Read Conquerors of the Sky Online
Authors: Thomas Fleming
Conquerors of the Sky (3 page)
For a moment exhaustion and the emotional side of Dick Stone's Jewish-American nature overwhelmed him. Guilford was frowning at him like a son who could not believe his father would betray him. He was a sort of son. Dick had picked him for this difficult job. He knew what it had already cost him.
“It'll guarantee the survival of the fucking country. That's what I care about,” Tony Sirocca said.
Stone sighed. He had heard similar things said about other planes. But this one, with its freight of history and heartbreak, might be the one that deserved the rhetoric.
“You know me. I like to take a look at things close up,” Dick said.
“Sure. Sure,” Sirocca said. “I wish you came out more often.”
“Tom keeps me up on everything. He writes a good report.”
They walked toward the Hydra that Stone had flown to their impromptu demonstration as the sun slanted tentative red rays across the desert. “Don't you think it'd be a good idea to let a pilot fly you back?” Guilford said.
Again, the pain of fatherhood stirred in Dick Stone's chest. He could not get used to it. He had played a son's part to Adrian Van Ness and Frank Buchanan for so long. A difficult, combative son. Onceâa memory that still filled him with twisting regretâa treacherous son.
“What do you mean âgood idea'?” Tony Sirocca said. “It's an absolute necessity.
It's a miracle this asshole got here without killing himself in that screwy machine.”
It's a miracle this asshole got here without killing himself in that screwy machine.”
“Go to hell,” Dick said. “I survived three and a half years in the U.S. Army Air Force with generals like you trying to kill me every day.”
“After seeing you land tonight, I'm ready to believe you're indestructible. But why ruin a perfectly good aircraft, even if it's more or less useless?” Sirocca said.
General Sirocca was letting Stone know that the Air Force was not happy with the way the Marines, the Coast Guard, and the Navy were salivating over the Hydra. Tony wanted Buchanan to work exclusively for the boys in blue. Dick Stone had no intention of going broke to keep Sirocca happy. He could hear Adrian Van Ness telling him that governments and their departments and branches did not know the existenceâmuch less the meaningâof the word
gratitude.
gratitude.
Did that mean second thoughts about the BX bomber? Maybe.
Another cup of coffee and ten minutes with the ebullient young major who had flown the BX and Dick Stone was on his way. He dozed in his seat beside the baby-faced twenty-six-year-old Air Force captain who was flying the Hydra after a ten-minute conference with Tom Guilford. The captain was ecstatic at the chance to get his hands on the controls of such a top-secret item. It was making his day, his week, his month, his year.
Stone nodded and in his mind walked across miles of desert to a woman waiting in the silence. For years now he had found a strange monkish satisfaction in thinking of her there in the arid wastes. She was a kind of sentry, guarding a border that he some day hoped to cross. Now he began to thinkâto fearâit was going to become another failed dream, another hope that would never fly. Mournfully, while the boyish captain chortled, Dick talked to Sarah Morris.
If Cliff refuses to leave quietly I can deal with it one of two ways. I can cancel the BX, and stand tall as Buchanan's rescuer, the man who can make the hard decisions. If I keep the plane, that exposes me to Cliff coming forward as the BX's executioner, the man with the titanium backbone. He'll never convince a majority of the board but he may confuse enough people to make us a setup for a corporate raider, someone who'll carve us up and sell off the pieces. To stop Cliff I'll need your help. That means I can never ask you for anything else.
Could he do it? Could he dismiss happiness so finally, so irretrievably? Was this Adrian Van Ness's last demand, the final requirement of sonship? As he drifted down into sleep, Dick wondered if it was the only way he could reach out to Adrian now, the only way he could say:
I'm sorry
.
I'm sorry
.
In his shack on the slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains, eighty-three-year-old Frank Buchanan lay awake. In his head he was soaring through the desert's blue sky, while in the front seat of his gull-winged fiberglass sailplane Sarah Chapman Morris uttered cries that could only be described as erotic. He had begun flying these engineless creatures about a year ago, at her suggestion. It was a uniquely spiritual sensation, riding the winds blowing off the mountains for an hour or two before gravity made its ultimate claim on the body and the airship. Frank always came home feeling renewed, able to endure his creaking physique and the nauseating American world of the 1970s for a while longer.
What an interesting woman Sarah had become. Frank realized he had rated her much too low because she was Cliff Morris's wife. He was amused by her insatiable curiosity about Buchanan Aircraft. She wanted to know everything, back to the dawn of time. She said she hoped understanding would lead to forgiveness, a lovely idea. It had not worked for him. Frank thought he understood almost everything about Adrian Van Ness but he still hated him.
Dozing off, Frank dreamt he was flying a Bleriot Experimental Model 2 biplane over southwestern England. The cranky sixty-horsepower engine pulled him along in the stiff headwind at a satisfying forty miles an hour. Below him in the darkening sky was another BE2 piloted by a man whom he had begun to regard as an older brother. Edward “Teddy” Busk was an ebullient Cambridge University mathematician who had devoted his first-class mind to the new science of aerodynamics. His insights had prompted Geoffrey de Havilland to reposition the wing, redesign the lateral tail and create the first truly stable plane. Not only had Busk shared his ideas with Frank Buchanan and other eager pupilsâhe had learned to fly as an act of faith in his computations.
As Frank looked down on Busk's plane, he saw a twenty-foot ribbon of flame streaming behind him. In sixty seconds, the fabric-covered wings and fuselage were engulfed by livid tongues of fire. As Frank watched, horrified, Busk made a perfect landing on a wide swath of downs called Laffan Plain. It was an ironic tribute to the stability of the BE2âbut it did nothing to extinguish the flames.
Awake, his body twisting in anguish, Frank remembered the rest of the story. He had landed at nearby Farnborough, the home of the Royal Flying Corps, and raced back to Laffan Plain in a fire truck. They were much too late. Teddy Busk's blackened corpse sat in the charred skeleton of the plane, his grimaced teeth gleaming in the truck's headlights. They took the body and the remnants of the plane back to Farnborough and found that the fire had been caused by the motor's vibration breaking a pipe joint. The motor had run out of fuel and
backfired, igniting the gasoline tank. Mournfully, they redesigned the fuel system to make sure it did not happen again.
backfired, igniting the gasoline tank. Mournfully, they redesigned the fuel system to make sure it did not happen again.
Tears streamed down Frank Buchanan's face. The sacrifices men had made to create planes! His mind leaped from this lost brother to other brothers and sons. One above all, whose name he still could not pronounce without tears. Part of the reason he was living in this shack was a desperate wish to reach Billy McCall, wherever he was, beyond the sky.
Frank lay on his back on the boards that served for his bed, hearing his mother hiss:
death machine
. Slowly, carefully, he sat up and waited for the blood to circulate in his numbed feet and hands. Seizing his cane, he hoisted himself erect and waited again to make sure he had located his center of gravity. His body had become as fragile, as unpredictable as the planes of 1910, with their translucent fabric wings and fuselages, their jungle of guy wires and primitive controls.
death machine
. Slowly, carefully, he sat up and waited for the blood to circulate in his numbed feet and hands. Seizing his cane, he hoisted himself erect and waited again to make sure he had located his center of gravity. His body had become as fragile, as unpredictable as the planes of 1910, with their translucent fabric wings and fuselages, their jungle of guy wires and primitive controls.
Carefully, creakily, Frank heaved himself from his narrow bed and hobbled to a table. Switching on a battery-powered lamp, he sat before a blank sheet of white paper in a loose-leaf folder, pen in hand. For an hour, the paper remained pristine. The gnarled hand, with the blotchy skin where it had been burned off in the crash of a long vanished plane, remained motionless.
Finally, the hand began to move.
Father
.
Father,
it wrote. It was Billy, still calling for help. Frank had heard from him a dozen times since he retreated here. Once more Frank struggled to send a message to his mother.
Find him and rescue him. Even if you never loved him. Even if you hated him in my name
.
Father
.
Father,
it wrote. It was Billy, still calling for help. Frank had heard from him a dozen times since he retreated here. Once more Frank struggled to send a message to his mother.
Find him and rescue him. Even if you never loved him. Even if you hated him in my name
.
As usual, Althea Buchanan replied:
I can't find him in the spirit world. He has no soul. It often happens when a child is born of fierce opposites.
She had told him this when Billy was eleven. Frank had struggled to prove she was wrong. But history, another word for mystery, had been like a gigantic windshear, undercutting his hopes and prayers.
I can't find him in the spirit world. He has no soul. It often happens when a child is born of fierce opposites.
She had told him this when Billy was eleven. Frank had struggled to prove she was wrong. But history, another word for mystery, had been like a gigantic windshear, undercutting his hopes and prayers.
Frank stumbled out on the porch and sat down in a cane-bottomed rocking chair. The wind rushed up the mountain to tear at his loose shirt and pants. He looked down on the darkened desert and beyond it, a glare against the overcast, the lights of the city of Los Angeles behind her barrier mountains.
Two hundred years ago, the great Indian medicine man, Tahquitz, had withdrawn to this mountain to brood in lonely despair about the decline of his people. Frank Buchanan had followed him here, also a man in mourning for his people. The Americans of the seventies seemed to have lost their way. Sexual, political, religious extremists hurled insults and slogans. A president betrayed his office and senators and congressmen revealed themselves as hypocrites worshipping the newest goddess, Publicity. Night after night, Buchanan sat at his desk opening his mind to the guardian spirits, hoping for wisdomâan old man's consolation for his losses. But Tahquitz remained silent.
Frank could almost hear Adrian Van Ness laughing. For a moment he had to struggle against a demoralizing surge of hatred.
Thinking again of Edward Busk in his burning plane, Frank wondered if
there was another meaning in the memory. Somewhere a compatriot had died in the long upward struggle men called flight. He was still linked to the great enterprise, so crucial in the conflict between darkness and light, above all to the company he had founded, now an immense family of machinists and designers and analysts and salesmen and executives, working beneath his name. Scarcely a day passed without a letter or a postcard from one of them, recalling the rollout of a famous plane, the triumph of a controversial design, the pathos of an old failure.
there was another meaning in the memory. Somewhere a compatriot had died in the long upward struggle men called flight. He was still linked to the great enterprise, so crucial in the conflict between darkness and light, above all to the company he had founded, now an immense family of machinists and designers and analysts and salesmen and executives, working beneath his name. Scarcely a day passed without a letter or a postcard from one of them, recalling the rollout of a famous plane, the triumph of a controversial design, the pathos of an old failure.
They were all linked, the living and the dead, in the cosmic sea of the worldsoul. Frank Buchanan still retained that primary faith, imparted to him by his mother. Within that cosmic soul, each individual soul was part of an eternal struggle between good and evil, between the guardians and the destroyers.
Adrian Van Ness had mocked that childhood faith. Adrian had mocked many things. His soul was an abyss of hatred or loss that Frank Buchanan had never been able to penetrate. That was another reason for his sojourn in the desertâhe wanted to eradicate the last vestige of hatred for Adrian from his spirit. All he had to show for it was another failure.
A clattering, poppering roar in the sky above him. Searchlights blazing, a Buchanan helicopter was descending to the small landing strip a few hundred yards from the shack. In a few minutes Bruce Simons, Buchanan's tall flashy director of public relations, and a young stranger approached the porch. Behind them came Kirk Willoughby, the company's pink-cheeked, balding chief physician.
“Frank, how the hell are you?” Bruce said in his breeziest style, pumping his hand. “I hope you don't mind us dropping in this way at five A.M. We tried to call you but your phone doesn't seem to be working.”
“I disconnected it a month ago.”
“This is Mark Casey of the
L.A. Times
. Their aviation reporter.”
L.A. Times
. Their aviation reporter.”
“I told you I was through giving interviews, Bruce.”
“This isn't just another interview, Frank. Adrian Van Ness died last night. Mark would like to talk to you about your memories of himâthe early days of the companyâwhere you see it going now that his influenceâ”
“Adrian! You're sure? Howâwhat was the cause?”
“A heart attack, apparently. The doc here was treating him for heart diseaseâ”
“AmandaâMrs. Van Nessâhow is sheâwhere is she?”
“She's still in Virginia. But I presume she'll return to California. We're going to have a memorial service for Adrian at the company next week,” Simons said.
Suddenly Frank Buchanan's world was no longer a gray meaningless place. He no longer belonged in the desert. But he could not possibly explain that to Simons or to this earnest young reporter, who looked as if he was born the day before yesterday.
Kirk Willoughby understood, of course. He knew more about Adrian and Frank and Amanda than anyone in the company, except inquisitive Sarah Chapman Morris. He was here to make sure the news did not abort Frank's laboring heart. A superfluous worry.
They sat down on the porch and Mark Casey began asking him the standard questions. What was the secret of his long, successful collaboration with Adrian Van Ness? What was their most important plane? What was Adrian Van Ness's contribution to Buchanan's success? Was he involved in the company's recent difficulties with the government? How did Frank see Buchanan's future now?
Frank's answers were not lies. He said the secret of his collaboration with Adrian was mutual respect. Of course they argued now and then, ho ho ho. But they realized each had a part to play. As for their most important planeâeach one was important while they were building it. Frequently important enough to be the margin between bankruptcy and solvency, ho ho ho.
Adrian's greatest contribution was forethought. He was always thinking ahead to the next generation airliner or fighter plane. Of course he wasn't always right but neither were Douglas or Lockheed or Boeing right all the time, ho ho ho. As for Adrian's involvement with the company in recent yearsâhe had retired to the cheering section, like him. The company's future? It was bright. The Buchanan rainbowâAdrian's idea, by the wayâstill reached over the horizonâand the plane soaring above it might soon be flying at hypersonic speed.
Almost all of it was true. But it was only one percent of the truth. Watching the boyish reporter take it down, Frank remembered so many things he could never tell him, so many things a thirty-five-year-old would find it hardâperâhaps impossibleâto understand.
Mark Casey said he was delighted with the interview. Bruce Simons said they had to get back to Los Angeles as soon as possible. “I think I'll stay with this old curmudgeon for a while. Check out a few things like his blood pressure and his heartbeat,” Kirk Willoughby said. “You can send the chopper back for me in an hour or two.”
The helicopter clattered into the sky. Frank Buchanan gazed at Willoughby. “It's impossible to explain,” he said.
“I know,” Willoughby said.
“You'd have to go back to the beginning.”
“I know,” Willoughby said.
He pulled a flask of Scotch out of his pocket and poured a drink for himself and Frank. “Dick Stone's going to be the new CEO. Cliff's out. Does that bother you?”
“It's a pretty raw deal in some ways. Cliff isn't really responsible for our sins. Adrian's the culprit.”
Frank sipped the Scotch. Bitter memories flowed into his mind with the taste. “The culpritâin so many ways.”
“I think you've got Adrian wrong. You've always had him wrong.”
“You're saying you never know the whole truth about a manâeven when you work with him for forty-seven years?”
“I'm afraid not.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe none of them, including himself, were as innocent as they wished they wereâor as guilty as they feared they were. “Amandaâdo you think it's possibleâ?”
“I don't know. I hope so.”
“If I can hold her in my arms for a yearâor even a monthâI'll forgive the universe.”
The two men sipped their Scotch in silence, while from the empty desert welled the faces and the voices, the illusions and the heartbreak of the living and the dead. Above them flew the planesâfrom the wobbling fabric creatures of the first decade to the titanium projectiles of today. Seventy-six years of flight through Frank Buchanan's life and Adrian Van Ness's life and so many other lives.
This was their journey, Frank thought. Only someone who flew the route across memory and time and history could decide who should be forgiven, who should be condemned. For himself, he relied on two lines from his favorite poet.
Let the gods forgive what I
have made.
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.
have made.
Let those I love try to forgive
what I have made.
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