Conquerors of the Sky (79 page)
Read Conquerors of the Sky Online
Authors: Thomas Fleming
Just out of the Air Force, Jerry did not realize he was reminding his employer of a plane that was making one of Buchanan's rivals, General Dynamics, three billion dollars.
Quinn unloaded the Van Ness luggage and they found a porter who wheeled it ahead of them to Adrian's gray Bentley in the airport's long-term parking lot. The chairman of Rolls-Royce had given Adrian the car when he chose
their engines for the Colossus. Adrian thought of what that monster had cost him. His ironist's hands trembled on the controls in his mindâand his physical hands clutched the icy wheel convulsively. Memory! It was pursuing him like a wolf pack tonight.
their engines for the Colossus. Adrian thought of what that monster had cost him. His ironist's hands trembled on the controls in his mindâand his physical hands clutched the icy wheel convulsively. Memory! It was pursuing him like a wolf pack tonight.
The engine purred at a flip of the ignition key. Amanda ostentatiously buckled herself into the seat beside Adrian. For several years she had been urging him to hire a chauffeur. She insisted he was getting too old to drive a high-powered car. Adrian ignored her, as usual. He did not like chauffeurs or butlers or any other kind of servant. They tended to learn too much about a manâknowledge that could turn out to be inconvenient in certain situations. A housekeeper was the only servant he permittedâand he replaced her frequently.
A mixture of sleet and snow began falling from the twilit sky. “It's below zero!” Amanda said, turning up the collar of her mink coat. Each day at breakfast she told Adrian the temperature in Los Angeles.
Amanda fretted about their latest housekeeper, Mrs. Welch, who was a tippler. Amanda was sure the refrigerator would be empty, they would have to drive back to Charlottesville for dinner. Adrian let her complain. Mrs. Welch was a dunce, but Adrian liked stupid housekeepers. They were unlikely to notice much.
Adrian swung up the drive of their estate past a line of bare ancient oaks. “Not a light,” Amanda said, as they drove beneath the portico of the big redbrick mansion. “I wouldn't be surprised if she's passed out upstairs.”
Adrian steered the Bentley into the garage on the left of the house and unloaded the bags. Amanda preceded him up the steps into the kitchen. “Oh, where is that switch,” she said, as Adrian balanced two heavy suitcases on the top step.
Click. The fluorescent light illuminated the gleaming stainless-steel stove and oven, the walk-in refrigerator, the food processor, and other amenities Adrian had installed, mostly to mock Amanda's refusal to cook anything more complicated than an egg. He heaved a sigh and let the suitcases thud to the floor. Jet lag seemed to be draining life itself from his thick body. Seventy-nine-year-old men should not fly the Atlantic twice in a week.
“Mrs. Welch? Mrs. Welch?” Amanda called up the backstairs. Her voice echoed through the silent house. Annoying. Adrian did not like Amanda to be right about anything. She gloated over small triumphs for days.
He lugged the suitcases upstairs and dropped Amanda's unceremoniously at the door of her bedroom. There were limits to his readiness to play servant. In his bedroom, he flung his bag on a luggage rack and strode into his study. There were no lights flashing on the eight-line telephone on his desk. Good. He did not want to do any thinking without a night's sleep.
Adrian poured himself an ounce of forty-year-old port. It was like swallowing silkâor memory. English memories. For a moment he recalled the dream of watching Louis Bleriot fly the channel and the lie he had told Amanda about it. The port turned rancid on his tongue. Both scenarios were metaphors loaded with threats. He was assailed by a terrific wish to somehow outwit time and
memory, to shed the burdens of the past. But the ironist at the center of his mind knew time and memory were as inescapable as the thing they eventually became, history.
memory, to shed the burdens of the past. But the ironist at the center of his mind knew time and memory were as inescapable as the thing they eventually became, history.
Adrian looked around the study, trying to savor the mementos of a long life. There he was, accepting a medal for maximum production of B-17s from FDR. There was Ike, conferring another medal in a private ceremony for developing the first supersonic jet fighter. There was John F. Kennedy only a few weeks before Dallas, haunted Lyndon Johnson, tormented Richard Nixon, each grasping Adrian Van Ness's hand, each implicitly admitting how much they needed him and his planes.
The planes were everywhere, beautiful handmade models dangling from wires, full-color photos of fighters in 9 G dives and vertical climbs, bombers roaring over Berlin, Pyongyang, Hanoi, airliners soaring aloft from Bali, Los Angeles, London.
Beside the telephone on his desk lay a small yellow booklet, with a title in scrolled letters on its cover,
Conquistadores del Cielo.
It contained the membership list of this exclusive club. When Adrian had invented it in 1935 they had been a long way from being conquerors of the sky. He picked up the booklet and flipped through the pages, recalling names that were no longer there. He had outlasted so many of the hotheads, the macho swaggerers, the dictatorial spouters.
Conquistadores del Cielo.
It contained the membership list of this exclusive club. When Adrian had invented it in 1935 they had been a long way from being conquerors of the sky. He picked up the booklet and flipped through the pages, recalling names that were no longer there. He had outlasted so many of the hotheads, the macho swaggerers, the dictatorial spouters.
But the titleâwas it still ironic? Was the Buchanan Corporationâand Adrian Van Nessâabout to become victims of the sky's eternal indifference to life and death? In a flash Adrian was back in the Argusair remembering how often planes had broken his heart, robbed him of love, left him with nothing but irony's exhausting consolation.
Conquistadores del Cielo.
The title was pure mockery now. He had conquered nothing, his life had been a series of desperate maneuvers, of hairbreadth escapes and humiliating betrayals.
The title was pure mockery now. He had conquered nothing, his life had been a series of desperate maneuvers, of hairbreadth escapes and humiliating betrayals.
It does a man no good to whine,
whispered that fathering voice, dim now with years and distance. He was still playing the Great Game, Adrian told himself with growing desperation. Why was that no longer a consolation?
whispered that fathering voice, dim now with years and distance. He was still playing the Great Game, Adrian told himself with growing desperation. Why was that no longer a consolation?
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Knuckles resounded on the door. It was an unusual rhythm, imperious, demanding.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Adrian strode to the heavy oak door and flung it open. What he saw in the shadowy hall sent him stumbling, spinning back into the room with a cry of terror on his lips. Queen Califia was standing there, her russet hair streaming, a knife in her upraised hand!
Knuckles resounded on the door. It was an unusual rhythm, imperious, demanding.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Adrian strode to the heavy oak door and flung it open. What he saw in the shadowy hall sent him stumbling, spinning back into the room with a cry of terror on his lips. Queen Califia was standing there, her russet hair streaming, a knife in her upraised hand!
A bolt of pain tore through Adrian's chest. The ironist's hands were ripped from the controls. The room whirled; the vehicle was in a catastrophic spin. Another slash of pain. The anticoagulantsâwhere were they? Adrian clutched the vial in his pocket. He had taken the last one on the plane. The rest were in his suitcase.
“Help!” he cried.
His eyes were entangled with the dangling planes, he was on his back trying to focus on the study door. “Help. Please!” he cried.
Above the house a prop plane began landing at the Charlottesville airport. The motors thundered in the night sky, blending with a voice in Adrian's head roaring
ruined.
Both sounds were swallowed by a tremendous whine, as if all the model planes had somehow acquired life-sized jet engines and were diving on him.
ruined.
Both sounds were swallowed by a tremendous whine, as if all the model planes had somehow acquired life-sized jet engines and were diving on him.
Then silence, the sensation of sinking into a dark pool rimmed with light. Finally a woman's silken voice whispering:
it wasn't your fault, it wasn't anyone's fault.
it wasn't your fault, it wasn't anyone's fault.
Amanda remained frozen in the doorway, her hand raised to deliver another angry knock on the door. She had no idea what she could do to help her husband. When she found the courage to venture into the room it was much too late.
“I wasn't going to hurt you, Adrian,” Amanda said. “I only wanted to tell you I found Mrs. Welch upstairs, passed outâand there's not a scrap of food in the house.”
Dozing on the couch in his office after his return from his visit to the BX bomber, Dick Stone could have sworn he heard a voice whispering:
apotheosis.
He awoke with a violent start and lay there, slowly absorbing the fact, the reality, the event.
apotheosis.
He awoke with a violent start and lay there, slowly absorbing the fact, the reality, the event.
Adrian Van Ness was dead. The telephone call he and Cliff Morris had received last night in the board room was not imagination, not wish or nightmare or conjecture. The Buchanan Aircraft Corporation was swirling around him like a huge ungainly space vehicle with no one at the controls.
Apotheosis,
the voice whispered again. It was time for him to find the gold beyond his rainbow, maybe to begin paying the price Adrian and others had paid to make the flight. With the help of his tireless Japanese secretary, Jill Kioso, who had apparently slept on the couch in her office, by noon Dick had called every member of the board of directors and told them Cliff Morris was going to resign and asked them to support him as the next Buchanan president. He read them portions of Adrian's last letter to bolster his case. Most of them agreed without much enthusiasm. Several said they wanted to hear from Cliff too.
the voice whispered again. It was time for him to find the gold beyond his rainbow, maybe to begin paying the price Adrian and others had paid to make the flight. With the help of his tireless Japanese secretary, Jill Kioso, who had apparently slept on the couch in her office, by noon Dick had called every member of the board of directors and told them Cliff Morris was going to resign and asked them to support him as the next Buchanan president. He read them portions of Adrian's last letter to bolster his case. Most of them agreed without much enthusiasm. Several said they wanted to hear from Cliff too.
Next Dick called the heads of Buchanan's divisions, aerospace, missiles, electronics, assuring them there was no cause for panic, he was in charge and was not going to let Adrian's death alter the company's course in any way. Here the reaction was much more positive. He worked more closely with these men than Cliff; they trusted him. Dick spent another hour telling the same story to chief designer Sam Hardy. Without him, there would be no hypersonic plane in Buchanan's future.
Hardy almost applauded when he heard Cliff was leaving. Sam still resented Cliff's cracks about his negative sex appeal from the Honeycomb Club days. There was no loyalty crisis in the Black Holeâalthough Hardy's moodiness could eventually become a problem.
Around five P.M. Dick's secretary laid a sheaf of incoming telephone calls on his desk. Most were from Buchanan supporters in Congress and friends in the aircraft industry. On top was a memo from Dr. Kirk Willoughby, reporting his inconclusive meeting with Frank Buchanan. That was bad news. Dick was going to need Frank's support, especially if Cliff found a backer who wanted to keep him as president. Such a man would only be interested in one thingâdismantling Buchanan for a quick profit, an idea that might also appeal to some members of the board.
“Dan Hanrahan's on the phone from Virginia,” Jill Kioso said.
That was the call Dick was waiting for. “Everything's under control. I'm here in the house. I've got the contents of Adrian's safe. It's not that muchâbarely fills his attaché case. They're shipping the body from the hospital to a crematorium in Los Angeles. I'll bring Mrs. Van Ness back on the plane with me.”
“How is she?”
“Fine. All she talks about is Frank Buchanan. I'm glad I came here for that reason alone. You can't let a reporter anywhere near her.”
“We'll handle that.”
“We're catching a ten A.M. plane. In case Frank's interested.”
“I'll cell him if he calls. We can't call him. He's disconnected his phone.”
“There's one problem I can't handle without a truck. Mrs. Van Ness showed me a secret room off Adrian's study. The bookcase revolves and you're in this little alcove. There's a trunk in there, full of gold. I guess it was Adrian's way of steadying his nerves when he bet the company on a big one.”
Dick heard Adrian saying:
I wanted to be a man of substance, forever beyond the reach of ruin.
“Can anybody else find the room?”
I wanted to be a man of substance, forever beyond the reach of ruin.
“Can anybody else find the room?”
“Not likely.”
“Leave the trunk there for the time being. We'll get Shannon to move it out when things calm down.”
Six hours later, Hanrahan strode into Dick's office with the attache case in his hand. “Here's the goods. Mrs. Van Ness is at the Bel Air with my wife. They're old friends.”
Dick opened the attaché case, not knowing what he would find. On top were a dozen photographs of Victoria at all ages, from babyhood to her wedding day. Why did Adrian keep them in his safe? Probably because he could not bear to look at them after her death.
Next was correspondence with various presidents, none of it especially startling. Then a folder of poems about the beauty and majesty of flight. Dick was astonished to discover Adrian's name at the bottom of each one. Adrian a poet! That cold-eyed bastard? It was astonishing.
Then came a series of letters from an Englishman named Tillotson, written in the 1930s, full of encouragement and general business advice. Each began with the words: “My dear son.” There were copies of Adrian's replies, obviously typed himself, which began: “Dear Father.” Mysteries within mysteries. One of these Dear Father letters was particularly revealing. It was written just after
Victoria was born. Adrian told Tillotson how much the child meant to him, how badly he wanted to be a “complete father” even though fate and circumstances had prevented him from knowing one in his boyhood.
Victoria was born. Adrian told Tillotson how much the child meant to him, how badly he wanted to be a “complete father” even though fate and circumstances had prevented him from knowing one in his boyhood.
Next came a sheaf of papers from a primitive forties or early fifties copier. It was mostly in German, which Dick had no trouble readingâalthough many of the words had faded. It was the protest the Germans had filed with the Red Cross in Geneva in 1943, accusing the
Rainbow Express
of violating the rules of war over Schweinfurt. On top of the first page was a handwritten scrawl from General Newton Slade, telling Adrian he could consider the matter closed.
Rainbow Express
of violating the rules of war over Schweinfurt. On top of the first page was a handwritten scrawl from General Newton Slade, telling Adrian he could consider the matter closed.
Finally there was an envelope with a letter in French thanking Adrian for rescuing her from the “bureaucratic Apaches.” The rest was an apostrophe to the beauty of California. Only southern France could compete with it. The letter was signed “Madame George.” It was dated 1971.
Apotheosis.
This time Dick could have sworn he heard Adrian whispering the word. His mouth dry, his pulse skittering, Dick called Hanrahan and asked him if he knew anything about Madame George. “She's living in San Juan Capistrano,” he said. “I flew to France and brought her here in 1970. The French cops busted up her operation when she refused to pay them off at double the usual rates. Adrian brought her over to make sure she didn't decide to write her memoirs. He paid for it out of his own pocket and ordered me never to mention it to you under any circumstances.”
This time Dick could have sworn he heard Adrian whispering the word. His mouth dry, his pulse skittering, Dick called Hanrahan and asked him if he knew anything about Madame George. “She's living in San Juan Capistrano,” he said. “I flew to France and brought her here in 1970. The French cops busted up her operation when she refused to pay them off at double the usual rates. Adrian brought her over to make sure she didn't decide to write her memoirs. He paid for it out of his own pocket and ordered me never to mention it to you under any circumstances.”
“Why not?”
There was a long pause. “It seemed to have something to do with your Jewish conscience.”
Apotheosis.
This time Dick was sure he heard it.
This time Dick was sure he heard it.
Dick called in Bruce Simons, their director of public relations, and discussed plans for a memorial service for Adrian. He sketched a speech he wanted to make to the board and told him to get a writer working on it. He called Shannon in Washington to find out what was being said and done in the rumor capital of the world.
“It's pretty quiet,” Shannon said. “Carter's looking worse and worse. The Democrats are starting to pull in their left-wing horns. I think they'll let us aloneâif you can get Cliff to resign. Nothing else is gonna keep the Creature happy. What's the word on the Big Shot?”
“I don't know where he is.”
“Wurra wurra,” Shannon said.
Dick ate supper at his desk, talking to chief designer Sam Hardy and the project manager for a new mach 3 high-performance fighter. They showed him slides of incredible vortices on the wings at a high angle of attack and told him how much they were learning about wing loading from the pictures. The research might be very useful in designing the hypersonic airliner.
He spent the next several hours devouring reports from the missile and avionics divisions. When he looked at the clock on his desk, it was 11 P.M. The telephone rang. Cliff, ready to be reasonable? Dick grabbed the phone with hope uppermost.
“Stone here,” he said.
“GuilfordâTom,” said a shaky voice. “We just lost it. The big one. The BX. It went down about eighty miles from here, on a low-level practice run.”
“I'll be there in an hour.”
Dick summoned Sam Hardy from the Black Hole and Public Relations Director Bruce Simons from his bed. Their Hydra pilot got his instructions from the tower at Dreamland and in exactly one hour they descended from the starry sky at the crash site. The desert floor was eerily illuminated by huge searchlights the Air Force had flown in to begin the inevitable investigation. Pieces of the plane were scattered across a mile of desert. Most of them were blackened and twisted into junkyard objects. Only the needle nose, ripped off on impact, had escaped the fire and was relatively intact. It lay on its side like a decapitated head, reinforcing the desolation.
“What happened?” Dick asked, as General Anthony Sirocca shook his hand.
“All we know right now is they hit something big. It might have been a bird.”
A bird big enough to disable a seventy-ton hundred-million-dollar bomber? Dick could almost hear the anti-defense lobbyists chortling.
A haggard Tom Guilford joined them along with the boyish colonel in charge of the investigation. “We've found all four motors. There's parts of a very large bird in one of them,” the colonel said. “It might have been a Canada snow goose. We've got a guy who was stationed in Alaska for a while. He says he'd bet on it from the feathers and the size of the feet. Those birds weigh twenty-five or thirty pounds.”
“Why wasn't that designed in?” Dick asked Sam Hardy.
“Snow geese and other birds that size fly at much higher altitudes,” Hardy said. “We designed in resistance to birds of up to nine pounds.”
“The fucking plane is supposed to go up to seventy thousand feet!”
“But its mission is low-altitude attack. At high altitudes, if a big bird disabled an engine, there'd be plenty of time to handle the problem.”
Dick sighed. It was always the same story. Trying to anticipate chance, outwit fate, and save money. For some reason, at least once in every plane, fateâor was it Billy McCall's Lady of Luck?âwanted to let you know who was running things.
“We can't tell the real story,” Bruce Simons pleaded. “They'll crucify us. A plane with a history like this being knocked down by a goddamn bird.”
Dick stared stonily at Sam Hardy. He was looking more and more miserable. Leave it to Frank Buchanan to pick a bleeder for his successor. The guy was brilliant but he had Frank's soft heart.
“We'll tell the real story,” Dick said. “Call it a one-in-a-million accident. Let them laugh for a day. Then design in fifty-pound birds. Fucking eagles and vultures wearing armor plate!”
“It'll add a hundred pounds to each engine,” Hardy said. “We'll have to redesign the whole wing.”
“So redesign it! Call up your wife and tell her she's not going to see you for the next six months.”
He turned to Sirocca. “Who was flying her?”
“That kid who took you back the other night in your Rube Goldberg plane.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
They flew back to El Segundo in a miasma of gloom. It reminded Dick of the time the Talus crashed. Were they heading for another chop session?
“Has Cliff resigned?” Bruce Simons asked.
“Not yet,” Dick said.
Dick could see what Bruce was thinking. If Cliff has any brains left, he can wrap this crash around Dick Stone's neck and let him try to dance with it. After all, Dick was the guy who proclaimed from the balcony of the Mojave factory two years ago that he was not going to let the BX die. Bruceâor Dickâcould see Cliff declaiming to the board that he had always been opposed to the plane, he had tried to talk Adrian out of building it, the thing had gotten them a billion dollars' worth of bad publicity. It was the reason why the senators had attacked him so viciously.
It was so simple it was almost irresistible. There was only one person who could stop Cliff: Sarah. Again, Dick felt the wrench of inevitability tearing at his fragile hopes. It was becoming more and more impossible to ask her anything else.
Back in the office, there was a memo from his tireless Japanese secretary on his desk:
Sarah Morris called. She would like to see you at 9 A.M. tomorrow morning.
Sarah Morris called. She would like to see you at 9 A.M. tomorrow morning.
Hope or ruination? Dick wondered. There was only one thing to do: gamble everything on telling the truth.
Apotheosis,
Adrian Van Ness whispered.
Adrian Van Ness whispered.
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