Air Force Eagles (40 page)

"Sure beats my trailer, don't it, hon?"

Elsie lounged on the long, low-backed sofa, eyes closed, her soiled white terry cloth robe open down the front, drawing deeply on a homemade cigarette.

Baker snorted—there was half a pound of marijuana in the humidor in the library and Elsie knew it. She was a greedy about it as she was everything else.

"You love that stuff, don't you?"

"Yeah, it makes even you tolerable."

Baker didn't answer as he bent over the fire, carefully feeding it with invoices, cancelled checks, and inspection rejection notices, thinking, When we get married, I'll never have to fool with penny-ante stuff like kickbacks from vendors anymore.

She watched him with amusement. He was so shallow, and so predictable. She already had microfilm copies of everything he was burning tucked away in her safety deposit box. Yet he was always there; he eased the loneliness she so often felt.

Indignant, she left to get something to eat. As she pawed through the refrigerator, she thought about what her psychiatrist had told her. By letting Baker—she'd even given his name—stay around, she was acting compulsively, deliberately humiliating herself. When she told him Baker was stealing from the company, the doctor advised her to make the break, to get rid of the man and then get herself involved in some new projects.

Elsie came back with a yellow bowl of cold fried chicken. Baker picked up a drumstick and they munched, staring into the fireplace where the mass of paper wasn't burning well. He stirred it with a poker and they watched the sparks leap up.

She sat up suddenly. "Oh, shit, I forgot the anniversary."

"Anniversary? Hell, we ain't even married, how can we have an anniversary?"

"I mean Troy. It was a year ago on the twenty-seventh that he shot himself. Poor man. I should have put some flowers on his grave."

"Poor man? The son of a bitch lived like a king all his life, treated everybody like shit, and you say 'poor man.' "

"He wasn't all bad, and I was with him a long time."

"Yeah, and you were fucking other guys the whole time—Coleman, me. God knows who all. You try that on me, and you'll regret it to
your
dying day. And if I'm lying—"

"Yeah, if you're lying you're dying. You're always lying and you never die. And why would you care? The only thing you want out of me is my money."

Baker quietly rolled another cigarette and handed it to her.

"Elsie, you're lucky to have me. I know what you want, and I give it to you. You don't give a damn about Troy, or the plant, or nothing."

Elsie snorted. "That's not so. I cared for Troy, and I like the plant. The workers like me. You know that."

"Maybe, but they won't like anybody if we run out of work. The modification line is gone; this B-47 business won't last forever; and we've got nothing in the pipeline. That's Troy's fault; he let things go to pot when he got sick."

"You can do better? You wouldn't know a good airplane if one fell on you. At least Troy grew up in the business; you've been nothing but a mattress-sniffing private eye all your life. If it wasn't for me, you'd be working as a house dick in some two-bit hotel."

Baker laughed. "Well, if I was, I'd probably be running into you a lot." He reached over, took the cigarette from her fingers, inhaled deeply, then went on. "But you ain't so wrong at that. This is my big chance to be somebody."

"Don't kid yourself. I'm going to sell out and move a million miles from you. You can go back to following wayward husbands and peeking through motel windows."

"You'd go nuts in a week." He poked the fire again and turned to her. "Listen to me, Elsie. I've got some ideas. The great thing about the airplane business is that if you have money, you can hire the best. Companies are always going under; guys are always looking for jobs. We could hire a team to develop new products. Look what that old fool Roget is doing out in California, making a ton of money building corporate planes."

"Don't knock Hadley, he's all right." Elsie stubbed her cigarette out. "Do you really mean this? I didn't think you were interested in anything but siphoning off dough from the subcontractors."

He didn't even blink at the charge. "No, I've been thinking about this a lot, reading the trade papers. Martin's laying off a bunch of guys, and so is Curtiss-Wright. We could have our pick."

She stood up, wrapping the robe tightly about her. She could do what the doctor said, but maybe just reverse the order. "That might be fun. They'd probably have some ideas about what to build, and maybe some contacts, too. That's the big problem."

"And you're still in bed with Ruddick, aren't you, so to speak? You got him on the payroll still?"

"Yeah, so to speak. And he'll be as interested as we are in digging something up. I'll call our personnel guy in tomorrow, and get started."

Baker reached across and gave her an affectionate hug; it was unlike him and she moved away, suddenly wary. Maybe this is a way but, she thought. I'll get some new projects going, bring some decent people in, and rid myself of this man.

Baker sensed her movement and smiled. "Getting touchy, eh? I think it must be that weed—you always act funny after you've smoked a little. Never mind. Call the personnel guy on Monday. Right now, it's time to watch 'Ozzie and Harriet.' "

She knew that beneath his coarse manner, Baker was lonely, too: he had a strong domestic streak, and she liked that. Snuggling closer to him, she thought; I'll miss this more than the sex.

*

San Francisco, California/October 15, 1953

He'd been able to pick out Saundra's upturned face from the crowd even before his ship docked that morning. Except for a long interrogation about his confession, the Air Force had kept the entry problems to a minimum. There had been a very short briefing for the press, and then they'd brought the two of them to the VIP quarters in Fort Mason. Now he lay deep in a tortured sleep, Saundra watching over him.

Marshall rolled over and groaned, eyes fluttering open.

"It's all right honey, I'm right here." Saundra's voice was soothing, warm. He lay still as the comfort hit him, the clean sheets, the smell of her perfume.

"Sorry—just a nightmare, a dream within a dream. I thought I was back in my cell, dreaming about you."

He rolled into her arms and felt her hands glide over his body, her fingers gently following the contours of his wounds. "My poor baby, they treated you so badly."

They'd fallen into each other's arms as soon as the door had closed behind them, tearing their clothes off" as they struggled toward the bed. It had been frustrating—Marshall had ejaculated almost immediately, even before he was fully erect, and he hadn't been able to make love since.

"I'm wide awake now—want to talk some more?" She snapped on the light and nodded. "Where was I? I told you about going down to Panmunjom? The Chinese gave us haircuts and a shave and issued us new towels, new clothes, everything, even candy, some kind of rice paper sweet—it was delicious. Then they drove us down to Freedom Village."

Marshall closed his eyes and felt once again the tension of the trip, the sense of disbelief that the long imprisonment was actually ending, the fear that it was just another ploy, like the mock executions, the beatings, the solitary, just a trick to make him talk.

"The Reds had motion picture cameramen all the way; I thumbed my nose at them every time. Then I heard it—American music from a military band. I started crying. I never used to cry. Now I do it all the time—when I see the flag, or hear the national anthem. I bawled when I saw you on the dock. Nerves, I guess."

She stroked his head. "After what you've been through, you deserve to cry. Being a prisoner was bad enough, then losing your parents on top of it. You can cry all you want, and I'll join you.

He kissed her and went on. "The truck came to a stop, and I stepped down. All of a sudden a crowd of Air Force guys surrounded me, shaking my hand, slapping me on the back. They hustled me into an ambulance. I was free."

His voice broke as he repeated, "I was free."

"You don't have to go on . . . we can talk tomorrow."

"No, I want to tell you everything." He lay on his back, and the memories spilled out—the first hot shower, the first American food, the clean sheets in the hospital. "That's where I wrote my first letter to you." He gulped and said, "Then there were the reporters, wanting to know what they fed us, how they beat us. Nobody asked anything about the confession, and I was glad."

"Why did they send you home by ship? You rated a flight back home after all you went through."

"They said it was to give us a chance to get our health back. They were right, and it gave me a chance to get used to the idea of Mom and Dad being gone. But things changed on board ship. The nearer we got to the States, the cooler everybody was. The last day out they really grilled me about my confession—it was almost like being a prisoner again. I told them how I'd faked it, made it ridiculous, but it didn't seem to matter. I think I may be in real trouble."

"Oh, Bones, don't say that! They know how they tortured you, and you didn't tell them anything that made sense."

"I know, but I can't get that across. Tomorrow I've got to write out another complete statement. I already gave them one on the ship. It's like they're comparing it, to see where I'm lying. I wouldn't be surprised to see Colonel Choi tomorrow, threatening me."

She felt him shiver in her embrace.

"Honey, they're just trying to find out what happened; the problem is you feel guilty and you shouldn't. Nobody could have put up with all you did. Nobody."

"Well, you can be damn sure that wasn't an accident. He was flying with Coleman, rat-racing. Coleman probably flew him into the ground to keep him from talking."

She looked at him with pity. This was more than anxiety, it was paranoia. "Oh, honey, I don't think that could be true. You're just overstressed."

He was upset for a moment, then realized that she couldn't know how well Menard flew, how careful he was with his equipment—nor how evil Coleman could be. She spoke to him again. "Now you try to get some sleep."

"In a minute. Come here, let me see if I can't do a little better than this afternoon."

They kissed for a long while, until he fell asleep again. She lay with her hand on his chest, trying to will strength into him, uncomfortable in the role. She had always found her strength in him; it was strange to have their roles reversed.

*

Frederick Air Force Base, California/October 23,
1953

“Colonel Coleman's compliments, sir. He regrets that he's unable to be with you this morning—had to go to sick call with a touch of the flu. But he's asked me to give you a demonstration flight."

They walked down to the personal equipment section, where technicians were standing by with an array of flight suits, oxygen masks, and helmets. After they fitted him up, Fitz took him to another room.

"We've got an ejection-seat trainer in here, sir."

"Call me Bandy. Think we'll need it?"

"No, the B-47's a good bird, but there's a local regulation that requires that we use it. It's just a procedure trainer, just to give you confidence in the seat in the airplane."

"Doesn't give you much confidence in the plane, though. How long have you been flying B-47s?"

"Not quite a year—but I've got three hundred hours time. Stan's been working me hard as an instructor." He checked Bandfield's expression and grinned. "I think you'll be safe."

Bandfield grinned back. "I'm not worried about you, Fitz, but I'm a little spooked by all the stories on the airplane. You know, the jazz about critical approach speeds, getting into the 'coffin corner,' where there's only a couple of knots difference between a high-speed stall and a low-speed stall—stuff like that."

"The coffin corner is just bullshit—you'd really have to work to get yourself in a pickle like that. The B-47's like any airplane. If you fly it right, it'll treat you right; if you abuse it, it'll bite you. The approach speed is critical, but it's easy to be precise with this airplane, and hell, that's what they pay us for."

They spent the morning flight planning, then drove in a staff car out to the flight line, past the long rows of B-47Es. Coleman and Williams were waiting at the airplane, along with Birch Matthews, the radar observer.