marilyn. "What do you think?"

Elvis said nothing, absorbed by the pillar of fire dancing in his sunglasses. His upper lip curled. Uh huh.

"Elvis?"

The King shook his head. "Sorry. It looks so... end of the world, if y'all know what I mean."

Marilyn nodded, even as the icy wind whipped her hair around. “ I was afraid of this...

We have to get a closer look at that... thing."

"Any guesses?" asked Elvis.

"I'm developing a hypothesis. Ever hear of an Einstein -Rosen bridge?"

"Lordy! If our friend can do that..." Elvis picked up his Tommygun from the back seat of the Caddy. He held it like was one of his prize Fenders. "I've gotta feeling we might be needing this, where we're headn'."

"Ma'am I'd be honoured if you took this with you." The colonel unbuttoned his holster, and handed her his pearl-handled .45.

"Thanks colonel," she dimpled. "I'll bring it back."

As Elvis and Marilyn began to walk towards the maelstrom, the colonel chomped down a little harder on his cigar. The lightning seemed a little closer and the thunder a little louder.

Marilyn held the .45 in a two-handed firing stance as she came up on the hangar door, the big 18 in faded and weathered black staring her in the face. The door hung mockingly on its hinges. "Somehow, he's used those flying saucer parts to generate this thing. There’s no telling where this might lead. It depends where and when the wave function collapses. If quantum theory holds, this is a bridge across time and space... even possibly dimensions. " A tuft of wind blew her perfect blonde hair across her face.

"Cross dimensions, huh?" Elvis hefted the Thompson. It was quiet; quiet enough to now hear the muted rumble from beyond the door. "Me first, then you follow, clear?"

"Clear."

He put his hand on the knob. It burned like fire. He pushed at it. Slowly, the door swung open.

Elvis was a god.

He was connected with The Source of All Things. It surged through his very fabric, filling him with an unknowable feeling. Time and space stretched out at his feet in a great luminous arc. He could see it all, the worlds that were, would be, would never be. Multiple doorways on the Infinite. Snatches of reality, tumbled by. .... No, let’s keep Pete Best instead of the new bloke. I don’t care who this Ringo Starr has played for... Hell no, we, won’t go... Tune in, drop out... I have a dream... That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind... He was everywhere and nowhere; both large and small; alive and dead. Elvis at once knew everything and realized he had everything to learn.

Time flowed like a river and he was a swimmer, pushing along with powerful strokes. The river forked in places, one branch leading one place, the other, someplace entirely else. The Elvis/god/being held himself against the current, for an instant, deciding where to go. ...The King is dead... Sure enough he saw himself, grotesquely overweight and old. A bizarre parody of himself, sprawled out on his bathroom floor, the drool from his open mouth slowly pooling on the white ceramic tile. He couldn't deny what he saw, for the god who was Elvis knew the truth. There the man Elvis was, bareassed, with his pajama bottoms down around his ankles, and very dead. ...The King is dead; long live the King...

And then He decided.

The sign on the roof of the building read TEXAS SCHOOLBOOK DEPOSITORY.

Marilyn still gripped her .45 with both hands. She struggled with her breath. "What... was that?"

"Everything and nothing," murmured the King, softly, adjusting his sunglasses. "An end and a beginning." He lowered the barrel of the Thompson. "Alpha and Omega."

Marilyn blinked up at the building. "I.. think we're in Dallas." She looked at Elvis. "And where you going, damn it?"

Elvis said nothing as he bolted into the building.

Six floors up, at a window that overlooked the grass and concrete of Dealey Plaza, the thing that had once resembled former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, now resembled an employee of the Texas Schoolbook Depository, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. The resemblance was still far from perfect: his nose was still Nixon's more than Oswald's and his cheeks held too much of the former veep's five o'clock shadow. These things took time, and the alien had so much enjoyed playing at Nixon. Perhaps there was a future in it. But for now, the alien played a different role, that of the man who lay in a washroom stall with a broken neck, two floors down. It picked up the bolt-action Mannlicher - Carcano rifle Oswald had ordered through the mail for $25 from a stack of boxes that made up part of the sniper's nest it had built.

The alien fumbled with the rifle its recently acquired hands. Relying upon stolen memories, he yanked the bolt back with a crack and rammed it home again, driving a round into the chamber. The weapon's wooden stock gave it a good, solid feel. It looked at Oswald's watch through Oswald's eyes. Minutes remained. The crowd that lined the street below was expectant, but patient. It noticed, almost casually, the crowd's noise level was rising.

Anytime now.

Elvis vaulted up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Somehow, he knew. Somehow he knew about the malevolent shadow standing at the sixth floor window, and for whom it waited. Somehow, Elvis knew that if he could just get there in time, everything would be different.

Very different.

Marilyn climbed the staircase, five steps behind Elvis. He's snapped, she thought. Wait until J. Edgar hears about this. She watched him charge up the stairs and she knew, too. She had no choice. She followed.

The president's Lincoln rolled stately down the street. The president himself had eschewed the car's bubble top, preferring the open air. He smiled in the warm November sun. Elected at age 43, he was the youngest president ever to hold the office. His looks were still boyish enough to matter for another term, at least. He reached over and put his hand on Jackie’s.

"What's that building up there?" she asked.

Governor Connolly, seated in front of them, turned his head back. "That's the Texas Schoolbook Depository, ma'am. You'll get a better look at it as soon as we turn the corner."

The thing that had become Lee Harvey Oswald focused on the street below through the crosshairs of a sniper-scope. It looked down the barrel of the rifle, across the grassy knoll and the CIA response team, past into the crowd, where Abraham Zapruder waited to make history with a home movie camera, and back into the street, where already the lead police car was slowly coming into range.

Kneeling at the window, rifle in hand, the alien itself felt a tinge of something alien: excitement.

Elvis was now at the fifth floor. He puffed a little, but his pace never slackened. He gripped the Thompson tight and pushed himself up the final flights of stairs.

Everything waited above.

He's snapped, thought Marilyn. Absolutely lost it. Hate to do an unauthorized sanction on him, though. But her pace didn't slacken, either as she saw Elvis reach the sixth floor fire door. What's gotten into him?

The Lincoln turned the corner.

"There ma’am," pointed Connolly, "you can see the book depository better, now. We're almost under it."

Jackie smiled as the President waved.

Elvis kicked the door open, the wooden door splintering under his cowboy boots. He leveled the Thompson in a sweeping motion.

No! The alien heard the door crash open behind it. It stood, wheeled around and fired blindly at the intruder. With something approaching panic, it struggled with the Mannlicher's clumsy bolt.

Missed. Elvis looked at the rifleman, a weedy little snot, and the bullet hole in the doorframe. That the best you can do, son? Walking slowly towards the sniper's nest, he pulled the Thompson's trigger. His upper lip curled.

The Oswald-thing was flung back against the window as the first wave of .45 slugs riddled its body. As it toppled over and fell back, it let the rifle go clattering to the gore-splattered floor.

In the Lincoln below, the President felt odd. He shivered like someone had run his finger down his spine. Or as mother says, like someone walking across your grave. He looked up at building they were passing: the schoolbook depository.

Jackie looked at him. "Everything all right, dear?"

"Yes." He paused for a second. "I thought I heard something, that's all."

"Why?" croaked the thing, which looked less and less human. Something that was not quite blood leaked out of the corner of its mouth.

"I have the same question." Elvis looked down the smoking barrel of his Thompson.

Marilyn stood beside him, her pistol lowered. An expression, more wonderment than shock, spread across her face. You -you got him - it, the alien," she said softly.

Elvis nodded.

The alien looked up at them through eyes, which gleamed faintly like black stones. "You don't know what you've done... tampered with time and space," it accused with a slender grey finger. "Don't you see?"

"No, I don't see," said Marilyn.

"My mission… President had to die... Oswald died too soon... accident..." The alien's voice grew raspy. "All this was not meant to be."

"Is now," said Elvis. "An' attempted murder is still a crime."

For a moment, the alien looked just enough again like the former Vice President. It huffed, "I... I am not a crook." The Nixon-thing's eyes locked with Elvis's for a second, then closed forever.

"Wow," said Marilyn.

"You can tell J. Edgar it's over," said Elvis. And then he somehow knew that everything had suddenly and irrevocably changed. He looked down at the pulpy grey corpse on the floor.

"Funny."

"What's funny?"

"He was right... everything is different now. It's all new." He took of his sunglasses and looked into her cold blue eyes. He felt... lost. "It's almost like it’s pitch dark an' we don't have a map to get home, because it hasn't been made yet."

"In that case... “She looked back at him, smiled and leaned close. ”How do you find your way back in the dark?"

There was news that day, but it wasn’t of the assassination attempt on the President. Page One news was occupied by the attempted murder of former Vice President Richard M. Nixon outside his Dallas hotel. The assailant, one Jack Ruby, was later arrested and his would-be victim escaped unharmed.

There was mention, however, in stories carefully buried at the end of newscasts and at the back of evening papers, of a "disturbance" on the President's motorcade route.

Certainly no names were mentioned. No one would've believed it anyway.

Chasing Fate

It was not even 7:30 am, and she already felt the warmth of the sun on her face. That’s what you get out here, even in early December, thought Amelia, as she swung the jeep out onto the flight line, past a long line of olive green P-40s, parked wingtip - to – wingtip. Stupid really: those planes were sitting ducks that could be blown to bits by a monkey throwing dynamite from a balloon.

She drove up to her plane, a brand-new Curtiss P-40E, with more engine power and a heavier armament, a damn improvement over the P-40Bs and Cs stationed here at Hickham Field and elsewhere around Pearl Harbor. Amelia drove the jeep around to the side of the plane and stopped it where the ground crew was finishing pumping fuel from the back of a tanker into the ship’s fuselage fuel tank. “Did you arm her?” she called, walking over. She slung her parachute over her shoulder.

The crew chief nodded. “The Colonel’d kill me if he found out I was doing this, Miz Earhart.” The tanker crew reeled the hose back to the truck.

“Can’t demonstrate the plane without a full combat load, sergeant,” she said, climbing onto the fighter’s wing. “And that includes both fuel and ammunition. At least that’s what the good people at Curtiss-Wright are paying me to do.”

The crew chief handed Amelia her goggles and helmet. “How many more of these demonstration flights they paying you to do, anyhow?”

“One more; that’s on Monday, when I’ll be showing the pilots just what this new plane of theirs can do. You can call this my check ride,” she said, taking her goggles and fitting them over her short curly hair. She settled into the cockpit and looked around her. “Clear!” Amelia touched the starter switch and the big Allison in-line rumbled to life on the first try.

The crew chief smiled. He’d almost forgotten today was Sunday. Nothing happened around here on Sundays.

Amelia kept the canopy open as she climbed over Pearl Harbor in the humid morning air. Between the engine pounding in her lap, and the wind blowing in her face, the feeling was almost… sexual. Below her, the slumbering dreadnoughts along Battleship Row, then Ford Island and Luke Field, where she and Fred Noonan had taken off, back in ’37 to start the Pacific leg of their west-to-east round-the-world flight. Almost ground-looped the Lockheed, there and then. She shuddered. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if we’d crashed and had to postpone the flight? There was some thought at the time of making the flight from the opposite direction, east-to-west. Sure glad we never faced the prospect of going down because we’d gotten lost or ran out of fuel if we’d made the last leg over the Pacific…

Over the harbor, she turned northwest and pointed the plane’s nose west and began to fly along the southern coast, the rich green hills merging with the brown sand below her. And then blinked. There was something on the horizon. She blinked again. It seemed to be a swarm of black dots. Planes. And lots of them. She keyed her radio. “Hickham Tower, this is Curtiss Test. I’ve got a large formation of unidentified aircraft approaching Pearl from the west. Over.”

For a second, nothing. Then a burst of static in her ear. “Ah, those are probably that flight of B-17s coming in from the mainland, Curtiss. Over.”

“Roger, Hickham. But those should be coming in from the east. I say again: these are coming in from the west. And there looks to be a lot more than just a flight of ‘em.” Amelia felt a rising sense of dread in her gut.

Silence, then: “Curtiss, this is Hickham. Can you try for a visual intercept? Over.”

“Can do. Roger.” Amelia opened up the throttle and pulled back on the stick. The P-40 began to climb, its engine revving louder. She flipped a switch and charged the fighter’s six wing-mounted .50 machine guns and slid the canopy shut with a clunk. The plane climbed to 10,000, and then, through a layer of light cloud, to 15,000 feet, where she leveled off.

Her earphones crackled. “Curtiss, this is Hickham. Can you see anything, over?”

Amelia looked though the canopy and through the plane’s nose-mounted ring gunsight. “I count multiple single-engined aircraft inbound, Hickham. These are not, repeat -are not –B-17s. Over.”

“Uh… understood.”

“Hickham, if I were you, I’d call an alert and fast! Those planes’ll be on top of you in minutes, over… Hickham?” But she couldn’t wait for a reply. The black dots were quickly resolving into full-fledged aircraft. Even as she imagined sailors manning battle stations and pilots dashing to their planes below her, more out of faint hope than anything else, she could see several of the closer aircraft peel off towards her. They’ve seen me. She pushed back on her stick and poured on the power, her fighter clawing for more height. Have to get above them. She banked the plane, even as the first radial-engined fighter slid by her, close enough for her to see the round red circle of the rising sun glinting on the wings.

Japanese? Here?

She reeled as if she was slapped in face. Japanese. Gripping her stick, Amelia rolled away, even as she saw flashes of light over the nose and on the wings of the second Japanese fighter, coming head on. They’re firing, dammit Amelia could imagine the bullets buzzing by her canopy, like a swarm of angry bees. Lining the enemy up the ring-sight, she gripped the trigger button on top of her stick for all she was worth.

The acrid smell of fresh cordite filled the cockpit.

From Infamy and After, by John Toland, Henry Holt and Sons, 1955:

… One thing the planners of the Pearl Harbor attack didn’t account for on that Sunday morning was the presence of the single P-40 flown by Earhart. Had the pilot of this lone plane sounded the warning? At 7:49 am, as Lieutenant Commander Mitsuo Fuchida directed the lead element of his Zeros towards the American plane, his heart was heavy. The attack would go in, regardless, but he couldn’t take the chance. He sent a terse signal to Admiral Nagumo: Surprise lost.

Amelia threw her stick over hard. As her fighter winged over and dove, she lined up a Val dive-bomber in her sights and blazed away at it. The bomber’s tail gunner got off a wild burst, before he slumped over. She pounded away. The Val blossomed a long trail of black smoke and nosed towards the ground. Two down. She caught another Val and raked it in a single pass. As she bore over the Val, still firing, she saw a wing separate from the plane as it fireballed. Three.

Whup. Whup. Whup. Bullets whipped by her, as she felt their supersonic whipcrack slamming into the plane’s fuselage. In the rear-view mirror, she could see two Zeros lining up on her. She yanked back hard on the stick and poured on the steam, black smoke blasting from her engine’s exhaust stacks. Only hope; they’re faster, more maneuverable, Gotta get up and behind ‘em. She climbed. Kept climbing until she hung upside down in the cockpit. Then righted the plane at the top of her Immelmann, and dove on the enemy fighters like an avenging angel, all guns blazing. She put her fire directly into the cockpit of the wingman; it spun out of control. Amelia went for the leader and pounded at the Zero as it began to disintegrate, bits and pieces flying past her. Two more away. Now she looked up and saw two olive-drab P-40s flash by her nose. And then a silver P-36. Tearing into the enemy formation. She exhaled a cloud of tension. Fear to joy. They heard me. They...

It was only then that she noticed the smoke beginning to pour from out of her engine.

From Infamy and After, by John Toland, Henry Holt and Sons, 1955:

… When she safely bailed out of her stricken plane that morning, Amelia Earhart was already America’s first ace, with five kills in ten minutes. There were other heroes that day, including Lieutenants Welch and Taylor, but Earhart stood out. She captured the America’s attention at its darkest moment. Possibly because she always already famous. Probably because she was a woman.

Three Months Later:

At least the crowd was appreciative. The aircraft plant workers applauded and called out her name as Amelia mounted the “stage,” the wing of a just-completed B-24 Liberator, parked in front of the factory hangar. She’d done this sort of thing before so much now that she swore she almost knew that they were thinking… that’s her… It’s Amelia! Dimly aware of the gentle flapping of the Buy War Bonds banner behind her, she looked out on the crowd of workers, their wives and children. With the news from Europe and the Far East still relentlessly bad, they were starved for any sign of victory. They looked up at her wide-eyed and almost worshipful, like she was some kind of hero. But was she?

“Hey Amelia, when’s FDR gonna let you fight?” a gruff male voice called as she walked up to the microphone. A wave of gentle laughter and applause washed through the audience. She heard that before, too and only smiled. How many times had she written and telegraphed the President, pleading with him to let her go to war? How frustrated she was that she could do more than this… She waved the crowd applauded again, anxious to bathe in the glow of a real hero.

Amelia waved. The crowd roared again, drowning out any attempt by her to speak. So she waved again. The crowd went wild. And as the band struck up “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and she found herself being whisked offstage by a man in civilian clothes. The natty suit and tie didn’t fool her; her new friend had G-man written all over his purposeful face. He wordlessly escorted her to an idling black Packard limo and opened the door for her. She climbed in.

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Chasing Fate