Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

When he was satisfied, he and Wister, in consultation with Pace, decided to hold the story for Sunday. There were a lot of people to call for comment, not the least of whom was Marshall himself, and great care had to be taken in writing the story lest it accuse Marshall of more than the somewhat odd financial transaction detailed in the report. Unanimously, they hated the idea of wasting the story on a Saturday, when most people were thinking more about getting away for recreation than about reading newspapers.

Pace reached Marshall late Friday night. The Ohio Republican sucked in a sharp breath when told what the FBI report said. He did not deny it, but he was anxious about whether the FBI also knew what he did with the million dollars in cash. Pace told him about Elliott Parkhall’s sudden fortune, and Marshall laughed.

“Think what you will,” he said. “I have no further comment.”

Pace wasn’t able to reach any Riggs officials who would comment, but one of the Chronicle’s business writers had a source at the Riggs office where Marshall banked. The source added some nice details about the transaction that spiced up the story.

Hugh Green was scheduled to meet this day with the entire six-member Ethics Committee, and he was expected to get a majority to approve an investigation of Marshall’s dealings with Converse.

This also was a day to check in with Ken Sachs on the progress of the NTSB investigation, with Clay Helm for developments on the Parkhall murder, and to catch up with the grand juries.

He struck news on his first call.

“I thought you’d lost interest in me,” Ken Sachs said. “I know it’s a lot more exciting chasing falling stars on Capitol Hill than dealing with technical data developed by an obscure little federal agency.”

“Feeling inferior, are we?” Pace replied.

“Actually,” Sachs said, “I’ve been relieved not hearing from you. Then I didn’t have to tell you things you have no right to know at this stage.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, so suddenly you need me?”

Pace laughed. “Maybe I should go home and get drunk tonight and come over to see you about 1 A.M. At least you’re used to dealing with me at that hour in that condition.”

“Spare me,” Sachs pleaded. “I capitulate. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Which is?”

“Well, it’s good new evidence, but not anything that’s going to knock your socks off.”

“Let my socks be the judge.”

“Same rules? No attribution.”

“You think we’re fooling anybody?”

“Probably not, but at least it gives me leeway to deny I’m the source.”

“Same rules. Give me all you’ve got, and no post-midnight visit.”

“Fair enough. Metallurgy tests show the initial impact on the engine’s fan blades originated from inside the engine itself.”

“Translation?”

“Some of the blades were broken when the engine smashed into the runway and bounced along in the infield. But a number of them, and we don’t yet know exactly how many, although I’d guess it was in the nature of a dozen, were broken during the initial engine failure, while the engine and wing segment were still attached to the aircraft. The metallurgy examination shows they were bent outward by some catastrophic event from within, as opposed to being bent inward as they would have been in a bird strike.”

“So it wasn’t a bird strike. That’s not new.”

“We had circumstantial evidence,” Sachs said. “This is concrete, infallible proof. Stuff that will stand the test in court if we ever have to go.”

“You and I saw the result of the turbine disk fracture,” Pace said. “But the wedge of disk blew out the side of the pod.”

“But when it broke loose, it tore up a lot of stuff inside the engine. There was a lot of ricocheting shrapnel flying around in there.”

Mentally, Pace scratched his head. “Then you’re still on the first rung of the ladder? Still not a clue to why this particular engine self-destructed?”

“Not a clue.”

At the same time Pace and Sachs were bantering their way to the reporter’s next page-one story, Hugh Green was meeting in a locked and guarded Capitol hideaway with the full Ethics Committee. He would take a vote on proceeding with an investigation and, if that carried, present Harold Marshall’s request for a public hearing at the earliest possible date.

It was a difficult and strident session. Green told himself it would break along straight party lines, and he was right, with one notable exception. Frank Hopper, a first-term Republican from Iowa, was impassioned and eloquent about aviation safety and public confidence. The other two Republicans expressed varying degrees of doubt about the committee conducting an investigation based on newspaper allegations.

“That is total bullshit,” Hopper exploded. “Marshall concedes what’s been printed in the Chronicle is accurate. The implications here are so clear it hurts to look at them. The man bought and paid for a cover-up that almost worked, and if it had worked, we’d be flying 811s all over the country with impunity, without a second thought, each one a time bomb. How many more people would have died before we came around to thinking maybe we hadn’t found out everything about the Dulles accident? I’m sorry, but I have very little sympathy for Harold Marshall’s vulnerability here. He created it himself.”

The others regarded him silently for some time, unable to assess the exact cause of his distress. Eleanor Justica, the ranking Republican, finally asked him.

“What’s your problem, Frank? We’re trying to decide if there’s enough evidence for an investigation, and you seem ready to convict and sentence.”

Hopper, who stood five-nine and was often described as looking like a junior-middleweight boxer in top form, cupped his left fist inside his right hand and pressed the assembly against his neatly cleft chin. A lick of straw-blond hair tumbled onto his forehead, and he looked every bit the Midwest country boy he was. When he attempted, after a few moments, to answer the question, his voice was soft and quaking with emotion.

“I’m a hometown boy, you know,” he began slowly. “Before I was elected to the House, not to mention the Senate, I managed the family farm. We had a lot of debt on equipment, and what equity we had in our land we used each year to borrow the money to buy the seed to plant the corn, and we prayed for enough rain to give us a crop that would pay the debt and our living costs through another year. Most years, it worked. But three bad drought years in a row drove us to the financial brink, and before we went entirely over the edge, my dad sold out the land and bought one of the grain elevators outside town. We were still subject to the whims of the weather but not so bad as if we’d stayed with farming. We saw our friends losing their land to the banks. I almost felt guilty that we’d escaped the same financial ruin. I wanted to help. That’s why I got into politics. To think I’d get elected to Congress on my first-ever try was pretty naive, but the people were looking for an alternative, and I guess they saw it in me.

“One of the things I swore was I’d never forget my roots. And one of the things I did to keep that promise, in a small way, was to stay a member of the EMT squad I worked with since high school. I paid a lot of my way through college working the ambulance squads during the summers and pulling vacation relief over holidays. So even after my first election, whenever I’d get back home, I’d make certain to pull some EMT relief shifts.

“Back during 1989, I was home for some meetings, trying to convince folks George Bush really did have a farm policy, when the United Air Lines DC-10 crashed at our airport. It was amazing the crew even got the plane to the ground. The tail engine came apart during flight and tore up all three hydraulic systems, so the pilots had hardly any flight controls at all. Most of the people on board survived the crash, and they got most of the attention in the press. And that was okay, because the crew had done a heroic, incredible thing getting enough control that anybody lived. But I saw the other side of the story.