The Fly Boys (28 page)

“God, Teddy,” Gold scowled. He personally needed a tidy workplace, but Teddy was one of those who seemed to thrive creatively
amid chaos. The office was a mess. Balled-up papers littered the carpet, and haphazard drifts of folders and rolled-up blueprints
blanketed Teddy’s drafting table and every stick of furniture. The only oasis of neatness was the glass display case that
took up one whole wall. The case held scale models of the entire GAT family of aircraft, including the latest, the BroadSword.

“I’ll be with you in a minute….” Teddy murmured. His tortoiseshell eyeglasses were perched on the tip of his nose as he studied
the work perched on his lap. He had a pen in one hand, and in the other a half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola from which a bent
straw bobbed.

Gold wrinkled his nose. “It smells like week-old sweat socks in here.”

“I resent that insinuation.” Teddy wiggled his stockinged toes. He jotted a quick note on the top sheet of the papers on his
lap and then tossed them aside. He swung his feet off the desk drawer and sat up. “How’d it go with our bomber at lunch?”
he asked.

“Fuck the bomber,” Gold said. “We’re building them a tanker.”

Teddy didn’t say anything for a moment. He just stared at Gold, his green eyes magnified by the thick lenses. Then he said,
“What?”

“A tanker,” Gold repeated.

Teddy ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair, salted with gray. “Herm, I’m your chief engineer, right?”

“Of course,” Gold said distractedly.

“Well, unless you’ve got some
other
chief engineer stashed away around here someplace, I’m pretty sure we haven’t designed a tanker.”

“I know that! We’ve got forty-eight hours to come up with one.”

“Forty-eight hours?” Teddy echoed weakly.

“Right.”

The cigarette between Teddy’s lips had burned down to almost nothing. Teddy pinched the inch-long butt between thumb and nicotine-stained
index finger, took a final drag, and then shook loose a fresh cigarette from the pack of Camels on his desk. He lit it off
the butt.

“You smoke too much,” Gold said.

“That’s because I work for you.” Teddy exhaled a perfect smoke ring and then flicked the butt through it. It arced, trailing
smoke like a crippled fighter before nose-diving into the hubcab. He gestured toward the folder-laden armchair in front of
his desk. “Herman, throw some of that crap on the floor, sit down, and tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Gold filled him in on what had taken place at lunch. “So I think Howie is on to us,” he concluded. “But I’m pretty sure Billy
Burnett hasn’t caught on.”

Teddy frowned. “I don’t get something. If the general knows that you were bullshitting, why would he go along?”

Gold laughed. “I think Howie thinks the whole idea is a pisser. If I know him—and I do—I’d wager that he’s willing to go along
just to see if we can do it.”

“Okay,” Teddy nodded. “Now I understand.”

“Good!” Gold jumped to his feet. “Now we haven’t got any time to waste! Let’s get everyone together in the conference room
and—”

Teddy held up his hand. “Herm, I understand, but I don’t want to do it.”

Gold wanted to shout, but he forced himself to remain calm. After all, he wouldn’t have lost his temper with Howie Simon or
Billy Burnett. It was hard to be as diplomatic with friends as he could be with business acquaintances.

“You have to do it, Teddy,” he replied softly, sitting back down. “You said so yourself. You’re my chief engineer.”

Teddy took off his eyeglasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “I’m still exhausted from the BroadSword project. We went for
weeks at a time with little sleep and bad food.” He shook his head. “I’m fifty-three years old. I’m just not as young as I
used to be,” he laughed weakly.

“Hey,” Gold shrugged. “Who is?”

“You’re missing the point—” Teddy began.

“No,” Gold cut him off. “
You
are. GAT has got to come up with a jet airliner. We’ve
got
to. Sales of our prop-powered Monarch GC series have been steadily tapering off as the airlines look ahead. Teddy, we have
grown
used
to those revenues. If we want to survive, we are going to have to come up with an airplane we can sell in place of those
Monarchs. If
we
don’t, someone else
will
, and GAT will become an also-ran.”

“But, Herman,” Teddy was pleading, “you can’t expect us to come up with an airplane in forty-eight hours?”

“That’s all I could get,” Gold replied. “General Simon is bending over backward just to give us that much time.”

“But we spent months working on the bomber proposal, and the Air Force shot it down.”

“Yeah, but Billy Burnett told me what they didn’t like about it,” Gold enthused. “So all we have to do is design out those
flaws. And anyway, we were up against everyone in the business in the bomber competition, but we’ve got a head start concerning
the tanker, and the Air Force
needs
a jet tanker fast enough to keep up with a jet bomber, so they’re going to be more willing to buy.”

Teddy sighed. “I guess the airlines
will
feel a whole lot better about investing in a jet airplane that has already met the Air Force’s high standards.”

“
That’s
the Teddy I know and love. Whatever we come up with has to be able to also serve as a commercial transport with only minor
changes. Once we put this airplane into production we’re going to be able to save a lot of money if we can easily divert the
product to either the commercial or military markets.”

“You sound awfully confident,” Teddy chided.

“We’re winners,” Gold declared. “Winners
win
.”

“Forty-eight hours,” Teddy mused, chuckling. “Everybody is going to have to fucking sleep here.”

“Suzy!” Gold yelled.

A second later she stuck her head inside the office. “Daddy!” she scolded. “There’s an intercom buried somewhere on Teddy’s
desk, so you don’t have to yell like some crazy person.”

“Honey!” Teddy put his fingers to his lips. “Be quiet, and listen. I want you to order some folding cots and have them delivered
ASAP.”

“But not too many,” Gold cautioned. He glanced at Teddy. “We want them sleeping in shifts. While some sleep others should
be working. And we’ll keep an eye on all of them,” he elaborated. “The best ones won’t
want
to sleep. They’ll be too afraid that they might miss something.” He glanced back at his daughter. “Call the cafeteria in
this building. I want the place open around the clock for the next forty-eight hours.”

“Daddy, what’s going on?” Suzy demanded. When Gold was done telling her, she said, “It sounds exciting, Daddy. I’d like to
stay as well. It’d be my chance to really contribute something to GAT.”

Gold looked at Teddy, who said, “She’s the best secretary I’ve ever had. She’d be useful to us.”

“Okay,” Gold shrugged, smiling at Suzy. He pulled his leather-bound note pad out of his pocket and handed it to her. “You
can start by typing up the notes I took during lunch.”

“Yes, sir!” Suzy said, leaving the office.

“And make lots of carbons!” Gold called after her. He sighed. “I’d better telephone home and break the news to Erica.”

Teddy laughed. “That’s what you get for being a family man,” he teased.

“Wise guy,” Gold muttered. Teddy had once been married, but the marriage hadn’t worked out and had ended, childless, years
ago. Teddy had been a bachelor ever since.

“Actually, I’m jealous,” Teddy said.

Gold was hardly listening. “When Suzy’s done typing up that list of revisions Billy Burnett gave me, have her distribute copies
to all your people.”

“Will do.”

Gold got up to leave the office. He was halfway out when he remembered what Howie Simon had jokingly said. “Oh, and one more
thing—”

Teddy looked up. “Yeah?”

“Remind everyone to backdate every piece of paper we generate.”

Teddy laughed. “That part’s easy, my friend. But how the fuck are we going to age the paper?”

The office suite where Steven Gold worked was in the basement of the Pentagon. The suite had tan-painted walls and dark brown
carpeting. Round milk-glass light fixtures hung from the low ceiling. Steve and the others called it “the bunker,” and joked
that in the event of an enemy air strike they would be all that would be left of the Air Force in the nation’s capital; it
would be up to them to represent the Air Force against the commie hordes.

The joke had led Steve and some of the others to while away their time by working on a joint effort:
The USAF Public Relations Counterinsurgency Defense Manual
. Some of the chapters that had already been surreptitiously written, mimeographed, and circulated to selected recipients
were:
Sniping with the Hand-held, Elastic-Operated Standard Air Force Issue No. 2 Paper-Clip; Enemy Sentry Neutralization/Immobilization
Utilizing the Air Force Regulation Red/Black Manually Operated Typewriter Ribbon; Psychological Warfare Utilizing Anonymous
Telephone Techniques;
and
The Spitball: Germ Warfare As the Defense of Last Resort
. Steve, thanks to his experience with the Flying Tigers, was working on a chapter outlining some Burmese hand-to-hand combat
techniques of inflicting paper cuts.

At the moment, however, Steve’s desk was piled high with real work as it had been for months. A couple of days ago Russia
had capitulated, ending the Berlin airlift. That American air-power victory in the skies over Berlin had capped a tremendous
half year for the Air Force.

In February a Boeing XB-47 prototype jet bomber had set a coast-to-coast speed record, and in March a B-50 prop-driven bomber
had flown nonstop around the world in ninety-four hours, demonstrating, in the words of a press release that had come out
of this department, that “the United States could drop atomic bombs at any spot on earth at any time.”

A lot of people on the Hill were giving the B-50’s achievement the credit for convincing the doubters in Western Europe to
join with the United States in a mutual defense treaty—NATO—against the Soviets. As the line of reasoning went, if the Air
Force could beat the Soviets in Berlin, it could beat the Soviets anywhere in Western Europe.

The consensus was that the battle of wills against the Reds had been won in April, when the Air Force had been able to announce
that it was landing a plane a minute in Berlin every day. In retrospect it was clear that the achievement had struck a tremendous
psychological blow against the Reds. It had also handed the Air Force a domestic public relations bonanza. Steve had been
up on the Hill almost every day to lobby for more appropriations for the Air Force.

From his desk Steve could see his CO Colonel Stewart talking on the phone in his glass-enclosed office. Steve needed to talk
with the colonel. He needed a giant favor, and figured now was as good a time as any to ask for it. He’d already checked with
Stewart’s secretary and had found out that the colonel had no meetings scheduled for the next couple of hours.

He waited until Colonel Stewart was off the telephone, and then went up and rapped on the door of the colonel’s “aquarium.”
Stewart waved him in.

Steve opened the door. “Colonel, could I talk to you for a few minutes?”

“Come in, Captain.” Stewart was a balding, pudgy guy in his forties. He gestured to the red vinyl and chrome chair in front
of his green metal desk. “Sit down.”

“Thank you, sir.” Steve tried to get comfortable, but the stiff plastic acted like a whoopie cushion, making a fart sound
every time he shifted his weight.

“What can I do for you?” the colonel asked.

Steve hesitated. He knew what he wanted to say.
How
to say it was the issue. Stewart had made bird colonel during the war, thanks to the outstanding job he’d done holding down
a desk in the USAAF’s Office of Public Information. The man had a sore spot when it came to those who thought polishing up
the Air Force’s shiny reputation wasn’t every bit as vital to the Air Force as flying airplanes. Steve was about to hit that
sore spot with a hammer.

“I’d like to talk to you about my career, sir,” Steven began, feeling nervous. He wished that he could smoke, but there were
no ashtrays in Stewart’s office. “I’ve been stuck at captain for over three years now—”

“I realize that,” Stewart interrupted. “But I want you to know that I’m doing everything I can to get you what I consider
to be a long-overdue promotion,” he comforted smoothly. “You know that I’ve written you up as an outstanding officer?”

“Thank you, sir,” Steve said.

“The problem is that promotions have been scaled back due to fiscal constraints.”

“Begging the colonel’s pardon, but the budget has allowed for the promotions of some of the others in the department with
less seniority than me.”

“Than
I
—” the colonel corrected, sounding miffed.

“Uh, right….”

“The rule is simple, Captain. Just think to yourself: ‘less seniority than I
have
—’”

“Pardon me, sir….” Steve murmured.

Stewart’s severity abruptly softened. “No, pardon
me
,” he apologized, smiling. “I shouldn’t have interrupted you, but you know how I
hate
grammatical errors.”

“Yes, sir. No problem, sir.” Steve thought Stewart was basically okay for a desk jockey, even if he was, at times, chickenshit.

The colonel was drumming his fingers on the desktop. He stared longingly at his telephone. “Well, go on, Captain. What was
it you were saying?”

“Well, sir, I think I know why I’ve been passed over for promotion.”

That
got Stewart’s attention, all right. He leaned back in his chair. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Fill me in.”

“Yes, sir. Well, sir, I think my present career flight path has hit ceiling because the war has been over a long time now,”
Steve said. “You’re the public relations expert, not me, but I do remember that one of the first things you taught me was
that in public relations you’ve got to stay current. Well, if the war is yesterday’s news, it stands to reason that my propaganda
value to the Air Force has also faded with the passing years.”