The evening air was brisk, an overture for the approaching cold of winter, when a yellow and green cab stopped at a security gate on the south end of Washington's National Airport. The guard studied the pass that was extended by a hand from the rear window, then handed it back and spoke in an official tone. "Stay on the road. You're in a restricted area."
The driver swung onto the narrow service road that ran parallel with the east-west taxi strip on the southern border of the airport. "You sure this is the right way?" he asked, seeing nothing but an empty field.
"I'm certain," answered the gray-haired man in the backseat. "I've been here before."
"May I ask what you're looking for?"
The man in the backseat ignored the question. “Pull up at that pole with the red light on the top. I’ll get out there.”
“But there’s no sign of life.”
“Can you return for me in about forty minutes?”
“You want to stand out here in the middle of nowhere on a cold night for forty minutes?” asked the uncomprehending driver.
“I enjoy solitude.”
The cabbie shrugged his shoulders. “OK. I’ll take a break for a cup of coffee and come back for you in forty minutes.”
The man passed the driver a fifty-dollar bill and stepped from the cab. He stood in the middle of the road beside the pole until the red taillights of the cab faded in the distance. Then he stared at a ghostly building that seemed to materialize out of the night, its silhouette becoming defined against the lights of the nation’s capital across the Potomac River. Slowly, the building became physical and recognizable as an old aircraft hangar with a rounded roof. At first glance it appeared deserted. The surrounding land was covered with weeds, and the corrugated sides of the building wore a heavy coat of rust. The windows were boarded over, and the huge doors that once rolled open to admit aircraft for maintenance were welded closed.
The man standing in the road was not alone, and the hangar was not abandoned. At least two dozen cars were neatly parked in rows among the weeds. As he watched, a Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the front entrance door of the hangar, and an elegantly dressed woman exited the car, her door held open by a valet parking attendant.
As the man approached, he could hear the sound of voices mingled with laughter and the music of a Dixieland jazz band blaring out “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.” Before he made his way to the entrance, the man with the mane of gray hair and matching beard paused for a moment, listening to the wave of conversation from inside. Finally, he stepped through the doorway and handed his overcoat to a girl who gave him his receipt. A doorman, dressed suavely in a tuxedo, came forward.
“May I have your invitation, sir?”
The gray-haired man looked at him and said with quiet authority, “I do not require one.”
The doorman’s face went blank for a moment, and then, as if realizing his mistake, he said, “My apologies, sir. Please enjoy the party.”
Then the intruder passed into a scene that he had envisioned in his mind a hundred times and that could only be described in a novel.
Row upon row of beautifully restored classic cars were positioned across a vast white epoxy-sealed floor. Their gleaming mirrorlike paint seemed to fluoresce under the brilliant overhead lights mounted on the girders in the rounded roof. A German jet from World War II and an old 1930s Ford Trimotor passenger aircraft stood parked in the far corner of the hangar. Next to them sat an early-twentieth-century railroad Pullman car and what looked like a small sailboat put together by either a small child or a drunk. The man smiled as he examined a bathtub with an outboard motor that sat on a small platform.