Top Gun (20 page)

(One)

London, the West End

“So why didn’t you accept Lord Glass’s offer?” Linda Forrester asked.

“Pride, I guess,” Gold said, rehashing in his mind the day’s earlier meeting at the Air Ministry. “They were offering me an
ultimatum, and nothing gets my back up quicker than someone telling me I’ve got no choice in a matter.”

Gold leaned toward her across their small table, so that she could hear him over the surrounding noise. They were in a pub
off Piccadilly Circus. It was Friday evening, and the place was bustling. Earlier, he and Linda had left their suite at Claridge’s
on Brook Street to wander the West End, until they’d discovered this pub called the Winged Bull. Considering the state of
things at GAT, and the tone of today’s meeting at the Air Ministry, the Winged Bull had struck Gold as an appropriate place
to grab a bite, so they’d gone in.

Now Gold signaled the waitress and ordered another steak-and-kidney pie for himself. “How about you?” he asked Linda.

She shook her head, smiling. “One’s my limit. But I’ll have another glass of wine,” she told the waitress.

“And another pint of Guinness for me.” Gold said. As the waitress left, he confided to Linda, “I’m really enjoying this, especially
after all those fancy, stuffy restaurants where we’ve been having dinner since we got here.”

She laughed. “To tell you the truth, I’ve also been getting a little sick of prime rib carved at your table from the trolley,
or the British idea of classic French cuisine.”

Gold smiled at her, thinking how pretty she looked. Linda was wearing a dark-blue skirt, a tan, cashmere turtleneck, high
brown boots, and the small, gold, hooped earings he’d recently given her. Gold wore cordovan oxfords, brown corduroys, a muted
plaid flannel shirt, and a tan tweed jacket. Both of them had new Burberry trench coats purchased the other day on Oxford
Street, where Linda had tried without success to convince Gold to buy a derby.

“I’m very glad you decided to come with me on this trip,” Gold said. He reached across the table to take Linda’s hand, feeling
that tingle of electricity he always felt when they touched.

“I’m glad, too,” Linda said, her blue eyes very large and serious. “I’m glad you asked me, and I’m glad I could find a way
to arrange my schedule to come. For so many years that we’ve known each other, we’ve decided to go our separate ways…. That
makes our present time together seem especially delicious.”

“As usual, you seem to be able to say exactly what I’m feeling,” Gold murmured.

She winked at him. “Words are my business.”

Gold relinquished her hand as the waitress arrived with the food and their drinks.

“Steak-and-kidney pie can certainly turn a man’s thoughts away from romance,” Linda wryly observed.

“Can’t help it,” Gold confessed, digging in. “I love this stuff. Do you think you might cook this for me back home?”

“Not a chance, dear heart.”

Gold poked at the crust. “I don’t think they put deer heart in it.”

“Steven, what did you mean when you said it was pride that kept you from accepting Skytrain’s offer?”

Gold took a long pull of stout. “If I’d taken Lord Glass’s handout, GAT’s reputation would have been ruined. GAT would have
been forever consigned to second-class citizenship in Skytrain, and in the American aviation industry for that matter.”

“Why?” Linda sipped at her wine. “Skytrain was offering GAT a better profit-sharing deal than your company now enjoys. How
could improving GAT’s position have hurt its reputation?”

“A couple of ways,” Gold said. “For one thing, in the aviation business deals are sacrosanct. The tradition stems from the
early days of the business, when the sky was still a forbidding place, and aviators had to count on one another for survival.”

“That’s interesting,” Linda said. “Can I quote you on that for my book?”

“Don’t quote me, but you can use it for background.”

Linda laughed. “You’ve been hanging around with me for too long.”

“The best is yet to come.”

“Have you a specific point in the future in mind, dearest?” Linda asked sweetly.

“Now that you mention it, yes, I do,” Gold said, nodding. “I was thinking of later this evening, in the privacy of our bedroom.”
He finished his stout and signaled to the waitress for another by holding up his empty glass.

“Where are you putting all that liquid, Colonel?”

“It’s all that steak-and-kidney pie I ate,” Gold explained. “All those kidneys are acting like auxiliary fuel tanks, siphoning
off the load. Anyway, you know what they say: Guinness is good for you.” He leered. “It puts the lead in a man’s pencil.”

“Uh-huh.” Linda smiled. “Let’s return to the topic at hand, or later on this evening you shall find yourself with all that
lead and no place to write.”

“Okay. As I was saying, in the early days of this business a man’s word and his handshake counted for something. If after
the fact you were unhappy with what you negotiated for yourself, you didn’t renege and you didn’t complain. You just bit the
bullet and lived with the pain.”

“How macho.”

“I try.” Gold grinned. “Having said that, I have to admit that I still might have accepted Skytrain’s offer,
if
the deal held out to me had been a better one. As it stood, GAT had little to gain beyond some financial breathing room,
and a lot of prestige to lose. To use a phrase from the sixties, the whole world is watching GAT to see how the company is
going to weather its first crisis without my father around to lend his hand. Herman Gold would never have countenanced GAT
being thrown a bone and then slinking away from the confrontation with its tail between its legs, so neither was I.”

Gold finished the last of his pie and set down his knife and fork as the waitress came with his stout. When she’d cleared
away the dishes and left, Linda said, “So, to save face you’ve declared war on Skytrain.”

“You sound disapproving.”

Linda shrugged, taking a package of Salems from out of her purse. Gold held his lighter across the table to light her cigarette
for her.

“I just hope that in this case pride
doesn’t
come before the fall,” she said, exhaling smoke. “No matter how poorly the world might have thought of you and Don if you’d
capitulated to Skytrain or Tim Campbell or whomever, the world is going to think even less of you two guys if you let your
company be hacked into little pieces by AVG” She paused. “Also, I wonder how wise it was of you to have so rudely stormed
out of today’s meeting with the Air Ministry. “

“I wanted to shake them up,” Gold explained. “Make them think I had an ace up my sleeve I hadn’t yet played.” He took a swallow
of Guinness, then took out his own cigarettes and lit one.

“Granted, it was a dramatic gesture,” Linda admitted. “But the English put a lot of stock in etiquette and protocol. Your
brash behavior might backfire. Instead of intimidating your partners in Skytrain, you may have insulted them into being your
enemies.”

“Well, you might be right,” Gold mused. “I’m just not sure it matters. We’re in the midst of a major battle, one that GAT
didn’t start, I might add. We might as well sally forth with our colors flying.”

“You are a wonderful man,” Linda said. “And very strong…”

“Some parts are stronger than others. Later on, I’ll let you feel my best muscle.”

Linda smiled, but Gold could tell by the look in her eyes that she was onto something serious.

“Sometimes I think you might be too strong,” she warned. “Maybe it has to do with the fact that you spent your life in the
military, that you’re a warrior, but you tend to see everything as black and white, in terms of winning and losing, in terms
of combat—”

“But combat is exactly what this is about,” Gold protested. “GAT is locked in mortal combat with Skytrain and Tim Campbell.
And now it looks like AVG is about to gang up on us, as well.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Linda said. “You’re seeing what’s happening as some kind of personal attack, but really, what’s
going on is just business as usual.”

“Everybody’s saying that to me.” Gold frowned. “Don Harrison said it to me a couple of days ago on the telephone when he called
to tell me AVG’s reaction to our plan. Lord Glass said it to me today in explanation of Skytrain and Stoat-Black’s betrayal,
and now you.”

“Because it’s true.”

“No, it’s not true.” Gold shook his head. “Maybe the peripheral players in this drama are being motivated by the almighty
dollar, but don’t forget who started this rock rolling downhill toward GAT.”

“You mean Tim Campbell,” Linda said.

Gold nodded. “Don thinks that Tim will be satisfied with making a buck off of GAT’s troubles, but he doesn’t know Tim like
I do.” He paused. “They say that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’”

“Which you’d better not forget,” Linda warned playfully.

“No, ma’am.” Gold smiled. “But what I was getting at was that the relationship between my father and Tim Campbell was like
a marriage that went sour. Tim loved my father, then he hated him.” He shook his head. “Maybe we ought to amend that saying
to ‘Hell hath no fury like a
business partner
scorned.…”

Linda started to say something, but she was drowned out by raucous laughter washing over the room. The tumult was coming from
the bar, near where a cutthroat game of darts was being played.

“It’s getting late,” Linda said. “And this place is getting rowdier by the second. What do you say we leave?”

“I don’t know.” Gold looked at his empty glass. “I’m sure they probably have a couple of barrels of Guinness left. Nobody
likes a quitter.”

“What a pity. You see, while you were busy jousting with Skytrain today, I took the opportunity to do some shopping. I came
across some rather unique lingerie.…”

“On the other hand, if my pencil gets any sharper, the point’s going to break off.”

Gold got the check and paid it, and then helped Linda on with her coat. He grabbed his own trench coat and they left the pub.

They walked slowly arm in arm through the soft spring night. The West End theaters were letting out, and the square was crowded
with traffic and pedestrians. A mist was falling, shrouding the streetlights and the statue of winged Eros in the center of
the square. The theaters’ neon marquees reflected against the glistening streets, turning Piccadilly into an Impressionist’s
whirl of color.

“When we get back to the hotel, I’ll see about booking us on a flight home,” Gold said as they turned up Regent Street.

Linda sighed. “You don’t think there’s any point to you recontacting Lord Glass?”

“None that I can think of.” Gold shrugged. “I feel I’ve done the best I could with what amounted to a very weak hand of cards.”

“Nevertheless, maybe if you spoke to him again the two of you could come to some arrangement,” Linda coaxed. “After all, it’s
in everybody’s best interest that this mess be settled peacefully.”

“Not really,” Gold told her. “I would have agreed with you on that before today’s meeting at the Air Ministry, but no longer.
You see, Lord Glass said something very interesting to me: That Skytrain had wanted the Pont to symbolize Europe’s postwar
reemergence as an industrial power.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that Skytrain probably welcomes this opportunity to rid itself of GAT. Back when my father pitched the idea of an
international consortium to S-B and Aérosens, the English and the French needed American aviation know-how, but they don’t
need it any longer, and now probably resent the fact that GAT still insists upon trying to run the show.”

“You’re saying that the Europeans would prefer a new American partner,” Linda mused. “One that wasn’t around when they were
weak. An American company that’s willing to be their equal as opposed to their leader.”

“Or to be their weak sister,” Gold added. He sighed. “In other words, a company like Amalgamated-Landis. “I’ve gotta hand
it to Tim Campbell. That old son of a bitch has really stuck it to us this time.” He paused. “And now that I think about it,
you’re probably right that I made a mistake to go stomping out of Sir Lyndon’s office.”

“All you accomplished was to give Lord Glass an excuse for feeling righteous about stabbing GAT in the back,” Linda agreed.

“Where were you when I needed you?” Gold asked.

“You’ve always needed me.” She hugged him more tightly. “You were just too dense to realize it until now.” They strolled on
silently for a few moments, and then Linda said, “Look, you know that I’ve been doing a lot of research on the aviation business
for my book?”

“Yep.”

“Well, something I came across in my reading has given me an idea concerning GAT’s predicament: Have you considered approaching
the federal government for a bailout loan?”

Gold said, “You must have come across the inside story concerning the loan guarantee Uncle Sam gave Lockheed back in 1971….”

“Yeah,” Linda said. “Maybe that’s an avenue GAT ought to explore. In many ways, Lockheed’s situation back then parallels GAT’s
currently. Lockheed has a large military program just like GAT does, and back in the early seventies Lockheed was also financially
overextended due to production problems with its L-1011 airliner—”

Gold stopped her. “We’re way ahead of you. Don moved to explore the likelihood of getting a federal loan guarantee to keep
AVG happy directly after his meeting with Tolliver. Don pointed out to California’s congressional delegation that the employee
cutbacks GAT might be forced to make would prove devastating for the California economy, and Don suggested to our on-staff
lobbyist in Washington that GAT’s forced shut down of its military research-and-design operation would be detrimental to national
security.”

“And?” Linda asked as they turned left on Brook Street, approaching the hotel.

Gold shook his head. “We got shot down.” He sighed. “Nobody questioned the validity of our arguments, but the current political
situation in Washington is a lot different than what it was back in ‘seventy-one.”