True North

CHAPTER 1

Inside the airplane, the fourth passenger in as many minutes retched. He used his hat as a receptacle. The other three had been too afraid to use anything but their feet or the center aisle. The stench of bile was beginning to overpower the smell of old motor oil and exhaust fumes. As any seasoned air traveler in 1931 could tell you, once the first person got sick, the rest were not far behind.

A suitcase with a Notre Dame pennant attached to its side was ejected from the overhead net as the plane was shoved sideways by a gust of wind. The valise slammed against the opposite side of the Dutch-built airplane, before coming to rest on the lap of another very frightened man. A second side load of air slammed the plane in the opposite direction, as the three men seated on the left side felt their heads bounce off the windows with a snap. One of them, not knowing whether to be embarrassed or terrified, watched as his false teeth flew across the cabin.

The turbulent winds howled furiously, and the noise level inside the black and red airplane only added to the frustration of the incessant jostling of bodies. The plane moaned and creaked like an old haunted ship adrift on a rough sea, and despite the best efforts of the pilot, the three engines whined out of sync sounding like three infants crying.

In the cockpit of the battered craft, the pilot was fighting the severe turbulence. He was beginning to feel fatigued by the steadily increasing rough air they had been flying through for the last forty-five minutes. Twenty miles ago he had decided the conditions were too severe for his Fokker F-10, and as soon as he saw a suitable landing site, he planned to set the aging machine down. But, between trying to tie a linen handkerchief around the bleeding knuckles of his left hand—which he had skinned on the side wall of the cockpit—and keeping the aircraft upright in the violent weather, he had had little chance to look outside.

Four thousand feet below, a red-headed boy was working on the roof of his family’s barn. He was repairing the slate shingles that had been damaged by the unusually harsh winter. The wind on this last day of March was strong and insistent. Chilled rain occasionally blew against the ten-year-old’s face with a sting. From his vantage point, high above the forever that was the Central Kansas Plain, he could see the last remnants of the winter snows laying in a broken mosaic on his family’s corn fields.

The boy heard the westbound plane before he saw it. At first, because of the erratic winds, the sound of the engines reached him in a series of pulses. Gradually, though, the sound grew constant. He climbed nimbly to the top of the roof, craned his head above its peak, and looked to see what he was hearing. The sky was a dank and dismal canvas of grey that stretched to the ground in every direction. When he spotted the three-engine airplane, he smiled. The boy, like most ten-year-old boys, was fascinated with the idea of flight. To him the plane seemed to be flying along smoothly.

A blast of wind blew the bright red hair on the back of his head so hard it hurt, and he held tightly to the roof’s peak to keep from losing his balance. Hey Ma! Look at the flying machine! He shouted in vain. His mother was inside the old farm house, unable to hear him.

Inside the Fokker, a huge updraft made all aboard feel nearly twice their weight. To stand in the front of the cabin and look back at the seven men, would have been to see their cheeks and jowls sagging under a gravity-force induced pout. A man wearing glasses tried to raise his hand to his face to adjust them, but because of the force, he could not. In the cockpit, the pilot knew not to fight. He knew that to prevent excessive structural stress, he should just let the plane go where the turbulence wanted it to. The airplane couldn’t take much more.

The down draft was immediate. Fast, sharp, and relentless. The sound was deafening. First a chest jarring thud, then a ripping of fabric and a cracking of lumber. As the left wing separated from the fuselage, the first sense to register was that of light. The previously inadequate light, coming from the small windows on the side of the cabin, was suddenly replaced with a flood of natural light as the top front of the passenger cabin ripped away with the wing. In the cockpit, there was no time for the recognition of light—or for anything else. Death came swiftly to the embattled pilot. The massive wooden main spar, that held the airplane’s left wing in place, vaporized the man’s head in a spray of red as it catapulted through the disintegrating cockpit.

For the seven passengers aboard TWA’s so-called Safe, Swift Plane death would be something they would have time to contemplate. With the left wing now separated from the airplane altogether, the one on the right took over all of the flying. The result was an immediate snap roll into a tight spin that pointed the craft directly toward the center of the earth—the home of gravitational force.

All seven men were tangled together in a pile that pressed against the corner of the cabin’s right side and ceiling. Those at the bottom of the pile were already beginning to suffocate under the weight of the others—a weight three times that of normal, caused by the gravitational forces of the spin. On top of the pile, paralyzed by a combination of fear and physics, the men were bleeding from wounds caused by broken wicker chairs, and pieces of fuselage. With only seconds to live, several experienced the ultimate indignity of fear as they wet themselves.

The impact with the earth’s surface was thunderous. It shook the ground. It shook the very foundation of the barn. And, it shook the building’s structure right up to the peak of the roof. Maybe it was the vibration from the crash, or maybe it was the shock of seeing the airplane shatter in an explosion of wood, metal, and fabric. Whichever it was, the red-headed boy now found himself grabbing in desperation for something to hold onto as he slid rapidly toward the edge of the barn’s roof, and a two story fall. The same device installed on the roof to stop runaway pieces of slate shingles from falling to the ground now stopped the boy.

Shaking from his slide down the roof, and the shock of witnessing the airplane crash, he made his way to the ladder, and climbed down quickly. He ran faster than he had ever run before panting wildly. Across the field and over the rise, then down the gentle slope to where the wreckage lay.

In stark contrast to the deafening sound of impact, the silence that follows a crash is nothing less than eerie. The young boy turned slowly in a complete circle. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Even the wind now seemed quiet. To his left, some fifty feet away, the second engine—the number two, lay completely buried from the force of the impact. The field was a mess. Everywhere he looked there were pieces of smashed wood and torn fabric. He noticed what looked like part of the tail, and he began walking toward it.

He tripped over a suitcase with a torn Notre Dame pennant hanging loosely from its side and landed face to face with the open eyed corpse of one of the ill-fated passengers. He sat bolt upright. The horror of the scene came on gradually. People were lying everywhere. Or were they? When the reality of the carnage became clear, his young body began to tremble uncontrollably. Parts of human corpses, torn apart by the severity of the impact, were lying all around him. He tried to get up but slipped on a piece of unidentifiable pink and white flesh.

Frantic, he clambered to his feet, and tripping over pieces of airplane and people, fled the crash site. On rubber legs of fear, he ran home. Tears were streaming down his face, and his mouth was frozen wide open. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to—needed to—he could not scream. He could not make a sound.

One mile to the east, like a leaf in October that performs its only dance, a Fokker F-10 wing floated gently to the ground.

CHAPTER 2

In Chicago, Austin Blue had fallen asleep thinking about the crash of the Fokker F-10 in Kansas. And now, his well deserved rest was being interrupted by a recurring dream. A nightmare in black and white—except for one red fighter. An airplane with six wings and machine guns everywhere—dozens of them. And a pilot in a red cape with a matching mask looking like Lucifer, the fallen angel.

The plane came out of the black sun beginning as a red dot. It came toward him with amazing speed until it grew large enough to blank out the sun completely. The devil had jumped him while he was on a lone reconnaissance mission over the enemy wall. There was no enemy line up in the sky, just a black wall as high as the tallest mountain.

Both planes were single engine, open cockpit fighters. Only his was smaller, slower, and against the red devil, feeble. He was looking for his father. Searching the ground. He had to tell him something important, but he could not find him. Adding to the panic he felt, he could not remember what he was supposed to tell him. Then, from out of nowhere, he heard a ringing sound.

The Devil’s machine guns winked at him furiously and he knew he had to avoid the silent bullets. He jammed the rudder and ailerons hard to the left in an attempt to avoid their fate, but to no avail. As the bullets began thumping their way down the right wing, toward the cockpit, he stiffened in anticipation of being struck.

They missed his body and, again, he heard a ringing sound. More gunfire. He had to escape. He slammed the nose of the airplane straight down and finally remembered what he had to tell his father: He had forgotten to fasten his restraints.

He fell from his airplane and watched as it spiralled away from him toward the black abyss below. Frantically, he tried to swim through the thin grey air, trying to catch up with his now pilotless fighter. He desperately wanted to climb back in the machine and fly over the enemy wall to the safe side.

The devil bore straight down on him. There was no escaping the red airplane with its maniacal pilot at the controls. The propeller, the red propeller, caught him and teased him like a shark does with its prey—bumping him, nipping at him—confident of impending victory. Then the red machine tore through him and was gone.

It had ripped off his leg. There was no blood, no pain, just the agonizing fear that he had lost something he could never replace. As he frantically reached for it, his leg went up and over the black wall—back to the safe side—while he followed his plane deeper and deeper into the black abyss.

Another ringing sound catapulted him through the thin line that separates dream from reality. He ripped the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was breathing hard and sweating profusely. The phone rang again and he decided he hated the sound. He turned on the bedside light and grabbed the sides of his head as if he were trying to hold it together. His head throbbed.

He picked up the hand set before another hideous ring pierced the night. Hello? His voice was deep and scratchy, and his left leg felt stiff. He rubbed his thigh with his free hand while he listened.

Blue, is that you boy! What the hell took you so long to answer the phone! You weren’t busy were you? Oh Jesus, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything, are you there boy!

Who is this? He was pretty sure he knew.

Who is this? Jesus, it’s Behncke! Dave Behncke! Jesus Chri… Is this Austin Blue?

Yeah, Dave it’s me. What time is it? He wiped the sweat from his neck and chest with the cotton sheet.

It’s almost three.

Three in the morning! Oh Dave, this had better be good.

When private contractors took over the government air mail routes in 1926—the genesis of the airline industry in the United States—Dave Behncke went to work for a company based in Chicago, by the name of Boeing Air Transport. During that year, it was a fact that one out of every four pilots flying the mail would be killed while doing his job. And among pilots it was well known that a managerial tactic called pilot pushing was largely to blame for that grim statistic.

When a pilot refused to fly, he simply lost his job because there was always someone else willing to carry the mail. After all, it was depression. Add to that a surplus of pilots from the War, and a fall off of the public’s interest in the art of Barn Storming, and it could easily be understood why a pilot might allow himself to be pushed.

Dave Behncke quickly recognized the need for the pilots within an airline, and among the airlines, to stand united in the name of safety—if not survival. Behncke reasoned that if all pilots refused to fly, or be pushed into flying in unsafe weather like fog and ice, they would be able to keep their jobs, stay alive, and quite possibly improve their profession.

Behncke had little luck getting the pilots together early on. Pilots are an egocentric breed, and as much as they dislike a wealthy airline owner telling them how to fly their airplanes, they equally disliked another pilot telling them when they should, or should not, fly.

But he was tenacious, if nothing else. As the airlines moved from carrying the mail to carrying people, more and more pilots began agreeing that some sort of professional organization needed to be formed.

So after five years, he had an operative, or spy, at each of the big five airlines: Boeing Aire Transport (later known as United); TWA; Eastern; American; and O’Laughlin Aire. And in July, at a top secret meeting, he was going to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor, and organize a national union of pilots to be known as: the Air Line Pilots Association.

Austin Blue was Behncke’s spy at O’Laughlin Aire. He listened closely through the crackling connection as he cradled the heavy black receiver between his shoulder and ear, and massaged the deep purple scar on his thigh with both hands.

Listen Blue, some of the men and I are working late up here at the Troy Lane Hotel talking about this damned Kansas thing, have you heard about TWA? The Troy Lane was where Behncke had moved his office after his wife lost her patience with the all night meetings being held in her parlor.

Yeah, an F-10 in Central Kansas earlier today, I heard about it. In fact I was talking about it with a friend of mine before I went to sleep. I heard it killed Knute Rockne, boy was he a hell of a coach.

A hell of a coach, Blue.

What was the weather like at the time, was it turbulent?

Now you see men… Behncke was holding the mouth piece of the phone away from his mouth and yelling to the others in the room. Now you see Blue, he was talking into the phone again but he was still yelling, I told these guys you were our man. Again, yelling across the room, Now you see men, he’s already thinking about what happened out there, thinking about the weather, I told you he was our man to go out there and—

Go, what do you mean go? What are you talking about?

Now look Blue, our TWA man and I were just saying that we need someone to go out there and find out what happened to that poor s.o.b. pilot of their’s. He was a good guy Blue, a real family man. Our TWA guy can’t go because the TWA pilots are all in a damn turmoil over their sudden thirty percent pay cut. Listen, and I mean listen to this, because you just won’t believe it. Do you know that Jack Frye was saying all over the airwaves tonight that the pilot screwed up.

Jack Frye was the President of TWA. And Blue knew that if he was already blaming the cause of the Kansas crash on the pilot, and he wouldn’t expect him to have done anything else, then by morning, all of the other airline executives would be doing the same thing. Including the President of O’Laughlin Aire, his father-in-law, J.J. O’Laughlin.

Now damn it Blue, you are the best God damned pilot I know. We need somebody who knows what he’s doing to go out there and find out what really happened. Hell, you know those investigators from the Department of Commerce don’t know their asses from—

I’ve got it Dave… He didn’t have to think long. Blue had always found Dave Behncke a little abrasive, but he admired the guy for what he was trying to do: Make flying safer for passengers and pilots alike. He thought it took a lot of guts to stand up to the robber barons who ran the airline industry in 1931, and if that poor dead TWA pilot’s family needed someone to prove he didn’t screw up, Blue was willing to help.

Roy Brown, an old pilot friend from his days with the Lafayette Escadrille, had called him earlier and told him some startling news about the main spar on the Fokker F-10. Blue was interested in getting a firsthand look at the one that just crashed, so the invitation from Behncke was the perfect impetus to take a long drive to an obscure town in Kansas called Bazaar. What else do you know about what happened Dave?

Nothing about what happened at the crash site, but some of our spies are reporting unusual communication and meeting activities among the airline executives—including that no good father-in-law of yours Blue.

Well, that doesn’t surprise me. No doubt they’re all making sure their stories agree. Blue looked at the pocket watch that was once his father’s, and wondered if he should wake his friend, and fellow O’Laughlin Aire pilot, Justin Wilcox. "Alright Dave look, I have a few days off. I’ll grab a friend of mine and we’ll leave for Kansas in an hour or two. I’ll call you when I get something—if I get something.

Heeey, alright Ace. It was a reference to Blue’s military record. Dave Behncke had always wanted to be a career Army aviator, but it had never worked out. Still, he admired those who had fought in the air. I knew we could count on you. Once again he yelled, See men, I knew we could count on Blue.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a long time. Motionless except for his hands massaging his stiff, disfigured thigh. He was thinking about the Fokker F-10. Wondering what went wrong for the TWA pilot, and those seven passengers aboard the wooden airplane.

He stood up and squeezed his eyes together tightly in an attempt to clear his head of sleep. His hands combed the sides of his thick, dark hair. It was a full head of hair that was just beginning to grey at the temples. He stood up and allowed himself the full limp necessary to walk pain free—a luxury reserved for only his most private moments.

He turned on a small lamp and looked into the mirror perched above his bureau. He looked old for thirty-four. Old and tired. The occasional lines under his deep blue eyes were now permanent. And the scar on his cheek—a souvenir obtained along with his thigh injury when he was shot down in France, seemed deeper and more obvious than before.

He looked down at the faded picture of his father. Well Dad, some of the good guys want me to drive a day and a half, to try to figure out what killed Knute Rockne. Not exactly Harvard, a Law Degree, and a gentleman’s career like we’d planned is it? He walked to the window and stared into the night, I guess I just got sidetracked.

He dressed quietly, enjoying the silence and tranquillity that the middle of the night brought. His dark grey suit with the matching wool backed waistcoat, and a blue and maroon striped tie, would be sufficient enough to keep him warm in his Mercedes SSK—as long as he wore his heavy coat and gloves.

Coffee. He needed coffee before his odyssey began. Prior to making his way down the back staircase of his father-in-law’s massive house, he stopped by his wife’s suite to tell her he would be gone for a few days, but the door was locked. What the hell, she never cared about his whereabouts anyhow—unless she needed him to appear as the great Austin Blue, Flying Ace at some society function she was so fond of chairing. Maybe she locked the door so he wouldn’t come around looking for sex at three in the morning. Yeah right, he couldn’t even remember the last time they’d made love.

Half feeling his way, and half seeing his way through the night, he arrived in the kitchen where he turned on the light and proceeded to fumble about, making a pot of coffee for his trip. The sound of the door unlatching adjacent to the kitchen shattered the silence of the hour. The suddenness of the noise startled him, and he turned toward the sound to see the O’Laughlin’s maid emerge from her room.

A petite girl from France stumbled into the kitchen, squinting from the harsh light. She was trying to tie her long auburn hair up into a bun. Her bare feet padded the floor as she walked into the kitchen and prepared for duty. Bon matin Monsieur Captain Blue. I thought it was Madame Blue wishing for me to be of service to her. She was still working with her hair as her eyes began adjusting to the glare.

Good morning Mimi, I’m sorry I woke you. I was just making some coffee for a trip. He had turned on the gas and was in the process of lighting the burner. Go back to bed, I can get it. She had given up on her hair and was standing, still partially asleep, in a very sheer and silky piece of lingerie. Ah… Mimi… That is a lovely night dress you have on… But—

Thank you Monsieur Captain Blue. Mrs. Blue wishes for me to wear it when I make the cakes for her in the dark of the night. She says it makes me look pretty. She rubbed her eyes like a child, and smiled at him with the crooked teeth of a peasant girl. The flame popped to life beneath the coffee pot.

Yes… but… I think you forgot your robe.

She suddenly gained total consciousness and made for her room—feet slapping the tile—then reappeared in a tattered robe, slippers, and a blushing face. Blue was amused at the speed with which she acted.

He put down the thermos he was now rinsing in the large metal sink, Does Mrs. Blue really make you get up at this hour and bake cakes for her? She couldn’t be older than eighteen.

Oh, oui and bring champagne up from the cellar. I get very afraid in the cellar—

Champagne? Mimi it’s prohibition, you’re supposed to leave the champagne in the cellar. The coffee began to percolate. Hasn’t anyone in this house heard of the Volstead Act?

She took up the cleaning of the thermos. Mrs. Blue likes to have the champagne when I give her the bath.

The bath? At three in the… He had heard enough. Look Mimi…

Oui Monsieur Captain Blue.

Mimi, I’ll take care of this. They were friends, and he worried about her. Please, go back to bed. You have to get up in a couple of hours to prepare breakfast. I insist. He took the thermos from her as he spoke.

But, Monsieur Captain Blue—

He laughed at her persistence, and lifted his free hand to signal stop. Mimi, I insist. Dejectedly, she handed over the container and started toward her room. And Mimi, call me Austin, or Blue, but not Monsieur Captain Blue. I’m not an O’Laughlin, then, half under his breath and with a note of sarcasm, I’m just lucky enough to have married into this family.

Her beautiful, young face lit up. Her eyes shone, and her hair bounced as she turned back toward him. She smiled her wide twisted tooth smile and said, "Oui Monsieur Captain Austin Blue. Bonne nuite!"

English, was not the girl’s strong suit.

CHAPTER 3

Blue left the house through the service entrance to the kitchen. It was colder than he had guessed. It was also damp, and each time he exhaled, he could see his breath forming a crystallized fog. He realized that this was the weather that had been in Kansas yesterday, and he felt as if the very ghosts of those killed in the crash had blown into Chicago on the wind. If his theory about what had happened to the TWA Fokker F-10 was correct, the wind would start picking up over the next couple of hours as he drove west and the cold front moved east.

His white Mercedes SSK sat in the cobblestoned rear courtyard of O’Laughlin House. Even in the dark of the moonless night, the automobile gleamed. Directly across the courtyard was his father-in-law’s Packard; two automobiles opposing one another like two heavyweights in a boxing ring. Blue laughed out loud at the symbolism. How often had he and J.J. O’Laughlin done the same thing across the breakfast table over an issue of importance to the pilots of O’Laughlin Aire?

He walked to the car with his practiced, almost imperceptible limp. Carefully, he removed a twig from the shiny fender, then unhooked the leather cover protecting the dashboard and seats. He slid the thermos of coffee under the seat, then settled his six foot frame into the red upholstery. He buttoned his fur-lined leather coat, and pulled on his fleece gloves. The car started with a loud rattle and quieted into its velvet idle. Blue took his driving goggles from the map box, and pulled them over his thick dark hair. Their chill took his breath away as they pressed against his face.

In every pilot’s routine, there is a moment when he switches from being a pedestrian, to being a pilot. For Austin Blue, before the days of enclosed cockpits arrived, it had been the moment his goggles came to rest on his face. And to this day, whenever he donned them, he still felt a huge rush of adrenaline—even with only four hours of sleep.

He revved the big engine of the SSK, pushed the gear lever into first, and released the clutch. With a chirp of the tires the car settled onto the rear wheels and Blue steered the 225 horse powered machine past the sleeping guard in the gate house and down the long driveway. The feeling of raw power instantly reminded him why he loved driving the car.

It was four thirty when he left the darkened house behind and headed across town to pick up his friend. Normally, because of the congested Chicago traffic, it would take him more than thirty minutes to reach Justin and Susan Wilcox’s house on the south side. But tonight, he would do it in half that. He pushed the accelerator hard and the SSK responded to his command. He was happy. He was in his environment. He was in control of a powerful machine that he was about to push to its limit—never past it. Pilots had to know their limits. Those who refused to recognize when they were beyond their capabilities were often killed.

It was a sobering thought, and it reminded him why he was racing through the cold night: Pilots who flew unsafe airliners—those that were poorly maintained by the cheap bastards that owned them—also got killed. He felt a renewed sense of urgency and pushed the accelerator to the floor.

He rapped lightly on the door of the old white bungalow that was home to Justin and Susan Wilcox. Susan was expecting their first baby any time and Blue hoped the knock would wake only Justin. To his surprise, his friend opened the door almost immediately.

Blue? Justin was pulling his suspenders over his shoulders as he opened the door. What’s going on?

We’re going to Kansas. Blue was whispering.

We’re what?

We’re going to Kansas to investigate the crash. Blue suddenly felt silly standing there in the middle of the night preparing to embark on a day and a half drive to chase a theory about a crash he had nothing to do with.

What crash? Have you been drinking?

Justy, it’s prohibition, besides, you know I don’t drink! And what are you doing awake at this hour, I thought you were off for the next couple of days?

I haven’t been sleeping well lately… Justin hesitated, avoiding his friends eyes, You know… With the baby coming soon and all that.

I can understand that, lots of new family responsibilities and things. He felt awkward talking about something he knew little about. Have you had any luck renting out the spare room?

No, but I put up a sign in the hangar at work. Maybe one of the new flying nurses will want to rent it.

That would be good, Blue said.

Justin was always exploring new ways to bring in extra money. If it hadn’t been for some timely investments in the twenties, combined with the sheer luck of taking his money out of the stock market before the Panic of 1929, Blue too would be financially strapped.

The money he had made as a mercenary pilot for the Lafayette Escadrille had added up to a substantial sum, most of which he sent home to be invested and managed by Simon Lynch, an old Harvard classmate. As he whiled away the next ten years in Paris, Blue worked mostly as a waiter earning free meals and a little spending money. He never gave much thought to finances, but luckily for him old Simon was a genius when it came to investing. The Lynch family managed the largest trust company in New England and during the 1920’s they became one of the richest families in Boston, and as their money grew so did Blue’s.

When he finally returned from overseas, and decided to take a job at O’Laughlin Aire, Blue was stunned by his net worth when he decided to take his money out of the trust fund. He moved his now small fortune to a strong bank in Chicago which Simon had recommended and arranged. There it stayed, well clear of the stock market, right