Air Force Eagles (7 page)

Walking in suddenly, he caught her.

"Honey, you're doing it again. That's worse than biting your nails and I don't think it's healthy. Shouldn't we talk to a doctor about it?"

"I'll talk to a doctor about this, if you'll talk to him about the way you save things."

They stared angrily at each other, in the rough eye-contact of marital silence. He broke the impasse by throwing a magazine against the peeled-pine log wall.

"This crummy place looks like a Sonja Henie movie set."

"That shows what you know. It must have cost Troy a fortune—it's better than a ski lodge. Even has a heated swimming pool." She glanced around, mentally ticking off the prices of the expensive Ethan Allen furnishings.

Then, trying to make up, she said, "Sorry, baby. We're just nervous after all that's gone wrong. Maybe things will work out after all."

"Yeah, just like today. The only reason Troy McNaughton is going to talk to me is because of your stepfather. I know that, he knows that, and it makes me feel like a jerk."

Ginny reached out and stroked his arm. "That's not true. You're here because you're a great pilot, and McNaughton needs you.

She managed him by switching subjects like a conman shifts the pea under the shells. Plopping herself down on his lap, she asked, "What's his wife like?"

Coleman shrugged. "I haven't seen her, but I hear she's pretty good-looking—she's a lot younger than Troy—and she's supposed to run the plant single-handed."

"You be careful around her."

He hugged her and said, "Let's both be careful. When you see her tomorrow, let her do the talking, find out all you can. This might be our big chance. And maybe our last one."

The next day had gone quite well for Stan Coleman; Ginny thought it had gone well for her, too.

Coleman was early for his nine o'clock appointment, and McNaughton gave him a quick tour of the huge plant. Only three years before, it had teemed with workers as Sidewinder and Mamba fighters poured off the production line for Russia, three shifts a day, seven days a week. Now most of the bays were empty, chained off, lights darkened and populated solely by the birds that inevitably found their way into the gloom of empty hangar space. Some modification activity was going on, but no new production. The empty plant made Coleman uneasy—McNaughton Aircraft looked as if it needed a funeral director more than a test pilot.

"Sad, isn't it? We took this place from a cornfield to one of the most modern aircraft plants in the world in just a few years. Now we'd be better off turning it back into a cornfield; we could get a few niggers in to run it. Might as well—the whole South's being taken over by them anyway."

"Somehow you don't look like a corn farmer to me, Mr. McNaughton." Stan traded on repackaging what people had just said, giving it a humorous conspiratorial twist. He'd already caught McNaughton's prejudiced view of Negroes and played to it. "We've got a few hundred thousand colored down in Arkansas we could send you, though—it'd be good riddance." Coleman hadn't been exposed to Negroes before he married Ginny; since then he'd adopted her family's attitude toward them.

They were sitting in Troy's trophy-bedecked office—photos of famous pilots, film stars, politicians, models of McNaughton aircraft, and Troy's sporting trophies. Coleman made a practice of knowing the name of the best of everything, and he quickly complimented McNaughton on the brace of Purdey shotguns and the Greenhart fly rod.

Troy went to the window to adjust the blinds. He moved around the office constantly in short little runs, from his desk to the sideboard, from the sideboard to the window, as if he could burn away his problems with his energy.

"The long and short of it is this. We desperately need to get a new product in production or just shut down. We were doing fine in our San Diego plant until the idiots in Washington cut the funding for missile research and development."

He tapped a Camel out from a pack and Coleman's lighter appeared like lightning. Troy took the light, his eyes narrowed to avoid the smoke.

"Stan, I understand you're in line to do the test work on Boeing's new bomber. Have you flown it?"

"Just once, up at Moses Lake. Pardon my French, but it's fucking sensational. Handles more like a fighter than a bomber."

McNaughton moved a long, narrow box over to the center of his desk and lifted its lid. Inside was a model of a flying-wing bomber, not unlike the one Northrop had built, but much sleeker, with longer, narrower wings and six jets clustered in the center on the trailing edge.

"Ever hear of the Horten brothers?"

Coleman shook his head.

"They designed dozens of flying wings in Germany and flew a lot of them. They had a first-class jet fighter ready to go at the end of the war, faster than anything on either side. After the war they moved to Argentina, like a lot of the Germans, and they kept up their research, working in secret for Vanguard Aircraft. When we bought Vanguard, we acquired the rights to manufacture it."

Coleman ran his finger over the model's smooth black skin. "It looks like a boomerang someone tried to straighten out. Where's the cockpit?"

"Well, that's my little secret. We'll talk about that later. I call it the 'Manta'—it looks like one. It'll be faster than the B-47 and have a longer range than the B-36. And it's so slim, they tell me you won't even be able to pick it up on radar."

Coleman was impressed but felt the need to assert himself. "Why not a new fighter? That's what you've got your experience in."

"I'd like to, but North American and Republic have too much clout—they've got the market sewn up tighter than a politician's wallet. Our last fighter, the Copperhead, got frozen out, even though it was a better plane than the F-84 or F-86."

His eyes bored into Coleman like an IRS auditor checking deductions.

"I want to build a flying wing. That's why I want to hire you."

Coleman nodded as if he fully understood as McNaughton went on. "I've got to take the long view on something like this, Stan, it's a four-or five-year process. We'll have to make some smaller airplanes at first, just like Northrop did, to get the hang of it."

Coleman stood up, wanting to say something strong, insightful. "Well, what about Northrop's wing? It's already flying."

"Yes, but it's an old design—all they've done is stick jet engines in a piston-engine airframe. I'm not worried about them. Boeing's the outfit to beat, and I don't know if anyone can beat them, even us. But the budget's tight and getting tighter, and I've
got
to get the development money. That's where you come in."

Coleman nodded judiciously, understanding that it was the Ruddick connection. He should have minded, but he did not; McNaughton had a soothing, almost hypnotic effect upon him.

Troy hurried to a sideboard cluttered with decanters and soda siphons. He poured himself a Dr Pepper, offering one to Stan. Coleman was thirsty, but he shook his head no—who knew how many Dr Peppers he had left?

"Stan, I've got some political connections, but you've got the best I've ever seen. I'm an old friend of your father-in-law's, but I want you to tell me all about him, how you see him."

Coleman nodded. This was comfortable ground; he far preferred talking about his father-in-law than the engineering merits of a flying wing. "I suppose you know most of what I know. His wife's family was Old South aristocratic and Texas-oil rich. She's left half of Arkansas and a good chunk of Texas to him."

"Ginny's just his stepdaughter, from the wife's first marriage, but she loves him more than most people love their real father. They're thick as thieves. And you have to give the man credit. Ruddick made a ton of money on his own, too, during the war and after. He was a Congressman for eight terms, and he's one of the few politicians rich enough to contribute to other politicians' war chests. He's smart and knows the defense business backwards and forwards, so he has a job no matter which administration it is. And mainly, he knows where the bodies are buried."

Coleman twisted in his seat, then went on. "Milo likes to run things. If he's got a fault, it's that he doesn't like to delegate anything to anybody. I understand he drives the people in his company crazy, checking into everything."

"Got any weaknesses, any vices?"

Coleman thought it was a hell of a question to ask about his father-in-law but went on. "Not that I know of. He's a churchman, attends every Sunday when he's in Little Rock, runs the vestry with an iron hand."

"How does he like you?"

"Oddly enough, he thinks I'm tops, because I'm a pilot. That's his one frustration in life—he always wanted to be a fighter pilot. But his eyes are bad, never had a chance to fly himself."

"Did you get any kills during the war?"

Coleman hung his head modestly and said, "Three." He hesitated and added, "Only one of them was confirmed."

He didn't talk about his victories too much—he'd been stooging around in Bavaria, late in 1944, and had come across a flight of three German training planes, little Focke-Wulf biplanes. He had shot one down, and the other two had dispersed like rabbits in the woods. When he came back, he claimed three victories, but they gave credit only for the one on the gun camera film. McNaughton went back to business. "What about Ruddick's son?"

"Oh, Bob flew during the war. He's a closed-mouth, private sort of guy, but we get along pretty well. I understand he's a good pilot. But his dad intimidates him like he does most people. Like he does me."

"What's Bob doing now?"

"He's running a small airport outside of Little Rock. He's talking about getting into air racing, but his Dad's not willing to foot the bill."

"How would Milo Ruddick feel about it if someone else gave Bob a little help?"

"He'd love it. He always talks about Bob being another Roscoe Turner, racing at Cleveland. But he won't put up the money it takes. I don't know where all his money goes, he must be socking it away. The Ruddicks live well, but not lavishly. Sometimes I wonder if he doesn't have a little tootsie on the side who he spends his money on."

McNaughton shook his head. "I doubt it. It always seemed to me that he preferred power to pussy."

Coleman smiled and Troy went on. "You know, it might be good publicity for McNaughton Aircraft if we converted one of the Sidewinders into a racer."

Coleman leaned forward at the word
we.

"It looks to me like the kid's the way to his father's heart. We'll work on Bob, convince him about our capabilities. Then maybe the three of us can convince his father that we need twenty million in start-up money for the wing."

"Twenty million! That's a lot of money; Boeing only spent about half that on the XB-47."

"It's a lot, but it's only a down payment. Let me level with you. The Manta bomber is just a stalking horse. I don't care if we ever build one! I want to build guided missiles, flying wings with a long range and an atomic bomb load."

"Is that why there's no cockpit on the model?"

"Exactly! I want the money for applied research, mainly for a robot navigation system we acquired from Vanguard. It'll be far more accurate than anything humans can do."

Self-interest flashed' in Coleman's eyes like a neon sign.

"Missiles are the key to the future, Stan. Nobody will need bombers in twenty years, believe me. But those idiots in Washington won't see that. Theodore von Karman, one of the greatest scientists in the world, says they are possible, but Vannevar Bush says they are not. So they believe Bush and cancel development. "

Coleman nodded; he'd met von Karman, heard of Bush.

"Where does the competition stand with missiles?"

"Good question. Convair's had a lot of money funneled to them, but they're off on the wrong track, trying to build ballistic missiles—like big V-2s. They won't be ready for eight or ten years. With the present technology, you just can't build a rocket big enough to throw a ten-thousand-pound atomic warhead from here to Russia. That's why I want to build flying-wing guided missiles. Manned bombers are obsolete—with the atom bomb, you don't need them anymore." He waited for this to sink in.

"So, you see, I've got to take the money where I can get it, and put it where I know it will do the most good. The Air Force will go for developing the wing, I know—if Ruddick backs us."

"How can I help?"

"I've watched you for the past few months. You know how to handle people. You're a natural-born salesman, and I want you to sell the two Ruddicks. They already know you and trust you. You're an insider, part of the family. Your wife can help, too."

Coleman's feigned reluctance didn't fool McNaughton. "I don't know, Troy. I've got a great flying job, and I'll probably be promoted in the fall."