The Fly Boys Page 37

  Now Harrison watched her as she busily took down in shorthand what the project manager was saying. She was an extraordinarily efficient secretary. He didn’t know how he would ever get along without her. She was a damned fine-looking woman, as well. She was built big but shapely, with lovely skin, gleaming blonde hair, and big brown eyes. She had an easy, feline way of moving, like a tigress.

  He wondered, as he had many times, if she was a tigress in bed.

  Susan must have felt his eyes on her. She suddenly glanced up at him and smiled in the oddest way, as if she’d read his mind.

  Harrison, flustered and feeling himself blushing, quickly looked away. “Forgive me,” he interrupted the project manager. “I’d like to hear more, but we’re running short on time, Mr. Randall—”

  “Randolph,” the man said evenly. “My name’s Randolph.”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Randolph,” he stammered, off balance. Shit! he thought. They’ll be snickering about this behind my back.

  Randolph was in his forties. His pug nose was too small for his broad, round face, but Harrison envied the man’s thick head of salt-and-pepper curls. His own, baby-fine blonde hair was making a quick retreat to the back of his head. He had to wear a hat when riding in his new convertible to avoid a sunburned scalp.

  “Anyway, Mr. Randolph,” Harrison said, “if you’ll just route a copy of your analysis to Miss Greene—”

  “Sure, I’ll drop a copy onto Suzy’s desk,” Randolph interrupted. He looked at Suzy and winked. The others chuckled.

  He’s making fun of me, damn him. Harrison swallowed his anger. I’m always odd man out, he brooded. They treat me like a barely tolerated guest, not the head of this department.

  “We need to talk about the GC-909,” he said. He looked toward Cal Jennings, the 909 project manager.

  “Everything is under control, now that we know what caused the Stoat-Black Starstreak breakups,” Jennings announced.

  Harrison nodded. Jennings had co-authored the final report submitted by the British panel that had solved the mystery of the SB-100’s repeated high-altitude breakups. In March of this year the panel had discovered that the Star-streak’s Achilles heel had been the cutouts in the hull to accommodate the jetliner’s windows. Repeated pressurizings and depressurizings had weakened the joinngs where the frames met the hull. At high altitudes, the frame could pop out, causing a split in the hull that would destroy the plane.

  “We’ve made running changes in the 909’s fuselage to avoid this problem situation,” Jennings said. “We’ve designed reinforcements into the fuselage. Tear-stoppers, if you will.”

  “Have you routed a memo on that to public relations?” Harrison interrupted.

  “Well, no….” Jennings said. “What we’ve done is very technical. I doubt those flacks upstairs would understand the engineering aspects. The public sure as hell wouldn’t.”

  “If the PR department can’t understand well enough to explain it to the public, it’s your job as project manager to make them understand,” Harrison said.

  “That’s not the way we’ve usually done it—” Jennings began.

  “It’s how I want it done, now, however,” Harrison replied firmly, and paused. “Miss Greene?”

  “Sir?” she asked, looking up.

  “Take a memo to PR: I want a promotional film made,” he continued, thinking out loud. “We’ll build a mock-up of the SB-100 and 909’s cabins. We’ll pressurize them, and then, somehow, dramatically puncture both. It should be very impressive to the public when it sees the SB-100 peel open like a sardine can, while our jetliner—thanks to its tear-stoppers—stays intact.” Harrison paused and smiled. “Suggest to the PR department that we call our film ‘The Gauntlet of the Sky.’ Mr. Jennings, I know you’re busy,” Harrison said apologetically, “but after your stint on that panel, you know the SB-100 as well as any Stoat-Black engineer. I’d like you to supervise the building of the mockups.”

  Jennings was scowling through his bushy black beard. “I think I’ll wait until I hear from Herman about this.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Jennings,” Harrison said icily.

  “He usually authorizes such expenditures.”

  “I’m sick of this insubordination!” Harrison exploded.

  “Sir,” Susan quickly interrupted, her voice calmly steady against the shocked silence. “I’ll route a copy of this memo to the top floor right away, adding a note asking Mr. Gold to initial his approval of the idea.”

  “Thank you for that suggestion, Miss Greene,” Harrison nodded. “The rest of you had better realize that when Amalgamated-Landis committed to entering into this competition to build a jetliner, they decided to play for keeps. They knew that they were risking a lot by throwing down the gauntlet of challenge, but they have a lot going for them.”

  “They’ve also suffered a terrible setback,” Randolph observed.

  “What?” Harrison asked, distracted. “Pardon?”

  “They’ve lost you, right?”

  Harrison struggled to keep control of his temper amid the laughter, he knew that he’d made a serious tactical error by losing it a few moments before. It’s not necessary that they like me, he told himself, as long as they accept the logic of what I have to say.

  “Listen to me,” he said loudly. “Because I’ve only recently come from A-L, I know a few things about what’s going on there. For instance, A-L salesmen have been telling their prospective customer airlines that although GAT will have earlier deliveries, if the airlines are willing to wait another year, A-L will supply them with a better airplane.”

  That got their attention, he thought as the laughter subsided.

  “That’s a lot of crap,” Randolph said.

  “Why?” Harrison shrugged. “Think about it; all of you think about it! A-L has been stressing the fact that its jetliner has all the features of the 909, plus none of the drawbacks. The A-L sales slogan has been that the AL12 ‘puts the icing on the cake.’”

  “That can’t be working,” Jennings said nervously.

  “Oh, no?” Harrison countered. “Then how come A-L is now ahead of us on advance orders?” The room was silent. “We’ve got a prototype almost ready to go,” he continued, “and all they’ve got is a paper airline, and yet their orders outnumber ours.”

  He waited a beat to let that last bit sink in and hopefully shake up these complacent bastards. “Gentlemen, Amalgamated-Landis may be the tortoise and GAT may be the hare, but as in the fable, the hare now has to scramble to catch up. That’s why I want to do this promotional film, and why we have to work overtime to solve the problems that continue to plague the 909. We’ve got to exploit every advantage if the 909 is going to beat out the AL-12 as the world’s foremost jetliner.”

  He paused again, and then nodded. “Meeting adjourned.”

  He watched from his place at the head of the table as the others collected their papers and filed out, murmuring to each other. Down at the opposite end of the table Susan Greene was still seated, finishing up her note taking.

  When they were the only two still in the room, he broke the silence, asking, “They hate me, don’t they?”

  She looked up at him. He could tell that she was forcing a lie. “No, of course they don’t.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said plaintively. “I know they do.” He shrugged. “I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  She closed her steno book and looked at him. “Are you asking for my advice?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. His heart rate increased and it was suddenly difficult to catch his breath, the way it always was when he found himself in a personal conversation with an attractive woman.

  “Okay,” she said briskly. “First of all, you need to drop your formality. You should be on a first-name basis with your staff. You should have been on a first-name basis since day one.”

  “Really…” Harrison hesitated. “Susan?”

  She laughed. “Yes, Don.” She shook her head. “Were you like t
his at A-L?”

  “No,” he admitted, “but things were different there. It was smaller, and I’d been there for ages. Worked my way up, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sure, I do,” she shrugged. “At A-L you earned everyone’s respect, but it’s tougher here. My—” she paused, remembering that with Teddy gone, nobody in the department knew that she was Herman Gold’s daughter. “I mean, our boss, Mr. Gold, has made you chief engineer, and a lot of people around here are a little resentful of that fact.”

  “I know that much Susan, but what should I do about it?” he demanded. “Besides calling people by their first names, I mean?”

  “Well,” she said, and paused thoughtfully. “I think you should ask for their help.”

  “Huh?” he asked, puzzled. “But I don’t need any help.”

  She shook her head, sighing. “That’s precisely why you should ask for some. People don’t feel threatened by someone who asks them for help.”

  “I bet Teddy never asked for help,” he muttered.

  “He didn’t have to,” she said. “But he hired all of these people. Also, you’ve got to take into account the age factor. Teddy was much older than you. He was sort of—” She paused. “Avuncular.”

  “A father figure, you mean?”

  She nodded. “People felt comforted by his presence. But now he’s gone and here you are, threatening the hierarchy like some upstart young bull.”

  Harrison burst out laughing. “I don’t think any woman has ever referred to me as a bull before.”

  Susan blushed, and his heartbeat quickened further still. He began to wonder if he could ask her out.

  “You know what I meant,” she said softly.

  Harrison nodded. “How’d you get to be so smart?”

  Susan grinned wryly. “Life, I guess.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “You’re a widow, aren’t you? You lost your husband in the war?”

  Susan nodded. “That’s not what I was referring to, but yes, since you brought it up. It is true that I’m a widow. I have a son.”

  “Oh, really?” Harrison replied. “How old?”

  “He’s ten.”

  “Oh….” He sensed an awkward silence rising between them, as was always the case sooner or later when it came to women.

  “Well!” Susan said crisply, gathering up her notebooks and folders. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “So you really think I should ask the others for help?” Harrison began quickly, unwilling to let their conversation end. “To get them to like me, I mean,” he prodded.

  “Yes,” she smiled. “It doesn’t matter if you really need help. Ask for it anyway, and act impressed with its quality when it’s given to you. Then, while you’re chatting, why not suggest getting together for lunch?”

  “Try that with all the senior people, is that the idea?”

  “Sure!” she enthused. “Before you know it, you’ll be wondering what all today’s fuss was about.”

  “You really think so? That I can win them over, I mean?”

  “Why not?” she laughed. “Why ever couldn’t you?”

  “I’ve never been very good with people.”

  “Well, I think you’re a very nice guy,” she told him.

  “Really—in that case would you like to have dinner with me?” he blurted out abruptly.

  His heart sank as she began to laugh. She thought I was joking.

  She must have read his reaction in his expression. “Oh, Don… I’m sorry. You were serious? I thought you were… Oh, never mind,” she trailed off, shaking her head. “The point is that you don’t have to take me out to persuade me to like you. I already do!”

  “Yes, of course,” he muttered, pretending to be busy shuffling the folders in front of him. Never should have asked her, he thought. Never, never should have.

  “Well, I’ll get started on that memo to the PR department,” she said, getting up.

  “Yes, thank you.” He watched her leave the room, feeling like a total ass for asking her out. He should have known better; known that he was being too forward. Damn, damn, damn. Now he was going to feel uncomfortable with her for who knew how long?

  He decided to wait a few minutes before leaving. Give her a head start so that he wouldn’t have to try to come up with conversation while they were walking back to their desks.

  (Two)

  He was just trying to be nice to me, wasn’t he? Susan wondered. He wasn’t really asking me out to dinner, was he?

  She was back at her desk. She’d been preparing to type up that memo when she’d paused.

  Had he asked her out intending to be polite, or was he really interested?

  It had been so long since she’d been out with a man that his invitation had shocked her. She’d automatically said no without really considering the idea, assuming it was just his way of being cordial, but then again, if he’d only wanted to be cordial, he would have invited her to lunch, not dinner.

  She pushed away from her typewriter. She needed to think about this.

  He was cute in his way. Certainly not classically handsome, as her husband, Blaize, had been, but certainly attractive with his broad shoulders and pretty hazel eyes.

  She watched him come out of the conference room at the far end of the department and walk toward her on his way to his office. He was very definitely going bald, she thought. The overhead light fixtures were reflecting off his high forehead.

  So what if he’s going bald? she scolded herself angrily. She wasn’t perfect. She was almost thirty-one years old, for God’s sake, and starting to show a few signs of wear and tear of her own.

  Yes, she thought, Don Harrison had a lot going for him. He had a sweet grin and a good laugh. He’d seemed not the least put off the way some men were when she brought up the fact that she had a son. And Don was clearly brilliant, and he was most certainly a gentleman.

  And she’d enjoyed talking to him. That was the most important thing. For the first time in a long time, she’d made small talk with a man and if had been fun, not a chore. She wouldn’t mind talking to him some more.

  He kept his eyes averted as he passed by her desk.

  “Don?” she heard herself murmur.

  He paused in his office doorway. He looked distraught. “Yes?”

  “Do you…?” She hesitated. “Do you like Italian food? There’s a place in Santa Monica I used to go to quite a lot. I could meet you there for a bite some evening.”

  “Why not tonight?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath. It’s been so long. Am I really ready to try again? “Why not?” she agreed lightly.

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  (One)

  MIG Alley, Over Manchuria

  5 October 1952

  Steve was flying at 47,000 feet: operational ceiling for the BroadSword. He had his wing tanks in place, and was throttled down for maximum conservation of fuel.

  At this altitude the sky was an endless, crystalline blue. The earth below looked like a crinkled expanse of chocolate furred with green mold. Off to the south, very far south, was a thin, tangled quicksilver cord: the Yalu River.

  Where all good BroadSword pilots are supposed to be, Steve idly thought as he checked his instruments and maps to ascertain his position and heading. Somewhere to his east was Bao Kung Cheng Airfield, the commie base where the MiG drivers were trained for combat. Somewhere to his south, on the safe side of the Yalu, was the rest of Steel Fist Flight.

  “Back Door, come in,” Larsen called. “Come in, Back Door.”

  “This is Black Door,” Steve replied.

  “We’ve got a double flight of MiGs orbiting the river.”

  Steve’s heartbeat quickened. “That’s got to be blue-balls?”

  “Now don’t be getting antsy,” Larsen responded. “We’ll check it out and let you know. We’ve got to be sure that this isn’t a false alarm before you shoot your wad.”

  “Affirmative,” Steve said.

  “Fist Lead, o
ut,” Larsen replied.

  Nothing to do now but wait, Steve thought.

  It had been an anxious couple of months since his reunion last August with Yalu Charlie. Since then Steve had obsessed on his scheme to bring down the Russian. Nothing else mattered to him: not becoming a jet ace, and not his big fight and the ensuing break-off with Linda Forrest.

  He’d downed that fifth MiG back in September, but it had seemed like small potatoes. As far as Steve was concerned, he could single-handedly bring down the entire Red air force, but he still wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d had the blue lightning MiG in his gun sight.

  The fight with Linda had also taken place in September, oddly enough. She’d come to Chusan Airfield along with a contingent of newspeople on a tour of the front. Steve had bribed an airman a couple of bucks to get the key to an out-of-the-way storeroom in Operations Center so they could have themselves a good time in it for a couple of nights, but then Linda had gotten all mushy, starting in about how she loved him and how maybe they should be thinking about marriage.

  In hindsight, Steve guessed that with his mind on Yalu Charlie’s imminent reappearance, he’d been a mite too emphatic about how marriage wasn’t in the cards for him right now, and not likely in the future.

  Well, telling her that had sure as hell been a mistake, because for the rest of the visit she had been as cold to him as the air temperature at fifty thousand feet, and letting that storeroom go to waste had been a damn shame because the sex between them had always been outstanding.

  She and the rest of the contingent of news hounds had left a couple of days later, and that had been the last Steve had seen or heard from her.

  Oh, yeah. The last except for that card, postmarked Japan. On it was a brief, scrawled message:

  You want to be JUST FRIENDS? That’s fine with me. But that’s ALL we’re going to be from now on. Get it? (NOT ANYMORE YOU AREN’T!!!)YOUR PAL,

  L

  Yeah, Steve had gotten the message, all right. It was too bad. Linda had been the only woman friend that he’d ever had. In hindsight he guessed that the question of marriage inevitably had to come along sooner or later to louse things up.