Air Force Eagles (20 page)

"Lyra, I'll protect you. Don't worry about him."

She initially wanted to return to Salinas at once, worrying that Helmut might be on his way already. Riley finally persuaded her to rest in the room while he went down to the casinos to gamble, persuading her that the Bandfields would not let anything happen to Ulrich. After calling to warn Patty, Lyra finally agreed.

By evening she had realized that if Helmut had not come yet he was not likely to come that very night and let herself be overwhelmed by the neon extravaganza of the Las Vegas Strip. She didn't feel like eating yet, and they prowled the Strip, taking in the people and the players. They stopped for drinks while she told about the blackouts and the bombing in Berlin. He held her hands as the words tumbled out about being trapped in the crowded bomb shelters, about the hunger.

"You don't understand how precious this cup of coffee is! In Berlin, an ounce of real coffee was more valuable than an ounce of gold."

Her stories went on and on until she grew too sad and he realized it was time to go to see Jack Benny playing at the Last Frontier. She pretended to like it, but he could see that she didn't appreciate Benny's understated, self-deprecatory humor. They left in the middle of his act—it was like the scene in his film To Be or Not To
Be
—to go back to the Flamingo to listen to the Vagabonds. When they went in to eat, Riley shamelessly plied her with California champagne, enjoying her European style of eating. He tried working his fork and knife as he thought she did, making her laugh openly and without reservation for the first time. Later she had egged him on as he successfully lost money at blackjack, roulette, and the craps table. But it wasn't until she hit a jackpot on the quarter slots that she really glowed—and then suggested that they go back to the room "to put the money away and to talk things over."

Even at nine dollars, it was not a large room. She had them sit at the small table on two straight-back chairs, as far from the bed as they could get, saying, "Let me tell you why I've been so distant with you. It's not that I don't feel attracted."

He nodded; he'd waited months, he could wait some more.

"My husband and I were lovers for a long time before we married. Such things were probably more customary then in Europe than in America even now."

He nodded again, wondering why she was telling him something that absolutely did not matter, then taking her hand as fear filled her eyes.

"I thought I could escape him by coming to America. I never thought that they would let someone so involved in using slave labor come to this country."

He waited and she went on. "It's ominous that he hasn't called me. If he didn't intend us harm, he surely would have called." She looked deep into Riley's eyes. "Wouldn't he?"

"I don't know, Lyra. Perhaps he has no intention of seeing you, perhaps he's ashamed to."

She looked away, nodding as if she wanted to believe. Then, shaking herself as if she were literally shedding Helmut from her shoulders, she looked him in the eye and said, "And I have had other lovers, too. I was in the German resistance—God knows there were few enough of us—and I became one of Joseph Goebbels's many conquests. I hated it, but he gave me much useful information. And I think he might have saved my life, late in the war."

Riley was touched, knowing how much this cost her.

Lyra was close to tears. "In my own way, I'm as scarred as Helmut. Let me tell you why I have this problem of washing my hands. A group of us were on a train to Dachau. It was in the last month of the war, and the Nazis were using all sorts of people in their military. We were guarded by two members of the
Volksturm
—an old man and a young boy with a crippled leg."

She stopped, her lips working as if she wanted to say more, then she ran into the bathroom. There was the sound of running water, and then she returned, obviously embarrassed by giving in to her compulsion even as she was talking of it. She stood beside him. "I knew we would be killed when the train got to Dachau, so I made sexual advances to the older man. When he accepted, I manipulated him with my hand to excite him. As he became more excited, I was able to take his knife and . . . kill him. He bled all over my hands. I killed the young guard as well. Then, a little later, the train stopped when it was attacked by
your"
—the word sounded like a criminal charge—"fighters, and most of us were able to get away. But ever since then, I've been cursed with this foolish handwashing habit."

He rose and extended his arms slightly. "Do you think it might do well for you to see a psychiatrist?"

She reddened in anger. "You think I'm crazy? I'm not crazy; I'm washing my hands because they were soiled with the blood and semen of that filthy guard."

He reached out to her, and she slumped gratefully in his arms.

"Lyra, I don't have a lot to offer you, and I know how you feel about pilots. But I've been reassigned. I'll be going to Texas. I love you and I love Ulrich, too. I want you to marry me; I want to take care of you both, forever."

She nestled her face in his shoulder, crying softly. "Bear, I see how it is with Patty and Bandy. He's never home. I don't want to marry someone who won't be around."

He kissed her, and she stirred, pressing herself into him. Finally she whispered, "Let's forget about everything else; just make love to me now."

*

Itazuke Air Force Base, Japan/October 18,1950

The two long months in the military hospital had given Marshall too much time to think about Saundra, Coleman, and his own career. He was determined to get back into combat, to win his job back as operations officer. As soon as they released him from the hospital he went to the assignment officer in personnel, a balding sympathetic major who genuinely seemed to want to help.

"Captain Marshall, you're right. The 76th is short of pilots. But I'm going to level with you." As he said it, Major Rosa shifted uneasily in his seat. "Look, Captain, I've never seen this before, but your old CO. has specifically requested that you don't come back to his unit. It's just as well, because I've got a priority job that needs filling here at Itazuke, and you're perfect for it." "I don't want a job in Japan—I want back in combat." Rosa shook his head wearily. "I don't want a job in Japan either, I want to go back to the States. But I'm here and you're here, and that's how it's going to be. But I'll tell you what. You take what I give you for a few months, and I'll try to get you assigned to another fighter outfit as soon as I can."

Bowled over by Coleman's veto of his return, Marshall reluctantly took a job at Itazuke as an engineering officer, making test flights on all the planes that were in for maintenance—fighters, bombers, trainers, everything in the inventory. Working hard, he turned the maintenance unit from a job-lot concept, geared to peacetime base activity, to an industrial facility capable of doing maintenance on a mass-production basis. The system worked so well it got a name, REMCO, for Rear Echelon Maintenance Combined Operations, and Marshall got a "well-done" letter from Earle Partridge, the Fifth Air Force's commanding general.

Even working eighteen hours a day, the base was comfortable compared to Korea, and the job was satisfying, but there was no combat in Japan, no chance to kill some MiGs.

Then, in mid-November, Bear Riley showed up in the 27th Fighter-Escort Wing, transferring from Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas. The 27th was a Strategic Air Command outfit, flying Republic F-84E Thunderjets. The airplanes had been brought over on the carrier U.S.S.
Bataan
and were badly corroded from the salt spray.

Riley was reflective. "I tell you, pal, that might not be a bad thing. I'm trying to get Lyra to marry me, and she hates the way I've been bouncing around, says I'm just like Bandy. Maybe being a SAC bomber pilot wouldn't be too bad; they stay pretty much in place. Lyra might be able to get used to that."

"That's great, Bear, you and Lyra would be a great pair. But I don't think they'll ever get you in bombers."

Riley introduced me to the CO. of the 27th, Colonel Blakeslee, a hard-drinking World War II ace. When Blakeslee saw the REMCO operation Marshall had set up, and how quickly his F-84s were being put in shape, he got him transferred to his wing. Bones was already checked out in the F-84 and took over the maintenance officer job in the 522nd—the "Fireball Squadron," where Riley was the operations officer.

*

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base/ November 15, 1950

The base's tempo was offbeat, hesitant, not like the charging hell-bent-for-leather days of World War II, not yet like the somnolent prewar years. Instead it was slowly, inexpertly lurching toward the pace the new war in Korea required. Roget walked down the Area C flight line, drinking in the proliferation of aircraft types. There were still hangovers from 1945, plenty of C-47s, C-54s, and Mustangs, but there were all the new types, too—F-86s, two B-47s, a fleet of B-45s, stuff he'd, give his right arm to fly. Yet the thing that really amazed him was the sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. After years of starving to death, losing competitions for contracts with the government, he'd been handed a $20 million order on a platter, No competing, no argument, just take the money and run!

Roget had flown into Dayton the day before, for a one-hour meeting with the commanding general of the Air Materiel Command, Lieutenant General Edwin W. Rawlings. It had been like old times—he'd known him as Captain Rawlings back in 1935 and Colonel Rawlings during the war, when Roget had worked at Wright Field.

If he hadn't been in love with flying, Rawlings could have made it in Hollywood with his square shoulders, curly hair, and deep, rich voice. "Hadley. I hear you want to get back into the airplane business."

"Yes, sir, General. Frank Bandfield and I have been futzing around with houses and stuff, when he's not off flying for you guys. We were thinking about maybe doing some inspection and repair work."

Practically every flyable asset the Air Force, Reserves, and National Guard units had in service was already on its way to Korea. It would take months for new airplanes to start coming off the production lines—but there were literally thousands of aircraft in storage or lying surplus at airports around the country, waiting to be brought back into service.

"Here's the contract, Hadley, all set. I'll have them fill in the blanks when you leave. It calls for an initial lot of one hundred airplanes. We deliver them to your factory in Salinas, you refurbish them to our specs, we fly them away. Almost all the major stuff is GFE—Government Furnished Equipment. The rest of it, mostly sheet metal, control runs, stock stuff like that, you'll have to local manufacture. As soon as you can handle more, let me know, and we'll get another contract out to you."

"When do we got our first bird?"

"It's on the way as of now. You'd better get your ass back to Salinas and start hiring some first-rate mechanics. Now on your way, we've both got work to do."

"Yes, and if we were in the old plant at Downey, it wouldn't be a problem. But it means we've got to expand here at Salinas. I'm going to have to go to the bank again and get the money for it."

"Yeah, sure, and have Bandy never speak to me again? No, we'll do it, but it's risky. If something goes wrong, if peace broke out, I don't think we'd come out of it okay."

"Go ahead. It'll be okay. I'm sure of it." Hadley put down the phone, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded.

*

Los Angeles, California/December 1, 1950

A crowd pressed around the shop window, watching the noontime television news. Late for a critical appointment, she couldn't stop to watch herself, but the shop owner had rigged a speaker, and she could hear Douglas Edwards's voice. "Two hundred thousand Chinese troops are driving United Nations forces back all along the front." She sagged with the knowledge that this meant more combat for John—as if he hadn't already had enough. He'd fought in Italy, and he'd been shot up in Korea. It just wasn't fair.

A few weeks before, he'd written from Japan, delighted to be flying F-84s, and sure that everything was almost over—MacArthur's invasion at Inchon had turned the war around, totally defeating the North Koreans. But now with the Chinese coming in and the Russians blustering, it looked as if it might be World War III.

Saundra had wanted to go to Japan to be with John in the hospital, but he had insisted that he'd be back flying before she could get there. And she was completely engaged in developing her new products—hair straighteners, skin lighteners, and special shampoos. It took weeks before she really felt they were good enough to market, months before anyone would buy them, and now they were selling even better than the "love potions."

And it was this success that made her, at one level of her emotions, glad that John was overseas. She simply could not deny the extraordinary pleasure she derived from succeeding on her own, without any help from anyone except Lyra and Patty. They'd been godsends, with funds and advice. Patty had advanced her five thousand dollars, and Lyra had given her some more face cream and shampoo recipes that her mother had used in Europe. But they didn't help in the actual business—it was she who went out and knocked on doors and sold the products. She mixed them in big stainless steel bakery vats, using a two-foot-long wooden paddle to stir, then laboriously packaged and labeled them. She even drove the truck, making sure that deliveries were on time and that no one was shorted.