Air Force Eagles (57 page)

"Let's call it agricultural aviation—the guys are trying to get away from the crop duster image. That's one of the reasons Ransome's thinking about going into fire fighting." He was grunting as he stirred. "Yeah, Fleming's got to see it to believe it. That's why I'm mixing this sea marker dye."

"Where'd you get it?"

"This stuffs war surplus, but you can buy it at any industrial chemical distributor—it's mostly aluminum powder and dye, with some kind of binder. If it were a real fire, I'd use borate instead, you get some residual retardation. But this is just a demonstration, and I want to make a big splash." He put the paddle down, ladled another bucket of the powder into the barrel, and resumed paddling. "Something we did in Korea, Riley and me, gave me that idea." He told Bandfield about the broad-jumping contest and dumping the adjutant in the Nile.

Bandfield laughed. "Pretty good. I could have used something like that a couple of times in SAC. How're you going to work it?"

"You'll see. It'll be a standard drop, out at Fleming's farm. He's got a big sandy field lying fallow, uses it to train his new pilots how to dust. I told him we'd be over to make a drop about eleven."

"We'd better get cracking."

Marshall had already filled the belly tank with three hundred gallons of water. He pumped the contents of two fifty-five-gallon drums of his sea-dye concentrate into the plane, then topped it off with water.

"Any way to be sure it's mixed?"

"No, I'd like to have an agitator in there, to keep it in suspension, but I figured I'd just do some shallow maneuvers on the way over. Hope you don't get airsick easy."

Fleming's field was twelve miles northeast of the airport, one of the hundreds of farms dotting the fertile valley, which raised everything from almonds to turkeys. He had his own airstrip, with a dozen Waco planes converted to spraying parked neatly along the side.

"Fleming Aviation, this is TBM Zero Zero Three Six, over."

Standing outside his little radio shack, microphone in hand, Fleming's voice came in clearly. "Yeah, Bones, hear you five by five, and see you, too. That big orange bird looks like a fucking parrot's pecker."

A bank teller before he went into crop dusting, Fleming tried to be as flamboyant as his five-foot-five height and 185-pound weight would permit.

Marshall, nervous about the way Fleming talked on the air, came back, "Roger, are we cleared to drop?"

"Yeah, you see the double line of yellow flags? Like I briefed you, that's the approach. Then you'll see a single line of green flags, that's the run in. The double set of white lines making the big X is the target. See how close you can get."

"Ah, Roger, we'll make one pass to look it over, then make a live run."

Bones brought the TBM around in a rectangular pattern, still using the two rivets as a sight. "Bingo, that's where I'll drop."

The next pass he slowed down to 150 knots, flying at 150 feet. When the X was between the two rivet heads he pickled off the water.

A burgeoning cloud of yellow mist clung momentarily to the TBM's belly like a huge chrome-yellow tumor; it elongated as it fell, yellow streamers falling away until it hit, mixing with the sand into a massive mustard-colored explosion that blotted out the double X and a dozen acres of Fleming's field.

"Yeah, now I got to find something that washes it off; last time I used Lava and Spic 'n' Span for four days before I got it off my hands and face."

*

Pine Bluff, Arkansas/July 15, 1957

Baker was glad to be back; he'd missed Elsie and the dogs, and he'd missed Josten, too. He'd never worked for a boss he'd like or feared as much. He'd been touched by how attentive Josten had been to Elsie, seeing that she got flowers sent to her, had a tree planted in their yard, lots of little things. If he didn't know how crazy the colonel was about his ex-wife, he would have worried that he was courting Elsie.

"Well, Helmut, they live in government housing about a half a mile from the main gate at Frederick. It ain't bad; they've laid the streets out in curves, the houses are all one-story, California-style, you know, stucco and sticks."

"No, I don't know. Did you get some photos?"

"Yeah, lots of them, front and back, all around. They're being developed. Riley has one of the bigger houses, looks like it's three bedrooms, maybe four. Probably less than fifteen hundred square feet, but nice enough."

"What about security? Is the compound guarded?"

"It ain't no compound, I mean it ain't got no fence or gate. It's just like an ordinary little dumb-ass subdivision. An Air Police car makes a pass-through every couple of hours during the day, and about every four hours at night."

"Did anyone see you?"

"Nah, boss, I'm a pro. I rented two cars, drove them at different times. But they wouldn't have noticed anyway; the airplanes fly all the time, and there's crew members coming in at all hours. It's real quiet, but nobody paid any attention to a car driving through. I talked to the guys at the filling station, though, and they said it was quiet because the wing just went overseas."

"Where? How long?"

"They're in England, but they drop down to Spain and North Africa, a few planes at a time. Sounds like a good deal. Your man, Riley, he's gone, won't be back till the first of October."

Josten's eyes glittered as he digested this. Perhaps he was impotent because he loved only Lyra; perhaps she could restore him. If anyone could do it, it would be her. He thought of the wild night that had begun on the floor of her apartment entrance; he'd just come back from the front. It was then that Ulrich, his son, his flesh, had been conceived.

"Did you see my wife or my son?"

"Yeah, both of them, and the baby, too. They was coming out to get in their car, they got a green and white Olds 88. I couldn't see much, but she looked nice, he looked nice. Couldn't see much of the little one."

Josten leaned forward. "I've got to take you into my confidence. And ask you to help me. It will be worth your while."

"Sure, boss, do you want me to snatch the kid?"

Josten slammed his fist down hard, jarring the ill-protected bones of his hands. "Don't talk like that." Then, recovering himself, "Sorry, that word bothers me. You can't kidnap your own child, your own wife."

Baker nodded, hung his head penitently.

"But I want to have a few days alone with my wife, here in my bus, away from everybody. Then I can get her to listen to reason."

Baker looked at him reflectively; here was this organizational genius, this hard-as-nails leader, living crazy in a dream world. He was ugly as sin, brutal as a chainsaw, and he was going to charm his kidnapped wife back to loving him. What a bunch of shit!

Josten hung his head. It was the first time Baker had ever seen him less than totally arrogant. "Yes. But after a few days alone, if she wants to leave, I'll let her."

"Boss, be realistic. She's going to hate you for this. Why should she want to stay? What are you going to do with the two kids? It's a cinch she's going to care more about them than you, or her new husband or anything else."

"You're not as stupid as you act, Baker. You're quite right about this. But this is something I must do. I cannot help it. I don't expect you to understand."

Baker shook his head. "And I can tell what's coming. You want me to help, and you want Elsie and me to baby-sit for you. Right?"

Josten simply nodded, waiting.

Baker thought for a solid two minutes before speaking. Things were going well here, playing soldier, living a good life with Elsie. But it couldn't go on forever, not with the race thing boiling. He'd like to help Josten if he could, but it was a losing battle. Finally, he said, "I won't help you with the kidnapping, and don't go yelling at me, it's kidnapping, any way you look at it. If you get back here safely with them, I'll take the kids for two days, no more; I'll tell the cops I didn't know what was going on, didn't believe them at first. Then I got to turn you in, to protect Elsie and me. So you got to do whatever you're going to do in two days, then let her go."

"I'm not sure I can manage it alone."

"You can't. That's why I ain't doing it. I'm really thinking about you, Helmut."

Josten, his shoulders hunched like a brooding vulture, murmured, "But I could get some young Storm Klanners to help. I'll tell them it's in the interests of national security; some of them will do whatever I want."

"That ain't right, boss. You're setting some kids up for a term in the pokey, and they won't even know why."

Josten, who had seemed to wilt as they talked, becoming frailer, more vulnerable, snapped back to his hard Luftwaffe colonel self.

He thought momentarily of all the good men who'd died in the Luftwaffe and snarled, "Well, why do you think I trained them this way? Do you think it matters if a few of these acne-crusted supermen go to jail or not?"

*

Montgomery, Alabama/August 8, 1957

It seemed incredible to her that she could be there, on the steps of the famous Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, in the company of the most brilliant men she'd ever met, smarter than John, smarter even than Fred. The great white capital building loomed only two blocks away, its spotlit dome glittering in the night. It was here that Jefferson Davis had begun the Confederacy, it was here that the painful battle of the buses had been fought and won, despite the Klan and the shootings and the bombings. She had worked there during the boycott, proud of the long lines of Black men and women stolidly walking to work, ignoring the nearly empty buses passing by. And it was here that Martin Luther King, Jr., had assumed the presidency of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

For the first time, she was beginning to understand and resent Fred Peterson's anger. She now saw that the Urban League was concentrated in the North, that the NAACP had become elitist, and that CORE wasn't going anywhere. All of them had reached an accommodation in their style of operation that business leaders, white and Black, could live with. That was right in line with Fred's business and he had supported them all. But Dr. King was offering something new, a mass movement keyed to Southern churches and nonviolence, and it had to use anti-business methods to succeed. The bus boycott had worked—Blacks and whites were now riding the buses, freely mixing with no problems. If it worked on a bus company, who could tell what other businesses might be boycotted?

Yet King was the only truly dramatic leader on the scene. In his introduction yesterday, Ralph Abernathy had used a word new to her to describe King—
charismatic;
she'd looked it up after the meeting. He was exactly that, charismatic; why shouldn't he have his own style of mass movement?

King's beautiful wife stood in the shadows, obviously tired from the two long days of prayers and meetings. Saundra tried not to envy her. Alan Loeb, white, obviously Jewish, with a hooked nose that seemed integral to his tortoise-shell glasses, had King's full attention. They talked low and earnestly, erupting into laughter frequently. Reverend Abernathy, a little taller than King but similar in appearance, hovered in the background, obviously disapproving of the white man's presence, of his influence.

The meetings had ended with a determination to raise $250,000 to open offices for the SCLC in Atlanta. During the deliberations Saundra had been doing some calculations. It would be difficult for her to provide the entire amount without selling off the company. But she should be able to raise half of it by selling her house and her car. Moving forward, she edged toward their conversation. A large man intervened.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but Dr. King is tired and we're trying to keep him from being disturbed." She could tell it was a spiel he used often, a mixture of condescension and pity for another lovestruck woman trying to edge close enough to touch King.

"Would you please tell Dr. King that I want to make a substantial pledge toward the new offices?"

"Surely, ma'am. How much were you planning to give?" The light was poor at the edge of the stairs, but he could see that she was well dressed.

"One hundred twenty-five."

The man smiled. "That's a nice gift, but I'd hesitate to interrupt his conversation with Mr. Loeb and Reverend Abernathy for that. You understand, don't you?"

King turned to her, his face serene, and smiled. "Why I know you, you're Saundra Marshall, the lady who has brought us funds from California and helped during the boycott." He turned and in that warm melodious baritone crooned, "Coretta, this is Saundra Marshall—her husband flew us to Washington in that lovely airplane."

Mrs. King managed a small smile. Saundra realized that given all the funds she'd brought to him, King should have known her, but was flattered all the same.

"Dr. King, I believe I can pledge one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars; I don't have it in cash, I'll have to sell some things, but I can give it to you in a month or two, I'm sure."