Conquerors of the Sky (70 page)

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Authors: Thomas Fleming

BOOK: Conquerors of the Sky
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“Now Cliff—”
“Now Adrian, listen to me, once and for fucking all. You can be a hell of a big help to us here. But not if you start crossing all my wires without telling me.”
“Cliff—I apologize.”
“Okay. Let's forget it. Let's figure out how the hell we can take on a ten-billion-dollar bomber program, finish the Colossus without going broke, do another production run on the Thunderer and incidentally get the Aurora in the air.”
“How does that look, by the way?”
“Not good. Lockheed is coming up fast on the rail with that goddamn L Ten-eleven. Douglas is building a DC-Ten. The airlines are trying to play us off against each other.”
“Can't you work your usual magic overseas?”
“The Prince has run out of gas.”
“Then it's up to you. Surely you've learned how to play the game by now. Take Dick Stone along if you still need a partner.”
Cliff cursed silently. The Aurora had become his personal challenge, the plane he needed to show the company and the world that he could do it better than his predecessor. Adrian seemed to know it and take pleasure in his difficulties.
“Adrian,” Cliff said, “I think we should let someone else build this bomber. It's more than we can handle.”
“Cliff—may I remind you I'm still the chairman of the board? I will personally ask you to explain to the other directors why you turned down a ten-billion-dollar contract.”
“Because I don't think we should spread ourselves so thin. Because I can see the same headaches we ran into on the Warrior, times ten. Who says Nixon can get this thing through Congress?”
“That's irrelevant. If you expect me to go back to the president of the United States and tell him we don't want to make a plane that I've convinced him no one else can build—you better look up the telephone number of Lockheed's personnel department.”
Cliff had not felt so humiliated since Buzz McCall panicked him in SkyRanger II when he was seventeen. He was not Buchanan's chief executive officer. He was Adrian Van Ness's errand boy. In a corner of his mind Billy whispered:
having fun, Big Shot?
“Okay. I'll talk to Frank about the bomber.”
“Let me know if there's a problem. I have some moves I can make with him, these days. We're almost friends.”
That only proves Frank Buchanan is one of the simpletons of all time, Cliff thought.
“Ten billion dollars, Cliff! I thought you'd be crawling down the wire to kiss me. I hope you'll communicate a lot more enthusiasm to the workforce when the contract comes through.”
“Don't worry, I'll take care of it,” Cliff snarled and slammed down the phone.
Jeremy Anderson still had the phone in her hand as Cliff burst out of the office. She had been listening on her extension. “You've got the makings of a third-rate spy!” he roared. “Get me a seat on an eight A.M. plane.”
“I was just trying to see if you were still on the phone,” Jeremy said, with a guilty pout. “Mike's on line five.”
Jeremy's spying was a symptom of Cliff's weakness. Mike Shannon's political skills extended to playing power games inside Buchanan Aircraft. For the moment he was poised between Adrian, Cliff, and Dick Stone.
“What do you want?” Cliff snapped at Shannon.
“What the hell did you say to the Creature? He spent a half hour tearing my ass off.”
Cliff's rage deepened. There was only one thing to do, swallow his humiliation and take most of the credit for reviving the Warrior. Adrian's undercover role in its sale would be known only to a handful of top executives such as Dick Stone. If Cliff handled it right, it might not even be known to them.
“Fuck him,” Cliff said. “I just got the word from Tony Sirocca. We've got the contract of everyone's dreams. Ten billion bucks to build the next-generation bomber. Son of the Warrior.”
“That's no reason to make an enemy out of the Creature,” Shannon said.
“Don't worry about it,” Cliff said. “We don't have to worry about anything from now on.”
The next morning, Cliff flew to California aboard an American Airlines 707. Seated next to him was an angular, not especially pretty brunette with her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She was wearing gogo boots, Levi's, and a denim jacket with a
Peace Now
button on the lapel. It irritated him that someone with enough money to fly first class was wearing this revolutionary outfit.
Cliff pulled a copy of
Aviation News
from his briefcase and snapped it open. On its cover was a picture of Buchanan's new high-performance fighter, the SkyDemon.
His companion got the message. “Are you a pilot?” she said.
“I used to be. Now I make them. I made this one,” he said, pointing to the picture of the SkyDemon climbing at a 90-degree angle.
Silence for a half hour. The story on the SkyDemon was positive. Bruce Simons had done a good job. When Cliff looked again, his seat companion was reading a copy of the
Hollywood Reporter
, the bible of West Coast show business. He remembered Tama reading it in the old days.
“You an actress?” he said.
She nodded. “You've probably never heard of me.”
“My mother was one. You've probably never heard of her either. Everyone can't be a star.”
“How did you get into the plane business?”
“Come on. Say it. How did you get to be a warmonger? That's what you're thinking.”
Her smile was rueful but warm. “You don't look like a warmonger,” she said.
“Fly forty-nine missions over Germany with guys throwing bullets and shells at you from all directions. It's an instant cure for warmongering. I hate it as much as you do. My son'll be a Marine flier in six months. I'd give a million bucks to make that button on your chest come true.”
“Fascinating,” she said. “What are you doing to make it happen?”
“Building this,” he said, pointing to the SkyDemon. “And other planes that'll make us strong enough to end the war we're in—and make sure another one doesn't start.”
She sighed. “You sound like my father. What about trusting people? Just saying we've had enough killing?”
“Who's your father?”
“Robert Sorrento. A character actor. He died last year.”
“Character actor, hell. I remember him coming to our house at Redondo Beach to see my mother on Sunday afternoons. He was the handsomest, suavest guy I ever saw. Everyone was sure he was going to be the next Valentino. I used to wish he was my father.”
“Was your father in the movies?”
“I don't know what he was in. My mother divorced him before I was born.”
“I never saw much of my father either until I got old enough to loan him money.”
Suddenly they were telling each other the hidden parts of their lives. He described Tama and her lovers and his stepfather Buzz. She told him about her screenwriter mother, who had lived with a dozen movie actors and executives after she ditched Robert Sorrento. Their tone was rueful, wry, nostalgic. The more they talked, the more they realized they shared a past.
Cliff revealed his long-defunct ambition to become a director. “I guess I always liked to run things,” he said.
“How do you direct something as huge as an aircraft company?”
“You pick a good supporting cast—and make yourself the star.”
That blew her away. She seemed ready to forgive him for his warmongering. She seemed ready to do a lot of things. Cliff could almost feel the rising warmth.
“I've never seen an aircraft factory. What's it like?” she asked.
“You'll see one today—unless you've got a movie to make.”
“I should be so lucky,” she said.
They drove from LAX to the new headquarters at El Segundo in Cliff's white Mercedes. He took off her
Peace Now
button and put it in his pocket as they strolled into the building.
“What's your name?” Cliff asked, as the guard opened the visitor's book.
“My real name's Angela Perry. Use that instead of my screen name.”
“Don't want to be seen consorting with the enemy?”
She laughed and Cliff felt twenty years younger. He thought of Sarah the Smiling Zombie waiting for him on Palos Verdes, their occasional perfunctory sex in the big bedroom off the windswept terrace. This woman was adventure, conquest—he had no doubt whatsoever he could change her half-baked opinions about plane makers. This visit was the first step.
In a moment they were walking down the assembly line, with dozens of skeletal Thunderers hoisted on jigs. The scream of metal, the hammer of rivet guns filled the huge hangar, which was as long as two football fields. From the balcony dangled a tremendous American flag.
“The workers bought that flag themselves,” Cliff said. “It's their way of saying they believe in what they're doing.”
Cliff grabbed a balding pot-bellied supervisor by the arm, reading his name off his security badge. “How's things, Eddie? Any problems?”
“Not with this plane, Mr. Morris,” Eddie said.
“This young lady's thinking of making a movie about the business. I'm showing it to her from the inside.”
Eddie got the idea. “You couldn't get a better guide,” he said. “Except maybe Billy McCall, eh, Mr. Morris? And he's not around any more.”
“Yeah,” Cliff said, returning Eddie's knowing smile, even if he did not have any enthusiasm for the comparison. He was a star. Performing.
Angela was awed by the immensity, the complexity of the show. Exactly what Cliff wanted to happen. They climbed up on the jigs and she sat in the cockpit of a half-finished Thunderer to look at the bewildering instrument panel.
“Imagine yourself in a nine-g pull-out in one of these,” Cliff said. “You fly them in your mind all the time. That's the best part of making a plane.”
They went into the next hangar, where they were making a half-dozen prototypes of the SkyDemon. They were like slim, stripped swallows compared to the pigeon-breasted Thunderers. Cliff told her how fast the Demons climbed, how incredibly maneuverable they were at fifty thousand feet. In the next hangar, a Colossus was being checked for final delivery to the Air Force. The plane's stupendous black bulk loomed above them.
“You build that too?” Angela said.
“The biggest in the world,” Cliff said.
A scene in the technicolor movie of his life began scripting itself in Cliff's mind. A scene that surpassed anything Billy McCall had ever attempted with a woman at ten thousand feet. Careerwise, Cliff Morris was at thirty, maybe forty thousand feet. Eventually he would get rid of Adrian Van Ness and be up there, cruising at sixty thousand. In the meantime he would do something that would send Adrian a message—and make Cliff Morris a legend in his own right.
Back in the headquarters building, they shot up to the sixteenth floor in the noiseless elevator and strolled into Cliff's corner office. His Mexican secretary's eyes widened as she got a look at Angela.
“Mr. Morris,” she said. “We didn't expect you until tomorrow.”
“Emergencia,
” he said.
The oak-paneled office had a painting of the
Rainbow Express
fighting its way home from Germany on one wall. It was a duplicate of the one Sarah had given Cliff for the Palm Springs house when he became president. The wall opposite the door was glass, giving them a magnificent view of the airport and the city beyond it, unfortunately almost obscured by smog. They watched a Boeing 727 charge down the runway and head for the sky. Cliff put his arm around Angela's waist and gave her his supersalesman's smile.
She knew exactly what he wanted to do. She wanted to do it too. She wanted to do it here, with the
Rainbow Express
declaring Cliff's miraculous ability to challenge fate and survive. Compounding their desire was the sense of being linked in some mystic way. Destiny, a wild inevitability throbbed between them.
Cliff lifted her against him and kissed her—gently at first, then harder and harder, his hands roving her body. He picked her up and carried her across the room to his executive-sized desk. With a sweep of his arm, he knocked pens, memos, clock onto the carpeted floor. She lay on one elbow while he sat down in his swivel chair and buzzed his secretary.
“No calls, no nothing, for the next two hours. I'm not here.”
Cliff began undressing her. He liked what he saw as the Levi's and the jacket and the work shirt came off. The black lace panties and bra suggested she had not let the counterculture obliterate her identity as a child of Hollywood. He flipped the underwear away and ran his hands across coned breasts, a flat muscular stomach, and a dark tangled pussy above remarkably fine legs.

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