Aces (35 page)

Hull shrugged. “Just remember, watch your throttle when you—”

“No,” Erica cut him off. “No more reminders. I know you mean well, Hull, but what
you
have to remember is that I’m a pilot, and the G-1’s an airplane. If we can’t fit together, then there’s something wrong with
both of us.”

Hull nodded, grinning. “Then get your tail out there and fly her.”

Erica walked out of the hangar. As she crossed the thirty feet of tarmac to where the G-1 stood, its prop spinning, she glanced
nervously at the huddle of spectators under the distant awning. She felt as if everybody in the world were watching her. She
felt as if she were on her way to a firing squad. At any moment she was going to hear outraged shouts. The men from the government
would pull strings to have her pilot’s license taken away. God only knew what they would do to poor Herman…

Nothing happened. Nobody said a word. She guessed that it really was exactly as Hull had suggested: nobody suspected anything,
so nobody was going to notice that he was a
she
. If they were going to look at anything, it was the airplane. Growing more cocky by the instant, she offered those beneath
the awning a jaunty wave.

The mechanics had been briefed about the “last minute” change in pilots and were ordered to show no surprise. They stood back,
grinning, as she hoisted herself up into the cockpit and strapped herself down. She settled her toes on the brake pedals and
her heels on the rudder pedals, just below the brakes. She took hold of the stick and opened up the throttle, heeling and
toeing the double-tiered pedals to gracefully move the G-1 off the line. She felt as if she needed three hands and an extra
brain to coordinate all the traditional controls, along with the brakes and the C-Gull flaps, but she managed it, showing
off the G-1’s capabilities by smoothly becoming airborne after using up less than one hundred feet of airstrip. As soon as
her wheels left the earth, Erica hauled up the G-1’s nose, climbing at the rate of three thousand feet per minute. She leveled
off at seven thousand, then snap-rolled the G-1 to the right, going into a tumbling spin, just to get the old heart pumping.
At two thousand feet she came out of it, in a wide, banking turn that took her over the awning. She waggled her wings in salute
and then began climbing, feeling properly warmed up and ready to do some flying. At 5000 feet she began a series of darts
and loops, transforming the G-1 Yellowjacket into a silver needle, laughing to herself, knowing that she was darning her presence
in history as she darned the deep blue fabric of the sky.

Gold watched excitedly as Erica put the G-1 through its paces. From the moment she’d gracefully recovered from that first
spin he’d known that she was going to be all right.

He listened to the gasps and murmured exclamations from the reporters as the G-1 streaked through its ten-minute aerobatic
display. He glanced at Brenner and his subordinates: the two junior men were smiling, but Brenner himself wore the sour expression
of a man suffering from a bad case of indigestion.

Gold heard Campbell murmur, “Whoever that pilot is, he sure as hell knows how to fly.”

Gold chuckled. “Remember what you just said a few minutes from now.”

Erica was bringing the G-1 around for a landing. The mechanics were planting two white flags into the grass bordering the
airstrip. “The G-1 will touch down at the first flag, and come to a stop by the time she reaches the second,” Gold loudly
announced. “Two technical innovations—her hydraulic wheel braking system and her exclusive C-Gull wing flaps—combine to make
this short landing distance possible.”

Gold overheard Brenner murmur to his associates, “I say it can’t be done—”

Just watch, asshole
, Gold thought. Nevertheless, he kept his fingers crossed as Erica came in for her final approach. Fully utilizing the G-1’s
potential wasn’t difficult for an experienced pilot once he’d gotten the hang of it, but Erica had only a couple of chances
to practice. He also hoped that Erica had remembered to cinch her safety harness tight. When the G-1 came in for a landing
she dug in her claws, and could flip an unwary pilot out of the cockpit like a bucking bronco throwing a rider….

Gold watched nervously as Erica stalled the airplane, flaps extended. The wheels touched down, tires squealing and smoking
and leaving rubber patches on the tarmac as Erica stood on the brakes. The G-1 trembled and shuddered like a living creature
as the airplane hugged the earth.

“She did it!” Gold shouted as the G-1 jerked to a stop with her nose at least a half foot inside the second flag.

The reporters—and Brenner’s two associates—burst into spontaneous applause as the G-1’s engine cut off, and her twirling prop
slowly came to a halt. Teddy Quinn and Tim Campbell, arms linked, were dancing a jig, hooting and laughing.

Gold slapped Brenner on the back. “What do you think of my airplane now?” he elatedly demanded.

Brenner’s smooth jowls had turned bright red. His eyes were fiery. “Quite a remarkable demonstration, Mister Gold,” Brenner
said, his voice shaking, “but one I must totally discount in my evaluation.”

“What?” Gold angrily shouted. “What do you mean?”

“Easy, Herman,” Campbell coaxed as he placed a restraining hand on Gold’s shoulder.

“Easy, nothing!” Gold roared, aware that his emotional display had captured the attention of the reporters. “How
dare
you say you must discount this demonstration? What you really mean to say is that you just can’t take the fact that you’ve
been shown up!” Gold glanced over his shoulder. Erica, still in her flying gear, had climbed out of the airplane and was now
approaching.

“It’s quite simple, Mister Gold.” Brenner smiled coldly. “I say that you’ve rigged this demonstration by placing a highly
skilled stunt pilot in the cockpit! Answer me this: could the average postal service pilot get your newfangled G-1 to perform
so well?”

Erica was at Gold’s side. She shucked off her gloves. She was wearing bright red nail polish. A couple of reporters in the
first row, noticing the polish, realized what was up and began to laugh. Erica unwound her scarf, removed her goggles and
helmet, and shook out her bobbed curls. Grinning in triumph, she saluted the astounded reporters.

“What do you say now, Brenner?” one of the reporters called out.

“Are you claiming that the average postal service aviator can’t pilot an airplane
as well as a woman?”
another reporter challenged.

Flashbulbs, rattling and flickering like a volley of small-arms fire, lit up the interior of the awning. Reporters’ voices
clashed in an unintelligible roar of questions.

Brenner had gone white. “I—I have no comment…” he sputtered weakly, hands flapping against the barrage of reporters’ queries.
He stared at Erica, then at the G-1 murderously at Gold, then back at Erica again. “No comment at all.”

Gold moved close to Brenner. “There’s only one way to get yourself out of this,” Gold murmured. “You can do it now, and be
a hero, or do it later, under orders from your superiors, and be the laughingstock…”

Gold stepped back as one of the junior purchasing agents nudged Brenner in the ribs, and whispered something in the senior
buyer’s ear. Brenner looked glum. He reluctantly nodded and then turned to the reporters. “No comment,” he loudly began, “except
to say that it seems the United States postal service has found its new airplane…”

Gold leaned over Campbell’s desk to study the cardboard pasteup of the full-page newspaper ad. Campbell sat quietly behind
his desk as Gold read the copy.

Campbell’s small office was down the corridor from Gold’s. Campbell had a mahogany desk with a leather-inlaid top and a large,
royal blue and rose oriental carpet on the wooden floor. Otherwise his office was as unfinished as Gold’s was. Gold looked
up, frowning slightly. Most of the ad was an intricate illustration of a busy airfield terminal scene. In the foreground was
Erica, dressed in pilot’s gear. The ad’s headline was in the form of a banner held aloft in the sky by a pair of Gold’s trademark
centaurs. The headline read:

GOLD AVIATION, THE PROUD BUILDERS OF THE G-1

YELLOWJACKET, CONGRATULATES CAPT.LINDBERGH

ON HIS MOMENTOUS NEW YORK/PARIS SOLO

TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT

The copy beneath the drawing was laced with swooning prose concerning how GAT shared Lindbergh’s pioneering spirit, and how
everybody could share in the excitement by using Gold Transport for their freight and travel needs.

“Isn’t it a great drawing of Erica?” Campbell enthused.

“She looks good, all right,” Gold admitted.

Erica’s exploit as the first-ever woman test pilot had remained front-page news for weeks after the G-1’s successful flight
demonstration back in November. In the months that followed she’d been the subject of a dozen magazine articles, had been
on the cover of
Ladies’ Home Companion
, and had even been featured in a newsreel that showed her competing in a local air race (the Curtiss was gone, hastily replaced
by a specially modified G-1 Yellowjacket).

“Notice how the copy suggests, but doesn’t quite come out and claim, that Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in one of our airplanes,”
Campbell enthused.

“Sneaky.” Gold smiled.

“I prefer to think of it as genius,” Campbell jauntily replied.

“Sometimes you are a genius.” Gold nodded.

It was after the newsreel that Campbell got the idea of making Erica the advertising spokeswoman for the company. Gold was
undecided, and Erica was doubtful and almost refused to do it, but the newspaper advertisement that debuted “the GAT girl”
increased Gold Transport’s business by twenty percent.

“But today I think you’re just plain sneaky,” Gold continued. “I understand what you want to do, and I appreciate the effort,
but I think it’s a mistake.”

“How so?” Campbell demanded.

Gold fought off his urge to smile. Campbell always got sensitive and touchy when he was criticized. “Sure, you can imply to
the public that Lindbergh made his crossing in a Gold G-1,” Gold explained. “But the people in the air transport industry
know full well that Lindy flew a modified Ryan mail plane. That airplane was a masterpiece of engineering. I wish we’d built
it, but we didn’t. I think most folks will consider it a sign of our newfound strength for us to give credit where the credit
is due.” Gold pointed to the headline. “Change that so it reads, ‘…Congratulates
the Ryan Aircraft Company
and Lindbergh…”

“That’s going to make the headline awfully long,” Campbell moped.

“Then reduce the type,” Gold said. “But do it, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Campbell looked up. “You’ll be out for the rest of the day?”

Gold nodded.

“Herm, before you go, I do need an answer concerning the Mesa deal.”

“Oh, yeah… The Mesa deal…” Gold thought about it. Mesa was a holding company for several small air express companies controlling
CAM routes linking Albuquerque, Denver, and points in between. Mesa was interested in selling out, and Campbell had been pushing
to buy, in order to establish Gold Transport east of the Rockies.

“The idea of controlling that much territory is appealing…” Gold began.

“That’s just the beginning,” Campbell declared. “Next stop, Kansas City. I’ve got Kurt Bradley, the president of K.C. Airways,
running scared, and when a man is scared, he’s willing to sell,
cheaply
.”

“It sounds good, Tim.” Gold smiled tenatively. “But I’m worried that you’re spreading us too thin.”

Campbell laughed. “No offense, old buddy, but you really ought to let me worry about that sort of thing. I mean, that’s what
you pay me for, right?”

Gold nodded reluctantly.

“Right,” Campbell firmly said. “Number one, the Feds have ordered one hundred G-1s, at twenty thousand each. Number two, we’ve
got back orders from private concerns totaling another fifty airplanes, at prices ranging from twenty to twenty-five thousand
each. We’ve got a two-year backlog on those deliveries.” Campbell spread his arms, shrugging. “The facts speak for themselves.
Our cash flow to debt ratio is terrific. Believe me, Herman, we can afford to expand the transport side of the business. In
fact, we can’t afford
not
to.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I
know
I’m right,” Campbell insisted. “The problem here is that you’re so understandably eager to darken the skies with Gold airplanes
that you’ve lost track of the big picture. You’ve forgotten that you made your start as an air express company. Maybe you’ve
even forgotten how we fought tooth and nail for our CAM routes. You seemed to think that they were pretty important back then,
important enough to cost a man’s life—”

“I never forget anything,” Gold said quietly, but firmly. “Maybe you’d better just make your point…”

Campbell looked defiant for a moment, but then he lowered his eyes. “Okay, maybe I did just hit a little bit below the belt,”
he admitted. “I apologize, but when I get worked up like this it’s for
your
own good, Herm. It would be tragic if you let unfounded money worries slow us down at the very moment we’re at the top of
our game. Consider the reception the G-1a Dragonfly got.”

Gold nodded. When he and Teddy had completed their design specs on the enclosed cockpit, six-passenger version of the Yellowjacket,
he’d asked Campbell to make a few calls to test out the market for such a plane. As a result, the telephone had been ringing
off the hook with interested air transport companies ready to place their orders sight unseen.

“Bright as they are over at the Ryan Company, they’re just too small to be much of a threat to us,” Campbell was saying. “Our
only real competition is Ford, and the German Fokker Company, and both of them are building tri-motors, too big, too slow,
and too expensive for anything but the busiest air routes. The G-1 Yellowjacket is just what the doctor ordered for the government.
When you and Teddy are ready to put the G-1a Dragonfly into production we’ll have the best midsized passenger airliner on
the market. That will give us the kind of cash base we need to build an
empire
.”