Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (33 page)

“That’s true, Stanley, but look at the record for new
transports. The Germans lost their Focke-Wulf FW 200 prototype before the war, ran it out of gasoline in Manila Bay in November 1938 as I recall. Then the next year, Boeing lost a prototype 307—the first pressurized airliner—on one of its early flights. Lockheed had a devil of a time with its Constellations when they started out—electrical fires and crashes. They were grounded for months in 1946. The same thing happened to the Douglas DC-6—in-flight fires caused some crashes and they were grounded. I think a jet transport faces bigger hazards—they fly faster, higher, over longer routes. They’ll be making more cycles, more takeoffs and landings, and they’ll have to be heavily used, because they are so expensive.”

“What’s your advice to Boeing going to be?” Hooker was interested because a Boeing jet opened up another market for jet engines and that was his reason for living, designing, building, and selling them.

“I guess ‘make haste slowly.’ They’ll have to rush to catch up to de Havilland, but they’ve got to spend a lot of money to do enough testing so they get it right the first time. When the first jet passenger plane crashes, it is going to make worldwide headlines, and sales will suffer. And a jet passenger plane will crash; it is inevitable.”

“You are right, of course; when lots of jet transports are flying, jet transports will crash. But I don’t see a special risk for de Havilland with the Comet. They have worked it over very thoroughly.”

Vance nodded yes, to be agreeable, but there was something wrong with the Comet; he felt it in his fingertips. Placing the engines inside the wing roots was undoubtedly beneficial aerodynamically, but what happened if there was a fire? He knew all too well that jet engine fires were far from uncommon—that’s why they had so many fire-warning light sensors on them. And those square windows. They just didn’t make sense to him, not in a pressurized aircraft. Still both the Connie and the
DC-6 had square windows, so perhaps it was OK. De Havilland had led the world with the Mosquito; perhaps it would lead the world with the Comet.

August 6, 1949, Palos Verdes, California

The cab dropped Vance Shannon off in front of his low-slung ranch house, and he had to carry his luggage up the curving concrete steps. At the top he was breathing heavily, as much from his anger and concern as from exertion. The trip back from England had been exhausting, for he had to first fly to Seattle to brief Ed Wells and George Schairer on the Comet, then spend the night at the dreary Windsor Hotel, where some hookers down the hall were partying until three o’clock in the morning. He’d been up at five to catch an early plane south to Los Angeles. The night before, he had called Madeline and she sounded delighted to hear his voice and promised to pick him up at the airport. When he got in, she was not there, and she had not answered his calls at home. Jill Abernathy was out of town, and he didn’t feel he knew Nancy Strother well enough to ask her to come to the airport to get him on a Saturday afternoon.

He put down his bags, looked for his keys in all his pockets, then remembered he had them in his briefcase. When he finally got the front door opened he bellowed, “Madeline,” but the house was silent.

Vance carried his luggage through the house to their bedroom, a prescient fear mounting in his heart. He dumped his two bags the minute he saw the envelope on the bed. It was addressed simply to “Vance.” He knew what it was even before he tore it open. It read:

Darling Vance,

Thank you for giving me a wonderful life. I loved you and I love you, but I must go now. Don’t worry
about me; I will be fine. Tell the boys I am sorry I never measured up to their expectations.

Don’t hate me. Just love me and forget me.

Madeline

There it was. A twelve-year love affair done up in five lines.

He slumped at the edge of the bed, then went to her closet. It was apparently filled with her clothes; she had not taken much with her. He went to her jewelry box. He had never bought her lavish presents, a few nice pieces, an Omega watch, an engagement ring she wouldn’t accept or wear but that he induced her to keep. They were all in the box.

He sped from room to room, checking for her presence as much as for her absence. It was the same. She had left taking little more than the clothes on her back.

Then he wondered about their finances, hated himself for doubting her, but ran down to his office, where he opened the safe. Another envelope, attached to one of the brown expandable accordion files.

This time the note said:

Vance,

All your financial papers are in this packet. Everything is in good shape; you’ve become quite wealthy, and I am happy for you. I know you wouldn’t think that I would take anything, and you’ll see that I did not.

Madeline

Ashamed of himself for his suspicions, he just glanced at the tally sheet. Somehow he was worth almost a half-million dollars, and he would have given twenty times that amount to have Madeline back for just one hour.

Vance went back in their bedroom, lay down on the bed, and willed himself not to cry. Exhausted, he drifted
off to sleep, dreamed that the doorbell rang, that Madeline had come back, and woke up to find the house still eerily empty.

He stumbled into the kitchen, eyes bleary from fatigue and holding back tears, and put some ice cubes in a glass, taking a couple to rub on his eyes. Filling the glass with Old Grandad bourbon, he went to their library, a cherry-paneled, book-laden sanctuary that had been their favorite room. As he walked through the house he admired the way it was decorated. Madeline was really not interested in such things, but she had had the house decorated expertly and fairly expensively, then let it be. He couldn’t recall a single adjustment she had made from the time the decorators left.

He could not call anyone yet, not even his sons. But he did have to locate Jill. She must have known something was up; she might know where Madeline had gone. It didn’t matter where. He wouldn’t follow her; she was too strong willed for that. But he had to know. He called Nancy Strother, to see if she knew where Jill was staying on her trip.

To his surprise, Tom answered.

“What are you doing at Nancy’s, Son?”

There was no way for Tom to dissemble. “I’m seeing Nancy now, Dad. I hope you don’t object. How was your trip?”

The words didn’t mean anything to Vance. “Tom, ask Nancy if she knows where Jill is staying, if she has a number for her.”

There was a pause, and Tom came back on. “Dad, she says that she doesn’t know but that Madeline must. Can you ask her?”

“No, Son, I can’t.” He hung up, leaving Tom embarrassed and puzzled.

Vance went back into the library and sat in the big leather chair. The pain was deep. He truly loved Madeline, wanted her to be with him always, but he always
knew that she had intended to leave someday. That’s why she refused to marry him and refused to own any property with him. He wondered if she knew about Tom and Nancy, and how long that had been going on. As if he gave a damn. Tom was entitled to any happiness he could get out of life, and Vance hoped that Nancy would give him as good a twelve years as Madeline had given him.

“No one should ask for more.” The words did not soothe him, but they did make a kind of cosmic sense to him. He had been lucky beyond belief for twelve years; now it was over.

He knew she would be OK. He wondered if it was another man. Probably so, probably someone fairly wealthy, able to buy her anything she needed. No, that wasn’t right. She never cared about money. Someone interesting perhaps—it would not be difficult to find someone more interesting than him. An artist, perhaps, or a writer. Or maybe he was French, and she would return to France with him. That would be the best, for them both. A chance encounter would be difficult; it would be well if there was an ocean between them.

He put the Old Grandad down untasted on the table beside him. There was only one antidote for his pain, not whiskey, not sedatives, just work, and he had plenty of that to do in his briefcase. Boeing’s big bomber was gaining steam, Bob Gross was asking him to come down to Lockheed to look at an unpiloted missile project, and North American was clamoring for his services. The one job that he really wanted, working with Jack Northrop on his jet flying-wing bomber, had never come about. Well, maybe he should give Jack a call and see if there was something he could do. Maybe he could get back more to test flying. There were a lot of new airplanes coming out, smaller jobs like the Johnson Rocket and the Globe Swift. It would be good to have a challenge, something to force him to concentrate.

He slapped the side of the leather chair with his hand.
“My God, I miss her so.” The phrase would become his mantra of pain, said over and over, usually under his breath, but not always. Occasionally he caught himself doing it at work and saw the fleeting expressions of sympathy on the faces of those who heard him.

• THE PASSING SCENE •

North Korea invades South Korea; MacArthur strikes back at Inchon; MiG-15 fighters appear; 1.5 million television sets sold in the United States; Einstein presents “General Field Theory”; Senator McCarthy hunts for Communists in government; Dr. Ralph Bunche wins Nobel Peace Prize.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

June 27, 1950, Palos Verdes, California

Vance pressed his finger gently to Jill Abernathy’s lips, stopping her in mid-sentence. “Sorry, honey, listen to the radio.”

They lay in each other’s arms, transfixed by the news of the rapid progress of North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. U.S. forces were already involved, and the United Nations had passed a resolution to provide assistance to South Korea.

“Do you think this could start another world war?”

“I hate to think so, but it might. After the Soviets quit blockading Berlin, I thought we had called their bluff. North Korea has to be backed by the Russians, and the Chinese, too. They never would have dared do this on their own.”

With familiar conjugal accord, they kissed quickly and turned to dress. Jill had been in love with Vance almost from the day Madeline hired her. Six months after Madeline disappeared, Vance recognized Jill’s affection and
responded to it. By now his pain at Madeline’s departure had eased to the point that he could accept the dreadful irony of Madeline selecting Jill as her replacement, for it was done as Madeline had done everything but leaving him—with good heart. For her part, Jill joked about it, calling herself a pinch-hitter.

Neither of them had a bad word to say about Madeline. They credited her for her good points, her business sense, and especially the way she had taken care of Vance and the house. Vance did not arrogate to Jill the financial responsibility he had given Madeline, not because he didn’t trust her but because he knew it was outside of her interests.

In long conversations, deep in the night, they agreed that Madeline was somehow possessed by another calling and that she had known all along that her time with Vance would be limited. Both blessed her for being farsighted enough to bring Jill into the picture. Jill was delighted with the way things had worked out and worried only that Madeline might someday return. Neither of them believed she would, but as a safeguard, Vance asked Jill to marry him, and they had set the date as November 1. Both Tom and Harry were grateful for the turn of events, for their father had been desperately unhappy after Madeline’s departure. They worried that his judgment might be affected so much that he would be dangerous flying.

Their own marital affairs were still in disorder. It was now clear to Harry that when he was away, as he was so much, Anna drank too much and probably fooled around when she did. He had no hard evidence as yet. If he did find out for certain that she was unfaithful, he was determined to divorce her. In considering it, he recognized in a clinical way that he could not in good conscience desert her if she had a drinking problem, but infidelity would be a justifiable cause. He knew this was a cynical view, for the two problems were intertwined. Still, he had a life to
lead, and if she did not agree to some kind of psychiatric counseling, he felt he could divorce her in good conscience.