Air Force Eagles (13 page)

He yawned and scratched, reflecting that he didn't like it much either. In the beginning, it had been a perfect assignment. There had been a rapid buildup in the Israeli Air Force, and he left in good conscience, having done his bit for the underdog, at the same time getting lots of information on the forces in the area. Yet the little dust-up with Ruddick still bothered him. There wasn't much he could do about it now, but if he could ever put the blocks to the blowhard bastard, he would.

Yesterday he had received word from Josten that tonight was the night he'd be calling in the favor owed him for blowing up the tower. Riley enjoyed flaunting authority, but he hoped this would be vaguely legal. Yet the USAF owed Josten a great deal, and he knew Riley would do almost anything short of murder, as long as it didn't hurt the United States.

The control wheel banged against his knee as violent backfires ripped apart the C-54's sleep-inducing vibrations. Riley glanced quickly at the oil pressure and cylinder head gauges, then turned to Sergeant Bonadies, asking, "What do you think, Al?"

"We must have blown a jug on number one. Let's feather it."

Bear hesitated. The Pratt & Whitney engines were tough and the airplane was overloaded. "No, we're too heavy, just pull the power back." Just then Wallston, white with fear, jabbed his hand up and feathered the prop on engine number four.

The C-54 sagged like a pricked balloon as Riley applied power to two and three, yelling to Bonadies, "Restart number four as soon as you can, then keep easing the power on number one back till it stops backfiring!"

Bonadies's hands flew across the panel—he knew that the Douglas behind them was gaining on them second by second, and they'd already dropped three hundred feet toward the stream of unsuspecting C-54s below.

"You want it, Captain?" Wallston's voice went high, pleading, not asking.

"No, no, you got it, you're doing fine. Just don't feather any more of the good engines."

Riley pulled out the let-down plates; he didn't need to study them, and they'd be picked up by the excellent Tempelhof GCA shortly, but he wanted Wallston to feel it was his airplane to fly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the altitude continue to slip away as the airspread bled off three miles per hour.

"Give it some more power, Major—don't be afraid to use all you've got. Get on the trim, and keep it straight and level. Tromp down on the rudder to center the ball—crabbing like this causes more drag, and slows us down."

Wallston shot a look of pure panic at him and jabbed all four throttles forward, the number one engine belching long streams of flame back to turn the enveloping mist fiery red. Bonadies had already shoved the mixtures to full rich and the props to full high rpm, shaking his head in disgust as he pulled the number one throttle back. Wallston's spastic reaction might have blown the engine up; he was shook. Bonadies thought, Why the hell doesn't Bear take over? Or at least put the fucking magazine down.

Riley was now idly thumbing through a copy of
Flying,
apparently content to leave the situation in the other pilot's sweating hands. The airspeed was back to 170, and they were coming up on their proper altitude again. Bear nudged the control column forward with his knee and said, "Better reduce the power, Major."

"Negative" meant the airplane required maintenance. A damn shame, Riley thought. They'd probably have to leave the airplane there, and that meant he'd have to carry whatever Josten was bringing in somebody else's airplane to get it out of Berlin. No real problem, just a complication if Josten was sending out a big painting or a sculpture. He laughed to himself, thinking it was probably a bronze horse from the Brandenburg Gate.

Riley switched frequencies and the familiar voice of Tempelhof GCA came up. Ground-controlled approaches were relatively new, but the crew in Berlin was superb. Just the comforting sound of their lazy voices, telling you when to turn and when to descend, urging little corrections up or down, right or left, like a wife's conjugal instructions to her husband, was worth the trip.

"Air Force Six One Zero, if you read me, acknowledge and turn left to three-sixty degrees now and descend to two thousand feet."

Wallston flew straight ahead, oblivious to the call, so Riley kneed the control wheel up and applied a little left rudder. As he did, the C-54 bucked like a dying horse from a tremendous explosion that sent the cowling from the number one engine rattling back against the fuselage and tail. Riley tossed his magazine down, reached up and put his hand over the feathering buttons of the good engines, and yelled, "Al, feather number one and pop the fire bottle."

Wallston stared at the instruments, his hands frozen on the controls, eyes cod-cold with fear.

"Tempelhof GCA, Six One Zero declaring an emergency, we have a fire on number one." Riley's voice was calm. He reached over and shook Wallston's arm.

"Okay, Major, we're passing through three thousand feet. Get it trimmed up; they'll be turning you on to the downwind leg shortly."

GCA had just turned them on final approach when the oil-starved number one propeller separated, wrenching itself from the engine and sending a blade slicing into the number two engine. Debris thundered against the fuselage again, and Riley saw the number two RPM needle surge to the stops.

"Feather two, Al. Full power on three and four. Major, you watch for the runway lights, and give me a yell as soon as you see them."

They were north of the final approach course and well below the four-hundred-foot minimum ceiling for Tempelhof. Riley concentrated on the instruments, his leg straining to keep the nose of the C-54 from wandering while he arm-wrestled to keep the wings level.

The wartime Allied bombing had not been perfect, for the approach to Tempelhof was studded on either side with seven-story-tall apartment buildings, some still habitable. At night, in clear weather, you could look up to see the lights from people's living rooms. Riley pressed on, hoping that they would not become sudden uninvited guests.

Wallston grabbed his arm and pointed. "Approach lights!"

Mounted in a cemetery on pylons made of pierced-steel planking, high-intensity lights marked a path to the runway. Riley kept full power on as he banked sharply to line up.

"Gear down; full flaps."

Wallston clutched the control wheel in a death grip as Bonadies dropped the gear and flaps.

With a skipping crunch, the C-54 touched down on the first third of the runway. Riley was almost standing on the right rudder as he pulled the throttles back. With the asymmetric power bled off, he got off the rudder to let the airplane roll straight ahead on dark concrete glistening slick from rain. As it slowed, the glitter of the yellow runway lights merged with the flashing red signals of the fire trucks and ambulances, embracing the suddenly silent C-54 in an orange nimbus of moisture.

Riley was already going through the paperwork. "They'll have to tow us off. You've got the airplane, Major. Not a bad ride, but maybe you need one more trip before I check you out."

Wallston grinned and shook the wheel. "Hey, call me Wally. And yeah, one more ride ought to do it. That wasn't too bad a landing, was it?"

As forbidding as death itself, Josten was waiting for them as the oil-covered C-54 was towed in. As the German civilians began their quick offloading drill, muscling the cartons of macaroni as if they were manning a fast-firing 88 flak battery, he handed Riley a brown leather satchel. Riley would have no trouble taking it back out; it was standard government issue. Inside the satchel was an oblong package, wrapped in rubberized fabric and sealed with a ceramic-like glaze.

"Captain Riley, this is extremely valuable. Please don't open it. Make sure it gets to the addressee as soon as possible. He and I have already corresponded about this, and he knows what to expect—he knows its true value."

"What is it, a bootleg Rembrandt?"

They were standing alone in the bay of a hangar, but Josten lowered his voice. "I shouldn't tell you this, but perhaps it will insure that you are careful with it. It is far more important than any Rembrandt; it transcends the little matter of art. Inside this is a flag, the one that Adolf Hitler marched with in Munich, the Blood Flag of the Nazi Party. It has tremendous historical significance."

Riley was so relieved it wasn't a stolen old master that he laughed out loud. "Who the hell would want it?"

"I don't expect you to understand. I just expect you to get it to its destination."

"No problem. I'll have it to . . ." He scanned the label and exploded. "Jesus Christ, this is going to Milo Ruddick! I hate that guy. What the hell does he want with a Nazi flag?"

Josten's thin lips parted slightly—it could have been a smile. "That's none of your business. You said you'd do me a favor. This is the first part of it."

"What else do you want?"

"I want you to get
me
into the United States. I want to work,in the aircraft industry. At McNaughton Aircraft."

Riley hesitated. The man deserved a lot—he'd have to try. "Helmut, I'll give it my best shot. I think I can get you into the United States—we've already employed lots of German scientists and engineers. And I may be able to get you a job, but I can't specify which company."

"I got a radio tower blown up for General Gunter. He can get a job for me at McNaughton."

*

Cleveland, Ohio/September 4, 1949

The two old friends ignored the weather as it shifted from blazing sun to glowering black clouds and scattered showers. Prowling the flight line like hunters on the trail, they submerged themselves in the rich perfume of beautiful aircraft: high-octane gas, acrid exhaust fumes, accompanied by the rumbling shriek of power as the engines were tested.

Hadley Roget's swift pace belied his six decades. Head forward, shoulders back, he took in the new technology at a glance, analyzing and comparing the fleet of modified warplanes competing in the next day's Thompson Trophy race. Normally Roget's long, rugged face was cast in a scowl, his brow, cheeks, and jaw all jutting with harsh, angular lines. Now, absorbed in every detail of the airplanes, his contentment softened his features, making him seem ten years younger.

"Take you back to 1932, Bandy?"

Frank Bandfield, his arm in a sling, just nodded, too moved to speak. Cleveland in 1932 meant many things to him. It was the year that Jimmy Doolittle, one of the greatest pilots of all time, had won the Thompson Trophy in the bulletlike Gee Bee racer. Bandy had won his own less competitive event, the Standard Mystery Derby, and with it enough money to start the Roget Aircraft Factory. Most important of all, it was at those same races that he met the woman who became his wife, Patty Dompnier.

"Look at all this iron—P-51s, P-63s, some big Corsairs. Nothing but fighter planes. Looks like the old-time builders are out of luck. You couldn't slap an airplane together out of steel tube and plywood in your backyard like we did and be competitive."

"Yeah, but the midgets are sort of like that. Let's go over and see how Marshall's doing."

As if to compensate the old-time racers who'd busted their balls in the prewar Cleveland races, the Goodyear Company had established a prize for homebuilt racers powered by modified light-plane engines. Small but fast, they depended upon the ingenuity of their builders and the skill of their pilots to win.

They found Marshall stretched out on his back underneath the wing of a neat wooden gull-wing monoplane. It was painted a light blue and carried the name
Saundra's Special
on the cowling. Nudging Marshall with his foot, Bandfield said, "Come on out, John, I've got Hadley Roget here to give you some tips."

Marshall rolled back on the creeper grinning. "Lord knows I need them, Bandy. I'm only turning about one-thirty in the practice heats, not enough to qualify, much less win." He stood up, wiping his hands on cotton waste.

"Hey, what'd you do to your arm, Bandy?"

"It's nothing, just an operation to dig out a little shrapnel from when I got shot up at the end of the war. Just means I can't do any flying for a few days."

Roget was down on his hands and knees in front of the airplane, carefully sighting along the fuselage. He walked around it silently, then turned to Marshall.

"The only reason you're getting one-thirty out of it is because of the good workmanship. It's a mighty clean airplane, John, but you've built in too much drag with the gull wings. You've got two intersections in close to the fuselage, and the drag is eating you up."

Marshall looked appalled. Half the appeal of the airplane for him had been building a "mini-Corsair."

"Will it help if I tweak the engine for more horsepower?"

Roget loved it; he was just getting warmed up. "The drag's going to go up faster than the power. You ought to take this back home and stick a straight low wing right across the bottom. It means you've got to change the gear, but that's the only way you'll ever be competitive with this little scooter."

Bandfield shook his head. "Don't let this old gloom merchant get you down, John. Go on fiddling, you never know what might happen to the others."

Roget chimed in, "Don't blow smoke at him, Bandy. The man's competing with Fish Salmon and Tony LeVier! This is a pretty little airplane, but it don't stand a chance."

His words were drowned out in the roar of four North American F-86A Sabres streaking across the field at low level, the pounding roar of their jet engines completely overwhelming all the other activities on the field. They were scheduled to race in the next day's Thompson Trophy race.