Air Force Eagles (43 page)

"You think it's possible?"

"Christ, no. He has legal redress—he could get visiting rights, all that, and he hasn't even done that. Why would he do something illegal?"

"Isn't that what he mostly did for you?"

Riley looked hard at Bandfield. "You think he might do it?"

"Hell, I hardly know the guy, but Lyra's no hysteric, even after all she went through during the war. She knows him a hell of a lot better than you do."

They were silent until they clambered down out of the chopper, instinctively ducking their heads beneath the whirling blades as they ran across to the checkpoint. Panting, they showed their IDs to the guard controlling access to the crash site.

"Have they located all the bodies yet, Sarge?"

"Not yet, sir. They think they may have parts of two men, but they won't know until they get back to the hospital. So far they're just finding the usual bones, teeth, and hair."

Bandfield flushed. "Sergeant, this is no joking matter. You may be hardened to it, but the families are not."

He walked over to the Air Police truck and came back talking to the NCOIC, a burly master sergeant who was obviously totally pissed off with Bandfield and the sergeant.

"You're relieved here, Sergeant. Come with us. Maybe you'll learn something."

The three men, the sergeant trailing along looking hangdog, walked toward the center of the field, where the largest single surviving portion of the wreckage, the tail section, lay.

Riley whispered, "He's just a kid wising off, Bandy. Don't let it get to you."

"I know. It's just that I've done this so damn often, and it gets worse every time. I'm not going to be rough on him; I just want him to see some of the bones, teeth, and hair he was spouting off about."

The SAC crash investigation team was already at work. A harassed young captain was running the operation, with papers and manuals spread all over his Jeep while a crew set up radio antennae. When they introduced themselves he groaned.

"Great! I need a flight surgeon and I get visiting brass. Look, don't touch anything. If you find something of interest, mark it so we can find it again and come tell me." The "sir" he added was a clear afterthought. Both Riley and Bandfield understood; the last thing he needed was a couple of bird colonels and a sergeant poking around.

They walked first to a little rise in the ground to survey the wreckage. Riley shielded his eyes from the glare as he surveyed the area. "A real Pearl Harbor Day present, eh? Look at the way this shit is scattered."

They talked to the other searchers as they met them. A tech sergeant, smeared coal black from plunging through the burned brush, said, "I was off-duty at the radar site. Saw the whole thing. It didn't look no different than the regular runs, until the wings bent up and it exploded."

Bandfield shook his head. "It's a miracle Fitzpatrick got out alive; he must have been sitting with his hands on the ejection seat handles."

"Yeah, and that's not like him—he's usually pretty relaxed. He must have seen something coming."

"Well, we knew all along that it's a dangerous technique; the damn airplane was never designed for it. And if you don't do it right, it'll bite you."

Subdued, they moved slowly through the blackened debris that covered the desert floor in a two-block-long oval pattern. Three fire trucks from Tonopah were battling a raging brushfire, the firemen choking in the acrid smoke from the burning sage. They tramped the area carefully, trying to get a picture of the distribution of the fallen parts. An arroyo, shallow at the west end, deepening toward the east, ran through the crash site, and they tramped it together. Riley stopped to point to a patch of sage overhanging an oblong lump. It was about two feet wide and four feet long, charred so black its outer surface was flaking.

"Look here, Bandy. What do you think?"

"Might just be a parachute, but it could be a torso; too badly burned to tell. Come here, Sarge, I want to show you something."

Bandfield reached his gloved hand out and gently brushed at the blackened fabric. It tore away, and there was a gleam of bloodstained khaki underneath; a sudden smell of roasted flesh rose up, overwhelming the pervasive odor of burned jet fuel. His hand jerked back and he felt the flood of futile helplessness, the sense of total waste that a crash site always brings.

"It's the Brit."

The sergeant turned to the side, vomiting.

They walked back to report their find in silence; as they approached the Jeep, Bandfield said, "What a hell of a note, to come all the way to California to have some jerk kill you."

"Pure pilot error?"

"Sure. At least I hope so. If it's not, the B-47 fleet's in worse trouble than we thought. I want to talk to Fitzpatrick as soon as possible."

Without a word, the captain handed him a message he'd just copied down from the radio. It was barely legible, hard pencil against a yellow tablet, and Riley squinted as he read it to Bandfield.

*

Little Rock, Arkansas/January 15, 1954

Ruddick was uneasy as he led them into the privacy of his inner office. Looking sour, Baker threw himself full-length on the couch and lit a cigarette. Milo bustled over with an old-fashioned ashtray shaped like an elongated bowling pin and weighted at the bottom so that it couldn't tip over. "Excuse the way the place looks; I don't allow the cleaning staff to come in here."

Elsie stood by his desk, dabbing at her nose with a Kleenex. "Do this for me, Milo, and I'll clean your office up myself."

"Right. The Air Force is investigating the last two crashes—both the same thing, wings pulling off. The plant reps in the factory are going crazy, checking everything twice."

"I'm sure they're doing the same thing at Boeing and the other plants. Standard procedure. What's this got to do with Baker?"

The big man bridled, rising half out of the red leather chair. "It ain't got fuck-all to do with me. It's not my fault if the goddamn Air Force pilots can't fly."

Elsie whirled on him. "Shut up! There's no time for your stupid whining." She turned back. "I'm sorry, Milo, he knows we're in trouble, and he won't stop blustering. He took a kickback on some critical parts and lined his pockets. I'm not sure that's what caused the crashes, but I think so."

Ruddick turned his gimlet eyes on Baker. "How much did you take out of this? Come on, tell me!"

Baker's finder's fee had been twelve thousand dollars. He looked down at his shoes. "About three thousand."

"Well, Elsie, he probably took a lot more than that. It's too bad he didn't just ask you for a raise." Turning to Baker he said, "You stupid ass! For three thousand dollars you've risked the lives of God knows how many men. What was the part? How many airplanes are involved?"

"It's the attaching pin for the wing-fuselage juncture, a twelve-piece kit. I bought two hundred of them."

"How many were installed? Can you identify the airplanes they were installed in?"

Elsie leaned forward. "That's the problem, Milo, we don't know how many are in the fleet. He screwed up the paperwork as he went along, just for camouflage. We did dump all the ones that were still on hand, more than a hundred. But we don't know how many were installed, or which airplanes they were installed on. Some might have been shipped out as spares."

Milo made a fan-shaped motion with his open hands. "Don't panic. How do you know Baker caused this? Has the Air Force accused you?"

"No, it just seemed probable."

He stared at her for a moment. She seemed to be putting on weight, her makeup was smeared, and there was a funny look in her eyes. "Holy Christ, Elsie, this isn't like you. Did you check out the serial numbers of the aircraft? Did McNaughton even make the center sections on these airplanes?" He whirled on Baker.

"When did you start this—no, when did the first parts you bought arrive?"

"About a year ago."

"Well, for Christ's sake, check to see when the two airplanes that crashed were built. They might not even have McNaughton parts in them."

Baker brightened and looked at Elsie. "He's right. We might be home free."

Ruddick exploded. "Shut up, both of you! You've really screwed this up. Now if they see that some of the paperwork is missing, they'll be suspicious, even if it's not your fault."

He tapped his fingers on the desk. "Look, Elsie, you've got to do some retroactive paperwork of your own to get some stuff" in the files. Backdate it to last summer. Make it look like you gave Baker more duties—made it legal for him to buy parts, and give him a title, like 'Space Manager' or something. Baker, you fake records on how much you've thrown away. Make it seem like you really cleaned house, indiscriminately, everything went out, the baby with the bathwater. Can the two of you handle that?" Contempt registered in his question.

"That would be the worst thing I could do. I'm going to do just the opposite. You're going to hear me calling for heads, at Boeing, at Douglas, at Lockheed. We'll spread them so thin they won't be able to do much at McNaughton. I'll head up a team at Boeing myself, scare the hell out of everybody."

"Milo, I haven't got time to be coy. You've got Josten running things for you with the Klan; he can use Baker as an assistant."

Milo reached out with his fingertip and rolled a pencil back and forth. It was inevitable; more and more people knew about his sympathy for the Klan; there was even talk about it on the Hill. But years of gathering dirt and saving ass had left him well positioned; he had the goods on so many people that he wouldn't be attacked, not for something like sympathy for the Klan. He was hardly alone in that. Even Drew Pearson knew about the Klan business—and knew better than to say anything.

"But why me? Why the Klan? You could set him up in a little office somewhere, subsidize him. Hell, I'll help subsidize him myself, I'd rather pay to keep him away than have him around."

Baker stood up. "You guys are real cute, ain't you? Talking about me like I'm not here. Well, I'm here, and I got enough on you both to send you both to jail for a long time."

Elsie said, "Well, Milo, that's one reason. Another is that you can keep an eye on him here; if we set him up in California or New York, he might do anything."

"Let me think about it." Ruddick reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of Vat 69. Absent-mindedly, he poured a short drink in the water glass on his desk without offering any to them and put the bottle away. Josten had been complaining that the work with the Storm Klanners was tiring his legs, that he couldn't keep up the pace anymore. Maybe Baker could work for him, do most of the running around. Or maybe . . .

"Christ, I'm getting to be a retirement home for McNaughton rejects—first Josten, now you."

Ruddick turned to Baker. "What do you say? We can't force you to do anything."

Baker nodded. "You're damn right you can't." Then, more conciliatory, "But I'm flexible, I can play ball when I have to."

"Can you work for Josten?"

"I don't want to, but I could. He's a sour kind of a guy."

Ruddick walked to the window and gazed out over his beloved Arkansas, feeling laden with guilt. He'd always done the best he could for the services. Now, if Baker's parts turned out to be as bad as he seemed to think they were, he might be putting some aircraft in jeopardy. He just didn't see any alternative. Baker was a loose cannon that had to be controlled or eliminated.

Speaking over his shoulder, not turning to look at them, he said, "Tell you what, Elsie. We can't be too obvious about this. Baker's going to have to disappear, just drop from sight. The sooner the better. He can go to work for Josten, I'll pay him the same as you were paying—but no records, no social security, no taxes, none of that. We'll figure out a way to cover that. It's not much of a shield, but at least I'm not directly connected with him." "Thanks, Milo. Do you need to talk to Josten first?" "No—he'll be grateful for the help. And he can handle Baker." He turned to look sternly at the bigger man. "You're going to have to change your appearance—dye your hair, grow a beard, lose some weight. We can't afford to have you tracked here."

Baker nodded. The idea of the changes was oddly appealing to him.