After nineteen hours of appalling flying, the two men found the Irish coast beneath them. They found a broad and level field and brought their aircraft in to land.
Only the field wasn’t a field. It was a swamp. The first genuine transatlantic flight wound up axle deep in sucking Irish mud.
And that’s where Orteig came into it.
The date was now 17 December 1926. Seven and a half years had passed since Alcock and Brown had led the way. In the history of a technology just twenty-three years old, those seven years were a lifetime. And still the Atlantic hadn’t been properly crossed, except by zeppelins, those over-stuffed overflammable bags of gas.
And so, aware of all this, a French millionaire, Raymond Orteig, had offered a $25,000 prize to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic non-stop from New York to Paris, or vice versa. The prize would require a new distance record to be set. It would require an unprecedented degree of confidence in pilot, engine and machine. And it defined, in advance, the points to be connected. The prize – and the ambition which lay behind it – was unquestionably the most important goal in world aviation.
And Abe had a plan. The problem, as he saw it, was that airplane designers had concentrated for too long on engine strength over drag reduction. The plane which won the Orteig Prize would be big enough to carry plenty of fuel, of course, but it would be built slim and light. It would meet the wind, not with a shrieking mass of piano wire and wing supports, but gracefully, cleanly, like a dolphin meeting waves or a hawk angling into its dive.
‘We’ll use this water chute here to explore anything and everything,’ he explained. ‘Like how should a wing join onto the fuselage? Not too square, of course. Rounded, presumably. But how? Rounded in a pointy way or rounded in a more curvy way? And what about the nose shape? What about the tail fin? Now, of course, our water chute isn’t going to give us exact results. Water isn’t air. Small scale isn’t full scale. But we can sort out the shapes which definitely don’t work from ones which maybe do. We’ll try to work out the shape of the plane approximately, then hand over to some real engineers to sort out the detail.’
‘And then?’
‘And then, I’ll commission a plane, with Mason’s money…’
‘And then … do you …? Will it…?’
‘Huh?’
Pen got a grip. ‘Nothing, really. Nothing. Only, you’ll have a copilot, I assume. I was wondering if you’d already thought of who…’
Abe’s voice gentled suddenly, and his eyes looked away. ‘A tank of fuel. For something like this, the best safety isn’t a second flier, it’s plenty of fuel.’
‘You’ll fly solo?’ Pen found herself absurdly disappointed, as though she’d already booked the seat next to his.
‘It’s the only way to do it,’ said Abe. ‘I’m sorry.’
74
Captain Rockwell!
Willard couldn’t get over it. America had come home from war with plenty of heroes, but Captain Rockwell belonged to the very highest rank. It hadn’t just been his individual record – more victories than anyone except Rickenbacker. It hadn’t just been his collective record – his squadron narrowly beating Rickenbacker’s for total victories. The point was, it hadn’t just been his war record. Rockwell remained unsullied by peace. No newspaper man ever succeeded in digging out anything to tarnish him. No seedy affairs. No greedy desire to turn fame into banknotes. No grasping after honours. No grubby self-promotion.
And America had understood. Amidst all the ballyhoo of victory and demobilisation and red scares, America had somehow managed to separate its enduring heroes from its temporary ones. Rockwell hadn’t just been awarded the ticker-tape parades, the civic receptions, the Presidential photo sessions. He’d been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour, one of the few men in history to have been so honoured.
And now this.
Captain Rockwell was flying observation for a bunch of booze-smugglers. Willard didn’t know what to think. Logically, only two things were possible. First, Rockwell was behaving like everyone else in America had behaved. War had been a time for commitment and sacrifice. But peace was peace. Perhaps Rockwell had figured the angles the way everyone else had. Being a hero bought him nothing. Not much fame, certainly no money. So he’d quit. He’d resigned the position, handed in his notice, packed up and gone. Instead, he’d entered a more lucrative line of work. And why not? He was only human. A human doing what humans do.
But there was a second explanation. Rockwell hadn’t resigned. Others had. He hadn’t. He was still the man that Willard had once admired more than any other on earth. And if Captain Rockwell, hero, was flying observation for Bob Mason, then something didn’t add up. He had some agenda of his own. Willard couldn’t guess what it was. But whatever Rockwell’s precise motivation, if he had come to Marion as the war hero he’d once been, his presence there spelled red danger to the Firm.
That was the logical way to think about it, but Willard was hardly able to stay logical. Captain Rockwell! The man, almost literally, had brought Willard from boyhood into manhood. He had, quite literally, saved Willard’s life. During those intense and terrifying months of war, Rockwell had been a second father to him. A first father, even, because a distant parent on the far side of the Atlantic scarcely counted for much.
And Willard could hardly fail to be aware of something else. If Rockwell were attempting to engineer the downfall of Marion, then Powell Lambert would have to take action. If the insurance department became involved, that action would result in Rockwell’s sudden and violent death. If Willard could manage it so that he dealt with the issue himself, then maybe he could write a different ending to that story. Maybe. Rockwell had been a persistent and dangerous pursuit pilot. He would be a persistent and dangerous adversary in any other form of warfare too. Willard was unable to imagine how he could neutralise Rockwell without murdering him. He was equally unable to imagine giving the instructions which would end up with Rockwell dead.
But if Rockwell had been the man he had once been, then one of those two things needed to happen.
For the two weeks of his sun-drenched holiday with Rosalind, Willard thought things over. Rosalind, seeing him distracted, silently assumed that his adventures in Canada had taken more out of him than he’d ever let on. She saw his behaviour as confirming his curious but genuine bravery. He was a vain man, a spoiled one, sometimes a boastful and petulant one – she knew all that. But more and more, she was coming to see his better side: courageous, committed, resourceful, solid. In the baking Florida sun, Willard was at his charming, delightful best. Little by little, Rosalind felt herself slipping further into love with him. In bed, she gave herself to him. Awake, she gave him the adoration she knew he craved.
For two weeks, Willard thought things through and came to a conclusion. On arrival back in New York, he took up his new place in that hallowed space, the Investment Bureau. He arranged his desk, fussed over his furniture, began to order new lamps, new deskstands, new fountain pens, all now without any regard at all for cost.
And he placed a call. The call was to Bob Mason. Willard issued an order and gave it immediate effect.
75
The effect of Willard’s instructions was immediate and overwhelming.
Security, which had been tight before, just got a whole lot tighter. Armed men, with weapons loose and eyes watchful, paired up on the road, the rail line, and the river, both upstream and down. And Mason, at Willard’s specific request, did another thing too. He told Abe that he wanted the flying team to relocate to Marion. ‘Keeps it in-house. Things’ll be safer that way.’
‘We’ve never had a problem down in Miami,’ said Abe.
‘Right, and I don’t want to wait around for that to change.’
‘Why should it? Have you heard something to make you worry?’
Mason shook away the question with a punch on the shoulder and an affable, roguish grin. ‘Nothing, pal. Only I got worry as a kind of medical condition.’
‘We can’t relocate. Pen needs to keep in touch with your freighters in Havana, plus that mail route is still perfect cover for us. How else are you gonna explain having planes into Cuba and over the ocean every single day of the week?’
‘So she stays. And that mechanic of yours can stay.’
‘Me? That’s what you mean? You’re relocating me?’
Mason grinned and punched Abe again. ‘We’re pleased to have you, kid.’
76
It was the blue light of first dawn. Stars still twinkled in the west, where the night was thickest. It was early to leave, but Pen hadn’t been able to sleep and loved nothing better than watching dawn break from high overhead. She took off alone, unwatched. She made her take-off so fast, she had a hundred feet of air clear beneath her by the time the low scrub of the airfield boundary flashed under her wing. She soon hit the rumble of coastal turbulence, but the big plane rode the bumps uncaring. The throttle was open and the plane climbed fast.
Beneath her nose, the ocean spread out, like finally it had room to stretch. In contrast to the whitening east, the land below was dark blues and browns, spangled here and there with the glow of electric lights. She climbed higher and higher, far above her normal altitude. The altimeter reeled around, grimly committed to its single truth-telling task.
Pen was not flying like her usual self. There were no difficult winds, no bands of weather to avoid. She could have made a long, slow, steady climb to her normal cruising height of three thousand feet, and flown direct to Havana, with no need to do anything but check her course and keep an eye on her instruments. But not today.
You’ll have a copilot, I assume. It hadn’t been a dumb thing to say. Alcock and Brown had flown as a pair. Most of the fliers who’d tried to follow had done the same. And Abe hadn’t been unkind. Far from it. His voice had gone soft and sympathetic. But his sympathy had only made it worse.
A copilot. Pen realised she had already written herself into that role. For the Orteig Prize for certain, but also for life. The simple truth was that she was in love with him. Catastrophically so. Head over heels. Spinning like a plane without a pilot.
Her brain muzzy with the oxygen-poor air and the abruptness of her ascent, Pen forced herself to think things through logically. Perhaps, this was just the first rush of feeling. In a way, on meeting Rockwell, she’d been prepared to fall in love. She’d got herself ready for it, more than half-expecting it. After all, what else should have happened? They were two of the leading fliers of their generation, both committed to their pursuit, both single, both with a passionate love for the soaring freedoms of the air. So she’d been ready to love him. What else should have happened?
But then there had been the chain of disappointments, her mounting anger at Abe’s aloofness, his stonewall ability to keep her away from anything which threatened his masculine isolation. But their conversation in the tool shed had broken all that. She could even now hear his unadorned admission. ‘You’re right. You’re completely right.’ She could feel his head on her shoulder, the tears that were really his sparkling in her eyes. She could sense the presence of all the men whom Abe had once commanded to their deaths. And she had understood. From that point on, her tumble into love had been headlong, unstoppable.
But his answer had been remorseless. I fly solo. Over the Atlantic and in life.
And perhaps he was right. Perhaps Abe was made differently from other folk. Perhaps he felt nothing at all of the tumult in Pen’s own heart. Never had, never would. Forcing herself to think things over in a light as cold and empty as the air she was flying through, Pen was compelled to admit that there was nothing at all to give her hope.
The air continued to brighten. It had become bright enough to read by. Pen picked up the US Post Office mailbag down by her feet. It was stuffed with mail, five or six pounds of it, a big load by their paltry standards. Pen began to riffle through the letters, looking for mail it might be valuable to open and read.
As luck would have it, she found it almost straight away.
The fifth letter in the pile, postmarked Jacksonville, was addressed to Marion’s bank in Cuba. Pen steamed the envelope open. Extracting the letter with care, Pen clipped it to her mapboard and began to read. The letter was signed by Bob Mason himself and it contained just five lines: an instruction to alter the signatory arrangements on Marion’s principal Cuban bank account. Instead of Frank Lambaugh’s signature alone being sufficient for funds to be paid out of the account, any such disbursements would in future require both Lambaugh’s signature and Mason’s personal authorisation by telephone. That was all.
But the more Pen thought about it, the more she was certain that there was more to the change than met the eye. Lambaugh was a cocky, aggressive, domineering man. He liked to show off his big American cars, his gold jewellery, his big villa, his latest imports. He hated her, she’d realised, not just because she was a woman, but because she saw his ostentatious displays of money and was deeply, utterly unimpressed.
She turned back to the letter. Just for a moment, Pen’s love for Abe and the impossibility of it ever leading anywhere dwindled into the background. Perhaps, just perhaps, this letter held a solution to their problems.
77
Abe stared at his new bedroom.
Twenty feet by twenty, it was somewhat larger than the house he’d been born in. The bed was an enormous affair, all polished wood, sprung mattress, fancy counterpanes, and matching nightstands. The bathroom opened right off his bedroom and contained a huge tub, a shower, two basins, and (to his impressed astonishment) a bidet. The house had central heating, air conditioning, a fridge, a freezer, marble tiling in the front hall, a two-car garage, telephones in three different rooms and – of course, because this was Marion – a built-in bar in the living room with enough booze to light up a city.
‘OK?’ said Mason, grinning at Abe’s dumbstruck reaction. ‘It’s a little small, but we figured there was only one of you.’
‘You’ve got places bigger than this?’
‘Oh sure. This one’s just two bedrooms, plus it don’t have no pool, things like that. But don’t worry, pal, we think highly of you. You’ve got one of the nicer pads all right.’
Abe led Mason into the gigantic living room, where a huge fire threw its unnecessary heat straight up the towering chimney.
‘Drink?’ said Abe, playing host.
Mason didn’t just nod, he went behind the bar and poured himself a glass of Jamaican rum, taken on the rocks, and poured a smaller glass of whiskey for Abe. The airman couldn’t guess if Mason’s action was deliberate, but it made the point all right. Though Abe might get to live in the house, he did so because Mason let him. This was Mason’s house, Mason’s booze, Mason’s town.
‘How come you brought me here?’ asked Abe, once they were settled across two vast white couches that faced off across the fireside.
‘You bring the boats in here, it makes sense for you to base yourself here.’
‘Only I start watching the boats fifty or a hundred miles south of Jacksonville. Miami made every bit as much sense, and that way I could cover more easily for Pen and vice versa.’
‘Yeah, well, we’ve made the decision, ain’t we? Oh, and I meant to say, an extra hundred bucks a week, for you and Hamilton, kind of a thank you.’
‘Thanks.’
Mason held his drink up, so the glass obscured everything of Abe except his head. To Mason’s eye, Abe was just a head atop a whiskey glass.
‘I’ve been figuring it all up,’ he said at last.
‘Huh?’
‘How much we’ve paid you since you started with us.’
‘Must be a lot by now.’
‘Ten thousand bucks. More than. More than ten thousand bucks.’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘Yeah, only you haven’t exactly gone crazy with it have you? How many suits you got?’
‘Suits? Two. My normal one and my –’
‘Yeah and your one for best.
Jeez. Ten thousand bucks in six months and you still have a suit for best. A car? You used to race ’em. You even own one?’
‘I’ve been thinking about it.’
Mason shook his head in disapproval and raised his glass so that Abe’s head dunked below the drink.
‘Why d’you work for us? Most people, I don’t have to ask. They work for money. I give ’em money. They go spend it. Most of the guys gripe about not getting as much money as they think they deserve. Not you. Not Hamilton.’
‘The farm. You know I’ve been –’
‘– digging your folks out of debt. Yeah, yeah, I know, only how many more tractors can your pa use? He’s gotta leave some room for cows.’
Abe held Mason’s gaze for a while. He was being interrogated, he knew. The fireside drink and the big house and the show of warmth didn’t cancel out the fact that Mason was a hoodlum checking out one of his employees. Abe’s tone grew a little more serious.
‘You’re right. It’s not just the farm.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve got a project. An aviation project. It’s gonna need money. All you can give me and more.’
‘What’s the deal?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Buddy, you are my business.’
Abe tensed before answering. Telling Pen had been one thing, telling Mason was quite another. He’d cherished the idea of the Orteig Prize for so long and in such privacy, he had to unclench something inside before he could release it.
‘The Atlantic. It’s never been crossed. Not properly. Not the way it ought to be done.’
Mason goggled a second. ‘You want to fly across the ocean?’
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