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“With more power in my engines … yes.”

“So I was right to recommend you. I cannot give you details, but I can tell you that the new aircraft will be all you could wish for.”

“About Johann …” Hohendorf began, trying again.

Wusterhausen shook his head slowly. “It’s no use, Axel. The matter is not for discussion. Flacht will be going with you …”

“Wolfgang?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. He’s a very good back-seater.”

“Then why this surprise?”

Hohendorf was unsure of what to say next.

“Well … but what about Willi Beuren? He’ll need a replacement.”

“He’ll have to break in one of the newer boys.”

“But who will be his real back-seater, Chief?” Hohendorf dreaded the answer he knew would be coming.

“Johann Ecker. Who else? Johann knows how Willi flies, and will be a great help with the new man. Some of the time, though, Johann will fly with me. Axel? Are you all right? You look upset. Is something wrong?”

What could he say? How could he tell the CO about Beuren, when he had absolutely nothing with which to back up his fears? And yet, Johann with Beuren—it didn’t bear thinking about. But Beuren was a good pilot; a very good one.

“Axel?” Wusterhausen was saying. “Is something wrong?” he repeated.

Hohendorf pulled himself together. “I’m fine, Chief. I was thinking of something else—having to see Anne-Marie this weekend—”

“Ah yes. I’m very sorry about that, Paul.” The flimsy excuse seemed to have got past Wusterhausen. “But you’ll have to sort your marriage out before you leave for the new unit.”

Hohendorf nodded, relieved to have managed to deflect the Sea Eagle for once. “We’ll be having a serious talk. One way or the other, it will be resolved before I go.”

“Good. I don’t mind telling you that in some
quarters the opinion is that you’ll not be waiting too long for your Korvetten?.”

The news drove all other thoughts from Hohendorf’s mind. “Whose opinion?”

“Mine, for a start. Now off you go, or you’ll be blaming me for getting you caught in the tunnel. Try to have a good weekend.”

“Thanks. See you on Monday.”

Wusterhausen nodded and watched the other man leave. “You may have trouble with your wife, Axel … but that’s not your real worry. Don’t think I fell for that explanation for one minute.”

As he walked away from Wusterhausen’s office, Hohendorf heard Ecker’s voice behind him.

“Ah, Axel,” Ecker called. “What did the Sea Eagle want?”

Hohendorf turned, keeping his expression neutral. “He wanted to give us a pat on the back for a job well done, and also to talk about Anne-Marie.”

Ecker was pleased about the pat on the back, sympathetic about Anne-Marie.

“How are you going to handle it?” he asked. From the little anybody had been able to gather, Anne-Marie was not the easiest of people to deal with. The squadron members were on principle solidly behind Hohendorf, even though publicly they kept well out of the family quarrel.

Hohendorf smiled. “I’ll think of something.”

“I expect you’ll have to. Don’t forget, we’re here if you need us.”

“Thanks, Johann. I won’t forget.”

“Fine. See you on Monday.”

“Tchuss.”

“Tchuss, Axel.”

Ecker waited until Hohendorf had turned a corner before he thoughtfully began to retrace his steps. He was passing the squadron commander’s office when Wusterhausen called to him through the halfopen door.

“Ecker. In here.”

Wondering what was up, Ecker did as he was told.

Wusterhausen was at his desk … He gestured absently. “Sit down, Johann.”

Ecker, feeling like a schoolboy who’d been summoned for some unspecified misdemeanour, took a chair facing the desk.

Wusterhausen went straight to the point. “What’s bothering Axel Hohendorf?”

“I don’t quite understand the question, Chief. Everyone knows his marriage has come apart, and of course that bothers him. But it certainly does not affect his flying.”

Wusterhausen gave a brief smile that could have meant anything. “How quickly you leap to his defense. Don’t worry, I’m not about to ground him…. So you feel his marriage is all that’s causing him concern?”

“Of course, Chief. What else could there be?”

“What indeed.” Wusterhausen slowly placed the palms of his hands upon the desk and raised himself off his chair. He paced the small room slowly, now and then pausing before a framed photograph of an aircraft he had flown, or a group of colleagues past and present. The walls were hung with mementoes of his flying career. Now he stopped before a recent one. It was a picture of him in full gear, standing next to a Tomcat on the massive flight deck of an American aircraft carrier. Ecker observed him warily.

He turned from the photograph to face Ecker. “Either my officers have suddenly become simpleminded, or they believe I am,” he began, his tone of voice clearly warning anyone against such a dangerous course. “Axel Hohendorf is almost certain to command his own squadron one day, yet when I practically handed him his double K, he was as indifferent as it was possible to be without being rude. Oh he made all the right noises, of course. But for a man as passionately committed to fast jet flying as he is, it was a strange performance. His mind was somewhere else and don’t… don’t repeat it is to do with his wife.”

“With respect, Chief, it must. She wants him to leave the Service and fly with her father’s airline. And as if that’s not bad enough, she carries on with …”

Wusterhausen raised a restraining hand.
“That’s between the two of them. No. It’s something else. Something is digging at him. There are good pilots, competent pilots, mediocre pilots, and bad pilots. None of the last are on my squadron, I’m pleased to say. We have many good ones, but one genius. Axel Hohendorf. He has the instincts of the old, pioneer flyers, combined with a total empathy with today’s high-tech machines. It’s a rare gift and because of that, I trust his instincts. If something’s on his mind, I expect him to tell me, no matter how trivial it may seem to him. And yet he refuses to admit it. Have you any idea why that could possibly be? As his back-seater
and
a family member you’re closer than most of us.”

Ecker was in a quandary. Should he mention Axel’s comments about Willi Beuren? Clearly Axel himself had not mentioned it to the boss, and would not forgive him for going behind his back with this. It was up to Axel to do the telling, especially as he himself was not at all sure that Willi was at risk.

“I’m sorry, Chief,” Ecker said, “but I really don’t know. It could be any number of things. I could be shooting in the dark and say the completely wrong thing. For example, I know he’s thinking of selling his house and moving into the Fliegerhorst. He’s been living in that house by himself ever since his wife moved back to München. Something like that is bound to prey on his mind. But I wouldn’t swear it’s the most serious matter he’s giving thinking time to.”

“I happen to agree with you,” Wusterhausen said. “I am sure it is not the proposed sale of the house. Besides, given his workload on the squadron the house must be a positive haven of quietness.”

“He misses her, even if he doesn’t say so.”

Wusterhausen shrugged. “You know the man better than anyone on this unit. All right, Johann. I’m letting you off the hook for now … but don’t let it get really serious before you tell me. Are you receiving me?”

“Loud and clear, sir.” Ecker stood up. “I can tell you one thing. Whatever’s on his mind, it’s not affecting his flying.”

“If I thought that,” Wusterhausen said, “I’d have grounded him weeks ago.”

Hohendorf was lucky. He made it to the Hamburg tunnel ahead of the main rush and was delayed only by five minutes. As he headed out on Autobahn 1 towards Bremen, the cassette of one of his favorite singers, Dinah Washington, was interrupted in the middle of “September Song” by the
Verkehrsfunk,
the traffic advisory service.

As the tape was paused by the radio station giving the information, a female voice told him that an accident was causing a seven-kilometer jam between the Soltau-Sud and Dorfmark exits. Dinah Washington came back on as the message ended. He had no cause for worry. His ultimate destination for the day was in Westphalia, the family home near Tecklenburg,
where he’d be spending the night with his mother, and the traffic snarl-up was away to the east on another autobahn, between Hamburg and Hannover.

As he listened to the song and the Porsche hurtled fast along the relatively traffic-free motorway, he suddenly remembered that Anne-Marie had never liked this tape, and this song in particular. He sighed as the song ended, but hit the replay button. He was saddened by the breakdown of the relationship, but not as devastated as most people thought. Their families had expected the marriage ever since they were teenagers, and so had their friends. Unfortunately, neither the expectations of family and friends nor a profitable business partnership—a thriving domestic airline combined with a pharmaceutical company with outlets in practically every town and city in the country—guaranteed a lifetime of marital bliss.

In truth, neither should have married the other. They would have been good friends, he now thought; he had never loved her, and now the wrongness of the marriage had turned Anne-Marie into a person he could not even like. Its collapse had let her become the perfect stereotype of a spoiled little rich girl.

He was not looking forward to seeing her in München. Dinah Washington continued to tell him about September in the rain as the Porsche took him towards Tecklenburg.

*   *   *

Schloss Hohendorf lay in secluded grounds outside Tecklenburg, at the edge of the Teutoburg forest in Westphalia. A long tarmac drive threaded its narrow way through a thick colony of tall beach trees that seemed to form a guard of honor on either side. Stripped of their foliage by the winter, their trunks rose skeletally into the night.

The lights of the Porsche blazed at them as Hohendorf accelerated along the final stretch. As a boy, this section had always made him feel as if he were coming to the end of a tunnel. That feeling was still with him and his acceleration had been an unconscious response, an eagerness to be home at last.

He came to the small bridge that spanned the streamfed moat surrounding the castle. The building itself dated back to the 15th century, but many updates and repairs had given it a thoroughly postBismark look. Designed as a shallow U-shape, it had a steepled turret attached to its right wing. A wide patio about two meters above ground level was at its center, flanked by two broad flights of steps that descended to the wide gravelled circle into which the drive led. The center of the circle was occupied by a bare patch of ground which in spring and summer became a brightly colored flower bed. A cobbled strip crossed the bridge, to pass between two square pillars, each topped by a graceful stone urn.

Positioned centrally in its own small tower on the steep roof of the castle was the white face of a
clock. Lights from the gravelled circle played upon it, making it a beacon when seen from the darkness of the tree-lined drive.

Hohendorf slowly guided the Porsche between the pillars and drove round, tires crunching loudly on the gravel, to park nose-on between the steps. As he turned off the engine the patio lights came on and tall double-doors, paneled with thick squares of glass, swung open. By the time he had got out of the car and bounded up the steps with his small travel bag, his mother was waiting for him.

She was a tall, slim woman with a regal air. But the warm smile of welcome transformed her features into an expression of almost girlish pleasure. Her blonde hair was as rich as when she was younger.

“Axel!” she whispered, hugging him.

He kissed her quickly. “Inside, Mother. I don’t want you freezing out here.” He put a protective arm about her, taking her back inside.

“I’m not an invalid, Axel.”

“You’re not well, either,” he countered, shutting the door. The entire building, during its most recent period of alterations, had been efficiently modernized and was pleasantly warm. “After all, you’re not as strong as you used to be.”

“Nonsense. I am as strong a Bavarian as I ever was. It’s just my usual winter chill. I’ve borne two strong children, and I’m still only fifty. So don’t try and write me off as yet, young man.”

Hohendorf smiled, kissed her on the forehead. “I wouldn’t dare.”

His words pleased her, as her own smile showed. “Your father’s away in Japan on business, so it will just be the two of us for supper.”

“Thank God. We won’t need to be formal.” He sounded relieved.

“Now, Axel,” she admonished, though not too seriously. “You must try and come to terms with your father. You’ve had enough time.”

“I’ll never have enough. He must learn to face the fact that I make my own decisions about my life. He’s had plenty of time too.” He turned her to him. “Do you know, you’re a very beautiful woman?”

“You’re flattering me, child. What do you want?”

“Nothing, dear Mother. I merely spoke the truth. You’re beautiful, you’re clever, and you’re loyal. What more could Father ask for? Why does he try to hang on to Anne-Marie too?”

She nodded slowly, understanding. “What are you going to say to her when you go down to München tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your father’s very upset by all this.”

“I’m not the only one who’s at fault. He expected her to be someone like you. But she isn’t, and I am not he. He’s more worried about the severing of business ties between the two families. God knows we don’t need the tie-up financially. The land and
property we own in Westphalia alone gives us sufficient revenue. He holds positions of importance in the community, and policemen salute his car when they see it. What more does he want?”

“You’re not being fair, Axel. He only wants what is right for you.”

“He’s not being fair to me—he must realize by now that being married to Anne-Marie is definitely not right for me. It’s not right for her either.” He gave his mother a squeeze. “Now look at us, you and me. I came down to spend a quiet night with you, not to argue about what Father wants and whether I should stay married to Anne-Marie. I’m going up for a quick wash and I’ll join you in the small dining room.”