Chapter One Thousand Thirty-Two
7th September 1953
Hyde Park, New York
“I am not a spy, nor am I an agent of my Government” The girl said again.
Her passport said that her name was Asia Ignacja Lawniczak, a resident of Berlin, Germany. Exactly what she was doing asking to speak a former President of the United States was the question and the Secret Service was grilling her for answers. She was sticking with her story, that she was here on business and was a private citizen. There was something that she had on her that the former President found intriguing, a gold pendent with a black eagle engraved on one side and stylized L on the other. When Franklin Roosevelt was informed of it he wanted to meet her.
“You cannot be serious” The Lead Agent of his detail said, “We have no idea who she is and then there is what we found in her car.”
It was a satchel bag that contained a stack German War Bonds left over from the Second World War. Those would be mature and potentially worth millions of dollars that would be completely untraceable.
“I doubt that I would be worth bribing these days” Roosevelt said to the Lead Agent who didn’t find it funny.
When the door was opened, and Roosevelt was wheeled into the room, Asia was not going anywhere because she was handcuffed to the table. “Your mistress took quite a risk sending you here like this young lady” Roosevelt said.
“It was seen as worth it” Asia replied, something about the way she spoke suggested that she was very economic with her words. Still, she made no effort to hide who she was, talking with an accent straight from Eastern Europe. As she had said, she was no spy, or at least she had no interest in presenting herself as one.
“If it got you fingerprinted, photographed and thrown on the first plane back to Europe?” Roosevelt asked, “Having the whole world thinking you are a spy.”
“The Hundred said that I would be taken care of if I volunteered to do this and there were consequences” Asia answered.
“The Hundred of the Order of Louise” Roosevelt said as he sat the pendent down on the table, “I am aware that they are not the local garden club, but this is a bit out of character for them. They normally stay out of international affairs.”
“It has to do with Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and the March of Dimes” Asia said, “The Kaiserin wants to support that research but cannot do it openly because of politics. That is what the bonds are for, a donation.”
That was a surprise. It seemed like most of the people who were donating to the Polio research where only doing it to burnish their credentials. The German Kaiserin was offering a donation knowing that the world would likely never know. Then the handcuffs dropped away from Asia’s wrists and she took the pendent back.
“Thank you, Sir” Asia said.
Roosevelt noticed that the Secret Service Agents were bristling.
“I know that the ginger virago who probably taught you tends to go for the spectacular, but I would recommend you go about doing things differently” Roosevelt said as he handed Asia her passport back. “Have a nice drive back to Canada Miss Lawniczak and tell your mistress that there are better ways to get my attention.”
Seattle, Washington
The engines of Dash 80 were spooling up and Howard Hughes could see the test pilots moving around the cockpit. When he had decided that TWA needed to go head to head with Lufthansa on the international routes he had learned that the current fleet of airliners were woefully inadequate and aging. Curtis, Douglas and Lockheed were moving forward with airliners powered by turboprops along the lines of the Dornier/Focke-Wulf 200 series. Hughes knew that would never do. Boeing however was making proposals that would compete directly with the D/F-W and Junkers 300 series they just had some large technical hurdles to overcome. That was where Hughes had come in, he had partnered with Boeing and Pratt & Whitney to get the Dash 80 prototype constructed over the last two years. Then events in England had thrown a wrench in the works.
De Havilland had been forced to reevaluate their Comet airliner after issues with metal fatigue and the cabin pressurization system were discovered. The Engineers at Boeing were acutely aware of what had happened and had moved to avoid making the same mistakes. That had still resulted in delays and cost overruns. Hughes had wanted blood a year earlier when Boeing had decided without asking him to move to a three by three seating arrangement like the Junkers Ju-324 and the latest version of the FW300. It was probably the right move but again it had resulted in delays.
As Hughes watched Dash 80 taxied out to the runway and turned onto the threshold. As the engines ran up to full power the test pilot stood on the brakes and the roar of the four big P&W engines filled the air. Hughes had wanted to be in the cockpit for this flight but had been talked out of it. He figured that this was better, seeing that much power constrained was like an elemental force of nature.
Then the brakes were released, and hundreds of tons of aircraft hurtled down the runway. As it passed Hughes it was already racing, even from a couple hundred yards away he could feel waves of noise coming from it. Then it lifted off the runway and climbed nearly vertically, the sound fading as the prototype rapidly flew away from the airport.
“Well gentlemen” Hughes said with a wide grin, “It looks like we got a winner.”
The investors that Hughes had gathered had not been informed that standing in a field watching the prototype was what they would be doing today. They were looking at him like if he was nuts, but he was used to it.
