INGRID DOWS - AN ALTERNATE STORY PART 3 - THE SPACE AGE by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 16 – BACK TO FLYING...AND TO CONTROVERSIES

10:33 (California Time)

Wednesday, May 07, 1952 ‘C’

Hughes prototype center, Glendale Grand Central Airport

Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

‘’Girls, I present you the PEGASUS! Soon enough, our Fifinella girls will be able to fly supersonic across the oceans of the World.’’

‘’God, it is truly a beautiful plane.’’ said Hedy Lamarr, in response to Ingrid’s enthusiastic presentation. Katharine Hepburn, also present with Ingrid and Hedy in the prototype construction hall, had a big smile as she contemplated the sleek supersonic airliner, with its long, pointy fuselage, its sharply swept diamond box wings and its two turbofan engines, mounted side-by-side in an engine pod situated over the tail section of the plane.

‘’I can’t wait to fly this beautiful baby with you, Ingrid. When are you planning to take it out for its first flight?’’

‘’Tomorrow, if today’s final inspection is positive. Hedy, I would have gladly invited you aboard for that inaugural fight but this is a totally new category of plane and I still can’t swear that we didn’t miss something during its design and construction: no need to risk all three of us at the same time.’’

‘’I am sure that it will prove to be a safe and reliable design, Ingrid. However, you are right about not wanting to risk all three of us on a single flight. If we got all killed, then what would happen afterwards to Hughes Enterprises? Thousands of people depend on the success of our corporation for their livelihood.’’

‘’Should I start selecting and training some of my Air Fifinella personnel on the PEGASUS, or do you think that I should wait a bit for that, Ingrid?’’ asked Katharine, making Ingrid nod once.

‘’Start the process now, Kate: to properly train to operate and maintain such an advanced aircraft design will take many weeks, if not months. Prioritize the flying and maintenance crews presently assigned to our transatlantic and transpacific routes, as those routes will get near exclusive use of our PEGASUS.’’

‘’Will do! Some of my girls sure will get quite excited soon once I will have selected them for training on the PEGASUS.’’

‘’What about the impact on the media crowd once we start flying around with this big beauty, Ing rid?’’ asked Hedy, her eyes still fixed on the sleek airliner. ‘’Such a revolutionary plane is bound to attract a lot of attention during its test flights.’’

‘’Oh, I do expect a lot of media attention on our PEGASUS, Hedy. I guess that our public affairs section will have to earn its pay then.’’

‘’Do you have other variants of it to be built, apart from its basic airliner variant?’’

‘’Uh, I haven’t thought much about that yet. What kind of variants do you have in mind, Hedy?’’

‘’A presidential transport plane, for one. If there is someone who needs to fly around the World, fast, it is the President of the United States. I am sure that President Dewey, or any future President, would be highly interested in acquiring at least a couple of PEGASUS for the presidential air transport squadron, in which case some internal modifications will be required. One such modification could be to enlarge its cargo holds and cargo lift platform in order to allow for the carrying of the presidential limousine and of at least two escort vehicles. Another modification that would be needed is the fitting of a secure long-range communications compartment, plus the addition of a presidential living suite.’’

Ingrid slowly nodded her head as she thought over Hedy’s suggestions.

‘’Your idea of a presidential transport variant is an excellent one, Hedy. I will certainly start thinking about its design. Well, time for you two to see how our PEGASUS looks from the inside.’’

‘’Has its interior been already fitted with its standard airliner equipment, reclining seats, carpeting and the like?’’

‘’Yes! I definitely wanted to fly its first flight as a fully equipped and functional airliner. However, we will wait until we get a commercial certification for it before painting it in the colors of Air Fifinella. For the moment, it will stay in its present blue and gold ‘Hughes Enterprises’ livery, which I find nice enough, thank you.’’

‘’You won’t have an argument with me on that, Ingrid. Well, let’s go aboard: I can’t wait to see its inside.’’

Guided by Ingrid to a mobile staircase positioned in front of the forward left-side access door of the supersonic airliner, Hedy and Katharine climbed the stairs behind her and entered the forward access lobby of the plane. Ingrid then pointed to her left while speaking.

‘’To our left is the access door to the crew facilities section and cockpit. To our right, you will see five individual washrooms for the passengers’ use, one kitchenette and the spiral staircase leading down to the business-class cabin, with its thirty extra-wide seats. What would you like to see first?’’

‘’Let’s see the crew facilities first, Ingrid.’’ answered Katharine.

‘’Right!’’ said Ingrid, who then pushed open the door to the crew section. The trio then found itself in a small compartment situated just behind the cockpit area, with two doors on the right side, one door ahead giving access to the cockpit, a row of lockers and one steep and narrow staircase.

‘’To our right are one toilet stall plus one shower room, for exclusive use by the crew. To our left, you will see ten lockers, where the crew will be able to store away their personal luggage. The staircase leads down to a rest area with a total of ten bunk beds and a small dining table with chairs. We will now visit the cockpit.’’ As Ingrid opened the door giving access to the cockpit, Hedy couldn’t help notice how thick it was.

‘’Hey, why such a thick door?’’

‘’It is meant to stop any intruder trying to enter the cockpit without authorization, Hedy. While we presently don’t suffer frequently that kind of incidents, Nancy told me that terrorism and airline highjackings were too common in her era, so I decided to make the cockpit area secure against forced entries. While not activated right now, this door would normally need an access code to open and it is also proof against handgun bullets.’’

‘’Gee! Should our aircrews be armed, then?’’

‘’I am seriously thinking about it, Hedy. However, I am still trying to decide what weapon our flight crews could use without risking to blow a hole in the fuselage and thus cause an explosive decompression at high altitude.’’

‘’How about very small caliber pellets made of a soft metal, like lead or aluminum, loaded with a reduced powder charge?’’ proposed Katharine, a shotgun fan and expert in skeet shooting. ‘’We could use special snub-nose revolvers to fire such low-penetration projectiles. If you want, I could study that question and design a solution for it, Ingrid.’’

‘’Kate, you have a taker! You will however have to conduct rigorous firing tests in order to ensure that your special projectile will not pierce a fuselage’s skin.’’

‘’Of course! I’ll start to work on this the day after tomorrow.’’

‘’Good! Now, as you can see, Hedy, there are only three working stations in the cockpit: those for the pilot, copilot and flight engineer. With the progresses we made in the past few years about instrument and inertial navigation, a navigator-radio operator is no longer needed in the cockpit. That jump seat behind the pilot’s seat is actually reserved for an observer or relief pilot.’’

As Ingrid described the instruments panels, both Hedy and Katharine reviewed with approving nods the extensive and highly advanced for the time array of instruments and displays visible in the cockpit, including multiple heads-up display transparent screens, which were now standard in Hughes-produced aircraft and which allowed safe flying at night and in bad weather. Since both women were already well accustomed to using those instruments, Ingrid kept her review short, then left the cockpit and went down via a steep ladder to the crew rest area. That part of the visit was also kept short, with the trio then walking into the business-class cabin, with its thirty seventy-centimeter-wide padded leather reclining seats. Katharine, a populist-thinking woman, looked with reservation at the wide, posh seats.

‘’How do the seats in tourist-class compare to those, Ingrid?’’

‘’Actually, they are quite comfortable and nice, Kate. While they are a bit narrower, at sixty centimeters, they are also arranged in opposite-facing rows, so leg room is aplenty for them as well. Our ergonomist, Janice Hunter, came up with a brilliant idea then to best use those opposite-facing rows of seats: instead of having overhead bins opening along the central aisle, the bins open towards the empty space between the opposing rows of seats. That thus prevents the aisle from getting clogged by passengers as they load or unload their luggage from the bins above their seats. This also allows for much wider storage bins, which also intrude less above the heads of sitting passengers and allows passengers enough free height to stand fully erect between rows of facing seats.’’

‘’That’s brilliant!’’ exclaimed enthusiastically Katharine, while Hedy nodded her head in approval.

‘’We definitely are going to treat our passengers like real people, instead of like heads of cattle. When I think that American Airlines, Delta and United are again talking about reducing seat pitch in order to maximize their passenger capacity...and their own profit margins.’’

‘’Hey, they are in the money-making business, while we are in the people-servicing business.’’ replied Katharine, resuming in one sentence the customer service philosophy of her Air Fifinella. ‘’Let’s go up and look at the tourist-class cabin.’’

Using the two-meter diameter spiral staircase leading up from the business-class cabin to the tourist-class cabin, the trio ended at the start of a long and fairly wide central aisle, with rows upon rows of opposite-facing seats on each side.

‘’As you can see, the centerline aisle is much wider than in airliners built by other aircraft manufacturers, and this in order to allow persons in wheelchairs to easily go up and down the aisle. The number of line-abreast seats varies between eight and ten, due to the varying width of the fuselage, which was designed while following the Area Rule in order to minimize supersonic drag. The seats themselves are the same standard ones used in our AIRBUS and AIRBUS 2 models, with integrated retracting tablets and flat screen panels to view the outside or watch movies. We will now move towards the tail section.’’

Passing by a section containing eight toilet stalls at about half-length of the fuselage, they walked a good forty meters before arriving in the tail section, which contained six more toilet stalls, a large kitchenette and the aft access lobby, with its two side access doors and a tail spiral staircase. There also was an elevator cage large enough to accommodate a passenger in a wheelchair and an attendant or a medical gurney. The trio then went down the spiral staircase, to arrive in the lower aft lobby.

‘’As you can see, the wheelchair/gurney lift comes down from the upper deck, passes through the lower deck and then goes down a lift well passing through the aircraft belly keel, to finally get to the tarmac level. Thus, a wheelchair-bound passenger or a medical patient in a gurney will be able to embark either through a jetway or directly from the tarmac, plus will have specially adapted seats and wheelchair-accessible washrooms.’’

‘’And those two doors in the forward bulkhead, where do they lead?’’ asked Hedy.

‘’The one on the left is the entrance to what I call the ‘young families section’, while the right-side door is that of the pressurized pets hold.’’

‘’A pets hold?’’

‘’Yup! If you owned a cat or a dog and wanted to travel with them by air, you wouldn’t want your cherished pet to die inside an unpressurized hold or to suffocate in some cramped compartment with no air circulation or climate control, right? This pets hold will be accessible to pet owners during the flight, something which will greatly reassure those pet owners. Now, for the young families section...’’ Passing by the wheelchair/gurney lift cage and opening the left-side door, Ingrid led her two friends into a relatively small compartment containing a total of eight regular passenger seats and three well padded baby cribs. Each of the cribs was also equipped with a padded, shell-like, aft-facing baby seat which could be lowered into the crib.

‘’As you can see, infants and babies can be put in either a shell-seat or a crib during the various phases of the flight, and this with maximum security and comfort. To your right, you will see the door of a large washroom where baby diapers can be changed and where you can also find a toddler’s size toilet and a baby bath. This section will thus mostly save the other passengers from having to endure for hours the wailings of a crying baby or the screams from unruly toddlers and preteens.’’

‘’Thank God for that!’’ said Hedy while pushing a sigh of relief. Ingrid, our passengers will love this airplane.’’

‘’I sure hope so, Hedy. Just by halving the normal flight time of transcontinental trips and by having enough range to basically reach any part of the World in one single leg, our PEGASUS should be able to crush the competition. Lastly, by using this small servicing door, we can go inspect the inside of the luggage holds and of the two cargo holds contained in the lower deck of the PEGASUS.’’

Some four minutes later, as Ingrid was describing to her two friends the inside of the large aft cargo hold, with its two cargo doors large enough to permit the loading of compact cars, the small hand radio she always kept at her belt while working in the prototype center beeped, making her grab it and raise it to mouth and ear level.

‘’This is Ingrid. Go ahead!’’

She then heard the voice of Angie Dickinson, the head of her security department.

‘’Ingrid, this is Angie, at the main gate of the prototype complex. We have a large crowd of protesters which just arrived a few minutes ago in a caravan of cars, pickup trucks and buses. By the placards they are holding and by their shouting, they are here to protest our anti-discrimination employment policies. I can also see a fair number of those protesters wearing Ku Klux Klan17 robes and hoods.’’

‘’WHAT?!’’ nearly shouted Ingrid, becoming instantly furious. ‘’Have you called the Glendale Police Department to ask for some police patrols to show up and watch those protesters?’’

‘’I did, but I was told that this protest was a legal one and that no police presence was needed at our complex.’’

Ingrid had to contain her anger on hearing that: she knew that the Glendale Chief of Police, along with many of his deputies, was an avowed racist who encouraged his officers to follow a hard line towards Black ‘suspects’. This only confirmed her impression of him. Now realizing that she could only count on her own security force for this, she returned to her conversation with Angie.

‘’Are these protesters armed? Did they bring things like bats, tire irons, blade weapons or even firearms?’’

‘’They tried to hide them from our sight but I saw through my binoculars that quite a few are holding bats or iron bars. I even spotted a few protesters who have handguns tucked into their belts. What do you want me to do, Ingrid?’’

‘’Stay with your girls on the inside of the main gate and move a few vehicles to physically block it, to stop any attempt at ramming through our gate. I will try to get some support from the mayor of Glendale, then will join you at the main gate. If they start approaching the gate, remind those assholes that we are accredited with the Department of Defense and work on highly classified projects, something which allows us to use deadly force against intruders. That should make those racists think twice before trying to break in. I will be at the gate in a couple of minutes. I am counting on you to hold the fort in the meantime.’’

‘’Will do, Ingrid!’’

Clipping back her radio to her belt, Ingrid quickly explained the situation at the gate to Hedy and Katharine before running out of the cargo hold and then out of the plane, to then run to the nearby sound-proofed cubicle of the engineer controlling the prototype construction hall, where she could find a telephone. Forming quickly a number, she got after two rings the secretary of Glendale Mayor Paul Burkhard.

17 Ku Klux Klan, also known as the KKK: White supremacist and violently racist American organization formed in the late 19th Century in the southern states of the USA. They lynched Black people, burned their houses and did everything to oppress and chase them away.

‘’Office of Mayor Burkhard.’’

‘’Miss, this is Ingrid Dows, from Hughes Aircraft. I need to speak urgently with the Mayor, please.’’

‘’I am sorry, Miss Dows, but the Mayor is out of the office at this time and may be on the road, thus would be unreachable. May I help you otherwise? Should I pass you to Police Chief Easton?’’

‘’NO! Police Chief Easton is part of the problem I am dealing with now at the Glendale Airport: he has refused to send policemen to control a crowd of racist protesters assembled in front of the main gate of my aircraft prototype production complex.’’

‘’Oh!’’ could only say the poor secretary.

‘’Exactly! If the Mayor returns or calls you, tell him that I need him to straighten his chief of police, and quickly: those protesters are armed with sticks, bats, blades and even handguns and a few of them wear KKK robes and hoods. I will instead call the Governor. Thank you for your help.’’

Ingrid then hung up before taking out a small notebook in order to find the telephone number of Governor G oodwin Knight. This time, she called directly his office’s private line and felt relief when Knight answered after a single ring.

‘’Governor Knight speaking.’’

‘’Governor, this is Ingrid Dows, at the Hughes Aircraft prototype complex at Glendale Airport. I need your urgent help at the complex right now. I have a large crowd of armed protesters which showed up to protest the employment of Black workers at my complex. They are armed with sticks, bats, blades and even handguns and some of them wear KKK robes and hoods. We called the Glendale Police for help but they refused to act, claiming it is only a legal demonstration. I also tried to get Mayor Burkhard’s help but he is unattainable. Could you send us a few California State Patrol cars to help us control that crowd of racists? My complex works on a number of classified Defense Department contracts and I wish to avoid to use lethal force to prevent those protesters from entering my complex.’’

Knight was left speechless for a short moment but then regained his balance quickly.

‘’I will get patrol cars to your location as fast as possible, Ingrid.’’

‘’Thank you, Mister Governor: this is much appreciated. I will now run to my main gate to see if I could calm the situation down there.’’

Ingrid then put down the receiver and ran out of the cubicle, crossing the prototype assembly hall at a run. Before exiting through the front access door, she shouted directives in passing at the two security agents guarding it.

‘’WE HAVE ARMED RACIST PROTESTERS AND SOME KKK MEMBERS AT OUR MAIN GATE. IF ANY OF THEM TRY TO INTRUDE INSIDE THIS BUILDING, THEN SHOOT THEM AT ONCE.’’

Once outside, she ran to her car and jumped in it before starting its engine and starting to speed towards the main access gate, some 220 meters away. Stopping her SPRINT a short distance from the actual gate, she got out and ran to Angie Dickinson, who was standing at the gate barrier with four of her female security girls, who all wore their usual helmets and bullet-proof vests and were armed with .357 magnum carbines and revolvers, on top of holding on to long riot batons.

‘’I couldn’t get Mayor Burkhard on the phone, so I called Governor Knight and asked him to send us a few State Patrol cars.’’

‘’Their help will be most appreciated here, Ingrid. The slogans and chants from those assholes are getting darker and more extreme by the minute.’’

‘’I can hear that. Have your girls put their helmet-mounted hidden cameras on recording mode: we will need all the legal evidence we could get if this thing degenerates.’’

‘’Got it! Girls, cameras on ‘record’ from now on!’’

‘’You have a larger, hand-held camera with you, Angie?’’

‘’I have one in my patrol car.’’

‘’Then, go get it! I want these bozos photographed and filmed in detail.’’

While Angie ran to her nearby patrol car, Ingrid scrutinized the crowd of protesters, who carried placards showing an assortment of racist slogans and insults. It counted at least 150 men, seven of whom wore the white robes and hoods of the KKK. Those KKK members were actually mostly in the front ranks of the crowd and were clearly leading the protesters, encouraging them with racist slogans aimed at the Black workers of Hughes Aircraft. The one who appeared to be their leader, a big, beefy man, actually wore a gun belt supporting a heavy caliber revolver. She also spotted another KKK member who was doing his best to hide a sawed shotgun inside the large right sleeve of his white robe. Once Angie was back at the gate barrier with a video camera equipped with a zoom lens, Ingrid discretely pointed the two armed KKK men to her.

‘’Those two have firearms: one has a revolver, the other has a sawed shotgun inside his right sleeve. Make sure to film those weapons: I will now go confront those bastards from up close.’’

Angie immediately snapped her head to look with shock at Ingrid.

‘’You can’t do that, Ingrid: that’s way too risky.’’

‘’You ever saw me skirt risks when the situation called for it, Angie?’’ On that firm reply, Ingrid bent down and passed under the steel barrier of the gate, then started walking at a resolute pace towards the protesters, who quickly focused their attention on her. She stopped one pace in front of the apparent leader and looked coldly at him as the man with the sawed shotgun got closer.

‘’I am Ingrid Dows, Chief Aircraft Designer and owner of Hughes Aircraft Corporation. What do you want?’’

‘’What we want is for you to stop employing niggers in jobs which should rightly go to White men.’’ replied the KKK leader. ‘’If you don’t comply, we will then make sure that those niggers don’t ever come back to work here.’’

‘’I don’t submit to threats, especially those from cowards like you.’’ said Ingrid. She then moved with incredible speed and ripped off in succession the hoods of the KKK leader and of the shotgun man, expo sing their faces to the lens of Angie’s camera. She was angered but not really surprised to then recognize the deputy police chief of Glendale and one of the city policemen.

‘’Well, well, what do we have here? A pair of bastards hiding behind masks while dishonoring their badges.’’

‘’You fucking bitch!’’ spat out the deputy police chief as he unholstered his revolver, while his policeman pointed his sawed-off shotgun . Ingrid didn’t show fear, although she was now as tense as a bar.

‘’You shoot at me now and you will end up being indicted with murder, Lieutenant Merrick. You are being filmed right now, you and your band of assholes. I strongly counsel you to remove your protesters from here before you get into even bigger trouble.’’

She then pivoted around and calmly started walking back towards the main gate of her complex, the two KKK hoods still in one hand. Infuriated by her aplomb, the policeman holding the sawed-off shotgun raised his weapon, getting ready to shoot her in the back. Thankfully, Merrick raised his arm in time to ruin his aim, making the shot go harmlessly over Ingrid’s head.

‘’ARE YOU CRAZY, THOMPSON? WE ARE BEING FILMED AND KILLING HER NOW WOULD HAVE LANDED YOU IN JAIL.’’

‘’Then, let’s grab that camera, Lieutenant. Let’s sweep those bitches away, so we can then enter that building.’’

Merrick was debating whether to follow that line of conduct or not when the wails of police sirens signaled the approach of three California State Patrol cars.

‘’SHIT! TIME TO GO, MEN!’’

However, the racists didn’t have time to jump back in their vehicles before those State patrol cars stopped, forming a barricade across the road, some twenty meters from the back of the crowd. Six State patrolmen then jumped out and leveled an assortment of shotguns and revolvers as more State patrol cars appeared in the distance, approaching at top speed. The police sergeant in charge of the three patrol cars then shouted as loudly as he could at the protesters.

‘’HANDS UP AND ON YOUR KNEES, ALL OF YOU! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR THREATENING AN ESTABLISHMENT ENGAGED IN GOVERNMENT CLASSIFIED WORK.’’

Some of the protesters, notably the robed KKK members, still tried to flee by driving the opposite way on Flower Street, which was adjacent to the Hughes Aircraft complex. However, on an order by radio from Ingrid, two of the Hughes patrol security vehicles quickly moved to block their path and formed a barricade across the street, blocking it, with the women then jumping out and aiming their carbines at the coming cars. They also encountered Ingrid, standing in the middle of the street with her GLOCK 26 compact pistol in hand. Since she had just been shot at and had nearly been killed, she judged herself in a clear situation of self-defense and aimed her 9mm pistol at the incoming car of the KKK leader. Shooting twice at it, she hit and killed Merrick, who slumped in his driver’s seat and lost control of his vehicle. Another KKK member sitting next to Merrick grabbed the steering wheel with one hand, trying to regain control of the car, but he reacted too slowly and ended up crashing against a streetlight pole, breaking it before coming to a stop. The driver of the car following it, seeing Ingrid blocking his escape route, swore to himself and accelerated.

‘’YOU BITCH! I’LL KILL YOU!’’

This time, the two Hughes security female agents opened fire in unison with Ingrid, peppering the speeding car with half a dozen .357 magnum bullets, to which Ingrid added two 9mm bullets. With one of its tires punctured by a bullet and with the two men sitting in the front seats either killed or wounded, that car also went out of control and, speeding past Ingrid, violently slammed into the car of their dead leader, wounding at the same time one KKK member who had been in the rear bench seat and who was trying to get out of the wrecked car. Seeing all this, the few other cars trying to flee came to a stop with screeching brakes, with their occupants then coming out with their hands up.

‘’DON’T SHOOT! DON’T SHOOT! WE SURRENDER!’’

‘’THEN GET FACE DOWN ON THE PAVEMENT AND SPREAD OUT YOUR ARMS AND LEGS!’’ shouted back Ingrid as her two security guards came at a run to back her up. The protesters, thoroughly intimidated by her resolve and by the automatic carbines yielded by the two female guards, obeyed her as Angie Dickinson was sprinting to join Ingrid and protect her.

With more California State Patrol officers arriving by the minute, the protesters trapped between the patrol cars and Ingrid’s group were systematically disarmed and cuffed before being made to sit by the side of the road under the guard of six patrolmen. Approaching cautiously the two wrecked cars which had tried to run Ingrid over, Angie Dickinson found three dead men and two seriously wounded protesters in them and waved at the State Patrol sergeant who was approaching Ingrid to speak with her.

‘’WE HAVE WOUNDED MEN HERE! WE WILL NEED AMBULANCES.’’ The police sergeant nodded at that and passed a message with his portable radio, then faced Ingrid, his expression sober.

‘’Alright, Miss Dows, tell me what happened here before we arrived.’’

‘’Simply put, this crowd of racists came to the main gate of my prototype aircraft complex with the goal of intimidating me into stopping to employ Black workers. I then confronted them and basically told them to screw themselves, then unmasked their KKK leader, who turned out to be the deputy police chief of Glendale, and another KKK member, who was holding a sawed-off shotgun and also happened to be a member of the Glendale Police Department. That dirty cop, infuriated, tried to shoot me but his leader slapped away his weapon, making that shot miss my head by inches. Then you arrived with your three first patrol cars, prompting the protesters to run to their vehicles in an attempt to flee. Me and my girls then blocked the road to prevent their escape but their leader, along with others in a second car, tried to run me over, so I shot in self-defense, killing the drivers of those two cars and making them crash by the side of the road. By the way, my chief of security filmed the whole action as it happened: that film will be available to you as evidence once we will have made a copy of it.’’ The sergeant noted all that in his pocket notebook, then went to inspect the two crashed cars. His expression hardened when he himself recognized the dead Lieutenant Merrick, whom he had dealt with before. He also recognized his accomplice as being a Glendale municipal police agent.

‘’Fuck! Glendale will have to seriously clean up its police department after this. I will need even more backup to deal wit h this shit pit.’’

As the State Patrol sergeant was inspecting the wrecked cars, Angie Dickinson gave a worried look to Ingrid, who was still standing in the middle of the road but who had holstered back her pistol.

‘’Ingrid, what you did was dangerous as hell. I know that you are a woman but that took balls of steel to do.’’

Ingrid smile at that, apparently relaxed.

‘’I use titanium for really tough problems, Angie.’’

12:01 (California Time)

Local CBS television network news desk

Los Angeles, California

‘’Here is a shocking breaking news, dear listeners: a crowd of racists led by Ku Klux Klan members wearing white robes and hoods tried to force their way an hour earlier into the Hughes Aircraft facility situated at the Glendale Grand Central Airport. However, the Hughes security guards, led by their boss, Miss Ingrid Dows, blocked their way and confronted them. One KKK member then tried to shoot Miss Dows just before the arrival of multiple California State Patrol cars but thankfully missed. Miss Dows is said to have returned fire, killing three of the protesters before the State patrolmen arrested the rest of the protesters. A total of 148 men have been arrested for disturbing the peace, carrying of illegal weapons and for illegal manifestation. Most shocking is the fact that the KKK members present included the Glendale Deputy Chief of Police and one of his officers, both of whom were killed while trying to run over Miss Dows with their cars. Governor Knight is said to be furious about this incident and has ordered a state investigation of the Glendale Police Department. As for the mayor and police chief of Glendale, we tried to contact them for comments but they refused to speak to our reporters and still have not issued any public declaration. This whole incident appears to have been caused by the desire of those protesters to force Miss Dows to stop employing Black workers at her complex, which provides a number of highly paid and highly skilled technical jobs, with work conditions and benefits vastly superior to the norm in California. We expect the men arrested by the California State Patrol to be charged and arraigned in State courts in the coming days ...’’

18:06 (Washington Time)

Cafeteria of the Congress

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy and other members of Congress were eating supper before attending a late evening session of the House when the large television set installed in a corner of the cafeteria started reporting on the ‘incident’ at the Hughes Aircraft plant in Glendale. Stunned at first by the news, then becoming angry, John finally blew air out in relief on hearing that Ingrid was safe.

‘’Thank God that she is safe.’’ he said to his secretary, who was eating with him. ‘’Those damn KKK racists should be banned and disbanded as an organization. It infuriates me to see that there is still so much deeply ingrained racism across our nation.’’

‘’General Dows is sure one woman who is deserving of respect, sir.’’

‘’That she does, Janice. Too bad that she is foreign-born: she would make one hell of an exceptional President of the United States.’’

The secretary thought about that for a second, then smiled to John.

‘’She still could be a top-notch First Lady, sir.’’

John couldn’t help smile at that and gently patted Janice’s hand.

‘’She indeed would, Janice, but she already told me that she is not interested to get into politics: her life is dedicated to aviation and to the defense of the United States and she told me that she will never remarry.’’

Janice’s eyes opened wide on hearing those last words.

‘’Did you...’’

‘’Yes, I did propose to her, Janice, but she politely said no...then kissed me. What a woman!’’

A senator from one of the southern states where ‘Jim Crow’ laws were still enforced and who was eating at a nearby table then threw a disapproving look at John.

‘’She’s a Socialist and an opportunist. Someone should put her back in her place.’’

As Janice held her breath, expecting John to explode, her boss turned in his seat to face the senator, contempt on his face.

‘’Her place, which she amply deserves, is way above racist trash like you, Senator.’’