Supersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (11 page)

Müller looked triumphant and Obermyer dissembled, “Well, I doubt if I can be of much help, but I’ll try, to help my old friend here,” thinking to himself,
I can feed them enough from
Aviation Week
to keep them happy for a while, and maybe, just maybe, I can run some ideas past Vance Shannon.

Madeline leaned forward. “There is something else. I not only want information; I want to feed the others misinformation. What the Americans call a ‘red herring.’ Anything that will lead them astray—a new kind of fuel, tire compounds, information on composite materials, anything, as long as it’s bogus and will cost them research time. It is important to our people to be first. There is not going to be much of a market for supersonic airliners. First of all, they will be too expensive, and second, they’ll be too efficient; you won’t need as many of them.”

Obermyer felt the chill again; she was talking too much, telling them more than she should have. And she was no amateur. More than that, she had completely fooled Shannon for years. So there was something up.

She stood up. “I’ve discussed payments and ways to transmit information with Herr Müller. I hope you will find them of interest.”

As she left the bar, Obermyer noted that heads still turned after her.

He turned to find Gerd staring after her.
Fine,
he thought.
She’s spinning a web, and Gerd has already landed in it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

December 31, 1959

Palos Verdes, California

V
ance Shannon sat slumped in his favorite chair in the library, three carefully placed piñon logs crackling in the fireplace, a snifter of Courvoisier VSOP on the table beside him.

For years, Vance and Madeline had celebrated New Year’s at home, quietly going over the books and reviewing the events of the year, then, at midnight, drinking most of a bottle of champagne. When she left, Vance tried it once more, alone. It was too utterly sad, and he gave it up.

Six months ago Jill suggested that it would be a good thing to resume the practice, but instead of making it a private affair, they should invite all of the family in to participate. He had not agreed, but she took silence as consent and had made all the preparations. It always amazed Vance how carefully Jill walked the line of his memories of Madeline, always speaking pleasantly and courteously of her, never trying to outdo her in things where Madeline excelled but instead filling in all the areas in which Madeline had shown no interest.

He could hear Jill moving in and out of the kitchen, creating what she called her New Year’s table, a long festive board filled with bowls of shrimp, cold cuts, a ham, a bowl of non-alcoholic punch—for Anna and Harry—and a copper bucket that held six bottles of Korbel champagne. As his wife, Jill might well have been jealous of Madeline, for Vance had made no secret of it that she had been the great burning passion of his life. Instead, Jill recognized that without Madeline she never would have met Vance, much less married him, and that Madeline had all along intended her to become Vance’s wife, to take her place when she left. So Jill was grateful rather than jealous and careful not to try to compete in matters like the choice of champagne. She was sure that Madeline would have had more expensive French champagne, Veuve Cliquot or even Dom Perignon, but California champagne was good enough for her, and she knew that Vance would not even notice the taste, much less the label.

Tom, Harry, and Bob were coming over in about an hour, with Bob bringing a date for the first time. She and Vance had joked about it earlier, saying that his date was probably a six-foot-tall blond surfer—just what the five-foot-six-inch Rodriquez needed. Jill sighed and said, “I just hope she is not a movie star type; it won’t bother Nancy, but it will kill Anna.”

“If I know Rodriquez, she’ll be a knockout. I’ve seen how women react to him when he walks into a room—he just mesmerizes them.”

Vance turned back to the desk, where the balance sheet and profit and loss statements the accounting firm had prepared for his company were laid out. It was just a preliminary statement, but it made nice reading. In spite of his policy of paying top dollar to his partners and employees—there were twelve of them now, incredible for what not too many years ago had been a one-man band—the firm had shown a considerable profit, thanks in large part to new contracts that Rodriquez had secured for the U-2 and for some other even more highly classified programs that he could not disclose, even to Vance. Lockheed was always in a hurry, and their contracts usually carried with them incentives for swift completion—and stiff penalties for delays. In a small outfit like Aviation Consultants, such contracts could get priority and be executed in the minimum time, so the incentive clauses really added to the bottom line.

The accountant had prepared another portfolio, on Vance’s personal financial status, and this year it was not quite as satisfactory. Madeline had handled all his financial matters for years, growing his estate in remarkable fashion by farsighted investments in real estate and, to a lesser degree, in the stock market.

“Pretty smart businesswoman for a spy,” he mused.

He had not done well in the stock market this year. He couldn’t get interested in it, even though it was his money, and his financial adviser, Cliff Boyd, never seemed to have a suggestion that paid off anything but commissions for Boyd. Then there were two real-estate deals that unexpectedly had been tied up in court. Vance had begun trying to sell off some of the older, more difficult to maintain properties, and in each case the purchaser had reneged and gone into bankruptcy.

The only thing that brightened the day was Vance’s 45 plus percent of ownership in Capestro Motors. He was particularly pleased because he had made the decision to join Lou Capestro in the deal without consulting anyone else—it was just a gut feel, and it was paying off. The Bug was wildly popular, and this year Volkswagen’s clever advertisements had sold more than 120,000 cars in the United States. People were lining up to buy them at the dealership, and the thing that amazed Vance was that no one was objecting to the high routine maintenance costs. The Chevrolet and Ford dealers were furious—they charged less than half as much for an oil change and people protested. Somehow, the Bugs were treated as pampered pets by their owners, who seemed to take pride in the amount of money spent on them.

Fritz Obermyer had been absolutely right. The Volkswagens sold on their perceived quality, and, judging from articles in
Motor Trend,
even the Big Three were beginning to take notice. Yet Vance had noted that the VW’s greatest appeal seemed to be to young up-and-coming people, usually liberal in their politics and free in their thinking. It amused him that two old-line conservatives such as Capestro and him were making money from left-wing Californians.

Vance closed the books, shaking his head. He was far better off than he ever could have imagined and more than able to keep reinvesting all the profits from Aviation Consultants into the business. Boyd, the wizard financier, kept telling Vance that he ought to consider incorporating and taking the firm public, but he didn’t like the idea. For years he had exercised a majority control, and for all practical purposes he still did, although his percentage had declined from 52 to 42 percent when he decided to take Bob Rodriquez in as a partner. If he took it public, who knew what could happen?

He was stacking the papers when he heard the usual cries of greeting as Harry and Tom arrived with their wives. Jill was very close to Nancy, as they had worked together for so long, and always tried to be equally welcoming to Anna, but it wasn’t easy. It struck Vance again, as it had so many times, that Harry was a good son and a good husband, giving up a promising Air Force career to stick with Anna through all her problems with alcohol. Harry was never a heavy drinker, but he abstained completely to keep her from temptation. Now he was facing a new situation affecting her health—her escalating weight.

The chimes of the door rang again, and Vance thought,
Must be Bob and his date. I’ll have to get out there and see how she looks.
There was another flurry of greetings, but somehow they sounded strange, off-key, to Vance. Just then the door burst open and Anna literally ran into the room, not easy for a woman of her size. She stared wild-eyed at Vance for a moment, then half-whispered, half-shouted, “Bob’s brought a Negro, a Negress, I mean, to the party.”

Vance stood up in a welter of irritation. Sometimes this woman was just too much to stand, no matter if she was married to his son. “Please, Anna, be quiet! You are going to cause trouble with talk like that.”

Eyes welling with tears, Anna flounced out of the back of the room, toward the kitchen, beginning the sobbing she used to win most of her arguments with Harry.

Vance sighed and walked rapidly down the hallway to the living room, where the noise had recovered to a normal volume, with Nancy’s silky laugh overriding all. He bounded through the double doors to come face-to-face with one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, a dark-haired beauty with a dazzling smile that seemed to send fireworks cascading through the room.

Bob Rodriquez grabbed him, saying, “Vance, may I present Mae Wilson; she’s a big fan of yours.”

The group coalesced around him, as he stood almost helpless, fighting not to say something stupid and blowing it with, “Bob, any fan of mine is a friend of yours.”

Then he stopped shaking her outstretched hand and kissed it, saying simply, “Mae, Happy New Year, and welcome to our home.”

He glanced around quickly, registering the reactions to the meeting. Bob and Jill looked proud, Nancy happy, and Tom annoyed. Harry had gone to look for Anna.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

February 14, 1960

San Francisco, California

A
s usual, they had a corner room at the Hotel California, and as they always did, they opened windows on both sides to let the fog-tinged air waft through.

“Cold?”

“Yes, but let’s leave the windows open just a bit more. I love the sound of the foghorns and the feel of the mist.”

They sat on the edge of the bed, arm in arm, still happy from their meal at Des Alpes, a Basque restaurant on the Hill. Bob Rodriquez had been impressed when the waiter turned their wineglasses into coffee cups, and Mae had been delighted by his reaction.

Each time they came to the city, they tried to duplicate, as far as possible, everything that had happened on their first visit, two years before, a romantic preference of Mae’s. Bob was too pragmatic to really understand it, but he understood that pleasing her was all he cared about.

They had met at a seminar in San Diego, fallen almost instantly in love, but Mae had delayed their lovemaking until she felt sure about Bob. When she had decided she was sure, Mae had suggested that they have a little “honeymoon in San Francisco” to celebrate the event. They had been back three times since, each time as good as the last.

“Wonder what the rich folks down at the St. Francis are doing?”

She stood up to close the windows and said, “They’re not having the fun we’re going to have.”

They had made love in the morning and again before going out for dinner, so they were not in any hurry but undressed companionably, brushing teeth, doing all the domestic things that lovers do when they have time and knowledge and assurance.

Lying next to him, she ran her foot up and down his leg, then asked, “Do you suppose Tom Shannon is over the New Year’s party yet?”

“Tom’s all right. He’s just a little old-fashioned. I don’t think any of the Shannons are bigoted; Vance and Harry certainly are not. I’m not counting Anna as a Shannon—she has her own problems.”

They were reflective for a bit and he went on. “To be honest, I think I might have been too dark skinned for him to accept as a junior partner. I wonder how he would have felt if I had showed up at the party with a blonde?”

“Well, I’m practically blond compared to you.”

He laughed. She was right; her skin was much lighter than his.

“Is it, I mean, am I going to cause trouble?”

“No, you saw how Vance reacted. He’s the only one that really counts. His boys are great pilots and pretty fair engineers, but he runs the place.” Then unexpectedly he said, “For now.”

She understood exactly what he meant but asked, “What does that mean?”

Bob sat up in bed, tossed the covers back, and began talking excitedly. “None of them really realize what’s happening in aviation. The impact of what is going on in electronics, in propulsion, in new materials, is going to revolutionize aviation. We’re going to be talking about the aerospace industry rather than the aviation industry, and sooner rather than later. None of the Shannons have a feel for this yet. I do, and I’m going to prove myself to them.”

“What are you planning, some sort of corporate takeover?”

“No, no, I’d never do that to Vance, not even to Tom or Harry. They’ve been good to me. But they will see the need and they’ll want me to run things. I can see it coming just as clearly as I see a little bit of passion in the corner of your mouth.”

“What? Where?”

He kissed the corner of her mouth and they resumed the replay of their honeymoon in San Francisco.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

March 24, 1960

Ramenskoye Airfield, near Moscow, USSR

T
he Lavochkin team had already arrived and set up its easel bearing a stack of charts, each one meter square and prepared of good white paper bonded to cardboard. The top chart showed the S-75 in flight, resembling nothing more than a finned telephone pole with a jet of fire issuing from its base.