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

authorities after the war. The next thing I knew, I was a block leader in the east of Berlin.”
    “Why did they pick you? You didn’t speak Russian or anything.”
    “It was my age. They wanted older people, not from the ‘Hitler generation,’ and it didn’t take me long to learn Russian, because it was learn Russian or not eat. Pretty soon I was acting as a translator, and got one political job after another. Then, when the German Democratic Republic was formed in 1949, I was recruited into the Stasi—the East German counterpart to the KGB.”
    Obermyer chuckled. “I should have known, Gerd, you would bounce out of the frying pan into a soft job. No wonder I couldn’t find you when I asked around about what happened to you.”
    “No, I knew you were looking, but I couldn’t respond; they would have fired me on the spot, maybe even killed me. It’s a little dangerous for me still to be talking to you, even now, but I need your help.”
    “Anything you want, Gerd, you know that.”
    “OK, now what can you tell me about the Lockheed U-2?”

CHAPTER TEN
    February 1, 1958
    Above the San Joaquin Valley, California
     
     
     
    V ance Shannon felt wonderful as he always did when flying the bargain of a lifetime, a Beech C-45 that he had picked up at a war surplus sale in 1946 for fifteen hundred dollars. It was a steal, for the airplane had less than two hundred hours’ total flight time when he bought it and was in perfect shape. And despite Jill’s undertone of complaints, there was no finer time to fly than early Sunday morning, when his was virtually the only aircraft in the sky.
    The Beech had an autopilot, but Vance rarely used it. It was old-fashioned and rather difficult to set up. He preferred flying the Beech himself anyway, enjoying the continual sensual interplay between the air, the controls, and his hands that had given him both challenge and contentment for more than forty years.
    Passing over Fresno, he could see Merced in the distance and knew he should deviate a bit to the right to stay out of the B-52 traffic at Castle Air Force Base. It was Sunday, but they’d be flying anyway. As he cranked in a shallow turn to the right, it dawned on him why he was feeling so well. The previous day, the U.S. Army had launched the Explorer satellite. After the fiasco of the Vanguard blowing up on its pad, he and his sons had watched with pride as the Explorer roared off into the night sky in a blaze of glory. Ninety nail-biting minutes had followed until the California track station announced, “Goldstone has the bird”—they were tracking it in orbit.
    The early-morning news reports indicated that the United States was reacting with the same patriotic pride shown by the Soviet Union when Sputnik was launched. The space race was on, and it was up to Vance to determine how his firm, Aviation Consultants, could help. He decided on the spot that a name change was necessary, perhaps to “Aerospace Consultants” or maybe “Air and Space Consultants.” The firm’s leadership and direction had to change, too, and the best instrument for that would be Bob Rodriquez, who was already dabbling in things so esoteric that Harry was the only other member of the firm able to understand him.
    One thing was for sure—to sustain the interest of the public, they’d have to do more than put satellites up into space. Americans were brought up on Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and, unless there were people in the spacecraft, would lose interest fast. And the people had to be doing thrilling things that challenged the imagination. You had to sell space just as Tex Johnston sold airplanes, doing things that made the public stand up and cheer.
    Vance’s mind flashed back to August 7, 1955. He was on the beautiful Boeing company boat, a guest of George Schairer, at the annual Seafair Gold Cup Hydroplane Race at Lake Washington. The entire shoreline was dotted with every kind of vessel from rowboats to multimillion-dollar