Before the situation escalated, John began to use all his resources to find out who was behind the matter. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 For this reason, he also went to a regular meeting of the "Freemasonry" and asked Hoover to help him keep an eye on the whereabouts of several suspicious subjects.

John felt that the most suspicious of this matter was a guy named Vance Bliss. This man is an aeronautical engineer and test pilot who previously worked in the National Standards Committee and only recently joined the Military Production Committee. John was suspicious of him, partly because the rumor had only appeared after he had come. On the other hand, it is because this person has some not-so-good "past" with Hughes Aircraft Company.

Vance has a special "hobby", not only is he keen to open a company and sell it, but he also likes to pull venture capital for various emerging small aviation manufacturing companies, although there is no VC concept at this time.

When Hughes Aircraft Company had only one workshop and a few employees, Vance once came to the door and wanted to be a partner in the company. He told Hughes that he could help bring in "angel investors", but he was kicked out by Hughes, who took the money seriously.

When John had just taken over Hughes Aircraft, this Vance came in again. This time, however, instead of meeting with John, he quietly poached Hughes's former deputy, Dick Palmer. After leaving the company, the latter replaced Voltiers, whose family died in a plane crash this year, and became vice president and chief engineer of an AVCO aerospace manufacturing company (ADC, also known as Voltier Aircraft Company, which later merged with United Aircraft Corporation to form Convair and later merged into General Motors).

John doesn't take Vance as a "broker" very seriously, but he is extremely wary of the financier behind him. A careful analysis of what Vance has done over the years shows that the "angel investor" behind him is Eliot Curd.

Mr. Kode is a big man in the American business world. At first, Kede was just a car company, and at that time, the three major car companies had not yet dominated the world, and there were countless independent car brands. Kode's strategy is similar to that of William Durant, who created the GM empire, which is to constantly bring different brands under his umbrella.

In that crazy year of 1929, more than one company tried to take advantage of the economic crisis to make a big splash. Not satisfied with only engaging in automobiles, Kede set up a holding company to acquire various assets related to the transportation industry, such as running on the ground, swimming in the water, and flying in the sky, and his famous enterprises also included Lycoming Engine Company, New York Shipyard (one of the three largest shipyards in the United States), Century Aviation, etc.

At its craziest, as many as 150 companies related to the transportation industry were owned by Kode, and they successfully entered the board of directors of AVCO through a share swap. As mentioned earlier, AVCO, a military giant, is like a shareholder club, specializing in helping them manage some aviation acquisitions. Curd took advantage of the fact that many shareholders had lost a lot of money in the economic crisis and were eager to get out, and even took control of AVCO for a time.

John is so jealous of Corde, not only because he has money, but also because he has a network of assets that spans the entire transportation-related industry. It can be said that as long as John is still in this industry, it is inevitable that he will have to deal with companies under Kode's name. If Kode had a crooked mind about Hughes planes, or even FedEx, John would have to fight a brutal business war.

Within two days, Harold sent a reply. As far as he knows, Kode's physical condition seems to be in trouble, and he has just transferred his AVCO shares to a syndicate not long ago, and has completely faded out of the aviation industry. Recently, there have been rumors that he will retire completely and go to Los Angeles or Nevada to retire.

Hearing this, John breathed a sigh of relief. But he was even more puzzled, if it wasn't for Kede, then who was behind him? A few days later, Hoover gave the answer. After tracking Vance for some time, FBI agents discovered that he was now working for Ruben Fleet of United Aircraft.

Frett was a World War I pilot, and after the war, he saw the business opportunity of the American aviation industry that needed to train a large number of pilots, and made his fortune by producing and selling trainer aircraft. After that, Fleet began to transform into seaplanes. Last year, with the "Caterina" patrol aircraft, he received a procurement contract of up to $22 million from the Navy, which was the largest single military order of the United States since World War I, and caused a sensation in the industry.

At that time, there were rumors in the industry that Fleet won the favor of the Navy because his surname Fleet means fleet. Of course, this is just a meme. In fact, Fleet had a good personal relationship with President Roosevelt and was one of his personal advisers.

John had no contradiction with Fleet himself. But the D-2 of the Hughes aircraft really got in the way of the United Aircraft Corporation. At the beginning of this year, at the request of the US Army, the United Aircraft Corporation began to develop a four-engine bomber as a successor to the B-17. That's right, this aircraft is the famous B-24 "Liberator" in history, the one that produced more than 19,000 units during World War II.

Now, due to the sudden emergence of Hughes aircraft and D-2, the B-24 has just begun to develop and is in a dilemma. If the D-2 order is not messed up, even if the military does not launch the B-24 project, it is estimated that it will not be able to sell many aircraft after it is developed. Unless the B-24 is much better than the D-2 in terms of performance, but apparently the United Aircraft Corporation itself knows that this is unlikely.

John was initially angry at what the United Aircraft Corporation was doing. If you have the ability to talk about the product, what kind of ability is it to engage in three indiscriminate small actions. Before he could figure out how to teach the United Aircraft Corporation a lesson, Ruben Fleet himself came to him from San Diego to Washington.

Upon meeting, Fleet admitted that his subordinates had attacked John in an unethical manner, and apologized in public. Although John was very dissatisfied with this so-called "unauthorized behavior of subordinates", the other party, as a senior in the industry, put his posture so low, and it was difficult for John to publicly turn his face with it. I could only accept the apology on the surface.

He was even more curious about what kind of medicine was sold in the Fritt gourd. He came all the way to Washington, D.C., and it was certainly not as simple as coming to the door to apologize. Sure enough, after the two "released their suspicions", Fleet took the opportunity to ask John to visit the United Aircraft Company to deepen their understanding of each other and facilitate the cooperation between the two companies in the future.

What does it mean? Hongmen Banquet? John's first reaction was that Fritt was "a thief or a thief." But on second thought, it doesn't hurt to check it out. Even if Hughes Aircraft did not cooperate with them, John himself, as a member of the military-industrial production committee, would inevitably have to deal with the United Aircraft Corporation in the future.

John decided to go "solo to the meeting" and go to San Diego to see what the hell Friet was up to.