Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Or the second,” Pace said. “The first was whatever caused the disk to break up.”

“Right,” Padgett agreed. “That’s the mystery.”

“Could I look at what’s left of the disk inside the engine?” Pace asked.

“There’s nothing left of it in the engine,” said Teller. “All the fragments were shipped off for metallurgical inspection. I can show you where the disk was, for whatever good that will do.”

“I don’t know what good it will do, either,” Pace admitted. “I truly don’t. I’m not going to find something the experts have overlooked.”

“You did the last time,” Sachs said.

“No, you did the last time,” Pace pointed out. “You were the one who got the sense there was more bird in the engine than there should be.”

“But I was out here looking because of you.”

“Look some more,” Pace suggested. “Maybe you’ll come up with another insight.”

Only two people at a time could squeeze through the opening cut in the engine pod. Pace and Sachs went in first, then Pace came out and Padgett went in with Sachs. Eventually, over the next hour, the teams shifted until everyone had a chance to look at the engine with everyone else. Pace and Teller were the last team. As they crouched amid the wreck of the C-Fan, Pace asked Teller to describe what the destruction scenario had been.

“What do you mean, exactly?” Teller asked.

“Tell me what was doing what as the plane began its takeoff roll,” Pace explained.

“Well, you know how a jet engine works, don’t you?”

“In theory.”

“You know that compressors, like that one up there, raise the air pressure, and the combustors, here, raise the air temperature with burning kerosene. As all that hot, pressurized air rushes toward the exhaust, down there, it passes through the turbines that drive the compressors and the fan.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty basic,” Pace said.

“It is, but jet engines aren’t all that complicated.”

“And the disk that failed was where?”

“In the turbine up there,” Teller said, pointing toward the front of the engine.

“Can I take a look at it?”

“I don’t see why not. You’ve seen everything else.”

The turbine was on the floor beside big engine. Part of it had been cut away so its stationary blades and rotating disks were visible. Each rotating disk had its own slot. One slot was empty. Pace asked for a flashlight and directed the beam into that compartment.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

“That’s where the broken disk was,” Teller said. “It rotated there on bearing balls.”

“I don’t see any ball bearings,” Pace said.

“All we could find were removed for examination. They’re on that workbench.”

They were there, several dozen of them, in an open metal container. The sight of them caused Pace a pang of guilt.

“May I?” he asked, reaching for one.

Teller shrugged.

Pace picked up several and rolled them in his hand. “They’re in bad shape,” he said.

Padgett stepped forward and looked at the metal balls Pace was holding.

“They’re all like that,” the IIC said. “They were subjected to intense punishment when the engine burned and flailed around on the ground.”

Pace frowned and stared hard at the objects in his hand as though they were crystal balls and would answer all his questions. And maybe they could. He looked to Padgett.

“You say the damage to these was done after the engine separated from the wing?”

“Yes, we think so,” Padgett replied.

“What would the implications be if this damage occurred earlier?”

“Significant,” Padgett said. “But there’s no way to prove it.”

Pace dropped the metal balls in his hand back into their container. “Are all the bearing balls from that disk compartment accounted for here?” he asked.

Padgett looked at Teller.

“All but seven, I think,” Teller said.

“Seven?” Pace asked.

“Seven, yes, I think so,” Teller replied.

“Sonofabitch,” Pace said in a voice so low he might not have been heard had the other three not been paying close attention. “What if,” he said, “what if I told you I know where some of those seven are, and I can prove the damage they sustained happened before the engine crashed into the runway and burned?”

“I’d say you’ll have gone a long way toward solving our mystery,” Sachs said, his voice filled with anticipation. “Where are they?”

“Some of them, four as I recall, are in the grass near the runway.” Pace cleared his throat and looked abashed.

“And one is under my bed.”

It took no persuasion, after he told his companions the story of his trip to the field with Mike McGill, to convince them to drive to the same site. Sachs sought and was granted permission to drive down a section of Runway 19R, and air traffic was held briefly as the government car negotiated the broad ribbon of concrete.

Pace put them as close as he could to the spot where Mike had parked, and Sachs turned the car into the grass.

“Not too far,” Pace suggested. “You don’t want to wind up on top of those things.”

“I can’t leave the car on an active runway,” Sachs replied.

“According to Mike, when the engine passed here, it was still airborne,” Pace said. “The scar on the runway up there is where the engine first hit the ground.”

They all looked to Padgett.

“That’s right,” the IIC confirmed.

“So if we find some of the missing bearing balls here,” Pace proposed, “we can safely conclude that they fell from the engine before it was damaged by ground impact or fire.”

“Oh, it was on fire at this point,” Padgett corrected. “But the fire wouldn’t have messed up the balls as bad as you saw them back at the hangar.”

“So let’s start looking,” Sachs said.

The four of them advanced, shoulder to shoulder, into the grass, scuffing as they went. They found nothing. Pace suggested they try farther north, and again they found nothing. After another pass even farther north and one farther south, Sachs called a halt.

“There’ve been all kinds of heavy equipment crisscrossing this area,” he said. “Those balls could be buried in the dirt by now. Let’s get a metal detector out here and be a little more scientific about this.”

It was 5:43 P.M. when the first metal ball was discovered and dug up, not far from where the group halted its first pass through the grass earlier in the afternoon. Minutes later, a second was found, and then a third.

“I saw five, all told,” said Pace. “Counting the one back in my apartment, there should be at least one more out here.”

But it wasn’t to be found. Finally, at 6:30, Sachs called a halt to the search. Scraping with his thumb at the dirt clinging tenaciously to one of the balls in his hand, he said, “Let’s get these to the lab for a hard look,” he said. “We should know something tomorrow.”

“Can you conclude anything about their condition?” Pace asked.

“They look pretty bad, but I’m not an expert,” Sachs said. “I’ll take these downtown along with the collection back in the hangar. We’ll compare them and get some answers.”

They loaded the bearing balls from the hangar into Sachs’s trunk, and he put the three found that day in his pocket, ensuring they wouldn’t be mixed up. Then he drove Pace back to the Marriott parking lot.

“Once again you’ve given us what we needed,” Sachs said to the reporter as he pulled up beside Pace’s Honda.

“I guess we’ll have to see,” Pace replied as he cracked open the passenger door.

“Oh, by the way,” Sachs said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d search your apartment tonight and turn in that little souvenir you took.”