Conquerors of the Sky

by Thomas Fleming

  “Who?”

  “Your old tail gunner, Mike Shannon. He’s handling my campaign in New Jersey. Doing a great job. He told me what a hell of thing you did over there. Going for another twenty-five missions.”

  Cliff managed to grope his way past the memory of Schweinfurt to embellish the myth. “That’s what happens when you fall in love with an English girl.”

  “Still married to her?”

  “More or less.”

  Kennedy grinned. They understood each other. They were men of the world. A good feeling. Cliff’s hopes soared. Shannon was a good omen all by himself.

  The Warrior awed Kennedy. He walked around it twice. “It flies?” he said.

  “Want to find out for yourself?”

  “You bet. Should I make out a will?”

  “Not to worry,” Billy said. “We’ve got a parachute for you.”

  “What happens when you bail out at mach three?” Kennedy asked as they strapped in and Billy turned the engines over.

  “You lose your head,” Billy said. “And your legs and your arms and anything else that happens to be stickin’ out.”

  “Let’s go,” Kennedy said.

  It was as wild a ride as Cliff Morris had ever had in the bomber. Billy sent her right up to the red line, 2,273 mph. He took evasive action against imaginary fighters, rolling right and left, diving from 70,000 to 50,000 feet. Kennedy never showed even a quiver of nerves. “Where the hell are we now?” he said, looking down at the clouds obscuring the earth beneath them.

  “Over Alaska,” Billy said. “We’ll be home in an hour.”

  On the ground, Kennedy thanked them and said: “I hear you fellows are good at other kinds of entertainment.”

  “We do have that reputation, Senator,” Cliff said.

  “What have you got that I haven’t seen?” Kennedy said. “Lyndon told me you fixed him up with the greatest night of his life. But that raunchy bastard has no taste worth mentioning.”

  To avoid duplication, Kennedy let Cliff flip through his address book. It was full of names of movie stars that left him momentarily speechless. “Johnson’s girl was one of our best,” Cliff said. “But she’s a little old for you. I’ve got another one from the top of our A list—”

  “I’ll be in meetings till about eleven tonight. Tell her to come by my room at the Bel Air around midnight,” Kennedy said.

  “She’ll be there,” Cliff said.

  Kennedy flew on to LAX and Cliff got on the phone to Adrian. He told him how much the senator liked the plane—and what he expected for the evening. “She can’t be one of the secretaries, Adrian. Have you got anything special in reserve?”

  “I’ve got someone in New York. She can be here by eight o’clock. One of Madame George’s girls.”

  The next morning, Cliff phoned the Bel Air from his office and got through to Kennedy. “I just wanted to make sure everything went all right on the entertainment front.”

  “It was special, all right. Where did you find her? I’m putting her in the front of my book,” Kennedy said.

  “Are you going to make a statement about the plane?”

  “It’s being typed.”

  Cliff had barely hung up when his secretary somewhat nervously informed him there was a woman who wanted to see him. She had asked to see Adrian Van Ness, who was in a meeting and had shunted her to Cliff. Ten seconds later, Cliff was face to face with the angriest, most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Amalie Borne glared at him and said: “Mr. Morris. Did you have anything to do with arranging my introduction to the famous Senator Kennedy?”

  “In a way.”

  “I have a message I wish you would deliver to Mr. Van Ness. I am not a whore. I resent being treated like a whore. If I am ever treated this way again by you or Mr. Van Ness I will retaliate with every resource at my disposal.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I have no intention of discussing it with you. Simply give him my message—and also tell him I have bought a few things at the hotel. The bills will signify in a very small way my outrage. I knew in my heart I should have nothing to do with you Americans.”

  Later in the day Cliff found Adrian Van Ness and passed on Amalie’s message, including the warning about bills of outrage. Adrian told him not to worry about it. He showed him a copy of the Los Angeles Examiner with Kennedy’s endorsement of the Warrior on the front page. “She got results. No need to worry about the bills if we land the contract.”

  Cliff could not resist finding out what sort of bills Amalie had run up. He told the story to Dick Stone over lunch and asked him to check with the accounting department. He was amazed by Dick’s reaction. “You approve using a woman like that to sell this goddamn bomber?”

  “Christ, you sound like Lady Sarah. I spent two months in South America with Amalie. She didn’t exactly impress me as a Girl Scout.”

  “I met her in Paris. She’s telling the truth. She’s not a whore!”

  “She works for Madame George, doesn’t she?”

  “You have the moral sensibility of a hound dog, Captain.”

  “If I’m reading you right, you’re making a big mistake, Navigator. Stay away from that broad. She doesn’t play by the usual rules.”

  “We’re not talking baseball!”

  Cliff was amazed by Dick’s fury. It was out of character. “Hey, listen. Between her and Cassie Trainor, when it comes to dames, your taste doesn’t exactly run to Snow White. I don’t get this moral outrage act. Calm down and find out how much she charged us for being treated like a whore. Maybe that’ll change your mind.”

  Later that afternoon, a memo arrived from the assistant treasurer.

  TO: Cliff Morris

  RE: Entertainment expenses for the BX Bomber.

  According to bills received today from the Ambassador Hotel, the following charges were made to the account labeled Adrian Van Ness Extraordinary: one white mink coat, $50,000. One Chinchilla coat: $85,000. One bracelet inlaid with diamonds and rubies, $65,000.

  Yours Truly,

  Richard Stone

  Ex-Moralist

  WOMAN TALK

  In the splendid new terminal TWA had recently built at Los Angeles International Airport, Sarah’s brother Derek looked shabby and prematurely old—a veritable image of his once powerful country. Derek was going back to England after less than six months in California. His wife and daughter had already departed. He had stayed to complete some assignments at Buchanan.

  “I’m thinking of writing a book,” Derek said. “Aborted. About all the wonderful planes our idiotic government canceled. What do you think?”

  “Do it,” Sarah said.

  Perhaps it would get the disappointment out of his system. He was so bitter. It was the real reason he and his wife had soured on California. They had soured on their country, their lives. He said he was going back to renew the struggle for the lost planes. But he was really fleeing the casual abundance, the assumption of unlimited success that pervaded America. He told Sarah he was afraid he would end up hating Americans and he did not want to do that. He did not think they were bad people, on the whole. Just spoiled.

  His decision to go home stirred special pain in Sarah. She had encouraged Derek to come to California. She had persuaded Cliff to get him a job. She saw now it was a desperate attempt to cling to her English self, that moral idealist who had said no to Cliff in Peru. But it had not worked. Derek was so bitter, his wife was so intimidated by California’s casual manners and morals, they had only made Sarah realize how American she had become.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you—but never quite found the courage,” Sarah said. “Was Father faithful? Or did he have his girlfriends, like so many aircraft people over here?”

  “I think he sowed a few wild oats. Most men do. But I doubt if he did much in his later years. He didn’t have time, for one thing.” Derek smiled bleakly. “Painful to say, but the damn planes get more attractive than women in the long run.”

  Hi
s Boeing 707 began boarding passengers. “Come see us,” he said, kissing Sarah on the cheek.

  She stood on the terminal’s sunny upper deck watching the plane take off. What would he have said if she suddenly announced she was going with him? She was leaving them all—American husband, daughters, son. She imagined herself yielding to some drastic impulse like that more and more often lately.

  She hated the way she and Cliff had drifted apart again to become polite, slightly hostile strangers. She wondered if he was faithful during his weeks on the road. She doubted it but she did not have the energy, the anger, to accuse him.

  She rode an escalator to the lower floor, oblivious to the faces flowing past her. “Sarah!” called a woman’s voice.

  It was her old friend Susan Hardy. She lived several blocks from them on Palos Verdes. Her husband Sam was ascending on the design side at about the same pace Cliff was rising on the sales side of Buchanan. Susan had the same wicked tongue and disillusioned view of men and California. She had continued snacking in the afternoons and drinking hard in the evenings. She was now at least fifty pounds overweight.

  “I’ve got an hour before my flight,” she said, hefting a bag. “Feel like a drink?”

  “I’d love some tea.”

  Susan gave her a wry look. Sarah could almost hear her thinking: goody-goody. They found a restaurant that served both liquor and tea. At the last minute Sarah decided she would have a Scotch and soda after all.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “New York,” Susan said. “I’m going home to talk it over with my mother. I think I’ve had it with Mr. Five by One.”

  That was one of her milder epithets for her husband. For a while Sam and Susan had made a kind of revue of their alienation. But it had grown less amusing as it became clear they really did not get along and the humor was mostly serious insult.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. Under California’s wonderful new community property law, I’m going to take him for fifty percent of everything he owns. Then we’ll see how much he spends on his Las Tunas Canyon cunt.”

  Why did you marry him in the first place? Sarah wondered. Why didn’t you try to hold him? Lose weight, control your tongue? Appalling. She was applying Tama’s approach to this bitter, unhappy woman. But Sam Hardy was not Cliff Morris. He was a thin, balding man with pipe-stem arms and a scrawny neck.

  Was she still in love with Cliff on some fundamental physical level that transcended the hostility, the alienation that flickered between them? She remembered the night of reconciliation, his whispering you’re my luck when he was inside her. She had loved that idea. It appealed to the mystical streak in her soul.

  “He met her at the Honeycomb Club,” Susan continued. “He set her up in this house that cost twice as much as ours—”

  Swept by self-reproach, Sarah tried to listen. A woman was sharing her pain and she was thinking about herself. Her egotism was shameful. Sarah could only shake her head while Susan told her about Sam Hardy’s obsession with this beautiful woman.

  “She can barely stand the sight of him, dates other men—but takes his money.”

  “How awful,” Sarah said.

  “It’s not that bad,” Susan said, knocking down the last of her Scotch in a barroom swallow. “I’d rather see a woman sticking it to the bastard that way than the kind of thing that usually happens. Have you heard about Madeleine West, one of Billy McCall’s ex-girls? She followed him to Korea and back to this country. He wouldn’t even look at her. She became a drunk, a streetwalker. Last month she drove her car into the desert, soaked the cushions with gasoline and struck a match. Died like a test pilot.”

  “My God.”

  “Some women are vulnerable, Sarah. I’m glad I’m not one of them. I hope you aren’t. I haven’t heard anything about Cliff lately. Have you got him under control?”

  “I hope so,” she said, gulping the rest of her drink.

  Susan departed for New York. Sarah drove slowly home to Palos Verdes thinking about the woman who had immolated herself in the desert. They were all loathsome! Cliff, Adrian Van Ness, even Dick Stone. But none of them could equal the loathsomness of Lieutenant Colonel William McCall.

  I was wrong, Tama whispered. For the first time Sarah began to suspect she knew what it meant.

  SCHEHERAZADE AT WORK

  “I arrived at the great man’s room at midnight, as directed. He was on the telephone. He interrupted his call long enough to tell me to take a shower and lie down on the bed in the next room. Only the supposedly enormous importance of my visit persuaded me to stay. He was still talking on the phone when I came out of the bathroom. I lay there for ten minutes, listening to him debate with someone named Bobby whether or not to support your wonderful plane.

  “Finally he strolled into the room, pulled down the sheet and examined me as if I was a cadaver on a slab. Five minutes later I was back in the bathroom. I took another shower. Never in my life have I felt so unclean! When I came out, he was on the telephone again, trying to arrange a date with another woman. He blew me a kiss as I departed.”

  Dick Stone lay beside Amalie Borne in the rose-and-gold bedroom of her Waldorf Towers apartment, listening to her describe her visit to John F. Kennedy. They were both naked. On the television screen at the foot of the bed Walter Cronkite and other talking heads were excitedly reporting the 1960 election returns. The race between Kennedy and Richard Nixon was still too close to call.

  As far as Buchanan Aircraft was concerned, it was a no-lose situation. Kennedy’s support for the Warrior had forced Nixon to abandon Eisenhower’s cancellation and promise to build the plane. Nixon had stumped through California the day before the election, telling everyone the Warrior would provide an unbeatable defense against Soviet Russia—and 20,000 jobs.

  On a chair in the corner was another briefcase full of James Madisons for the Prince, two million dollars’ worth. He was arriving tomorrow to pick it up. After several false starts, intensive lubrication had persuaded the government of Italy to buy 150 upgraded Scorpions as fighter bombers. Frank Buchanan did not approve of burdening the plane with the extra weight—it would make it even more lethal to fly—but Adrian Van Ness decided not to turn down a hundred-million-dollar contract.

  Dick was no longer worrying about the ethics of overseas bribery. He was more troubled by the moral perceptions of Amalie Borne. I’m not a whore, she had cried—and paid herself 175,000 dollars for the humiliation John F. Kennedy had inflicted on her. Dick’s normally controlled, reflective self wavered in the violent emotions this woman stirred in him. He still believed the story she had told him in Paris was true. But tonight, after dinner at the Chambord with two bottles of wine, they had made love and she told him a different story.

  She was the illegitimate daughter of Rudolf Hess, the Nazi leader who had fled Germany to England early in the war, supposedly to try to arrange a truce with England in return for a promise to depose Hitler. “That’s why I prayed for your bombs to destroy Schweinfurt,” she whispered in the shadowy bedroom, while taxis honked on Park Avenue forty floors below them.

  She described growing up in a Germany that regarded her mother as twice a pariah, as the woman who had seduced Hess from the arms of his faithful wife—and urged him to go to England to try to rescue Europe from Hitler’s madness.

  Bewilderment sucked at Dick’s brain. He was not psychologically equipped to deal with a woman like this. Was she simply crazy? Or was she compelled to create myths because the truth was too unbearable to remember?

  “Now this Irishman, this case of satyriasis, is going to be your president,” Amalie said, as the television cut to Kennedy’s headquarters and he expressed confidence in eventual victory. “But you don’t care, do you? As long as he funds your bomber.”

  “I care a great deal. I’m not a slave of the business. I have other hopes and dreams for myself, the country.”

  “What are they? Tell me? I collect illusions.”


  “Let’s talk about us instead.”

  “Another illusion. How much money do you personally expect to earn from this bomber and other planes you hope to foist on the warmongers of this world?”

  “I have no idea. I’ll be happy with a reasonable amount.”

  “There is no such thing as a reasonable amount of money.” Amalie pointed to the briefcase in the corner. “Is that a reasonable amount?”

  “That depends on what you want to do with it.”

  “Would it be reasonable for us to take that two million dollars and disappear? Go to South America or Lebanon? Would you do that for me?”

  “You’d spend it in six months and I wouldn’t be able to make any more. We’d starve.”

  “I’ve starved before.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Are you?”

  She was challenging him to abandon his career, his respectability, for her. He wanted her to do the abandoning, to join him in rational affection, reasonable happiness. How could he convince her it was possible? “I’m serious about loving you in the real world.”

  “You don’t love anyone else? Some American or Jewish girl? I hear a frantic note in your voice, as if you were using the absurdity of loving me to escape her.”

  “I was fond of one woman I met in California. I still am. But it doesn’t compare to my feelings for you.”

  “Does she want to marry you?”

  “She did for a while. Now she’s getting more interested in literature.”

  That was not entirely true. Cassie was teaching freshman English at Oxnard, a small private boarding school for girls north of Los Angeles. But she was still waiting for him to make up his mind about the step beyond saying he loved her. His excuses were growing more and more fraudulent. She knew something was wrong—and he did not have the courage to tell her what it was.

  “Do you really see me as a housewife pushing a vacuum? Shopping at the supermarket? Changing diapers?” Amalie said.

  “There are servants who can do those things.”