Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (Novels of the Jet Age)

by Walter J. Boyne

  The aircraft moved into position, the band played the Air Force song, and the waiting relatives surged at the velvet ropes restraining them. There was going to be a ceremony—naturally, this was the Air Force, and the returning men deserved it. Everyone had been briefed that the senior officer would get off first, say a few words, then be followed down by the others, each man to salute and be saluted and then released to the embrace of his family.

  His mother’s grip tightened on his arm as the big door of the C-141 opened at last. A long joyous roar erupted when the first man stepped out and said a few words. Neither Nancy nor V. R. noticed, for their eyes were fixed on the vacant spot where Tom would first appear. As each man hit the door, their hearts leaped, then fell back. In what seemed hours, fifteen former POWs, looking thin but surprisingly fit in their brand-new uniforms, had given their salutes and then been swamped by their loving families.

  Finally Tom appeared, moved down the steps, saluted, and then turned to hobble toward them. Nancy dropped V. R.’s arm and raced to him, folding him in an embrace, tears flowing. V. R. walked up slowly behind her, smiling, feeling happy and strangely safe for the first time since his father had left.

  March 17, 1973

  Palos Verdes, California

  “THERE HE IS.”

  Vance leaped up from his chair, grabbed Jill, and squeezed.

  “He’s moving a little slow, but he looks pretty good.”

  “Look, there’s Nancy! Where’s V. R.?”

  Jill squeezed his arm affectionately saying, “Look, just behind him, that tall, good-looking cadet.” Harry and Anna were also visible now, coming up the ramp.

  By this time Tom was embracing V. R. as well, and then the camera cut to the C-141 fuselage as the next man appeared.

  Vance flopped back in his chair, yelling, “Get some champagne, Jill, we need a drink. By God, I’m glad that I lived to see this day.”

  Jill had already popped a bottle of her favorite champagne, Korbel, and handed Vance a glass, knowing he’d barely sip it.

  They basked in the glow of the television set, watching the other returning prisoners of war greet their families, sensing the tidal wave of emotion surging across the Travis flight line, senior officers weeping unashamedly, children clutching their fathers’ legs, long separated husbands and wives kissing with an intense fervor.

  There was a brief glimpse of Nancy and Tom walking hand in hand, V. R. following behind them, his face radiant with pleasure, and behind him, Harry and Anna, looking on with a combination of concern for Tom’s condition and happiness for his release.

  The scene switched and Jill said, “I hope they will never have to suffer again. I hope they will all be happy.”

  Vance reached up behind him and patted her arm. “We’ve had such a nice life and my kids have had so much trouble, it doesn’t seem fair, does it? Harry has to be concerned about Anna falling off the wagon all the time; it’s affected his work. You know he rarely flies anymore. Can you imagine that, a Shannon not flying? And Nancy—she’s a marvel in the business, but a bone in Harry’s throat. And her practically running the business will kill Tom. You know how proud he is. He couldn’t take the rivalry from Bob Rodriquez; he’ll never be able to stand Nancy running things, no matter how much he loves her.”

  Jill was stunned. Vance had not commented on the family or the business for weeks.

  Obviously agitated, he went on. “And I haven’t mentioned Bob and Mae! There’s no way that Bob’s going to be able to work with Nancy. I’ve created a monster, and now I’m too old to do anything about it.”

  He looked up at her and smiled. “Fooled you, didn’t I? You thought I was out of it. Well, I am, but I’m not completely senile, not yet, and I can see the handwriting on the wall.”

  Jill nodded. She agreed with him completely, but didn’t want to get him more excited than he was. Funny, here Vance was, pushing eighty, and absolutely right in everything he said.

  “Don’t let it get you down, Jill. We’ve had a good long run, and I may have a few more years, and I’m not going to let this bother me, no matter how it turns out. The main thing is Tom is out of that rotten prison camp, that’s really all that matters to me now.”

  March 17, 1973

  Niceville, Florida

  BOB RODRIQUEZ SAT in his cramped apartment, staring at the television set, his hands gripping the grubby armrests of his chair as he watched his friend, his rival, his enemy, turn and stumble into Nancy Shannon’s open arms.

  Tears coursed down Rodriquez’s deeply tanned face. He had known the returning prisoner of war for more than twenty years and could not believe that this gaunt, limping shadow of a man was actually Tom Shannon. He spoke aloud to himself, as he did too often nowadays. “God, how happy he must be. And Nancy and V. R., too.” The sight of Tom Shannon’s son reminded him of his own son, Robert Jr.—Rod, as most people called him. Rod was another precious person he had lost to his work.

  Then his thoughts went to Vance, wondering how he was taking this. He wasn’t in the crowd, must be home in Palos Verdes. Thank God he lived long enough to see it.

  “I’ll call him later—he’s probably more choked up than I am.”

  A commercial came on and Rodriquez shut the set off. It was the one possession he prized, built with his own hands, and now carted around the country with him, wherever he went.

  And he went everywhere, carrying the flag that Vance Shannon had planted so many years ago, when he ran a one-man company, flying first flights in new aircraft for a laughably low fee. Shannon’s firm had grown in the post World War II armament boom, and he had brought Rodriquez in as a partner, over the objections of his two sons, Tom and Harry. Both sons were hurt that their father had violated all his previous practice by doing something without discussing it with them.

  Later, neither of them—not even Tom, the more bitter of the two—could deny that Rodriquez had vastly expanded the business, taking it into disciplines that were unknown and even unknowable to the Shannons. Rodriquez combined his knowledge of electronics with an uncanny ability to find partner firms. He developed ideas such as three-axis simulators or precision weapons, built prototypes, got the government interested, and then found a bigger company to partner with. The result was a constantly growing business, with welcome streams of income coming back to Shannon’s firm.

  Vance Shannon had recognized his value early, even though he almost never understood exactly what Rodriquez was doing. Shannon took the firm public, and completed a series of name changes, each one reflecting its expanding scope. Rodriquez had ridden the crest of the wave and was now president and chief engineer of Aerospace Unlimited. Nancy Shannon, Tom’s second wife, ran the parent company, which had been renamed “Vance Shannon, Incorporated” to honor the old man. Nancy gave Rodriquez a great deal of independence, but in the end, she was calling the shots, with the support of the board of directors.

  Bob had been living at 1550 Foster Road, Apartment 1C, on and off for six months. He spent at least half his time traveling, making it increasingly tough to supervise the rapidly growing interests of the firm Vance Shannon had established for him. This apartment was convenient, about three miles from the flight line at Eglin Air Force Base, where the latest version of his laser-guided bomb was being tested.

  Until three weeks ago, Bob had been living like some broken-down cold-call vacuum cleaner salesman, getting by with a mattress on the floor in the bedroom, his prized television plopped on a box in the living room. The only other furniture was a stool at the breakfast bar, where he ate miserable meals that ranged from a low of a frozen dinner to the relative high of Wheaties cereal and milk that was still fresh.

  Then Mae had called, saying she was coming for one last visit. Panicking, he called Barron Rents, furnishing the place with a single order over the telephone, hoping to mask his miserable bachelor existence from her. Now he flopped back in the plaid recliner, the least offensive thing in the mud-ugly combination of cheap furniture and universa
l draperies. Everything was glaringly new, unmatched and unloved, and the dismal ensemble told his lonely story even better than a mattress on the floor might have.

  He smiled to himself as he thought of the early days of their courtship, when Mae would have found the mattress on the floor erotic—they had made love in many other equally uncomfortable places.

  A pain stabbed him as he thought about Tom being reunited with Nancy at the same time Mae was cutting ties with him. He still couldn’t believe it, but he couldn’t argue the point. He’d been an absentee husband, gone for months at a time, and Mae was too good for such treatment. He loved her and Rod, their seventeen-year-old son, but he was obsessed with the new weaponry he was helping create, and he let his work take precedence. Things were not going to improve. Now there was a new system on the horizon, one with possibilities that surpassed even his fervid imagination.

  He didn’t blame her. Mae had warned him four years ago that something had to give—and now she was serious. She had probably met someone else, it was inevitable. He couldn’t blame her. He had always been faithful to her with women, but always unfaithful with work.

  A mental image of Tom’s face as he knew him in Korea suddenly surfaced in his mind. Shannon had been young, blond, and ruggedly handsome. Rodriquez had been top dog then, a twelve-victory ace, while Tom was a relative newcomer, eager to go to war in MiG Alley. Tom, a Marine ace in World War II, scored four MiG kills officially during the war, with a fifth victory being confirmed four years later, so he was a jet ace, too.

  Later, Tom had introduced him to his father, Vance Shannon, the legendary test pilot turned industry consultant. Vance had taken an immediate liking to him, for he saw—as Tom did as well—that Rodriquez was an electronics genius, with qualities and talents that the Shannons did not possess.

  For a brief while he had gotten along well with all of them, Vance, Tom, his twin brother Harry, and the rest of the Shannon organization, Aerospace Consultants, Incorporated, as it was called then. Bob liked them and had worked hard. But things changed when Vance brought him, unannounced, into the firm as a partner. Both brothers were upset, but Tom took it as a personal affront.

  As Bob scored one phenomenal business success after another, Tom’s enmity grew to the point that he left the firm and rejoined the Air Force. This nearly broke Vance’s heart and upset everyone else, including Nancy and Harry. Tom gained some glory in Vietnam, shaping up a fighter wing and shooting down at least four MiGs. On his last mission, he was shot down and had to suffer the brutal horrors of Vietnamese imprisonment for more than six years.

  The phone rang—it was Steve O’Malley, now a full colonel and working with him on the latest project.

  “Did you see Tom get off the C-141?” Shannon’s World War II exploits had made him O’Malley’s hero well before he went to the Air Force Academy.

  “Yeah, he looked a little rough, but he’ll recover. He’s a survivor, obviously.”

  “Have you talked to Vance yet?”

  “No, I’m going to wait about an hour, and then call him. Give him a chance to settle in.”

  “Good idea. How are you coming on the presentation?”

  “I’ve got all the transparencies done for the overhead projector, and have the notes for you to look at. This is going to be a tough sell—an unproven project, ungodly expensive, and years before we get any results. Not what Pentagon staffers like to hear.”

  O’Malley laughed, saying, “You got that right. If we sell this one, we should look around for buyers for the Brooklyn Bridge,” before hanging up.

  Both men were at Eglin to continue testing on upgraded versions of the Paveway bombs that the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing—the Wolf Pack—had used to take out the bridge at Thanh Hoa, North Vietnam. Rodriquez had been the guiding light behind the Paveways, working on site at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand to prepare the weapons for the raid. The laser-guided bombs did what hundreds of previous sorties had failed to do—destroy the bridge.

  Few people other than the top military commanders had any idea of the real importance of precision guided munitions. Instead of sending a hundred airplanes to drop four bombs each, hoping that one would strike the target, you could now send one airplane, with two bombs, to take out two targets. The implications for strategy, for the budget, and for force size were immeasurable, and they were only just now beginning to be understood. One of Rodriquez’s major tasks was to convince commanders that they could operate with fewer aircraft, if those aircraft were equipped with laser-guided bombs.

  Now they were creating something that promised to vastly improve the accuracy of precision guided weapons, as well as create a whole new technique for navigation. In two weeks, they were going to the Pentagon to brief the Chief of Staff on what Rodriquez was calling the “Global Positioning System,” a combination of twenty-four satellites and a widespread ground-based system that promised incredible navigation—and hence bombing—accuracy.

  The Navy had led the way with Transit, the first satellite-based navigation system. But the Global Positioning System—GPS as Rodriquez fondly referred to it—was going to be vastly more efficient even if infinitely more expensive. It was exactly the sort of thing in which Rodriquez excelled. He wondered if Vance would be able to understand it. Harry Shannon would, of course, and so would Tom—if he would listen.

  The potential for GPS was an order of magnitude more important than the new precision guided munitions. Rodriquez often used to doodle, writing GPS versus PGM over and over. When—if—they could sell the GPS concept, a whole new world would open up, not only in navigation and in bombing, but in command and control. The strength of Special Forces would be increased a hundredfold with GPS. You could conduct clandestine operations deep within unknown enemy territory with the assurance of a sleepwalker. With GPS you could do anything except perhaps win a peace.

  March 20, 1973

  Palos Verdes, California

  JILL SHANNON GLANCED up as the big grandfather’s clock chimed six times. The kids had built it from a kit when they were teenagers, before they had gone off to their service academies, Tom to Annapolis, Harry to West Point. The old clock was always fast, no matter how they tried to adjust it, so she knew she had at least ten minutes to complete laying out the table she’d prepared for Tom’s first meal with them. He had specified only two requirements: no rice and no pork fat. She’d responded with a lavish buffet that went from chilled shrimp through lasagna, turkey, half a dozen vegetables and salads, and two kinds of pie for dessert. It was overkill, but she wanted overkill.

  Vance had spent part of each of the last two days at Tom’s place, drinking in Tom’s endless flow of flying stories, with scarcely a word about his days as a POW. Now he sat companionably in the kitchen with her, watching her still-slim body move rapidly around the room.

  “Tom’s appetite is amazing, Jill. Nancy fixes him small meals almost every hour, the things he missed the most, and he cleans his plate every time.”

  “Is he bitter about how badly they treated him?”

  “It’s strange. You can tell he is still angry, but he’s keeping it bottled up, as if it is too tough for him to bear. He’s told me a few things that floored me, but for the most part he acts as if it had been a walk in the park. When he talks about prison, he talks mostly ’bout the other POWs, men he didn’t meet until after they freed him, but who were legends in the prison.”

  “I’d like him to show me the tap code.”

  “He gave me a couple of demonstrations. I couldn’t read it at first, he was doing it like a telegrapher, bang-bang-bang. Then he slowed it down and showed me how it worked. Pretty simple, and if it was the only way to communicate, damn effective.”

  They heard the front door burst open and they walked hand in hand down the long Mexican tiled hallway, Vance shedding his years with every step, Jill watching him with pride.

  Tom still limped, but he moved forward strongly, giving Jill a long embrace and whispering into her ear his
thanks for taking such good care of his father. He hugged Vance, saying, “Promise me one thing, Dad, no talk about me until after dinner. I’ve been talking all the time we’ve been together. It’s time for you to bring me up to speed on the business.”

  He turned to Harry. “You, too, jump in and keep me up-to-date on what’s happening. You don’t have to dwell on the past, I’ll pick that up later. Let’s just talk about where we are and where we are going.”

  Knowing Tom’s appetite, they moved immediately to the dining room, Vance watching as they settled themselves, showing all the elements of an old and a new family. Harry was conscientious as always about Anna, who inevitably made a point of her weight problem by eating virtually nothing when she was at table with anyone else. Anna was doing pretty well, staying away from alcohol and keeping her weight under control. But Harry looked worried. There was something going on there. He had seen the signs too often in the past. He had to be vigilant, or Anna would be off on a binge.

  Nancy babied Tom, making sure he got the best tidbits and seeing that his beer glass was filled. Vance wasn’t so sure about that—Tom might have some trouble handling alcohol after all he had been through. Yet there was tension there, too, and Tom, as usual, brought it right out in the open.

  “Well, let’s have it, Dad. I understand that Nancy is practically running things at the office now.” He projected a combative embarrassment, as if Nancy was doing what Vance had expected of him.

  “Well, she certainly has taken over a lot of the administrative work; Jill has taught her well. The company grew while you were gone, couldn’t help it with all the wartime contracts.”

  It was the opening Tom had been looking for. “And I guess most of the growth was due to our wonder boy, Bob Rodriquez?”

  Harry spoke up for the first time. “Good Lord, Tom, are you still chewing that old bone? Bob has been a big help, but Vance Shannon, Incorporated, and all its divisions still depend on Dad’s name and reputation.”