Supersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age

by Boyne, Walter J.

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, if this works, there’ll have to be a follow-on airplane in a few years, depending upon how the Soviets react. Lockheed won’t be able to refine this design much—it seems to be at the absolute limits in terms of structure. And it’s not going to be nearly fast enough. So I suspect Kelly and the boys already have some drawings of something a lot bigger, stronger, faster, and maybe harder to see.”

  Vance listened approvingly. “You mean like camouflage?”

  “In a way, but far more refined than just using paint schemes. They tried a lighting system during the war that would make a plane invisible, and it worked, too, under precise conditions. But it didn’t work for radar, of course. That’s the big thing. The Germans were way ahead on that. They were using radar-absorbent material on their periscopes and snorkels, and they had one airplane that flew, the Gotha Go 229, that would have been virtually invisible to radar.”

  Shannon knew all about the Go 229, had even supervised the packing of its prototype, a Horten design, for its return to the United States. He commented, “The Mosquito was almost invisible to the Germans.”

  “Yes, for a while, but it still had the propellers and the big Merlin engines up front. Why couldn’t Lockheed make an airplane that was covered with radar-absorbent material? For that matter, why couldn’t you use radar-absorbent material for some of the structure, say the skin?”

  Rodriquez was getting wound up; he dove into his briefcase and brought out a drawing pad and began making sketches. “They could shape it to deflect signals, just like they shape armor on ships or tanks to deflect shells. They could—”

  Vance tapped him on the shoulder. “Slow down, Bob, one airplane at a time. We’ve had ours for today, the Angel. Say, are you a drinker? And can you arm wrestle?”

  Rodriquez looked blankly at him. “I don’t drink much, a beer once in a while. And I guess I can arm wrestle, depends upon who it is.”

  “Well, tonight plan on doing a lot of both. Kelly always throws a big shindig after a successful flight like this, and he’ll take it amiss if you don’t keep up with him—or try to. And don’t feel bad if he beats you arm wrestling—he will; he wins every time; nobody ever beats him.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  December 18, 1955

  Palos Verdes, California

  The sons almost never disagreed with their father, not so much out of filial respect but rather because Vance Shannon was usually correct in his arguments. This was different, however. Six months before, the elder Shannon had promoted a relatively new man, Bob Rodriquez, to be a partner in the firm. Six days before, Vance Shannon had finally told his sons about it. Tom and Harry were furious, as much at the delay in learning about something so important as the fact that Vance had not consulted them about it in the first place. Too angry to discuss it at the time, they knew instinctively that they needed time to cool off and arranged today’s meeting to discuss it. Not that they were any cooler today.

  Tom, the more volatile of the twins, waved his arms around as he paced the polished Mexican tile floor of their dad’s library/home office.

  “It just doesn’t make sense, Harry! Bob’s a good guy, but what does he bring to the party?” The question was rhetorical. In these sessions, Tom did most of the talking, while the more reflective Harry listened and thought before responding.

  The twins were thirty-seven years old and had oddly varied but equally successful flying careers. Tom had graduated from Annapolis, become an ace flying Wildcats early in World War II, then volunteered for test work, flying captured enemy fighters at Eglin Army Air Field. Harry was a West Pointer whose Air Corps career had taken him immediately into flight test work—having Vance Shannon for a father was a big help—and then into heavy bombers. Both men saw service in the Korean War, with Tom, having transferred to the Air Force, adding to his score while flying F-86 Sabres in MiG Alley. For family reasons, both men had resigned from promising careers in the Air Force. They regretted it and they missed flying high-performance aircraft, but it was a sad necessity for both of them. Both stayed in the Air Force Reserve, but it was not the same.

  “It beats me, Tom. He’s never done anything like this before.”

  “Bullshit! What about Madeline and all the problems she caused? It was the same goddamn thing; he rammed her down our throats just like he’s ramming Gonzalez, Rodriguez, whatever his wetback name is.”

  Harry shook his head. It was true that their marital careers were not as successful as their martial careers, but it wasn’t entirely Madeline’s fault. In 1947, Madeline Behar, their father’s mistress, had arranged a party for them. As a friendly joke she had fixed them up with another set of twins, the Capestro sisters, Marie and Anna, as blind dates. Madeline’s joke backfired when Tom and Marie fell immediately in love, as did Harry and Anna. Madeline masterminded a wonderful wedding for the two sets of twins, and that was the beginning of the end of the happy part of the story. Within a few months, both marriages began to unravel. Marie had serious mental problems manifested in her increasingly fanatical devotion to her Catholic religion, and her marriage to Tom, never consummated, was annulled. Anna tended in the opposite direction, drinking heavily and giving ample reason for Harry to suspect that she might not be faithful. Both men felt they had contributed to the problem by being away on duty so much. There was no help for Marie, but Anna was gradually brought around to a functioning state through Alcoholics Anonymous—and Harry’s persistent, dutiful care.

  Tom had rebounded, marrying Nancy Strother, and they were the proud parents of two-year-old Vance Robert Shannon. Nancy had given Tom an ultimatum: the Air Force or her, and after one last tour in Korea, he chose her. Harry left the Air Force to care for Anna. Fortunately, both men liked working with their father—until now.

  Harry spoke jokingly at last. “The only thing positive about Bob’s being a partner is at least Madeline didn’t bring him in.”

  There was sad truth to what he said. Madeline had completely captivated their father. She was French, working in the American embassy in London in 1941, and they became lovers almost immediately. Although apparently completely devoted, she had always refused to marry him. Vance had total confidence in her, and after the war, until 1949, she administered his business and his family life with competence and authority. Vance was totally absorbed in aviation and made an excellent income in the process. Madeline shrewdly invested his funds in real estate and, to a far lesser degree, the stock market. She kept a good account of all the transactions and turned a considerable fortune over to him in its entirety when on August 6, 1949—he’d never forget the date, his own personal Hiroshima—she left him abruptly and without explanation. Vance had been devastated, unable to understand what had happened. He had always considered himself too lucky and even anticipated that she might leave him someday for a younger or more interesting man. Yet she had given him no warning; the day before she left she was as loving as she had always been.

  It was not until a few years later that the reasons for her refusal to marry and her abrupt departure were suddenly made clear to him. His old friend and confidant at Boeing, the masterful engineer George Schairer, had presented him with hard evidence that she had been a spy for the French government all along.

  Vance was shattered by her departure and utterly demolished by the revelation that she was a spy. It became apparent that over the years she had removed papers from his safe, photographed them, and passed them to the French. Fortunately for Vance, all the material was Boeing-proprietary rather than U.S. government classified. There was no official action, but Boeing fired him and the word spread throughout the aviation community. He was virtually without work until circumstances forced Boeing to bring him back on. Since then his business had built beyond its former limits.

  As well as Madeline had managed his financial affairs, she did even better in the emotional department, using great skill and discretion when hiring people to help her in the business. No one noticed, but her hiring
practices had two goals. One was to substitute for her in administering the business. The other was to substitute for her with Vance when she left. Her choice was impeccable: Jill Abernathy as her main assistant, selected for her looks, her personality, her ability—and her suitability for Vance. Madeline had chosen well, and within six months of her leaving, Jill moved in with Vance. They subsequently married and were able to joke together about Madeline’s cleverness.

  Madeline had equal, if unintended, success with her other hire, Nancy Strother, who became Tom’s lover first, than his wife and the mother of his son.

  Tom nodded in agreement. “I still don’t know whether to love or hate Madeline. She was a spy, which is rotten enough by itself, and she deceived Dad totally about that, but she took wonderful care of him otherwise. Who else would ever have hired a substitute wife for him?”

  “But as I say, at least she didn’t hire Rodriquez. What do you know about him? You’re really the one to blame; you introduced him to Dad, told him we ought to hire him.” Harry’s tone of reproach verged on anger.

  “I’d met him a couple of times in Korea, of course, and I followed his progress, but I didn’t really know him until he came back to the States and got out of the Air Force. I couldn’t believed it—he had twelve MiGs to his credit, and you’d think he would have been planning to be a general. But he was furious with the Air Force, and wanted out.”

  “The race business?”

  Tom snorted. “Yeah, he was convinced that headquarters made him go home early to be sure that Jabara or McConnell wound up as the top ace. He claims that they were prejudiced against him because he was of Mexican descent.”

  “You were there—were they?”

  “No, of course not, not on base. Everybody looked up to the MiG killers; they even looked up to me. But there might have been somebody in Washington, somebody in public affairs, who decided that they didn’t want a man of Mexican descent to be the top ace of the Korean War. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Seems far-fetched to me. The Air Force has gone further and faster with integration than anybody—Army, Navy, Marines, General Motors, UCLA—anybody. As long as he was an American, not a foreign citizen, why wouldn’t they want someone with Mexican blood to be the top ace?”

  “I’ve tried to tell him that, but there’s no convincing him. He’s sure it happened, and that’s that. And I didn’t convince Dad to hire him. I introduced him, and when Dad looked over his record and talked to him, they hit it off like Mutt and Jeff. Rodriquez specialized in electronics, and had some interesting experience working with high-performance cameras over in Korea.”

  They both grew silent when they heard the door upstairs open and their father’s footsteps pounded down the hallway to the door to the offices in the basement.

  It was an affectionate family, no matter what the circumstances, and Vance came in and hugged both of his boys, just as he had been doing for the past thirty-seven years.

  “Is the jury still out, or have you pronounced sentence on me?”

  Unusually for him, Harry spoke first and with real vehemence.

  “Not yet, Dad, but this is serious business. Tom and I are both angry, hurt, pissed off, and otherwise furious about this deal. I don’t know if we are madder about your doing it without talking to us or because you kept it from us.”

  Tom shook his head in agreement. “It’s not like you, Dad; you’ve never done anything like this before.”

  Vance felt he might as well get all the arguments on the table right away.

  “Well, how about Madeline? I made the same sort of decision with her, didn’t I?”

  Quick responses came to the lips of both his sons, but both kept quiet. Madeline had been gone for six years now, Vance had married Jill—but the twins knew he still had a soft spot in his heart for the young French refugee girl he had met during the war.

  Tom finally said, “That was altogether different. This is a simple business deal; there’s no romance in it. We had a partnership, the three of us, and then suddenly we find there are four partners. What the hell are we supposed to think?”

  “Well, what was the arrangement when there were three of us? How did we split the profits?”

  “You had fifty-two percent, and we each had twenty-four percent. That was more than fair. What is the new arrangement?”

  “You both still have twenty-four percent. I have forty-two percent and Bob Rodriquez has ten percent. This hasn’t cost you a dime.”

  “It’s not the money—it’s the principal of the thing. What does Rodriquez bring to the table? Why should he start out with ten percent after we’ve put in our time building up the business?”

  Harry stood up and put his arm around his father’s shoulder.

  “Dad, you usually turn out to be right. But not this time. You really should have asked us about making Bob a partner, and worse, you should have told us right away when you did.”

  Tom elected to be quiet. If someone was going to catch hell for this, he preferred it to be Harry.

  “You are absolutely right, Harry; I should have talked to you and I should have told you sooner. I didn’t, for what I thought—and still think—were good reasons. You’ll probably disagree with me, but hear me out.”

  Tom volunteered a safe, “Shoot.”

  “Tom, it was you that introduced me to Bob, and I’m glad you did. I looked into his background, and saw that besides being a war hero—like you two are—he had a brilliant academic record in aeronautical engineering. Straight As. But what was more significant to me, he’s been attending classes in electronic engineering whenever he was in the States, and even when he was overseas, shooting down MiGs, he was taking all kinds of correspondence courses, building his own television sets, and so on. The thing that really impressed me was that every minute he wasn’t flying he was down on the flight line, working with the cameras and the communication gear.”

  Tom shrugged. “We grant that he’s a good guy, and well qualified, Dad, but this business of being a partner and not telling us—”

  “Give me a minute. I’d made my mind up to hire him, because the future is going to be as much electronics as airframes or engines, maybe more, and none of us are strong in that area. You know how long I’ve worked with Kelly on this high-altitude reconnaissance plane—by the way, they are calling it the U-2 now as a disguise, trying to make people think it’s a little utility aircraft; it’s still hush-hush. Where was I?”

  Tom chipped in, “You were at ‘none of us are strong in that area.’”

  “Right. I saw we needed someone with talent if we are going to continue to be viable as consultants. It’s not going to be so much like the old days, when you had a new model every year. I think airplanes are going to be used over much longer periods of time, and be updated with electronic equipment as time goes on. Look how many types of radar sets they’ve had already since about 1944.”

  “Why? What’s different now?”

  “Well, expense for one thing; airplanes are already ten times as expensive as they were in World War II, and the ratio is going up. Development time is another; before the war, you could go from an idea to production in four years for sure and, if you pushed it, in three. Nowadays, it looks like it’s going to take ten to twelve years to get a model into production and, once you get it operational, you have to keep it going for years to amortize its costs.”

  “So?”

  “Well, we are going to have to be working on updating aircraft, rather than just consulting and testing new ones. And the updating is going to come in the electronics. I saw that Bob had the skills I wanted, he has a good personality—a little standoffish at times, I’ll admit—so I offered him a job, and he didn’t take it.”

  “Didn’t take it? Why not?”

  “He already had a job offer, from Lockheed, paying about twice what I was going to offer him. He has talents they want for the U-2 and for some other aircraft they have coming down the line in the Skunk Works. I don’t blame the
m; Bob’s a shrewd, hardworking guy.”

  “Well, what happened? Give it to us; we already know we’re beat.”

  “I knew we couldn’t match Lockheed’s salary offer—he’d be making more than the three of us combined. So I upped my salary offer a little—it’s still a little less than you or I take home—and offered to make him a partner. He thought it over, realized he’d have a lot more opportunity to do things with a small company like ours and could make a lot of money if we succeed. He agreed. I’m glad he did, and I want you to make him feel absolutely welcome. Also I wanted to give him a chance to prove himself before I told you what I had done.”

  Tom said, “I don’t know if I can make him feel welcome as a partner. As an employee, sure, but not as a partner. I still think you made the wrong decision.”

  Harry caught a vein throbbing in Vance’s temple and knew that he was angry. Harry waved at Tom to shut up, but Tom pressed on, “He is a damn good pilot, we all know that, but we’re not shooting down MiGs; we’re trying for contracts in a tight market. Where are his connections?”

  Vance walked over to the carved mahogany table where his latest pride and joy sat. It was a Telefunken Operette six-tube shortwave radio, and he played with it almost every evening, enjoying getting news and music from around the world.

  Without a word, he raised it full-length over his head and smashed it down on the tile floor, parts flying and tubes popping. Both of his sons dropped their jaws—they had never seen a similar display of temper from their father.

  “Which one of you geniuses can fix this radio?”

  Neither son spoke.

  “I’ll tell you. Neither one of you. You are great stick and rudder men, and you are great salesmen with the airframe and engine manufacturers. But the future is going to be in electronics. If I swept up this mess and handed it to Bob Rodriquez, he’d have it fixed in an hour. He’s an electronic genius. I hired him away from Lockheed. They are starting up a new missile division, under Willis Hawkins, and Willis says he’ll never forgive me!”