“I’m flying at midnight.”
He pulled open the sliding glass door to the balcony, and they went out to sit on the beige cushions of his wrought iron chairs. It was still warm out, but not uncomfortably so. The fiery highlights of sunset were just dying and the pathway lamps below began to flicker into life.
Cathy Colby placed her glass on the table between the chairs, and drew her legs up under her. She wore a pale aqua cocktail dress with a Chinese collar decorated with dark blue scrolling. Five years younger than Kimball, she had been married once, to a venture capitalist who lost a bundle in the Keating affair. Now she was doing well for herself as the publisher of a business magazine which her former husband had underwritten. They had first met when she did a feature story on the start-up Kimball Aero Technology.
She was tall and slim, with delicate facial features under styled platinum hair. Her china blue eyes were direct, always questioning. Her skin was smooth and gave the impression of being porcelainized. In the right light, Kimball had noted that he could practically see through her earlobes.
“Aren’t you overdoing the training bit a little?”
“It’s a stealth airplane, hon. The customers … potential customers … will want to see it operate at night.”
“They can’t see it at night.”
“That’s the point,” he assured her.
She shook her head and the dim light from below reflected off her eyes.
“Are you going to be able to pull it out, Kim?”
She was a bright woman. Her magazine closely followed the rise and fall of business fortunes in the Phoenix area, and while she might not know the details, she knew KAT was faltering.
“Damned right,” he said, though with less conviction than he had a year or two before.
“You need a big sale to the Air Force.”
“Or a few small sales to the third world. It would be nice to have the Alpha Kats in an operational role for awhile. The Air Force would come around after watching it for a period of time.”
“Isn’t that being overly optimistic? This is the age of downsizing, Kim. And especially in the military. I don’t see this Congress allocating big budget dollars for a new weapons package.”
“That’s the point, Cathy. They don’t have to. We don’t want new dollars. We want to be in the replacement schedule, using dollars that are already dedicated. Hell, why replace one F-16 or F-15 with the same aircraft, at an inflation-driven higher cost, when you can retire six old Eagles and replace them with six Alphas and a Kappa, and save the taxpayer fifty million dollars? We can replace the entire air superiority fighter fleet in ten years.”
“You sound just like an aerospace CEO,” she said with a smile.
“On top of that, they’d need fewer airplanes than they have now. The Alpha Kat has a limited ground attack role, and the Beta Kat” (then on the drawing-board) “even better serves the ground attack role. A hell of a lot cheaper than the F-117 or the A6, which is way, way past its prime, anyway. Christ, a dozen Beta Kats and a Kappa Kat can replace a whole wing of B-52s or B-ls. And the half-billion dollar B-2 Stealth bomber? Scratch that. Twenty years from now, the entire Air Force, Navy, and Marine fleets could be based on three aircraft types, all of them with interchangeable parts. Think of the savings in spare parts inventory alone.”
“You don’t have to be so fervent with me, Kim. I’m a believer.”
“Sorry. I get damned angry when I think about what the military bureaucracy and the defense industry is foisting off on us.”
“Plus, you’d like to keep KAT solvent,” she said with customary practicality.
“It’s a good concept,” he defended.
Cathy picked up her snifter and swirled the liquid in it. “I just had another thought, Kim. Without new dollars from Congress, you wouldn’t recover your research and development costs.”
“We’ve built that into the per-unit pricing. It’s identified, and we’re not hiding anything. As the R&D costs are recovered, the price goes down.”
“The plane gets cheaper?”
“Well,” he admitted, “maybe not. It depends upon inflation rates. Still, as manufacturing costs go up, the R&D cost lowers. At worst estimate, the price stays the same for eight or nine years.”
“I think your problem is that you’re approaching the military without being devious. They don’t know how to deal with that.”
“Maybe.”
She tilted the balloon glass and finished the last drops of cognac.
“You want another one of those, Cath?”
“No. I want to stop talking business, go inside with the air conditioning, and possibly shed this hot dress.” She grinned impishly. “You still have your tie on, you know?”
Kimball tugged at the knot of his tie as he stood up. “That’s how bad it’s been. I hate ties.”
He took her hand, pulled her out of the chair, and ushered her inside. As he slid the door shut, the phone rang.
“Damn it.”
“Don’t take it.”
“I’d better.”
He grabbed the phone from the counter between the dining room and the kitchenette.
“Kim, it’s Susan.”
“Hi. Problem? Are you still working?”
“Still here,” she said.
“Are you alone?” he asked, thinking about Major Nash.
“No. There’s fifteen or twenty people around.”
“Don’t go outside by yourself.”
“I won’t. Look, Kim, I’ve got all the numbers together, and we’ve got to spend some time on them.”
“You sign all the checks, Susan. Go ahead.”
“Not this time. I want your okay on them.”
Kimball looked over at Cathy, who was toying with the buttons of her Chinese collar. She ran her tongue across her upper lip. He glanced at his watch. “All right. I’m flying at twelve, but I’ll get out there an hour early.”
“Good enough, boss,” she said and hung up.
“That was Susan,” he told Cathy.
“I picked up on that right away,” she said, her slim fingers undoing the hooks of her collar. “She knew you were seeing me tonight.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“What?”
“She took the message when I called you back this afternoon.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked.
“She’s in love with you.”
Kimball was dumbfounded. “That’s nuts.”
“Not so. I’ve seen her around you.”
“Crazy.”
“Uh huh. She’s checking up on you.”
Cathy led the way toward the bedroom, and Kimball followed, suddenly unsure of a lot of things.
Seven
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Susan McEntire asked.
“Like what?”
“Like that.”
Kimball was searching her face and eyes for the tell-tale emotions that Cathy Colby had attributed to her.
Nothing.
He couldn’t see anything in her eyes or face or manner that suggested she thought anything more of him than as a somewhat slipshod employer.
Women! They were super-sensitive to nuances that were undetectable to male radar. Talk about stealth.
“You look tired,” he told her.
“I am tired. It’s been a damned long day.”
They were seated in the front office, Kimball in a straight chair pulled up alongside her desk. The chief executive officer of Kimball Aero Technology didn’t have a desk or chair of his own.
There were lights on in the corridor and back in the hangar proper, and Kimball heard people barking at each other as they prepared the aircraft for the second round of night flights. Lack of sleep was making some tempers shorter than normal.
“Okay,” Kimball said, “let’s get it over with, so you can go home.”
She shoved a small stack of financial spreadsheets toward him. He noticed a smudge of ink
on her chin. After a fifteen-hour day, her blouse was wilted, and her auburn hair was in some disarray. It put him in mind of Rita Hayworth for some reason. Some old bedroom scene, hair tousled, eyes inviting. There was a touch of redness around her green eyes, and the tiny silver flecks in them appeared dulled.
He hadn’t really noticed the silver flecks radiating from the irises before.
“The first sheet is the overall view, and the rest of these outline the details of the impact of three million in revenues. We’ve never had three million in revenue before.”
KAT did have some income, from various federal research grants, and from licensing some of their patented designs, but in the global scheme of things, the income was not significant.
“Let’s just deal with the overview,” Kimball said. “The details are up to you.”
“That’s just the way you and Sam Eddy approach everything.”
“We get extremely involved in the design details,” he defended. “We’re engineers, not accountants.”
“My degree’s in history, remember?”
“Yeah, but you’re so good at taking on new challenges.”
“The last three years has certainly been a challenge, Kim. You’re right about that.”
With the tip of a ballpoint pen, she stabbed at a top number on her own spreadsheet. “There’s the three million. Added to our cash on hand, it gave us three-point-five-five mil.”
They had not quite been down to what was in their pockets, as Wilcox had insisted. Kimball found the number on his spreadsheet.
“I’m with you.”
“With our tax loss carry-forward from last year, which is stupendous and our expected deductions for this year, our estimated corporate tax will be around two hundred thousand. I transferred that amount to our tax escrow account.”
“Good girl.”
She wrinkled her nose at him.
“Sounds better than good woman,” he said.
“The estimated cost of the demonstration tour is now at four hundred and sixty thousand,” she said.
“I thought it’d be more.”
“Andrea booked you into cheaper hotels than you’re used to,” she grinned, “but I’ve set aside another forty thousand as a contingency fund.”
“Don’t use it, you mean?”
“You’re the boss, Kim. It’s your decision.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got the recommendation from the comptroller, right?”
“Right.”
“You know we’ll be getting an Air Force billing for the dummy missiles?”
“Damn it!” she said. “How much?”
“Probably close to four hundred thou.”
“Oh, shit!”
“It’s a bargain, Susie. It really is. Probably a fourth of what we’d normally pay.”
Susan knew that the C-141 parked on the tarmac was loaded for bear. She hadn’t said a thing, one way or the other about it, to either Kimball or McEntire. She didn’t mention it now, just moved her penpoint to the next line.
“The payroll coming up amounts to 246 thousand.”
“That’s with our half-time people?” Kimball asked. For the last four months, almost everyone in the manufacturing area had been working half-time. They were struggling with their monthly bills, and he knew it.
“When everyone’s on full-time, the monthly payroll is 380 thousand, Kim.”
“Let’s take them back to full-time.”
“To build airplanes we may not sell?”
“They need the money,” he insisted.
“Three-quarter time.”
“Well do it your way. Just tell A.J.”
She made a notation in the margin of her spreadsheet.
“Now, on our ninety-day credit accounts, we owe slightly over three hundred thousand. For the shorter-time accounts, it’s around another two-eighty. We can satisfy them if we cover half of it.”
“Do it all,” Kimball said. “If we go under, I don’t want to take a couple dozen subcontractors and suppliers with us. They’ve been straight with us, so let’s reciprocate.”
“God. And you thought you were tough enough to run a major corporation?”
He smiled at her. “They’ll feel better about us, and A.J. can give them enough orders for materials to complete three more Alpha Kats. That’ll keep our three-quarter time work force busy while we’re gone.” Shaking her head, Susan worked her nimble fingers over the keys of a small calculator. She had very deft fingers, Kimball noticed. Her nails were coated with a pale cinnamon color. The nail of her right forefinger had a chip in it.
He found himself examining the tautness of her wilted blouse. Guiltily, he lifted his eyes back to her face. For some reason, he was just beginning really to notice her, and with his luck of late, he’d be slapped with sexual harassment charges.
“That’ll leave us with enough to meet overhead and payroll for five months,” she said.
Kimball saw a quick mental image of himself laying people off as Christmas presents. High-tech Scrooge.
“That’s great! Last week, we could only last a month and a half,” he said.
“So, this is progress?”
“Damned right.”
She wrote the new numbers on her spreadsheet, then dated it. Spinning the page around, she shoved it toward him and handed him the pen.
“Sign it.”
He did.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Not particularly. But I want some protection from the shareholders on these kinds of decisions.”
“The shareholders are all our friends.”
“I’m a shareholder, and I question our ability to survive.”
“Not me,” he said, trying to be optimistic for her. “We’ve got ‘em right where we want ‘em. Just like Elway with ninety-eight yards and a couple minutes to go at Cleveland.”
“Uh huh. This may be our last drive, Kim.”
Tex Brabham stuck his head through the doorway. “You leading this picnic or not, boss?”
“Coming, Tex.”
Kimball picked up his helmet from the floor and stood up. He was already in his flight suit and gravity suit and sweating a bit despite the air conditioning.
“I know I don’t say this often enough, Susan. I appreciate what you do for us more than you know.”
She rose from her chair, facing him. “I’m doomed to believing in what you’re doing, Kim.”
He grinned. “Doomed? Come on, honey, let’s be optimistic. Think on the bright side.”
She was six inches shorter than Kimball, and she looked up at him. Her eyes were large, and with the redness, somehow sad. The silver flecks were prominent at this range.
He still couldn’t read any signals.
“Boss?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
Susan reached out and gripped his wrist, looked pointedly at the discolored lump on his forehead. “Be careful.”
“It’s a training mission.”
“But for what?” she asked, then released his wrist and turned back to her desk.
He studied the back of her head for a moment. The fluorescent lights put shiny streaks in the dark auburn. Several strands of hair stood out from static electricity.
Kimball left the office, and he and Brabham headed for the back of the hangar.
“How are the birds, Tex?”
“Tip-top. Hell, with the workout they’ve been getting, it only reinforces the claims we’re making about maintenance. We haven’t had a major systems malfunction yet.”
“And minor?”
“You always get the minor stuff, boss. Trim tab solenoid. Left wing speed brake failure on two-one. We changed out a Nav/Com on one-five.”
They passed through the brightly lit hangar on their way to the tarmac. One Alpha Kat was parked inside, with all of her access doors open. Seven technicians had their heads or hands tucked inside.
“We’re going to get what we need to complete three more, Tex.”
“Good fuckin
g deal.”
“You’ll need to set up a work schedule before we go.”
“No sweat. Full-time?”
“Three-quarter.”
“That’s better, anyway.”
They stepped over the sill of the pedestrian door in the huge sliding hangar door and out onto the flood-lit apron. The four Alpha Kats were parked close by, in a single row. A Texaco tanker was just driving away.
“Keeper just took off in the Kappa Kat,” Brabham said.
“A.J.’s the AC?”
“Right.”
Standing in a group by the first aircraft were Mabry, Gander, and Greer. Mabry was juggling his helmet, the ebony skin of his shaved head shining under the lights.
He had sharp, sharp eyes; was as capable as they came; and like Kimball, had once flown with the Thunderbirds demonstration team. Gander always looked a little lost without his cowboy boots, but he was wearing his hat. Gaston Greer was a Floridian who had grown up around boats and kept a thirty-foot sailboat in San Diego. He was a bachelor who had said he admired Tex Brabham’s ability to stay unhitched and intended to follow his fine example.
“I want you in ought-eight, boss.”
Kimball checked the N-numbers on the fuselages. N17708 was third in line.
“There’s a problem, Tex?”
“Sam Eddy complained about the response time on the air intakes. See what you think.”
The large air inlets on the Alpha Kat changed their angles automatically, dependent on the attitude of the aircraft. At high angles of attack, the inlets aimed downward, to keep the flow of air uninterrupted, so the turbojet engine would not become starved for air and stall out.
Kimball joined the pilots. They had briefed together earlier, but he had not given assignments. “Okay, guys. I’ve got the squadron, and Warren, you’re on my wing.”
“Just try and lose me, Cheetah,” Mabry said.
“Jimmy, you have the second element.”
“Fine with me,” Gander said. “Gaston, old hoss, no closer than three feet, got that?”
“It’s night; I’ll give you four,” Greer said. He was a first class aerobatic pilot, and he was known for his ability to stay close.
“Let’s mount up,” Kimball said.
He walked down to ought-eight and did the walk-around with Virgil Thomas, who was the chief mechanic on the plane. Thomas was in his fifties, sprightly, and permed his gray hair into a curly mop. He was ex-Navy, with a lot of experience on Tomcats and Intruders.
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