Roget grunted. "I told you we should never have hired that guy. He was too damn polite."
Bandfield pointed to the stack of correspondence on his desk. "Well, he politely left so much fucking bad news that I can measure it with a ruler."
Rosson not only had departed with the cash, but apparently in his brief two-month stay had run a brisk business ordering tools and materials and reselling them, neglecting to pay the vendors. Roget Aircraft's credit rating, which had taken so long to establish, went sour in a six-week period. Bandy, who had spent years watching every nickel he had, had let his preoccupation with Hafner and Patty's new career goad him into turning the place over to Rosson in blind faith.
Hadley leaped in, anxious to make a point. "It's not all that crook's fault, either. Look at these!" He picked up a handful of letters and pawed through them. "The union is talking crazy—our labor rates are already higher than anyone else's in the industry, and they want a five-cent-an-hour raise!"
Bandfield agreed with him inwardly. A nickel an hour didn't sound like much, but even with the reduced work force, it would cost $250 a week, almost $13,000 per year! And Douglas was walking away with every sale that came along because of their prices. It didn't make sense and shook his faith in unions. The country's unemployment rate was nearly 20 percent—and his people wanted a raise.
"I told you we should never have let them in the shop."
"Hadley, do you realize how fucking helpful it is for you to tell me all you told me, when the goddam business is coming down around my ears, and I'm acting like some sort of water boy for my wife?"
Hadley nodded with some satisfaction as Bandfield went on, "If I'd always done what you said, we'd never have gotten big enough to go bankrupt. We'd have just gone bust in your old barn, the way we always did."
It was true. Old Roget's mistakes would have kept them from getting big. Now they were so large that they had to have new contracts as an addict had to have drugs. Every contract that came in was immediately sent to the bank for discounting, and they lived from hand to mouth, scraping just to meet the payroll. The $62,000 that Rosson had embezzled was the steel beam that broke the camel's back.
"We've been down before, Bandy. We'll get back up."
"Maybe. I don't know if it's worth it. You might have had the right idea, just building airplanes you liked to build for yourself, and fixing cars on the side for expenses."
Bandfield sighed. "I don't see how we'll survive much past the end of November. We're going belly-up unless we get a contract from somebody."
They moved to the window that overlooked the assembly bay. Compared to the days when they had started building the RC-3s, it seemed empty of workers. The rampant competition from Douglas had eaten up the market. They had to get another order for at least ten RC-3s, or they were out of the manufacturing business for a while. The worst thing, of course, was letting the people go. They might be able to get some subcontracting work from somebody, but there was damn little of it around. The staff could see what was happening—the better engineers and foremen had already left, picking up jobs where there were some live contracts.
The only bright spot was the tour the Air Corps had set up for him in Berlin. It offered the prospect of encountering Hafner, and was the one thing besides Patty that made life worth living. He had had enough of managing and running an aircraft factory to last a lifetime. The Air Corps problems were challenging, and for some reason the Air Corps listened to him.
Bandfield smiled painfully at the irony—the worse business got, the more famous he became and the more people paid attention to him. His old English teacher at Salinas had seen an article he'd written for Popular Flying and had written to compliment him, not hesitating to point out a few grammatical errors. Caldwell had invited him to Fort McNair to speak to the War College.
Much of it was a rub-off from Patty's success. In the last six months, she had completely eclipsed Earhart, Ruth Nichols, the whole lot of women flyers. God, after years of struggle, to wind up being his wife's spear-carrier. Still, the money wasn't bad.
*
Berlin, Germany/August 23, 1936
Sunday in Berlin. Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Hafner, anxious to get away from the Olympic hoopla, walked dejectedly along Unter den Linden, the wash of heat offset by the shade of the trees. It was hard to believe that the year that had begun so well was ending with such a totally shocking, impossible turn of events. Everything at the beginning—quietly removing his company funds, causing the crash, the furor roused at Luftwaffe headquarters by Howard Hughes's setting the speed record in the racer—seemed to have been orchestrated solely for his benefit.
He had embraced Nazi Germany, and the Fatherland had seemed intent on returning the favor. Symbolically, he had discarded everything he had ever owned from America. Over time, as he was able to replace them, he had shed all his clothes, wallet, cigarette cases and lighters, shoes. Everything was gone. In their place he had purchased the best of everything from the shops along the Kurfurstendamm.
And the house, a villa in Berlin-Zehlendorf! He had made arrangements to pick it up very reasonably from an emigrating Jewish couple. Udet had said it was too showy, that it would cause jealousy. Good. In his experience, for every jealous person there were four or five sycophants anxious for any crumbs. As a counterpoint, he had not bought a Mercedes; instead he'd acquired a little BMW 315/1 that would have fit in the trunk of his Duesenberg. A Mercedes would come later, perhaps a 500K Sportwagen. The advantage of having money was enormous; he could entertain on a scale far beyond his rank. And not needing to be promoted for economic reasons, he didn't have to conform so slavishly to the Luftwaffe's viewpoint. He could take an outsider's view, and get promoted even faster.
The difficulties had started almost at once. After initially welcoming him and getting him established, Udet became infuriated when then Colonel Wever arranged for a private interview. He had not wished to alienate Udet, but events made it necessary to go around him.
Ah, Wever! There had been a man! He had been quick to see the value of the bomber plans. Hafner selected a Monte Cristo cigar from the leather pouch he carried, cut it carefully, and lit it reflectively as he let his first conversation with Wever run again through his mind.
At the outset he had been nervous. Wever was an upright general-staff type, the best of the breed. Hafner wasn't sure how he'd regard a man who had left Germany after the war, when it was in such terrible distress, and then betrayed his new country.
It was a pointless worry. Wever clearly thought of him as the German patriot he was. He had the detailed drawings for the Hafner bomber spread out in front of him.
"Ah, Hafner, these plans can be the basis for our Ural bomber! It is exactly what we need. But that is not the only reason you are so welcome."
He had leaned forward, anxious to learn what this little man, with his nose and chin like a Punch and Judy doll, wanted.
"Please understand that this is not a criticism of our leadership." It was a remark that clearly forecast a criticism. "Unfortunately, most of them are fixed on the continent, bound up by Haushofer's geopolitics. Not one of them has traveled very much. I don't believe Hitler has been farther than the front lines of France. Goering went to Sweden for a while. Udet, God bless him, has traveled the world around, but has never seen past his cockpit or his barstool."
Wever had leaned forward and rapped savagely on the plans with the flat of his hand.
"But you have seen the United States, know how vast it is. You understand what it can produce. What we need from you is a sense of scale, to break us out of this Thirty Years War mentality."
The rest of the conversation had gone even more pleasantly. Hafner was to have the best of both worlds, a Geschwader to command, when the time came, and influence with the staff.
Characteristically direct, Wever came right to the point.
"Udet is out of his depth. I'm going to depend upon you for advice. He views the dive bomber as if it were a universal pa
nacea! He even wants twin-and four-engine types to be able to dive-bomb."
Hafner was genuinely surprised. A twin-engine dive bomber was stretching it; one with four engines was quite absurd, even for Udet.
Wever had brought him to see Milch and Goering almost immediately, and then later, in November, he had had a short private audience with the Fuehrer in Munich. Goering had been thoroughly charming, attributing to him at once the crash-landing tactic they had used at Strasbourg. Altogether everything had been most satisfactory. Hitler had been friendly, amazingly well informed, and positive about both the need for the four-engine bomber and the new fighter. Either the man was brilliant or he had been carefully briefed. It didn't matter—either case boded well.
Hafner carefully dusted one of the benches that were placed in profusion along the sidewalk and sat down. His was provided in honor of "Corporal Anton Dietl, 1899-1917." Some wet-behind-the-ears Landser, dead before he was aware of life, killed in a crash, and Udet was already circling like a wolf, trying to scuttle the big-bomber concept.
He reached down and felt the small cylinder in his pants pocket. He never went without it, never left it anywhere. In it were the photos and the plans for the Hughes racer. There was a duplicate hidden in the garden shed of the house. The plane would make a good fighter and be a perfect encore to the bomber when it was underway. And if it didn't, if that Schweinerei Udet sabotaged him, he would offer the fighter to someone, Focke-Wulf probably. He had flown the Messerschmitt—a fine plane if they were always going to fight within the borders of the Reich! It had no legs, no range. The Hughes racer, scaled up slightly to carry military equipment, would be a far better bet when he found the right company to build it.
Hafner yawned and stretched, scratching himself under the arms at length. The truth was that he wasn't cut out for political intrigue. He considered himself a simple soldier. He had asked for combat duty in Spain, a squadron of fighters. The lust for combat roared through him, sitting him upright. He anticipated the old rush of pleasure in the headlong attack, the clattering guns, the bucking airplane ahead of him, shedding parts, bursting into flame. That was what he wanted, that was what he'd craved so long. And then Udet would be hard put to attack him. And his thoughts about modern warplanes would have a greater authority, enough perhaps ultimately to undermine Udet. He was far better qualified for the job than Erni. Despite the rapidly growing war in Spain, he'd been kept out of sight for the last three weeks, while the great Lindbergh had been conducted on a triumphal tour of the resurgent Reich. Apparently Lindbergh had accepted everything at face value. Each night, Hafner had gone over the recordings of all of Lindbergh's telephone calls, to see what opinions the famous flyer had formed. Lindbergh was clearly impressed by most of what he'd seen, but had said things about Goering's girth that had to be deleted in the official transcripts that went to "Der Dicke" each morning.
A pain crossed his stomach; he belched. If he didn't watch it, he'd be catching up to Goering. The German food was as good as he had remembered, the beer even better. He'd put on five kilos since he'd arrived, but the wise German tailors had made provision for a little gain in all his trousers.
The bellyache caused him to notice that his hands were locked together, almost cutting off the circulation. "Too tense," he muttered. "That's what's wrong with my gut." He forced himself to think of America, to think what he missed about it. Not Charlotte. He had not missed her for a moment; Lili Behrens more than made up for her. Not the work; his aircraft factory had become a zoo, with Bineau, before his illness at least, always a problem. The stupid competitions, the arguments with the airlines, were always annoying. The U.S. Army was difficult to deal with, but a Dummkopflike Mahew even more so.
He stood, snuffed out his cigar, and carefully placed it out of sight beneath a pile of leaves. He felt a sudden poignant sadness when he realized that in recalling America, the only thing he missed was Nellie, his darling Nellie. As soon as he was settled in, he'd get another dog. The Kaiser had kept dachshunds; he would too.
*
Washington, D.C./November 10, 1936
Sitting in the hard oak-bowed chair outside Lieutenant Colonel Caldwell's overheated office, Bandfield squirmed apprehensively in a little pool of sweat. Just off a long series of flights, he hadn't had a shower in two days, and his skin felt as crawly as the pit of his stomach. In the past week, he had managed to antagonize his wife even further, annoy the Army, and apparently infuriate his old friend Charles Lindbergh.
An imperturbable white-haired warrant officer, his stained tan shirt sleeves ringed with perspiration, said, "It shouldn't be too long now. With the business in Spain, the colonel's been on the phone all day."
The American embassy in Madrid had been abandoned two days earlier, and the military had been put on a conditional alert. The German Condor Legion, all "volunteers," had been bombing the city every day, and the Loyalist government had fled to Valencia. According to the briefing Caldwell had given him the week before, when he'd presented his report on his trip through Germany, Americans were fighting for the Loyalists in the International Brigade.
That's what I ought to be doing, he thought. Anything would be better than the way things had gone the last six months. On the Coast, Roget Aircraft, in what had almost become an American aviation business tradition, had closed its production line, and was staying in business on a small scale only by subcontracts for parts from Douglas.
At first, Patty had leaped at the idea of a trip to Europe, hoping with him that it would put some life back into their marriage. He had ruined it by his insistence on pursuing the subject of Hafner's whereabouts. Instead of being a grand tour of the bright lights, a sort of early second honeymoon that might have brought Patty closer to him, it had turned into an endless, frustrating series of receptions and dinners, broken only by his forays into the field to look at airfields and factories.
The Germans had recognized Patty in her own right, and seen to it that she was feted by the German women flyers, led by Hanna Reitsch. Hanna was a tiny woman with a great wide grin and a fanatical belief in the Nazis; she soon wore Patty into a propagandized frazzle. Patty had endured the first few days, then lapsed into a stoic acceptance.
Only the idyllic flight back on the Hindenburg had briefly restored their good humor. Initially ill at ease on the gigantic airship with its softly undulating motions, she had quickly taken to the quiet, attentive service.
They had cast off into gray skies from Frankfurt at five in the morning and followed a course that passed over sleeping Germany, across Belgium, and down the English Channel. Patty had moved from side to side, watching first the French, then the English countryside unfold. He had sat holding her, and toward evening, as the light dimmed, he had cupped her breast in his hand, softly rubbing her nipple through the folds of silk and cashmere.
They had a wonderful dinner in the airship's dining room, so sparingly decorated that it might have been Japanese. Fueled by good German wines and his earlier caresses, Patty insisted on going to bed early. Their cabin, separated from others by walls of lightweight aluminum and fabric, had an upper and lower bunk.
She kissed him passionately when they entered.
"I don't think we can make love, honey—our neighbors will hear us."
"I don't want to make love. I'm too hot to make love. I want to have sex, silent sex, silent, sloppy sex, silent, sloppy, sucking, sensual, toe-in-socket sex." She pushed him toward the lower bunk, whispering, "Take off your clothes," as she shucked herself out of her own.
"Lie back." He did so, and she put her lips to his ear. "No talking. No gasping.' Just kissing till we come."
It had never been harder to be silent, but the restraint added a bizarre surrealistic dimension to their loving. They were floating over the Atlantic, separated from the water only by a few inches of aluminum and fabric, working quietly and assiduously to gratify each other, slowly transforming the entire compartment with raw, heated sex. Then, as always, they transitioned into
lovemaking, slow, ecstatic, and still totally silent.
Later, they lay whispering in each other's arms. "What's happened, Patty? Why are we so different now, since the crash?"
"We're not any different. You're just going through your male revenge mode, your silly pilot's need to win."
He didn't answer. She said, "I was jealous for a while. I thought you were still in love with a dead woman. But that's not it. Hafner's beaten you—or you think he has—a few times, and you can't stand it. It's so stupid. He's a criminal, a killer. How could you and he ever compete on any equal terms?"
"We did in Peru, and you're right, he beat me again."
"Equal terms? You were flying with two broken legs, and he was an ace from the war. Equal terms?"
The words gave him comfort—but not relief.
The next day they realized that they might not have been as quiet as they had thought. The crew was unusually jolly and friendly, and the airship commander, Dr. Hugo Eckener himself, made a point of stopping by at breakfast and inquiring how they were enjoying the trip. Later he gave Bandfield a personal tour of the Hindenburg. The more the grand old man of dirigibles explained how safe the gigantic Zeppelin was, the more convinced Bandfield became that the ship was a floating bomb, depending entirely on a superb crew and benign weather to keep from blowing up. The Hindenburg had been far more comfortable than any plane, train, or surface ship Bandfield had ever ridden, but he knew he wouldn't have another peaceful moment until they had disembarked in Lakehurst, New Jersey. He didn't tell Patty about his worries until the trip was over.
The phone rang, jarring him from his romantic recollections. He turned back again to thoughts of his mission, trying to anticipate what Caldwell and Lindbergh would have to say.
His one abiding impression of the trip through Germany was that his hosts, from Udet down, had been consummate actors. He had asked Udet's aide, a bright-looking young lieutenant named Helmut Josten, if he knew what had happened to Bruno Hafner. The aide had blushed slightly, saying that he'd never heard of the man; it was obviously a verboten subject. Even Udet, always so cordial and correct, had simply looked blank and changed the subject abruptly.
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