Trophy for Eagles (60 page)

When his voice came over the phone, weak and tearful, Band
field was almost sorry he had called. After some preliminary commiseration, Bandy asked, "Mr. Bineau, what I have to ask sounds
terrible, but you are the only one I can turn to. Was there any way someone could have manually reinserted the control lock after the pilot removed it with the normal system?"

Bineau's voice was almost inaudible. "Let me think. Yes, per
haps. If one knew the system, one could. There is a connection just
aft of the bomb bay. It is a knurled nut, a union. If someone disconnected the push rod there, it would be easy to reinsert the remaining part manually in the tail of the airplane. It would lock the rudder and the elevator, but, of course, not the ailerons."

Bandfield probed, "And the pilots wouldn't have been able to tell,
would they?"

' "No, they would have been holding the wheel full back, to keep the tail down. They wouldn't have become aware of it until the takeoff run."

There was silence, and Bandfield asked, "In the ordinary course of events, would Captain Hafner have been familiar with the system?"

"Why yes, it was his baby from the start. I didn't want the extra weight and complexity." Suddenly, anxiety strengthened the timbre
of Bineau's voice. "Are you saying this was sabotage?"

"I don't know. Please don't say anything about this to anyone. I'll keep you informed."

He hung up the old-fashioned upright phone and said, "God,
Henry, I probably gave him another heart attack, poor guy. He says it could have been done, that Hafner was familiar with the system."

"Yeah. After Charlotte had unlocked the controls, Hafner could
have disconnected the push rod, then put the end of the rod back into the elevator-control lock. Neither Charlotte or Dusty would have been able to tell it was in place."

"That's why the ailerons were unlocked. The whole thing's in
credible. Why would he do it? He tossed away a multimillion-dollar
contract."

Caldwell shook his head. "Nothing figures."

They walked back in, and Roehlk snarled, "Jesus, man, don't you see it? How fucking blind can you be? He sabotaged the airplane, he
killed Charlotte."

Caldwell set a bottle of Black & White on the desk. He poured a
shot for Bandy, and took one himself. He hesitated, then poured a generous measure for Murray. Maybe it would loosen him up.

"What makes you say this? How do you know?"

Roehlk downed the scotch, coughing. "I know because I know what a rotten bastard he is."

Even from across the desk, Murray smelled terrible, a ferocious combination of fear, hate, burned flesh, and unwashed body some
how adding plausibility to his story.

Caldwell said, "Why would he destroy his own airplane, Roehlk?
He was sure to win, to get millions in future orders."

"The goddam thing was four thousand pounds overweight. He
wanted it to crash. He figured the Army would be impressed enough
with the paper performance to finance a second prototype."

He was silent for a moment, obviously puzzling things out in his
mind. "It figures for another reason, you know. Maybe he didn't want to win. He's been draining all his companies of cash for the
last two years. I don't know what he does with it. He had me doing a
lot of the work, but he's siphoned off most of the money and
squirreled it away. Hafner Aircraft is damn near bankrupt. After the
crash, it probably is."

Caldwell turned to one of the young officers. "See if you can check that out with Hafner's accountants."

Bandfield asked, "But why would he get rid of Charlotte?"

Murray assumed a bulldog look, then put his head down in his hands. He couldn't bring himself to talk about Charlotte. There was
no way they could understand. Murray was pretty sure that Charlotte and Dusty had been planning to run off together. God, that would have hurt. Maybe it was better that they crashed.

Bandfield whispered to Caldwell, "He's been carrying a torch for
Charlotte for years. This really hits him hard."

"Jesus, that's creepy."

"Yeah, well, look at him. He's a creep, all right."

Roehlk raised his head, and Caldwell asked, "Where do you think
Harrier's gone, Murray?"

Roehlk started to reply, then caught himself. He'd probably already said too much. He was going to need all the information he
had to bargain with. If they started checking into some of Harrier's
other activities, the trail would lead back to him.

"I don't know. Let me go. I'll find him for you. He probably went
to California. Or Germany maybe. He was always talking about how great it was in Germany."

Bandfield tried a different tack. "I don't believe you, Murray. I think you probably sabotaged the airplane. You were more upset about Dusty and Charlotte's affair than he was."

Roehlk reacted. "That's not so. No matter how much I hated Dusty, I'd never do anything to hurt Charlotte."

"No. Hafner had been an officer, he was a prosperous business
man. It doesn't make sense for him to do this. As much as I don't like him, I don't think he would do anything like this."

Roehlk's face contorted, and he let the tears run. "If anyone
believes me it ought to be you," he said, turning to Bandfield. "He's
done a good job of screwing you over the years."

Murray moved his hand to cover his mouth and became completely silent.

. Bandfield walked around the table and grabbed him by the throat.
"Tell me what you know, you bastard, or I'll choke it out of you."
His hands closed. Caldwell started to move forward, then stopped,
signaling the military policemen to stand fast.

Roehlk tried to struggle, then croaked, "If I tell you, what's in it for me? Do I get some protection if this goes to court?"

Bandfield slammed him back in his seat. "I'll tell you what's in it
for you. I won't kill you here, right now, if you start talking."

Caldwell waved him away. "Now Bandy, let's be reasonable and
listen to what Murray has to say." He adopted an avuncular tone. "If
you help us get Hafher, I can guarantee we'll give you full support at
the murder trial." Caldwell's voice came down so hard on the word
murder
that Roehlk winced.

Murray was breathing heavily. Maybe the angle was to get Band
field on his side, to make him so angry with Hafner that he would forget about everything else.

Rubbing his neck, he said, "Jesus, Hafner has always done exactly
what he's wanted to do. You were right about your airplane back at
Roosevelt Field. He had me make a time bomb—I didn't know what it was for, thought one of the mobs wanted it. He stuck it in your airplane. That's why he didn't try to press charges when you
slugged him. He figured you were on to the facts, and so he backed
down."

As he talked, a measured truculence surged back into his frame, and his squat body seemed to absorb power from the smoke-filled
room.

Bandfield leaned forward, "You're not telling me anything I didn't know, Murray. I thought he'd done it right from the start. Why are you bothering me with that sort of stuff?"

"I'm just trying to show you what kind of guy he was. He had no
respect for life at all. Look what he did in Oakland."

Bandfield's breath came in short gasps. He hesitated, then said very slowly, "You mean in 1927, the Pineapple Derby?"

Murray nodded.

"What did he do then?"

"Well, you know he figured that Jack Winter was his only real
competition. He had me make a timer."

Bandfield felt an iron band constricting his chest, but he kept his
voice calm. "You put a bomb in their airplane?"

"No, it was a little battery-powered magnet. Hafner put it under
the cowling, near the compass. A few hours after takeoff, the timer
turned on, and gradually built up a current that pulled the compass
in the wrong direction. It probably only took them fifteen or twenty
degrees off, but it was enough."

Bandfield snapped. He grabbed Murray by the throat again,
shaking him. The MPs had to pry his fingers from Murray's throat.

"Let him go, Bandy. We've got enough on him to send him up for murder."

"Where the hell is Hafner, then? I'm going to kill that murdering bastard."

All of Bandfield's long years of frustration and anger poured through him in a tide of hatred, a wild frustrating rage that could only be assuaged with violence. He reached over and sent a fist smashing past the startled MPs into Roehlk's face. The little monster had just admitted complicity in arson and a multiple murder, and it hadn't even dawned on him that he'd done anything wrong.

Murray reeled, spitting blood. His voice was plaintive. "Say, listen, I just did what I was told. He never told me what he was
using it for. Most of the time it was for the mob. But I could guess,
afterward."

Bandfield realized that deep within he had always thought that Hafner might have had something to do with Millie's disappearance. He forced himself to regain control. He would fix things, once and for all.

"Where is Bruno now?" he repeated.

"I don't know. He kept getting calls from Washington right before
the accident. And I think he kept most of the money stashed in his office in Farmingdale. He had a room there in the back with a big safe, wouldn't let anybody near it, not Charlotte, not anybody."

Bandfield grabbed Caldwell's arm. "I'm going after him, Henry."

Caldwell hesitated. Bandfield had his RC-3; he could be on Long Island in three or four hours. "Okay. I'll try to stop him if he's going
by train." Caldwell went in the next room and came back with a Colt pistol. "I don't know if you know how to use this, Bandy, but you ought to have something. He's dangerous. Do you want anybody to go with you?"

Bandfield shook his head no.

*

En route to Farmingdale, Long Island/June 24, 1935

The volcano of hatred spewing within him kept Bandfield's fatigue
at bay, permitting him to enjoy the speed of the P-36. He'd kept the
throttle forward, and with the help of the tailwind, had been
averaging 280 mph ground speed. The fuel gauges, always unreli
able, wound down toward zero.

Caldwell was going to be furious when he realized that Bandfield
had pulled the Curtiss pursuit out of the hangar, literally stealing it from the Air Corps. It was 80 mph faster than the RC-3, and he knew he didn't have a minute to waste.

Bandfield checked his options. The best thing would be to capture Hafner, to bring him to trial. But Hafner was too smart, and
had too much money. He might get off. The only reasonable course
was to put an end to Hafner's depravity, to kill him in cold blood.

Bandfield resolved not to give himself the luxury of letting Hafner
know what was coming. It would be nice to toy with him, to make him suffer as Millie must have suffered, knowing that death was coming. But Hafner was too tricky, too powerful to play with. He
would kill him as soon as he found him, just as he used to shoot rats
at the junk pile.

The weather was decent, at least. He wondered if Caldwell was
doing any good trying to stop Hafner on the ground. He'd feel pretty
foolish having flown across country in the middle of the night if the
FBI picked Hafner up in Dayton.

*

Wright Field, Ohio/June 24, 1935

Henry Caldwell slammed the phone down. He'd contacted everyone he could think of—the FBI, the Farmingdale sheriffs office, the MPs at Mitchell Field—and not one of them had been any help so far. Hafner had vanished into thin air.

The railroads had been the best; they had quickly checked the trains leaving Dayton that Hafner might have boarded, and there was no trace of him. Even using an assumed name, Hafner was
such a giant of a man that the conductors would have remembered him.

The police in New York had been friendly, but uncooperative.
He had his first stroke of luck when he finally persuaded the local
sheriff to go out to the plant. He was waiting to hear from him. Maybe they could at least find out where Hafner was headed.

Caldwell's hunch was that he was going back to Germany, sure as
hell. It was the only thing that made sense in the whole dismal mess.

Exhausted, Caldwell looked at Murray and turned to the guards.
"Put this animal in a cell and maintain a twenty-four-hour guard. Make sure you take his belt and stuff from him. We'll need him for a witness."