ROBBINS Harold - The Carpetbaggers

I reached forward and tapped the shoulder of the Army flier seated in front of me. "How about that, Colonel?" I shouted over the roar of the twin engines and the shriek of the wind against the plastic bubble over our heads.

I saw him bob his head in answer to my question but he didn't turn around. I knew what he was doing. He was checking out the panel in front of him. Lieutenant Colonel Forrester was one of the real fly boys. He went all the way back to Eddie Rickenbacker and the old Hat in the Ring squadron. Not at all like the old General we'd left on the ground back at Roosevelt Field, that the Army had sent out to check over our plane.

The General flew an armchair back in Purchasing and Procurement in Washington. The closest he ever came to an airplane was when he sat on the trial board at Billy Mitchell's court-martial. But he was the guy who had the O.K. We were lucky that at least he had one Air Corps officer on his staff.

I had tabbed him the minute he came walking into the hangar, with Morrissey, talking up a storm, trotting beside him. There were two aides right behind him – a full colonel and a captain. None of them wore the Air Corps wings on their blouse.

He stood there in the entrance of the hangar, staring in at the CA-4. I could see the frown of disapproval come across his face. "It's ugly," he said. "It looks like a toad."

His voice carried clear across the hangar to where I was, in the cockpit, giving her a final check. I climbed out onto the wing and dropped to the hangar floor in my bare feet. I started toward him. What the hell did he know about streamline and design? His head probably was as square as the desk he sat behind.

"Mr. Cord!" I heard the hissed whisper behind me. I turned around. It was the mechanic. There was a peculiar grin on his face. He had heard the General's remark, too.

"What d'yuh want?"

"I was jus' gettin' ready to roll her out," he said quickly. "An' I didn't want to squash yer shoes."

I stared at him for a moment, then I grinned. "Thanks," I said, walking back and stepping into them. By the time I leached Morrissey and the General, I was cooled off.

Morrissey had a copy of the plans and specs in his hand and was going over them for the benefit of the General. "The Cord Aircraft Four is a revolutionary concept in a two-man fighter-bomber, which has a flight range of better than two thousand miles. It cruises at two forty, with a max of three sixty. It can carry ten machine guns, two cannon, and mounts one thousand pounds of bombs under its wings and in a special bay in its belly."

I looked back at the plane as Morrissey kept on talking. It sure as hell was a revolutionary design. It looked like a big black panther squatting there on the hangar floor with its long nose jutting out in front of the swept-back wings and the plastic bubble over the cockpit shining like a giant cat's eye in the dim light.

"Very interesting," I heard the General say. "Now, I have just one more question."

"What's that, sir?" Morrissey asked.

The General chuckled, looking at his aides. They permitted a faint smile to come to their lips. I could see the old fart was going to get off one of his favorite jokes. "We Army men look over about three hundred of these so-called revolutionary planes every year. Will it fly?"

I couldn't keep quiet any longer. The million bucks it had cost me to get this far with the CA-4 gave me a right to shoot off my mouth. "She'll fly the ass off anything you got in your Army, General," I said. "And any other plane in the world, including the new fighters that Willi Messerschmitt is building."

The General turned toward me, a surprised look on his face. I saw his eyes go down over my grease-spattered white coveralls.

Morrissey spoke up quickly. "General Gaddis, Jonas Cord."

Before the General could speak, a voice came from the doorway behind him. "How do you know what Willi Messerschmitt is building?"

I looked up as the speaker came into view. The General had evidently brought a third aide with him. The silver wings shone on his blouse, matching the silver oak leaves on his shoulders. He was about forty, slim and with a flier's mustache. He wore just two ribbons on his blouse – the Croix de guerre of France and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

"He told me," I said curtly.

There was a curious look on the lieutenant colonel's face. "How is Willi?"

The General's voice cut in before I could answer. "We came out here to look over an airplane," be said in a clipped voice, "not to exchange information about mutual friends."

It was my turn to be surprised. I flashed a quick look at the lieutenant colonel but a curtain had dropped over his face. I could see, though, that there was no love lost between the two.

"Yes, sir," he said quickly. He turned and looked at the plane.

"How do you think she looks, Forrester?"

Forrester cleared his throat. "Interesting, sir," he said. He turned toward me. "Variable-pitch propellers?"

I nodded. He had good eyes to see that in this dim light. "Unusual concept," he said, "setting the wings where they are and sweeping them back. Should give her about four times the usual lift area."

"They do," I said. Thank God for at least one man who knew what it was all about.

"I asked how you thought she looks, Forrester?" the General repeated testily.

The curtain dropped down over Forrester's face again as he turned. "Very unusual, sir. Different."

The General nodded. "That's what I thought. Ugly. Like a toad sitting there."

I'd had about enough of his bullshit. "Does the General judge planes the same way he'd judge dames in a beauty contest?"

"Of course not!" the General snapped. "But there are certain conventions of design that are recognized as standard. For example, the new Curtiss fighter we looked at the other day. There's a plane that looks like a plane, not like a bomb. With wings attached."

"That baby over there carries twice as much armor, plus a thousand pounds of bombs, seven hundred and fifty miles farther, five thousand feet higher and eighty miles an hour faster than the Curtiss fighter you're talking about!" I retorted.

"Curtiss builds good planes," the General said stiffly.

I stared at him. There wasn't any use in arguing. It was like talking to a stone wall. "I'm not saying they don't, General," I said. "Curtiss has been building good airplanes for many years. But I'm saying this one is better than anything around."

General Gaddis turned to Morrissey. "We're ready to see a demonstration of your plane," he said stiffly. "That is, if your pilot is through arguing."

Morrissey shot a nervous look at me. Apparently the General hadn't even caught my name. I nodded at him and turned back to the hangar.

"Roll her out!" I called to the mechanics, who were standing there waiting.

Morrissey, General Gaddis and his aides walked out. When I got outside I saw that Morrissey and the others had formed a group around the General but Forrester stood a little to one side, talking to a young woman. I shot a quick look at her. She was stuff, all right – wild eyes and sensuous mouth.

I followed the plane out onto the runway. Hearing footsteps behind me, I turned around. It was Morrissey. "You shouldn't have teed off on the General like that."

I grinned at him. "Probably did the old bastard good. He's got enough yes men around him to be a movie producer."

"All the same, it's tough selling him as it is. I found out Curtiss is bidding their planes in at a hundred and fifty thousand each and you know the best we can do is two twenty-five."

"So what?" I said. "It's the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad. You can't buy a Cadillac for the same price as a Ford."

He stared at me for a moment, then he shrugged his shoulders. "It's your money, Jonas."