"George R. R. Martin - WC 1 - Wild Cards" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

"Air Corps shipped them yesterday from San Francisco. Another telegram came for
him today. You might as well read it, you're doing the story." Line handed him
the War Department orders.
TO: Jetboy (Tomlin, Robert NMI) HOR: Bonham's Flying Service Hangar 23, Shantak,
New Jersey
1. Effective this date 1200Z hours 12 Aug '46, you are no longer on active duty,
United States Army Air Force.
2. Your aircraft (model-experimental) (ser. no. JB-1) is hereby decommissioned
from active status, United States Army Air Force, and reassigned you as private
aircraft. No further materiel support from USAAF or War Department will be
forthcoming.
3. Records, commendations, and awards forwarded under separate cover.
4. Our records show Tomlin, Robert NMI, has not obtained pilot's license. Please
contact CAB for courses and certification.
5. Clear skies and tailwinds,
For Arnold, H. H. CofS, USAAF ref. Executive Order #2, 08 Dec '41
"What's this about him having no pilot's license?" asked the newspaperman. "I
went through the morgue on him-his file's a foot thick. Hell, he must have flown
faster and farther, shot down more planes than anyone-five hundred planes, fifty
ships! He did it without a pilot's license?"
Line wiped grease from his mustache. "Yep. That was the most plane-crazy kid you
ever saw. Back in '39, he couldn't have been more than twelve, he heard there
was a job out here. He showed up at four A.M.-lammed out of the orphanage to do
it. They came out to get him. But of course Professor Silverberg had hired him,
squared it with them."
"Silverberg's the one the Nazis bumped off? The guy who made the jet?"
"Yep. Years ahead of everybody, but weird. I put together the plane for him,


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Bobby and I built it by hand. But Silverberg made the jets--damnedest engines
you ever saw. The Nazis and Italians, and Whittle over in England, had started
theirs. But the Germans found out something was happening here."
"How'd the kid learn to fly?"
"He always knew, I think," said Lincoln. "One day he's in here helping me bend
metal. The next, him and the professor are flying around at four hundred miles
per. In the dark, with those early engines."
"How'd they keep it a secret?"
"They didn't, very well. The spies came for Silverbergwanted him and the plane.
Bobby was out with it. I think he and the prof knew something was up. Silverberg
put up such a fight the Nazis killed him. Then, there was the diplomatic stink.
In those days the JB-1 only had six .30 cals on it-where the professor got them
I don't know. But the kid took care of the car full of spies with it, and that
speedboat on the Hudson full of embassy people. All on diplomatic visas."
"Just a sec," Linc stopped himself. "End of a doubleheader in Cleveland. On the
Blue Network." He turned up the metal Philco radio that sat above the toolrack.
" Sanders to Papenfuss to Volstad, a double play. That does it. So the Sox drop
two to Cleveland. We'll be right-" Linc turned it off. "There goes five bucks,"