Air Force Eagles (26 page)

Nathan had left town, a good thing; he'd had to have killed him. It made it impossible to continue to care for Marny—she was innocent, of course, but it had been her son. And money was tighter all the time.

It was annoying to be so dependent on the funds being funneled to him by Troy McNaughton. The Little Rock real estate market had gone from bad to worse, the oil business was stagnant, and the cost of supporting the Klan was back-breaking. Besides that, he had never been able to bring himself to part with the last shipment of paintings.

The only bright spot on the horizon was the B-47 subcontracting that McNaughton could do for Boeing. It would become a real money mill in the months to come, even if Troy McNaughton was losing his grip. He was sick, but in Ruddick's book that was no excuse. Hell, look how Harry Hopkins and Roosevelt had carried on, dead on their feet, but still running the country. The cancer was destroying McNaughton emotionally, turning him into a terrified husk of a man.

He poured himself a shot of rye whiskey and sat sipping it. He had ambivalent feelings about McNaughton's illness, taking a certain ruthless pleasure in a younger man being on the verge of checking out. Yet Troy had always been smart, and fair, being professional enough to stay just this side of unreasonable in his demands for contracts, while always being generous in return. Who knew what his successor might be like?

The thought of dealing with Elsie put him off. It was all right for her to play executive, to act as a manager, but he didn't want to deal with her personally. He knew that she was tough—but he wasn't really sure how smart she was; yet if something happened to Troy, she would be the wild card—either the solution or the problem, he wasn't sure which.

There were some options. He already had his own man in the plant. Helmut Josten had done a good job smuggling paintings out of Germany, being ingenious or ruthless, as required, and had been given the job at McNaughton as a reward. It's too bad that he was too ugly for Elsie, who didn't bother to conceal her dislike of him. With Troy gone, Josten's usefulness would diminish—it might be better to take him to Little Rock.

He overfilled his whiskey glass and drank again. Dipping his fingers in the spill, he doodled little circles on the walnut table top, trying to see the opportunities that he knew lurked in McNaughton's illness. Baker was an arrogant oaf, but bribeable. Ruddick suspected that Baker had something going on with Elsie—they were just too cozy when they thought no one was watching.

The best solution of all would be Stan. He surely didn't intend to stay in the Air Force, and he wouldn't want to stay in Little Rock, not anymore. If he could persuade Stan to take a job with McNaughton when he came back, it might work out. Stan could handle Elsie, and he could handle Stan.

Ruddick glanced up at the big schoolroom clock, black numbers on a white background. It was time to savor a little revenge. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was meeting today, chaired by the estimable Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. And today's principal witness would be none other than that murdering son of a bitch, Frank Bandfield, the man who'd killed his son.

Bandfield was angry, pugnacious—and a little bit scared. He'd been in combat in two wars, shot down twenty enemy planes, even been shot down a few times himself, but he'd never been as furious as this. To have his loyalty impugned by this malignant growth, this villainous, stubble-jawed senator from Wisconsin, was an infamy.

Yet it was a frightening process as well. He was intimidated by the long marble halls of the Senate Office Building, by the serried ranks of jaded reporters, by the flashes of the cameras, and by the certain knowledge that McCarthy would ask loaded questions and twist any answers. It was going to be a field day for the press. He'd been reading the papers, and while the reporters didn't seem to like McCarthy, they made capital out of all his charges—if there had been any retractions, any apologies, he hadn't seen any.

Bandfield had three lawyers with him. Two were longtime friends from California, and they were nervous, too. They had insisted on bringing in a local lawyer, George Robinson, who had a terrific reputation and was supposed to be familiar with dealings on the Hill. A huge man, with close-cropped black hair and a sardonic manner, he didn't seem very optimistic. And Bandfield felt like a yokel when Robinson reached over and carefully cut a price tag from the sleeve of the new sharkskin suit he'd bought for the occasion.

Bandy was surprised that everything took so much time, and that there were so many interruptions. Here in the nation's capital, the whole procedure had an antic, country courthouse feeling, with people dashing in and out of the hearing room, young staffers whispering into committee members' ears, laughter rising up from remarks he didn't even understand—and absolutely nothing happening regarding his testimony.

Finally, however, the senator appeared, talking in quick asides to two young aides who seemed the personification of malevolence, one short and balding, with protruding eyes like evil soft-boiled eggs, the other with the too-soft look of a women's magazine male model. McCarthy moved quickly, holding his head down like a hound on the trail.

After a lot of flesh-pressing, the hearings finally opened, amid an interminable amount of preliminary chatter. Bandfield had focused on his anger, telling himself that he was as patriotic as any man in the room, that he had fought in a dozen battles, that—

"He's talking to you, Mr. Bandfield." The Washington lawyer nudged him.

Startled, he sat up. "I'm sorry, Senator, would you repeat that, please?"

McCarthy shot a raised eyebrow at his aide and in voice slick as drain oil, said, "Certainly, Mr. Bandfield, it was a difficult question. I asked if your name was Frank Bandfield, and if you had served in the U.S. Army Air Forces?"

"Just answer my questions for now, Mr. Bandfield. You'll be allowed ample time to make a statement later." He turned to whisper to the young aide with the evil-egg eyes.

"Mr. Bandfield, we have a lot of people here whose time is valuable, and it would be most helpful if you would just answer the questions"—he paused—"and leave your excuses till later. Mr. Bandfield, I'm very sure that you are aware of what I'm about to say, but others may not be. General Caldwell was one of the primary architects of the Lend-Lease plan to Russia, particularly in regard to the supply of aircraft. Do you feel that he was of great assistance to the Soviet Union?"

"Thank you. I'll go on to another matter now. I believe that you and your wife sponsored the immigration to the United States of a European woman and her son. Is that correct?"

"She came from Sweden." Robinson jabbed him hard in the ribs. "She came from Sweden, but she was originally from Russia."

McCarthy conferred with his aide again. They laughed together, more congratulatory than conspiratorial, clearly enjoying themselves.

"Mr. Bandfield, do you presently hold a Reserve commission as a colonel—a full colonel, a bird colonel, I believe it is called, I'm a Navy man myself—in the U.S. Air Force?"

The senator smiled. "Temporarily. That may be truer than you know. And, Colonel Bandfield, are you a principal in the firm called Roget Aircraft, Incorporated?"

"And you don't find it unusual that an officer in the Air Force, on active duty, would be the recipient of contracts from that same Air Force, contracts worth millions of dollars?"

"No, sir. I've been involuntarily recalled—in fact, every time I've ever gone into the service, it's been involuntary."

McCarthy scowled at the general laughter. "Mr. Robinson, you are more familiar with proceedings like this than Mr. Bandfield. Would you ask him to make simple, direct answers to my questions?"

"Yes, I will, Senator, but this is not a trial. I believe it would be helpful to get more of Mr. Bandfield's views on the record."

"You know that there will be ample opportunity to do so."

Bandfield started to speak, but Robinson tapped his arm, saying, "Senator, Mr. Bandfield has been a principal of this firm since 1932. His ownership is well known to the Air Force, and his having a Reserve commission has not been a factor in obtaining contracts. And, as he points out, he has been recalled involuntarily. I happen to know that his recall was at the personal request of General Varney."

"Counselor, I know you have a distinguished reputation, but I want to assure you that though I'm from a great agricultural state, which you Washingtonians think is populated by gullible farmers, I am not naive."

His voice had lowered, but now he raised it, changing the tone from soothing to savage. "Nor are the members of the press, nor is the American public. Colonel Bandfield is a blatant example of one of the great problems in our system, the mutually profitable interdependence of the military and industry. But that is the least of it."

As he stared at Bandfield, he popped two white pills in his mouth like a chicken tossing off kernels of corn, then took a long drink of water. Both pills and water had been served to him like Communion by the younger staff member. He orchestrated the little ceremony, protracting it, his eyes burning above the raised glass as if the water fueled his fire.

Then, he daintily patted his lips with a handkerchief. "That is by far the least of it, the diversion of taxpayers' funds into his pocket. I suggest, Colonel Bandfield, that although you are an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and you have acted as a contractor for that distinguished service, you are in fact a Communist fellow traveler, and there is no guarantee whatever that the products you are making millions on are not in fact sabotaged at the factory you control."

Bandfield was almost out of his chair when Robinson's huge hand pulled him back down.

The lawyer rose quietly to his feet, fussing with some papers as if he had a prepared response, obviously wanting to make sure that his voice was cool and unemotional.

"Your allegation is uncalled for, Senator. Colonel Bandfield's service in the Air Corps, in the U.S. Army Air Forces, and now in the U.S. Air Force has always been at the behest of the government. He is a distinguished combat veteran, an ace with twenty victories—"

McCarthy broke in. "Yes, eleven of them fighting for the Communists in Spain. He's an ace all right, a Russian ace!"

Robinson flushed. "It is unconscionable to suggest that he is anything but a patriot."

The young man whispered to McCarthy again, and the Senator rose. "Thank you, Counselor, for your views. I think that the subcommittee will draw a different conclusion. And I think it is criminal that a fellow traveler like Colonel Bandfield can profit so hugely from contracts from a government that he has actively tried to subvert for almost twenty years!" There was a ringing theatrical tone to his voice, a gravelly accusatory note that hung in the air above the clicking flashbulbs. He was savoring the moment, a little Mussolini behind the small balcony of his desk.

"Worse than that, this fellow traveler could be eligible for a pension, so that in his old age he would still be drawing on the blood of the country he has betrayed for so long." He paused again for effect. "Well, he will
not
have a pension, nor a commission, nor any government contracts, if this subcommittee has anything to say about it. I have to go to vote now, and so this meeting is adjourned until tomorrow at the same time."

The roar in the courtroom mercifully drowned out Bandfield's shout, "You bald son of a bitch, come down here and fight."

In the back of the room, Milo Ruddick smiled. It was enough. McCarthy's accusations had been backed by a sufficient basis in fact. The papers would do the rest. Even if nothing else happened, even if Bandfield got his story on the record, everyone would understand if the Roget Aircraft contracts were shifted elsewhere, perhaps even to McNaughton.

And McCarthy—or his staffer, more likely—was sharp, bringing up the matter of Bandfield's retirement. No doubt they would force him to resign his commission. It was a tidy bonus of revenge for poor Bob at Cleveland.

*

Washington, D.C./September 3, 1952

Erich Weissman liked to come into Scholl's Cafeteria on Connecticut Avenue at twelve-thirty, exactly one half-hour before he took lunch. It gave him a heady pleasure just to be near so much food, to walk down the line (outside the rail, of course—he didn't want to bother anyone) and examine the range of dishes.

Then he'd sit and imagine that he could put some of his friends from Dachau through the line, transporting them in time and space, suddenly to present them with this feast.