One of the young firefighters fell in step beside him; McCarley couldn't remember his name even though he knew his father.
"Think we'll make it, Warren?"
McCarley knew almost certainly they would not, that unless the wind died down—unlikely given the self-generating venturi effect of the canyon—that the fire would overtake them somewhere before the sanctuary of Eagle Pass, a slit in the mountains now just a little less than two miles away. There the rocky ground inhibited growth, and they'd have a chance to outdistance the flames, to make it to the trucks and safety.
But he knew they'd never reach it. It was like a high school algebra problem—the fire was traveling at eight miles per hour and accelerating; they were doing five and slowing. The old Western movie "head them off at the pass" cliche came to mind—they were going to get headed off at the pass, and more.
"No problem, son, but we've got to keep hustling. Can't fool with Mother Nature, you know."
The boy dropped back, reassured, as McCarley, heart pounding, increased the pace.
As Roget strapped Dasmann in the backseat, gave him a rudimentary briefing on using a parachute and bailing out, and showed him how the intercom worked, Marshall started the big Wright engine. They were off the ground quickly, the ungainly landing gear folding up inside the Avenger's thick wing as they climbed westward.
"Mr. Marshall, did you ever do any water-bombing before?"
"We've had a lot of practice sessions, getting the rig to work. But I've done lots of other kinds of bombing—I think I can handle it."
"Let's try to drop as low as we can—fifty feet or so—we'll lose less by evaporation, won't we?"
"No, it looks to us like about one hundred fifty feet is best—you get a maximum dispersion, without dissipating the hit."
Dasmann had given him a westerly heading, but their course was soon no problem, for they could see the convection column of smoke from the Copperhead Canyon fire climbing up three thousand feet before merging with the cloud deck. To Dasmann it was a good sign; the fire had not progressed to a fire storm yet.
Marshall had shoved the prop, throttle, and mixture forward, and the old torpedo bomber groaned along at 240 mph.
"Walk me through this, John. We're doing four miles a minute, and they're only about forty-five miles away now. That puts us over them in about eleven minutes, right?"
"Right."
"They're probably not making more than three miles or four miles an hour over the rough ground they've got to cover. It's 16:28 now. That means we should be there by 16:39. If the fire is moving as fast as I think it is, they're goners.."
John was figuring with him as he eased the power farther forward, coaxing another thirty miles per hour out of the old bomber in their slight descent. "Too close, Joe, too close."
Just over forty miles ahead the twenty-six men were strung out in long uneven lines, the younger men forging ahead now, the older ones gasping for breath as they struggled on. The scrub at the bottom of the valley had been the major beneficiary of the little moisture that had fallen that year and had grown into an impassable tangle that forced the men to climb up the canyon wall to edge through it. The older men felt the stress, and neither the buzzsaw crackle nor the lashing hot breath of the fire behind them could drive their legs faster.
McCarley, breathing hard, head pounding, was in the middle of the pack. He stopped and let the others stream by him as he listened to the ugly turbine-like roar of the fire heading toward them, the throaty growling punctuated by the sharp explosion of trees bursting into flame.
McCarley felt the hot wind gusting and realized it was hardly worth making the effort. He felt a tug on his belt—it was the kid.
"Come on, Warren, you said we've got to hustle. Let's do it!"
Ahead he could see the sun glinting against the sharp line of granite outcroppings that marked Eagle Pass. The terrain beyond the entrance to the pass was nothing but spilled rocks from past floods for over a mile; if they could make it there, they might have a chance. He glanced at his watch and couldn't read the ash-coated dial. Rubbing it clean, he saw that it was 4:40, just as the roar of the TBM's engine broke through the crackle of the fire rushing behind him.
In the Avenger, Dasmann saw the foliage of the canyon floor melting away at the inferno's edge like a sheet of paper thrown into a fireplace, tendrils of flame first browning then igniting the scrub.
"There they are—about a quarter-mile from the pass."
Marshall was checking the terrain, remembering how he felt only a few years ago, checking out a Korean valley in his F-86. He mumbled, "At least there's no flak" into the intercom and Dasmann yelled, "What?"
"Nothing, I'm going to make the first run-in from this heading, no time to set up; I'll make two drops, the first one right at the end of the line of firefighters."
"Get with it, John, the fire's almost on them."
Below the twenty-six men were running now, flogging the last reserves of energy from their desperately tired bodies as the fire roared only a few hundred yards behind them, the point of the flame cone-shaped on the valley floor, its flanks extending back up the canyon wall. A heart attack dropped one man, two others stopped momentarily to help him, then left him to press on knowing they could not save their friend, could not save themselves, as the horror howling behind them accelerated.
Marshall put his landing gear down and then lowered his flaps, slowing to 140 mph; he lined up carefully, checking the wind, his wingtips no more than forty feet from the sloping canyon wall. When the last man disappeared from view beneath his nose he toggled off the first drop, calling "Water away!" as he poured power to the Avenger, pulling up his gear and flaps and climbing straight ahead, the TBM bucking in the smoky turbulence above the fire.
McCarley was amazed to see the water blossoming from the plane's belly, a great white balloon that expanded until it hit the ground behind them with a rush, bouncing up to meet the fire in a massive hissing embrace. The fire suddenly sagged, recoiling upon itself, as if it were regrouping for another attack. McCarley turned and ran with the rest of the men, racing for the pass, where the rocky floor now gave them a chance to live.
As soon as Marshall cleared the lip of the canyon he turned back for another run.
"Good drop, John. Can you put the next one right at the fire's edge? If we can give them another couple of minutes, they might be able to make it to the trucks."
Marshall clicked his mike in response, lowering the TBM into the canyon again. "This time I will drop to about fifty feet, and just bowl the water along the center of the canyon."
McCarley was standing at the entrance to the pass, his arm swinging in encouragement to the last of the men stumbling toward him. The TBM passed low overhead, the pounding of its engine reverberating against the canyon walls.
Ahead the fire was moving forward, slower now with less dense growth to fuel it.
Marshall used two rivets on the cowling as a primitive sight, lining them up with the fire's leading edge. He was lower and slower this time, and he dropped just as the fire apparently moved between the two rivets, calling again "Water away."
There was no one to see the three hundred gallons of water hit the ground, then rise up like a wave cascading into the surf, a sheet ninety feet high and forty feet wide that fell across the fire's edge like a huge wet blanket, blunting its rush.
There was no time for celebrations when they got back to Willow; Dasmann quickly organized another team of firefighters to go in to contain the Copperhead Canyon fire and try to recover the body of the man who had died.
"John, are you ready to make some more drops?"
"As fast as you can turn me around—but I need one forty-five/one fifteen av gas for this dude."
"Already sent for a truck. I can't promise you'll get paid a dime for this, not even expenses. You know Uncle Sam."
Roget bridled, but Marshall put his fingers to his lips and laughed. "Joe, listen, Uncle's screwed me before. Don't sweat it; I figur
e I'm learning a trade, right, Hadley?"
Roget grinned broadly. "Hell, I hadn't thought about it that way. Sure, Bones, if the goddamn government won't buy these airplanes, we'll go into business for ourselves. We ought to be able to rent them out, follow the] fire season around the country."
Marshall shook his head in agreement. "Yeah, maybe we'll even find a use for that solid water-scooping Catalina of yours."
*
Little Rock, Arkansas/December 18, 1954
Sitting in the high-backed chair, under the all-seeing eye of his wife's portrait, Milo Ruddick pretended to be absorbed in his newspaper as Ginny walked in. It was two in the afternoon, but she was still wearing her orange satin robe and fuzzy slippers.
He turned a page as she opened the liquor cabinet door and gave a little gasp of surprise.
"Daddy, where's the booze? I want a little drinkie."
Ruddick folded his paper. There were few things he couldn't control—Ginny's drinking was one of them. It was time for a change.
"There's no liquor in the house, Ginny, and there won't be. You've got to pull yourself together and do something with your life."
As expected, she stormed out of the room. Ruddick began reading again; there was a long editorial on the Senate's censure of McCarthy. Damn fools, he thought. McCarthy's one of the few patriots in the whole damn government.
He heard her sidle back in and sit down. He didn't look up.
"Daddy, don't be mean. You don't know what I've been through."
"No, I don't, not anymore than you know what you've put me through, first with that business about Nathan, then having Stan leave, now your drinking. Where is it going to end?"
"Do you want me to leave?"
"Yes, when you're ready—when you're able. But you've got to stop drinking first."
"I don't want to—it's the only way out I have."
"Wrong. Let me tell you a way out. First of all, you've got to forget about this business with Nathan. I don't know why it happened, but it's over. Now you've got to get a job, get back into the mainstream of life."
"I don't have any skills, can't even type. Who'd have me?"
"Well, the governor, for one. You don't have to type; he'll take you on as a special assistant."
"What could I do?"
"Just be nice to him, see that he's taken care of."
"What do you mean 'be nice'?"
He looked at her and shook his head. "Do you think I'm pimping for you, that I'm selling you into white slavery? For Christ's sake, Ginny, you're my daughter! I mean, be pleasant, be helpful. The governor owes me a lot of favors; giving you a job is just one way of paying me back. You can work with Dixon Price over there, he'll keep you busy."
Ginny had moved back to the liquor cabinet and was staring wistfully at the bare shelves.
"Did you throw all that stuff out?"
"Of course not, I took it to the office. I'm not quitting drinking just because you have to."
"How do you know the governor will hire me?"
"Because I told him to. You start two weeks from Monday; I want you to get dried out, get yourself a new hairdo and some clothes, and do me proud. You understand?"
Ginny walked from the room without answering. She needed a drink, and she remembered she had a half-pint bottle of Old Forester tucked under her mattress. She'd think about her daddy's offer after she had a drink.
*
Nashville, Tennessee/December 25, 1954
It was a lonely Christmas Day, and Elsie had turned on all the lights, upstairs and down. She was playing her new high-fidelity record player at its peak, trying to force life into the house Troy McNaughton had built for her.
She'd left a lot of men in her life and a few had left her. She missed only two, Bruno Hafner and Dick Baker. Under the stress of the crash investigations, she had been glad to see Baker go, but now she missed him. As troublesome and cantankerous as he had been, as shamefully as he had taken advantage of her, she still wanted him back. It was perverse; she knew it and liked it. Baker had the perfect mix of dominance and domesticity—he knew exactly how to handle her. It struck her that she would have liked to have had a child by him.
But she also knew better than to try to seek him out. He'd given her his post office box number and combination, promising to send her an address as soon as he could. She checked the box every week, and he had not even sent a card.
It was the smart thing to do. Ruddick had advised them to keep totally apart for at least a year, to see what happened. The Air Force had apparently lost all interest in the case as soon as she indicated she would be willing to sell out if the price was right. A few weeks ago, she'd convinced the district attorney to drop the case against Baker, and she thought that the heat was off. Yet she couldn't be sure, and the last thing she wanted was to lead anyone to Baker. And that meant she couldn't let the trail lead to Ruddick, either.
Baker had left a paperwork nightmare behind him; the only reason McNaughton had any contracts at all was the Air Force's desperate need for B-47s. They had doubled up on the quality assurance inspectors and brought in a tough new plant representative. Worse, they'd made her to take on virtually the entire management staff from Vanguard, while insisting that she take no part in the management. Technically she wasn't barred from the plant, but whenever she visited, one of the quality assurance guys was detailed to be with her the entire time.
She was desperately lonely; she'd even gone to the plant a few times for personal reasons, trying to find a companion among the workers there. The word must have gone out, however, for while most of the men on the floor were as friendly as ever, no one responded to her overtures. Baker's departure had created an emotional vacuum, and it was proving to be extraordinarily difficult for her to summon the energy to find a new companion, a new lover. Her whole life had revolved around the plant, and she hadn't cultivated any other friends.
Part of the problem and most of the solution was the marijuana Baker had introduced her to. She smoked it regularly now, half a dozen times a day, and it softened the edges of her ambition even as it honed her various appetites. She gained back twenty pounds, which she'd lost in her long pursuit of Stan Coleman, and couldn't summon the initiative to go out and shop for new clothes.
Dick Baker wouldn't have cared that she'd grown fat again—he wouldn't even have noticed, not as long as she took good care of him. She wondered who was taking care of him now? Ginny was still in Little Rock, but Baker was not her type. And Milo would want him to keep his distance.
Even as she reasoned with herself, a current of envy tore through her. That was it! It would be just like Baker to get next to Ginny—and just like her to let him. She made up her mind to go to Little Rock. She could handle Ruddick—and he could put her in touch with Baker. As soon as they cashed her out, she'd be on her way.
***
Chapter 11
Chicago, Illinois/February 28, 1954
The elevated train shook the ancient building with a rumble like artillery fire, lending credibility to the article Weissman was reading about an Israeli attack on the Egyptians in Gaza; a nostalgia for the frantic days of 1947 swept over him, recalling how he'd help bolt the Messerschmitts together, working with the eager Negro, and the other dark American, the one named Riley.
The incidental reading was the only compensation for the interminable analysis and filing—the rest was tedious cross-referencing, trying to knit individual atoms of information into a molecule of intelligence. Yet it was valuable; his service had brought in innumerable snippets of data on the Ku Klux Klan, and he had found out that his old enemy Josten, of Nordhausen days, was working with them in Arkansas.
It was a natural alliance, Nazi and Klansman. At first he didn't understand the Klan's ineptitude, their failure to capitalize on the strength of racist feelings in America. He saw all around him signs that Negroes—"Blacks" they called them now—were as hated as the Jews had been in Germany. It had taken only a fanatic minority to begin the pog
roms there. What was holding the Klan back?
Bit by bit, the files revealed the secret: lack of leadership. There was no longer any meaningful national Klan apparatus; instead there were local Klans, more vindictive Rotary club than terrorist, run by shabby, mean men who milked the organization for a small living.
There was a very short dossier on Josten, confirming what he had already known. He had been an ace in the Luftwaffe and spearheaded the drive to get the jet fighter. When jet engines were vitally needed, he collaborated in using slave labor to build them at Nordhausen. My alma mater, Weissman thought. Josten had been burned in a crash and came to the United States legally, ostensibly part of Operation Paper Clip, but apparently in repayment of some postwar service he had done. His wife had divorced him and had also come to America. She had been in the Resistance. Interesting. Maybe that was the cause of the divorce. He'd have to see where she was, too. Josten didn't sound like the sort of man who'd give up his family willingly.
Weissman had already raised the issue of becoming active again. Goldberg had told him to wait. They'd even given him a nickname, "Weissman the Marksman." Very funny. As far as he knew, none of the others, including Goldberg, had ever been in prison, had ever tried to kill a man. Who were they to ridicule him?
*
Frederick Air Force Base, California/ March 24, 1955
The cavernous maintenance hangar sang its own songs, creaking with every change of temperature, rattling in the wind, sighing as clouds formed and rained beneath its ceiling during humid weather. It had been built to accommodate the B-52s that would be arriving next year. Now it was packed with B-47s, their swept wings tucked together like gears in a watch to conserve space. Sergeant Greg Larson had just crossed from the yellow hydraulically lifted platform to the slanting wing and fuselage intersection of 51-5214, careful as a man on a tightrope, balancing a toolbox in one hand against the electric drill in the other.
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