Free Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age by Walter J. Boyne

for all he’s done for his country. I like V. R., too, and I want him to remain good friends with my own son, Rod. So don’t worry about the Shannon connection.”
    “Thanks, Bob. I’m glad to be on board.”
     
    April 6, 1976
Palos Verdes, California
     
    “ DID YOU SEE the news?”
    Tom Shannon looked up, weary-eyed from working at the same desk where his father had put in so many hours.
    “About what, Harry?”
    “Howard Hughes is dead. He died on board the airplane that was bringing him back to the United States. According to the stories, he was a physical wreck, skin and bones, hair long, nails grown out, the usual reports on him.”
    Tom tossed a Cross pencil on the tabletop. He bought about ten of the chrome sets each year, managing to lose either a pen or a pencil about every two weeks.
    “Did you ever meet him?”
    “Yeah, one time early in the war I came home on leave, 1942, I think, and Dad had an appointment to see him. He asked me to come along, not to meet the great man but for protection.”
    “Protection?”
    “Yeah, Hughes insisted on meeting at odd places. This time he wanted to meet down by the waterfront at three o’clock in the morning. Dad didn’t want to get mugged waiting for him, and apparently hewas always showing up late. When Hughes saw me with Dad, he had a fit until he saw I was in uniform. Probably thought I was a lawyer. After that he was as nice as could be, very rational, talking about the Lockheed Constellation, getting Dad’s ideas on how the flight test program should be run.”
    “I’ve heard he was like that—always pleasant but only willing to talk to experts in the field, and only about their special subject.”
    “If there’s a heaven, I wonder if he and Dad will get together up there and talk airplanes.”
    “If there’s a heaven, it will have to have airplanes and airplane talk in it for Dad. And he’ll be too busy talking to Wilbur and Orville to talk to Hughes.”
    They were silent for a while, both knowing how much they missed their father’s advice.
    “We could sure use him now.”
    “We’d never have gotten into this fix, if he’d been alive and well.”
    Tom shrugged. “It’s my fault, all the way. I never should have volunteered for another tour of combat. It was stupid, just ego and being pissed off about Rodriquez. If I’d stayed here, I’d have avoided my years in the Hanoi Hilton and maybe my wife wouldn’t have taken over our company.”
    Harry didn’t comment. It was true. Tom had been foolish to go to war again, and even though he had done well until he was shot down, it would have been better for his country—and a lot better for his family—if he had stayed home.
    “What are we going to do, Tom? We can’t just fire Nancy. She did a lot of good for the company, too, at a time when you were gone, Dad was sick, and I was preoccupied with keeping Anna sober.”
    “Well, let’s review the bidding. We are in deep trouble now with her precious mall and with some of her other pet diversification projects. I don’t see that we can do anything but cut our losses there, just sell out for whatever we can get, pennies on the dollar, and eat the difference.”
    “Nancy will never stand for that. That’s the whole problem, she’s committed to seeing it through, no matter what.”
    Tom sighed and said, “The end of our fiscal year will be coming up in October, and we’ll have the annual stockholders meeting. I suggestwe put it to the board of directors that we get a new chairman and CEO and that we end our participation in the mall project.”
    “You can’t do that. She’s your wife. It’s tantamount to a divorce.”
    “I don’t think it will come to that. The stress of the mall situation is killing her, and she’s embarrassed that she placed the company in this position. I think she would actually be kind of grateful if we forced her hand in this. In any event, Harry, it’s got to be done, and it will be the best thing for