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

by Walter J. Boyne

  Harry shook his head for a moment, then laughed.

  “Look at us, Tom. Nancy is about five foot four and weighs no more than 120 pounds, I guess, and we are both scared of her. We’ve both been in combat, you were a POW, and this little wisp of a woman terrifies us. What the hell is going on?”

  “The problem is they condition us to love them and then it’s all over, they win every round. They are tougher than we are. Believe me, I hope I’m right and that she wants to quit. If she doesn’t we are in for one hell of a fight.”

  “Well, let’s hope Rodriquez is willing to help.”

  “I’ve got to find him first. He’s all over the map, between pushing the F-16 program, and this new thing, the Space Shuttle.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE PASSING PARADE: Mao Tse-tung dies, estimated to have caused deaths of up to 20 million; uprising in Soweto, South Africa; United States celebrates 200th anniversary of independence; National Air & Space Museum opens; President Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter engage in debates; Carter elected President; North and South Vietnam reunited; Israelis rescue hostages in Entebbe raid; Rocky wins Oscar for best picture; Soviets win 152 medals in Olympics at Innsbruck and Montreal; Cincinnati Reds defeat New York Yankees in World Series; Deng Xiaoping restored to power in China.

  September 17, 1976

  Palmdale, California

  Harry, I know you think I’ve been dodging you, but I haven’t. We’ve been swamped on this program, and I haven’t had a free hour, much less a free day, all year.”

  It was easy for Shannon to believe him. Rodriquez was hunched over a portable typewriter, pecking away at a report, wearing a two-day beard and a rumpled suit, looking thin and desperately tired under the desert sun.

  “I understand, Bob, and I wouldn’t have hassled you, but time is running out. We’ve got a board of directors meeting coming up in October, and I needed to talk to you before then.”

  “I guess I know why. There are no secrets in the aerospace industry. And since that short piece in Aviation Week, everybody is talking about the trouble Nancy is having. What can I do to help?”

  Aviation Week was the world’s premier aviation magazine, known familiarly as “Aviation Leak” for all the secrets it uncovered. It had run a half-page article on the problems at Vance Shannon, Incorporated. Nancy had been treated courteously, but they laid the facts out in a straightforward manner, and all the knowledgeable people in the industry made the correct inference: with Vance Shannon dead and Bob Rodriquez gone, the company was in trouble.

  Harry’s heart jumped. This was the Rodriquez of old, always obliging.

  “Bob, we need . . .”

  Rodriquez held up his hand. “Just a second, Harry—they’re rolling her out.”

  The doors of Rockwell’s huge Air Force Plant 42 opened, and the incredible Space Shuttle Enterprise was slowly rolled out to stormy applause from the crowd of two thousand, mostly workers and industry insiders, but with a wealth of dignitaries and a colorful sprinkling of “Trekkees” gathered to see their vehicle come to life. The orbiter, officially serial number OV-101, was originally going to be named Constitution, in honor of the United States’ Constitution, but a write-in campaign from more than 100,000 loyal viewers of Star Trek forced the White House to select the name Enterprise instead.

  Harry’s jaw dropped. He’d seen photos of the 150,000-pound Enterprise, but viewing it in gleaming white real life on the familiar Palmdale tarmac was another matter.

  “It’s gigantic, Bob. Are they really going to be able to fly it on the 747?”

  “Harry, if they can’t, my company’s in real trouble. Steve O’Malley, me, and our new guy, Dennis Jenkins, have been working night and day on this, letting some of the rest of our business slide, and unless this lash-up works, we are in deep kimchee.”

  They stood together quietly for a while, watching the team of technicians swarm around the gigantic orbiter, while another gang, photographers and television people, formed an even bigger outer ring. With its huge nose and stubby delta wings, the Enterprise looked like an aerodynamic throwback when compared to the variety of sleek jets that were parked around the Palmdale tarmac, all of them needle-nosed with swept-back wings.

  Bob said, “In January they are going to transport it overland to Edwards; they’ll mate it with the 747 there and run a bunch of test flights. They’ll start off with just flying the two aircraft together, which is frightening enough, but then it will get really hairy! They’ll launch the Enterprise from the back of the 747, and it will glide down to land at Edwards.”

  “Who do they have lined up for the test crews?”

  “The best—Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton form one crew and Joe Engle and Dick Truly form the other. Talk about talent! Haise was on Apollo 13, and helped engineer their safe return.”

  Rodriquez took Shannon’s arm and steered him over to a NASA staff car sitting next to the factory entrance.

  “Let’s talk in here.”

  Harry gave him a completely frank rundown on the situation at Vance Shannon, Incorporated, sparing no details.

  “She’s pretty well exhausted our capital and you know how Vance never wanted to be in debt. Well, Nancy’s hocked almost everything she owns, and is putting pressure on the rest of the family to do the same. Believe it or not, she actually asked me to agree to take a mortgage out on Dad’s house in Palos Verdes. I told her I couldn’t do it, it was just impossible to think how Dad would have felt about that. Fortunately, she hadn’t even brought it up to Tom.”

  Rodriquez whistled. “Pretty bad. I knew there was trouble. I never thought it would be like this. How is Tom taking this?”

  Harry leveled with him. “As crazy as it sounds, I think this is a good thing for Tom. He’s getting his confidence back as his strength builds up, and he wants to take the reins away from Nancy. He loves her as much as ever, but it galls him that she’s running the company into the ground.”

  “Will he object to me helping? God knows he’s been pissed off at me since day one, and I don’t want to get into any problems with him now. I’m too busy, and frankly, I’m fed up with it. I’ve got enough problems of my own without warring with Tom.”

  “No, it’s just the opposite. He’s sorry about the past, and he knows we can’t win this fight without your support. You may not be bosom buddies after this, but the feud will be over, believe me.”

  “Let me think about this, just for a minute. And I need to talk to Steve O’Malley, first, you know. He’s my partner, and I’m not sure he’ll be happy with me setting up your outfit as a rival again. Our guys have been picking up a lot of your business. Making you competitive again isn’t going to help our bottom line.”

  “I understand that, Bob. It is a hell of a thing to even ask you to do this. But I know how you feel about Vance, and the rest of the Shannons, even Tom. I’m counting on you to see your way clear to helping out and voting with us.”

  “What if we don’t?”

  “Then I think the company breaks up; Tom and I will split off, and Nancy will probably run it the rest of the way into the ground. Dad will be rolling over in his grave, watching everything he built up go to pot.”

  “I’ll call you tonight. Will you be back in Palos Verdes or are you staying over?”

  “I’m going back. I’ll be in Dad’s old office by about seven tonight. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

  September 17, 1976

  Palos Verdes, California

  HARRY WAS ENSCONCED in his dad’s huge leather armchair, his feet on the ottoman, his hand near the phone, waiting for Rodriquez to call.

  Anna came in with a plate of sandwiches and a glass of iced tea.

  “You got a touch of suntan today, honey.”

  “It’s almost always sunny at Palmdale. I wish you could have been there to see the Space Shuttle. It is going to be fantastic. And it’s just the first step.”

  Anna nodded, pleasantly, her
lack of interest manifest. Years of falling off the wagon and then laboriously climbing back on had taken its toll on her looks and her attention span.

  The phone rang and Harry grabbed it, heaving a sigh of relief when he heard Rodriquez’s voice.

  “Harry, I’ve talked this over with Steve. He’s concerned that bailing you out will put Vance Shannon back in business again, and that you’ll be a real competitor. He’s right. I’ve got a real conflict of interest here.”

  Harry’s heart constricted. This wasn’t what he expected.

  “Yes, I see that, Bob.”

  “But there’s a way out. How is Shannon stock doing now? I haven’t checked it in weeks.”

  “It’s way down, Bob, about four dollars a share, down from forty-four, two years ago.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll sell you all my shares—I’ve got close to a million shares now, give or take some—at whatever the market is at close of business tomorrow. Can you raise that kind of cash?”

  “You’re damn right we can! Our bank will loan me the money, they already know what we plan to do. This is very generous of you, Bob—I think we’ll come out of this slump if we change the management, and our share price will go back up.”

  “I believe that, too, Harry, but I frankly don’t care about the money. I just cannot have this divided loyalty between the welfare of your firm and the welfare of our firm. And I’m not, I’m absolutely not going to cast a deciding vote that splits up the Shannon family. I’d rather sell at a loss. You guys were always too good to me, always excepting Tom, of course.”

  “I accept your offer, Bob, because it’s the only way out for us. We have to get back to doing what we are good at, and get out of this diversification mishmash that we’re in now.”

  “I understand, Harry, but from now on, we are competitors, and Steve and I are going to do our best to get all the business we can. If it means running Vance Shannon, Incorporated, into the ground, we are going to have to do it. We’re going public this year, and we won’t be calling the shots like we used to. Do you understand that?”

  “Sure, Bob, that’s the way it has to be.”

  “Make sure Tom understands. There’s nothing personal about this, but from now on, it’s all business, down and dirty.”

  “We understand. And thanks, Bob; you could have made it a lot harder than you did.”

  “Take care, Harry. Give my best to everybody.” Rodriquez hung up.

  Harry leaned back in the leather chair, happier than he had been in months. There were lots of competitors out there, but there was lots of business, too. If they could get Vance Shannon, Incorporated, back on track, they would get their share.

  He picked up the phone to call Tom with the good news.

  March 24, 1977

  Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma

  HALF OF THE personnel of the gigantic Tinker Air Force Base was on hand waiting to receive the Boeing E-3 Sentry, the first of the AWACS to reach the 552nd Airborne Warning and Control Wing. Not by chance, Harry Shannon and Bob Rodriquez were on board. Harry had worked extensively with Boeing on the massive thirty-foot-diameter rotating dome that sat atop a modified Boeing 707 airframe, and the Air Force asked him to be on this delivery flight. Rodriquez helped in developing the fantastic radar system that could range out for more than 250 miles to detect, identify, and track enemy aircraft in a 120,000-square-mile area. He’d also devised the massive liquid cooling equipment that the hot-running electronics required. And in the back of his mind, he knew that when GPS came along, it would enhance the AWACS’s capability immensely.

  It was a magnificent weapons system, and they were already calling it a “force multiplier.” One AWACS could direct all the fighters in a battle, sending them where they were most needed, warning them of threats, lining them up with tankers. It was sort of like the English chain-link radar system that helped win the Battle of Britain, but airborne, so it could be sent all over the world to any battle area. The incredible thing was that it had been hotly opposed for all of its existence by people in Congress who had no idea of its capabilities, but called it the usual “billion-dollar boondoggle” for political reasons. Harry and Bob knew that it would pay for itself the first day it went to war.

  The usual first flight glitches had kept them occupied for most of the trip out from Seattle—the cooling system was difficult to regulate—but by the time they were inbound to Tinker, they had a chance to catch up.

  “How did the board of directors meeting go last October, Harry? Everything I’ve heard says it was very peaceful.”

  “It was peaceful on the day of the board meeting, but a nightmare on the thirteenth, the day before. Tom decided to keep Nancy out of the loop until then. She knew something was happening, but had no idea that we were going to call for her replacement. When Tom told her that I was going to take over her position, she burst into tears and had a fit of hysteria. He’d never seen her like that before, although some of us had a few times, when things didn’t go her way.”

  “Tough on Tom, eh?”

  “Yeah, it went on for about an hour, with her alternating between crying and making threats, or so he tells me. Then all of a sudden, she bursts into tears again, throws herself into his arms, and says she was glad it was over. She said she would voluntarily resign, and throw her votes, even all her proxies, whichever way Tom said.”

  “Must have been a relief for everybody.”

  “Yeah, except for the fact that I don’t really want the job. I hate the paperwork involved. But Tom refuses to take it, says he’s too hotheaded, and he’s right. But I wish you had stayed with the firm, and you could take over. You’re a lot better at this modern stuff”—he waved his hand around the equipment packed fuselage of the AWACS—“than I am.”

  “Tom would never have stood for that, Harry. Nancy was bad enough, I would have been intolerable to him.”

  They talked for a while about the Shannons, then Harry asked, “How many of these big buckets do you think they’ll build?”

  “Not enough—too expensive. The Air Force is talking about buying sixty-four; if it winds up with half that it will be lucky. But we’ll sell a few to the NATO countries, and Japan, maybe.”

  “Well, I can see where your strategy for your company is better than ours. We get in on the initial production run, but you are there for the updates.”

  Rodriquez nodded. “Exactly, it’s the same with the B-52, they’ll constantly be adding new equipment to the old airframes.”

  Harry Shannon shook his head.

  “Yeah, we’re doing better at that, but we’ve got a long way to go. You know, this business about adding new equipment to old airframes, Bob, Dad told us exactly that so many years ago. Somehow Tom and I never got the message. We’ve got to shift gears faster if we are going to make it.”

  “That’s what worries, me, Harry. We’ve already seen how much better you are doing. You’ve picked up a few contracts lately that we thought we had sewn up. The Vance Shannon name still means a lot. If you guys stick to your new business plan, you’ll do well, even though the market’s in a decline. And the better you do, the tougher it will be for ActOn. It is not easy as it is; we are locked into some long-term development stuff that is all outlay and no income for years.”

  Harry knew he was talking about the GPS system, but didn’t let on. There was no way Vance Shannon, Incorporated, was getting into something as far out as the GPS, not for a while, anyway.

  “Well, we blew it on the Space Shuttle. We haven’t had any contracts so far, but we’re working with Rockwell to help on some of the maintenance efforts down at Cape Canaveral. There should be some money in that.”

  “Yeah, we’re looking at it, too.”

  They were quiet as the AWACS finally touched down, its tires squeaking on the long Tinker runway.

  Then, embarrassed, Rodriquez asked, “You hear anything from Mae?”

  “Nancy and Anna do. I’m glad you brought that up. Mae’s been asking about wo
rking with us. How would you feel about that?”

  Rodriquez bristled. “She doesn’t need to work for anybody, not with the settlement I made and the alimony I pay her. I can’t believe that she asked you about a job. It’s humiliating.”

  “She didn’t ask me, Bob, or Tom, she’s too sensitive to do that. But she’s been friends with Jill and the other two girls for years. It’s sort of natural that she’d ask them for a job if she wanted to work. And she knew that Jill would go to Nancy for her. Maybe she’s bored.”

  Shaking his head angrily, Rodriquez yelled, “No it’s not that! She’s doing this deliberately to embarrass me. There are a million other places she could work.”

  Shannon had never seen Rodriquez like this, not even when Tom used to ride him hard. Furious, hand shaking, spittle spraying from his lips, he pressed his face up close to Harry’s.

  “I can’t stop you, but it would be a big mistake for you to hire her. How would it make me look? I can’t keep her as a wife, and she goes off to work at my old company so she can work for a competitor. It’s like you guys can get along with her and I can’t.”

  Shannon didn’t speak for a while. Rodriquez was ready to fly off the handle right there on the flight line. After a bit, he said, “I understand how you feel, Bob. You were first rate with us about selling your stock. We’ll abide by your wishes on this. But I tell you, it won’t be easy, I’ll get pressured from Jill and Anna for sure, and maybe Nancy, too.”

  Rodriquez left without saying good-bye. It was totally unlike him. He was reacting more to Mae’s asking the Shannons for a job than he had to her divorcing him.

  As Shannon walked toward Base Operations, carrying his battered B-4 bag and his parachute, he whistled softly to himself.

  “Thank God this didn’t come up before he sold us the shares.”

  August 12, 1977