Air Force Eagles (41 page)

After the usual courtesies, Coleman said, "The wing commander and I pre-flighted it for you, Fitz—pretty good service. Colonel Bandfield, how much time do you have?"

Bandfield looked at him closely; Coleman might have the flu, but it looked more like a hangover to him. Williams didn't look much better.

"I'm at your disposal—all the time in the world."

"Fitz, I know you've flight-planned to go over to Tonopah. Why don't you show Colonel Bandfield the new toss-bombing delivery technique we've been working on?"

Fitzpatrick flushed. "This is just a demonstration flight, Stan—I'm not sure we want to overload the colonel."

"No, I know this man, Fitz. Give him the works." He turned to Bandy. "You won't actually be dropping a bomb—it's electronically scored."

Once he'd gotten used to the tricky ground handling of the bicycle gear layout, Bandfield began to enjoy himself. The takeoff was long, but climbing at 310 knots was exhilarating—not many airplanes could go that fast in level flight. At altitude, the airplane handled beautifully. In the backseat Fitz was a perfect instructor, anticipating Bandfield's questions, talking him through the fuel management routines and demonstrating how the airplane flew in various configurations.

"This thing could grow on you, Fitz."

"Yeah, I'd go to war in it tomorrow, if I had to. We've burned off enough fuel now, Bandy; let's go down and let me demonstrate the bomb drop Stan was talking about."

Fitz got clearance from the Tonopah range—the controller was clearly unhappy about being worked on a Saturday. Fitz called, "I got it," and dumped the drag gear; the B-47 began a four-thousand-foot-per-minute descent at 290 knots.

Bandfield watched the earth rushing up to him, heard Fitz and Matthews run the checklist and call the range.

"Tonopah, this is Nectar Two One, we're approaching the initial point." Then, to Bandfield, "Okay, you got it, we're level five hundred feet above the ground. Bring the speed up to four hundred twenty-five knots."

Bandfield shook the wheel and advanced the six throttles. The airspeed stabilized at 425 as the desert floor whipped past, the sagebrush turning into long blue-green blurs.

"Bandy, maintain this heading. When I say 'now' start a two and one-half G pull-up and stay with it. Keep positive Gs and do an Immelmann turn off the top and then I'll take it."

Wondering what he'd got himself into, Bandfield concentrated on course and heading as he heard the bomb release system tone button come on. The airspeed was surprisingly easy to maintain; only the ailerons were stiff, locked tight by the speed.

"Now, pull back, not too hard, just two and one-half Gs, nice and steady."

Bandfield checked the G-meter as he pulled back on the wheel and advanced the throttles; the B-47 eased back into the first half of a loop; there was a sharp crack of the quick-opening bomb bay doors, and Fitz called "Bombs away!" as the tone signal cut off.

The airspeed bled away in their high, arcing zoom that flattened on the top so that Bandfield saw the ground beneath his canopy and the horizon as a crazy inverted line ahead of them. He rolled the airplane level.

Yelling, "I got it!" Fitz pulled back on the power and lowered the nose. Within minutes they were roaring across the desert floor in the opposite direction of the bomb run, airspeed nudging 450 knots, wings stiff as a board.

"LeMay isn't crazy about it, either, but it's about the only way to get a B-47 in with an H-bomb and not fry the crew with the radiation."

"Yeah, but you're flying the airplane right at its limits—if the pilot got a little nervous, or if he hits some turbulence, he could exceed the G limits easy. What then?"

"Well, then the fucking wings fall off—you know that. The crews will just have to practice enough to get proficient."

"Easy to say, especially with new airplanes. What happens in five years when they begin to wear out, when fatigue and corrosion gets to them?"

"We'll just have to watch it. You got any better ideas?"

Bandfield's voice went up a notch. "I sure as hell have. It'd be a lot better to put a parachute on the bomb, let it float down and let the B-47 just make a normal bomb run."

"LeMay doesn't like the idea. Not accurate enough—it's been tried."

"That's just bullshit, Riley. We're not dropping darts, you know, we're dropping H-bombs that can flatten a city. How accurate do you have to be?"

Bandfield slapped his forehead with his hand, Goddamn it, he may have four stars but he doesn't have all the answers. If the wings start falling off B-47s all over the place, he'll be the first one screaming for a solution.

"Tell you what—I'm going to L.A. next week to talk with Schriever about systems management. I'll be going to Dayton from there to the B-47 weapons systems office. Why don't you meet me there, and we'll get some people working on a parachute-retarded system?"

*

Los Angeles, California/October 30, 1953

Patience had never been Saundra's long suit, and John's suspicious attitude was beginning to wear on her.

"Look, honey, I asked you to come along; I won't be gone for more than an hour."

"All I know is my wife is going off to meet some strangers from Georgia. How am I supposed to react?"

"Two of them are ministers; one is a woman lawyer, or so I'm told, from the NAACP. You ought to just come along to see for yourself."

"How come it's not NAABP, National Association for the Advancement of Black People, now? How come Peterson can't just give them the money himself?"

She ignored the first question; he'd asked it a dozen times before. "John, don't be like this, I've told you why three times—he's afraid he'll lose business if his advertisers know he's backing the civil rights activists. And if he loses business, he won't be able to help them anymore. Come along, see for yourself."

"No. I disapprove of what you're doing."

"How can you disapprove when you've been treated worse than most Black men?"

He thought she was using the term deliberately, knowing he hated it. For most of Marshall's life the worst insults a white man could give a Negro involved the word
black
—"you black bastard" or "you black bitch" were fighting words. Now Saundra and her friends insisted on using Black as a term of honor—they wouldn't use Negro or colored anymore.

He snapped the television set on and she stood, clutching the big purse in her arms. It was filled with money; she didn't know how much, but it made her nervous to have it.

On the way over she told him what she was supposed to do. "We'll attend the prayer service. Afterwards, they'll meet us in the children's Bible-study room."

"Honey, this is just stupid. What else would anybody answer to an opener like that? Peterson's being theatrical, that's all. Did you look in the purse?"

He snapped the purse fastener open; the purse was filled with hundred-dollar bills bound in neat packets of ten. He dug through them; there was nothing besides the currency. He tried to estimate how many thousands of dollars it contained and could not.

The prayer service was in what once had been the fashionable St. Luke's Episcopalian Church. The neighborhood had changed, and now it was the Western Concord Baptist Church.

The service was just beginning as they walked down the frayed carpet of the aisle to the front. For Marshall it stirred poignant memories of his father's old church; it had not been so grand, but the hymns were familiar, as were the words of the first minister to speak.

The difference came at the end, when one of the visitors was asked to pray. A young man stood up, his broad smile slowly fading as he surveyed the crowd. He began to speak, his voice deep and powerful, and Marshall sensed the congregation suddenly fuse together, as if the electricity in his voice had melded them into a single conductive unit.

He glanced at Saundra—she seem transformed; her eyes were shining, her mouth open. The purse had slipped from her lap to the floor. He nudged her elbow and she did not respond; he picked the purse up and held it at his side.

After the speaker concluded, the congregation swarmed to the pulpit. They slipped away to the children's Bible-study room, examining the drawings pinned proudly to the wall.

The door opened, and a young woman walked in dressed in a choir robe, followed by a white man they hadn't seen before and the preacher who had electrified the group. The woman smiled and said, "I'm May Nuttley, and I'm supposed to say 'Judge not.' "

Saundra said, "I'm Saundra Marshall and this is my husband, John. I'm supposed to say 'Be not judged.' "

The woman smiled. "The code seems sort of silly, doesn't it? Let me introduce Reverend King and Alan Loeb." They all shook hands with John first, then turned to Saundra, who stood looking at the minister, still clutching the purse to her bosom.

King extended his hand and smiled. "I noticed you when you came in. You seemed to be very worried about something."

Saundra held on to his hand, visibly moved. "I enjoyed your sermon, Dr. King."

He let her hold his hand, a quiet smile on his face, his eyebrows slowly edging up. John nudged her, and she said, "And I'm supposed to give this to you." She handed the purse over; King passed it immediately to Loeb; both men nodded and left the room.

Outside, Marshall said, "Glory be, Saundra, there must have been fifty thousand dollars in that purse, and we don't have any idea who we gave it to."

She didn't answer at first, still carried away by her religious exaltation. "I heard him speak—that was enough for me. The man is a genius, I can tell."

"You can't tell anything from one sermon. We should have asked for some identification. We have no idea if we gave the money to the right people or not."

"John, he's the right person, for now and forever."

As they walked back to their car, Marshall felt inadequate. He was physically weak, the Air Force had put his career on hold while he was being investigated, and his wife's "friend" could afford to give a fortune to strangers. Saundra was silent, still wrapped in her emotions.

He grabbed her arm. "What if we were followed?"

It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. "Who would follow us? Nobody knew what we were going to do but you and I and Fred."

"The FBI, that's who. What am I going to say if they ask me where I got all that money? They'll think I'm on the take from the Russians."

She started to laugh until she saw the fear in his eyes. It should have inspired pity; instead it made her dislike him.

***

Chapter 9

Santa Monica, California/November 6, 1953

His head whirled to the phone when it rang. She forced herself to sit still, telling herself that she loved him despite the profound changes in him and in her she didn't yet understand.

When John had returned, they tried to make everything seem the way it was when they were first married. But he was too ill, perhaps even too frightened, though he wouldn't admit it, and now she knew that nothing would ever be the same. Being a POW had turned John into an angry man, haunted with guilt, burning for revenge, afraid of the future. Worst of all, he was incapable of seeing that she, too, had changed dramatically. The phone rang again, insistent in the silence.

"Go ahead, get it; it's your boyfriend."

Saundra rose, and for the tenth time that week said, "He is
not
my boyfriend. He is my business associate."

Dishes clattered as he banged his cup down and leapt up from the table; in a moment she heard the outside door slam. She simply didn't register with him anymore, not as a real person, not as she was; for him she had been frozen in time and place while he was in Korea. He simply couldn't understand anything about her business, about her interest in the movement.