Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (3 page)

He smiled to himself as he thought of the early days of their courtship, when Mae would have found the mattress on the floor erotic—they had made love in many other equally uncomfortable places.

A pain stabbed him as he thought about Tom being reunited with Nancy at the same time Mae was cutting ties with him. He still couldn’t believe it, but he couldn’t argue the point. He’d been an absentee husband, gone for months at a time, and Mae was too good for such treatment. He loved her and Rod, their seventeen-year-old son, but he was obsessed with the new weaponry he was helping create, and he let his work take precedence. Things were not going to improve. Now there was a new system on the horizon, one with possibilities that surpassed even his fervid imagination.

He didn’t blame her. Mae had warned him four years ago that something had to give—and now she was serious. She had probably met someone else, it was inevitable. He couldn’t blame her. He had always been faithful to her with women, but always unfaithful with work.

A mental image of Tom’s face as he knew him in Korea suddenly surfaced in his mind. Shannon had been young, blond, and ruggedly handsome. Rodriquez had been top dog then, a twelve-victory ace, while Tom was a relative newcomer, eager to go to war in MiG Alley. Tom, a Marine ace in World War II, scored four MiG kills officially during the war, with a fifth victory being confirmed four years later, so he was a jet ace, too.

Later, Tom had introduced him to his father, Vance Shannon, the legendary test pilot turned industry consultant. Vance had taken an immediate liking to him, for he saw—as Tom did as well—that Rodriquez was an electronics genius, with qualities and talents that the Shannons did not possess.

For a brief while he had gotten along well with all of them, Vance, Tom, his twin brother Harry, and the rest of the Shannon organization, Aerospace Consultants, Incorporated, as it was called then. Bob liked them and had worked hard. But things changed when Vance brought him, unannounced, into the firm as a partner. Both brothers were upset, but Tom took it as a personal affront.

As Bob scored one phenomenal business success after another, Tom’s enmity grew to the point that he left the firm and rejoined the Air Force. This nearly broke Vance’s heart and upset everyone else, including Nancy and Harry. Tom gained some glory in Vietnam, shaping up a fighter wing and shooting down at least four MiGs. On his last mission, he was shot down and had to suffer the brutal horrors of Vietnamese imprisonment for more than six years.

The phone rang—it was Steve O’Malley, now a full colonel and working with him on the latest project.

“Did you see Tom get off the C-141?” Shannon’s World War II exploits had made him O’Malley’s hero well before he went to the Air Force Academy.

“Yeah, he looked a little rough, but he’ll recover. He’s a survivor, obviously.”

“Have you talked to Vance yet?”

“No, I’m going to wait about an hour, and then call him. Give him a chance to settle in.”

“Good idea. How are you coming on the presentation?”

“I’ve got all the transparencies done for the overhead projector, and have the notes for you to look at. This is going to be a tough sell—an unproven project, ungodly expensive, and years before we get any results. Not what Pentagon staffers like to hear.”

O’Malley laughed, saying, “You got that right. If we sell this one, we should look around for buyers for the Brooklyn Bridge,” before hanging up.

Both men were at Eglin to continue testing on upgraded versions of the Paveway bombs that the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing—the Wolf
Pack—had used to take out the bridge at Thanh Hoa, North Vietnam. Rodriquez had been the guiding light behind the Paveways, working on site at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand to prepare the weapons for the raid. The laser-guided bombs did what hundreds of previous sorties had failed to do—destroy the bridge.

Few people other than the top military commanders had any idea of the real importance of precision guided munitions. Instead of sending a hundred airplanes to drop four bombs each, hoping that one would strike the target, you could now send one airplane, with two bombs, to take out two targets. The implications for strategy, for the budget, and for force size were immeasurable, and they were only just now beginning to be understood. One of Rodriquez’s major tasks was to convince commanders that they could operate with fewer aircraft, if those aircraft were equipped with laser-guided bombs.

Now they were creating something that promised to vastly improve the accuracy of precision guided weapons, as well as create a whole new technique for navigation. In two weeks, they were going to the Pentagon to brief the Chief of Staff on what Rodriquez was calling the “Global Positioning System,” a combination of twenty-four satellites and a widespread ground-based system that promised incredible navigation—and hence bombing—accuracy.

The Navy had led the way with Transit, the first satellite-based navigation system. But the Global Positioning System—GPS as Rodriquez fondly referred to it—was going to be vastly more efficient even if infinitely more expensive. It was exactly the sort of thing in which Rodriquez excelled. He wondered if Vance would be able to understand it. Harry Shannon would, of course, and so would Tom—if he would listen.

The potential for GPS was an order of magnitude more important than the new precision guided munitions. Rodriquez often used to doodle, writing GPS versus PGM over and over. When—if—they could sell the GPS concept, a whole new world would open up, not only in navigation and in bombing, but in command and control. The strength of Special Forces would be increased a hundredfold with GPS. You could conduct clandestine operations deep within unknown enemy territory with the assurance of a sleepwalker. With GPS you could do anything except perhaps win a peace.

March 20, 1973
Palos Verdes, California

J
ILL
S
HANNON GLANCED
up as the big grandfather’s clock chimed six times. The kids had built it from a kit when they were teenagers, before they had gone off to their service academies, Tom to Annapolis, Harry to West Point. The old clock was always fast, no matter how they tried to adjust it, so she knew she had at least ten minutes to complete laying out the table she’d prepared for Tom’s first meal with them. He had specified only two requirements: no rice and no pork fat. She’d responded with a lavish buffet that went from chilled shrimp through lasagna, turkey, half a dozen vegetables and salads, and two kinds of pie for dessert. It was overkill, but she wanted overkill.

Vance had spent part of each of the last two days at Tom’s place, drinking in Tom’s endless flow of flying stories, with scarcely a word about his days as a POW. Now he sat companionably in the kitchen with her, watching her still-slim body move rapidly around the room.

“Tom’s appetite is amazing, Jill. Nancy fixes him small meals almost every hour, the things he missed the most, and he cleans his plate every time.”

“Is he bitter about how badly they treated him?”

“It’s strange. You can tell he is still angry, but he’s keeping it bottled up, as if it is too tough for him to bear. He’s told me a few things that floored me, but for the most part he acts as if it had been a walk in the park. When he talks about prison, he talks mostly ’bout the other POWs, men he didn’t meet until after they freed him, but who were legends in the prison.”

“I’d like him to show me the tap code.”

“He gave me a couple of demonstrations. I couldn’t read it at first, he was doing it like a telegrapher, bang-bang-bang. Then he slowed it down and showed me how it worked. Pretty simple, and if it was the only way to communicate, damn effective.”

They heard the front door burst open and they walked hand in hand down the long Mexican tiled hallway, Vance shedding his years with every step, Jill watching him with pride.

Tom still limped, but he moved forward strongly, giving Jill a long
embrace and whispering into her ear his thanks for taking such good care of his father. He hugged Vance, saying, “Promise me one thing, Dad, no talk about me until after dinner. I’ve been talking all the time we’ve been together. It’s time for you to bring me up to speed on the business.”

He turned to Harry. “You, too, jump in and keep me up-to-date on what’s happening. You don’t have to dwell on the past, I’ll pick that up later. Let’s just talk about where we are and where we are going.”

Knowing Tom’s appetite, they moved immediately to the dining room, Vance watching as they settled themselves, showing all the elements of an old and a new family. Harry was conscientious as always about Anna, who inevitably made a point of her weight problem by eating virtually nothing when she was at table with anyone else. Anna was doing pretty well, staying away from alcohol and keeping her weight under control. But Harry looked worried. There was something going on there. He had seen the signs too often in the past. He had to be vigilant, or Anna would be off on a binge.

Nancy babied Tom, making sure he got the best tidbits and seeing that his beer glass was filled. Vance wasn’t so sure about that—Tom might have some trouble handling alcohol after all he had been through. Yet there was tension there, too, and Tom, as usual, brought it right out in the open.

“Well, let’s have it, Dad. I understand that Nancy is practically running things at the office now.” He projected a combative embarrassment, as if Nancy was doing what Vance had expected of him.

“Well, she certainly has taken over a lot of the administrative work; Jill has taught her well. The company grew while you were gone, couldn’t help it with all the wartime contracts.”

It was the opening Tom had been looking for. “And I guess most of the growth was due to our wonder boy, Bob Rodriquez?”

Harry spoke up for the first time. “Good Lord, Tom, are you still chewing that old bone? Bob has been a big help, but Vance Shannon, Incorporated, and all its divisions still depend on Dad’s name and reputation.”

Vance and everyone else knew that wasn’t true anymore. Vance was still beloved in the industry. He’d received honorary degrees from Cal Tech and Perdue, a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and been enshrined in the National Aviation
Hall of Fame. But he was not much of a force in the business anymore. That mantle had passed to Harry and Rodriquez.

Tom went on. “Well, I wanted to get one thing settled. In my six years as a POW, I finally figured something out. I’d been a jerk about Rodriquez, and I’m here tonight to tell you that I’m over it. I want to get back to work in the company when the Air Force releases me, and if I wind up working for Bob, it will be fine with me. And it will be fine if I wind up working for Nancy. But I want to make up for all the time I’ve spent away from the firm.”

The stunned silence was broken only by Vance’s voice. “Tom, that makes me almost as happy as I was when I saw you get off that C-141! We need you in the business, and we need everybody to get along.”

“Nancy told me that Bob and Mae were splitting up. She says the problem was Bob’s work obsession. What do you think, Dad?”

“No question. Bob loves her, and I think she loves him. She just doesn’t want to be alone.”

Nancy said, “She’s not the only one.”

And Jill said, “Amen.”

Harry and Tom were quiet. They knew that Vance had been exactly the same, gone all the time, working seven days a week, and they, for the most part, had been following in his footsteps. Nancy had left Tom when he volunteered to return to the Air Force to fly in Korea. They got back together when he returned, but neither Tom nor anyone else knew how close she came to divorcing him when he volunteered for Vietnam. Only two things prevented her from taking action—concern for Tom’s morale, and the satisfaction she was getting from the increased responsibilities Vance and Harry gave her.

Nancy smiled to herself. In a way, she had the Vance Shannon/Bob Rodriquez work obsession. It made her understand them a little better.

Tom rapped on the table, signaling for attention. They all turned to him, happy to see such a characteristic gesture surface. It meant he was already getting his confidence back.

“One thing is clear to me. We are all getting too old, and we may not age as gracefully as Dad has done. We need new blood! When Harry and I were coming up, we had contacts within the Air Force, and so we kept current. We’ve got to cultivate some young people, pilots, to work for the company.”

Vance Shannon stirred. “Amen to that. You have anyone in mind, Tom?”

“Well, V. R. is growing up, and maybe he’ll be able to join us in a few years. But we need some new people, now. Maybe we could pick up some company test pilots, guys who’ve been trained at Edwards, maybe, and pay them what they are worth. If we don’t stay current nowadays, we’ll just fall hopelessly behind.”

Jill glanced around the room. Tom had struck the right note with everyone—except Nancy. It was obvious that Nancy perceived Tom’s comments as a criticism, and she didn’t like it.

June 3, 1973
Paris, France

T
HE TWO MEN
watched silently as the beautifully maintained Concorde flashed by at near sonic speed, then pulled up in a sharp climbing turn that caused the crowd to gasp. Nearly 200,000 people poured into Le Bourget and except for the few gourmands who preferred drinking and eating in the manufacturer’s chalets to watching the world’s greatest air show, all were crowded at the fence to see what one American reporter had called “the shootout at the SST Corral.”

The Concorde and the Tu-144, the world’s only supersonic transports, were going head-to-head today with their demonstration flights. The press and public generally acknowledged that so far the Concorde had excelled in everything, from flying to the food served to VIPs in their respective chalets.

After their long weeks together, Alexei Tupolev, the Tu-144’s designer, and its pilot, Mikhail Kozlov, were now bickering constantly, each man suppressing a consuming, subliminal anger that threatened to erupt at any time.

Neither liked nor respected the other, but in front of the endless whirl and flash of cameras they maintained a cordial solidarity, making the kinds of gestures and comments that the newsreel people expected. Kozlov would point and Tupolev would clap as the Concorde swept around, showing that they were good sports about to demonstrate their own wares.