Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age by Walter J. Boyne Page A

competitor. He’s right. I’ve got a real conflict of interest here.”
    Harry’s heart constricted. This wasn’t what he expected.
    “Yes, I see that, Bob.”
    “But there’s a way out. How is Shannon stock doing now? I haven’t checked it in weeks.”
    “It’s way down, Bob, about four dollars a share, down from forty-four, two years ago.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll sell you all my shares—I’ve got close to a million shares now, give or take some—at whatever the market is at close of business tomorrow. Can you raise that kind of cash?”
    “You’re damn right we can! Our bank will loan me the money, they already know what we plan to do. This is very generous of you, Bob—I think we’ll come out of this slump if we change the management, and our share price will go back up.”
    “I believe that, too, Harry, but I frankly don’t care about the money. I just cannot have this divided loyalty between the welfare of your firm and the welfare of our firm. And I’m not, I’m absolutely not going to cast a deciding vote that splits up the Shannon family. I’d rather sell at a loss. You guys were always too good to me, always excepting Tom, of course.”
    “I accept your offer, Bob, because it’s the only way out for us. We have to get back to doing what we are good at, and get out of this diversification mishmash that we’re in now.”
    “I understand, Harry, but from now on, we are competitors, and Steve and I are going to do our best to get all the business we can. If it means running Vance Shannon, Incorporated, into the ground, we are going to have to do it. We’re going public this year, and we won’t be calling the shots like we used to. Do you understand that?”
    “Sure, Bob, that’s the way it has to be.”
    “Make sure Tom understands. There’s nothing personal about this, but from now on, it’s all business, down and dirty.”
    “We understand. And thanks, Bob; you could have made it a lot harder than you did.”
    “Take care, Harry. Give my best to everybody.” Rodriquez hung up.
    Harry leaned back in the leather chair, happier than he had been in months. There were lots of competitors out there, but there was lots of business, too. If they could get Vance Shannon, Incorporated, back on track, they would get their share.
    He picked up the phone to call Tom with the good news.
     
    March 24, 1977
    Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma
     
    H ALF OF THE personnel of the gigantic Tinker Air Force Base was on hand waiting to receive the Boeing E-3 Sentry, the first of the AWACS to reach the 552nd Airborne Warning and Control Wing. Not by chance, Harry Shannon and Bob Rodriquez were on board. Harry had worked extensively with Boeing on the massive thirty-foot-diameter rotating dome that sat atop a modified Boeing 707 airframe, and the Air Force asked him to be on this delivery flight. Rodriquez helped in developing the fantastic radar system that could range out for more than 250 miles to detect, identify, and track enemy aircraft in a 120,000-square-mile area. He’d also devised the massive liquid cooling equipment that the hot-running electronics required. And in the back of his mind, he knew that when GPS came along, it would enhance the AWACS’s capability immensely.
    It was a magnificent weapons system, and they were already calling it a “force multiplier.” One AWACS could direct all the fighters in a battle, sending them where they were most needed, warning them of threats, lining them up with tankers. It was sort of like the English chain-link radar system that helped win the Battle of Britain, but airborne, so it could be sent all over the world to any battle area. The incredible thing was that it had been hotly opposed for all of its existence by people in Congress who had no idea of its capabilities, but called it the usual “billion-dollar boondoggle” for political reasons. Harry and Bob knew that it would pay for itself the first day it went to war.
    The usual