Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Ridley tossed his head in disgust. “Stop being naive. You know how things work.”

“You’re talking in riddles, George. I don’t know the answers because you haven’t specified the questions.”

“So I’ll draw it out for you. But I mean this: off the record.”

Pace nodded.

“That bastard insisted he needed a liaison with the investigators on the ConPac accident. The senior senator from Ohio is very solicitous of Converse. Converse makes its jet engines in Youngstown, Ohio—as you well know—and that makes the company a VFIC, one of Senator Harold Marshall’s very fucking important constituents. So he wants to know everything the investigators find out about the accident.”

Pace shrugged. “I don’t like Marshall much, either, but that doesn’t sound unreasonable, except he sent you instead of Chappy.”

“That’s the other thing pisses me off,” Ridley snapped, beginning to pace again. “Chappy ain’t anywhere around. All hell’s breaking loose, and he goes off somewhere to contemplate his fucking muscles. So I tell Marshall, ‘You can’t get Chappy Davis, send somebody else from the minority side.’ But he says he’s got to have a high-ranking aide, that it’s gotta be me or Chappy, and Chappy’s busy. ‘Make him unbusy,’ I say. But the man says Chappy’s doin’ something really important, so I gotta do this. Then he puffs himself up and says, ‘May I remind you that majority and minority staffs work for the whole committee, regardless of party.’ He thinks I don’t know that? He’s lecturing me like I’m some snot-nosed intern, and he’s so damned sanctimonious about it. I can’t stand the bastard. Hell, my pension’s vested. I could get some cushy industry job, build up another pension, and retire with big bucks and no ulcers. I have half a mind to go back and kick Marshall’s ass so hard he’ll shit through his collar for a week.”

Pace couldn’t help himself; he began laughing. Ridley’s language was always colorful, but a good, righteous anger gave him supreme inspiration.

“It’s not funny,” Ridley protested. “The guy he sent me to see is Vernon Lund. You know Lund at all?” Pace nodded, but Ridley was too wound up to wait for a response and plunged ahead. “He’s a fucking-A asshole. Stuffed-shirt, self-righteous sonofabitch, just like Marshall. And you wanna know the message I had to deliver?”

Pace shook his head. “I hesitate even to hazard a guess.”

“The investigators better tread light around Converse, and if they blame the engine for the accident, they better make damned sure they’re right, or Marshall will bring the full weight of the committee down on their heads. He said to tell Lund it would be better for everybody if problems with the engine were—and these are his words—downplayed as much as possible.”

Now Pace wasn’t laughing, either. “Marshall actually told you to say that? Oh, man, how stupid is that? You don’t send a threat with the chief of staff of the opposing party.”

Ridley nodded emphatically. “Tell me about it. You know what it is? It’s called a Nixon, as in cover-up. At the very least, it would put the Transportation Committee in a hole full of shit if we had to conduct hearings on this mess. How are we gonna look unbiased if it comes out the ranking Republican’s been threatening the NTSB?”

“Why didn’t you tell Marshall to go to hell?”

Ridley shook his head and shrugged. “Because I didn’t want the hassle. But I hate myself for it. Damn him to hell anyway—”

“You sure you got the message right? You’re not overblowing it a little because you hate the guy so much?”

“Absolutely not,” Ridley insisted.

Pace frowned. “That’s serious,” he said. “Would Lund take Marshall at his word?”

Ridley had exhausted himself and leaned heavily on his car door, sweating again. “I don’t think so,” he said. “The NTSB doesn’t cut deals; they’re pretty self-righteous themselves about that. If it’s your fault, they nail you. I just don’t like working for Marshall. And I don’t like being treated like a pock-faced sixteen-year-old page, for chrissake.”

“I thought it was a snot-nosed intern,” Pace recalled.

“Whatever.” Ridley waved off the joke, and Pace grew serious.

“Still, if Marshall should carry through, it would fall to you to blow the whistle.”

Ridley’s head jerked up, his eyes narrow. “I know my responsibilities.”

“You don’t want to see any problem on a commercial jetliner covered up.”

Ridley nodded and scuffed at the ground some more. “The NTSB wouldn’t let that happen, I’m pretty sure. That’s not sayin’ jerks wouldn’t try.” He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Hell, I should take it to my boss and let him deal with the bastard.”

“Helmutsen never dealt with anything like this in his life,” Pace said.

“But, of course, you’d be willing to take it on?” Ridley oozed sarcasm.

“Damned right,” Pace replied.

Ridley put a hand over his heart. “I will sleep better tonight knowing you’re out there willing to give your all for the integrity of the U.S. of A.”

Pace laughed. “I’m glad I’m not the one you’re pissed at, George. You’re tough.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

Pace gave him a backhand slap on the shoulder and headed for the terminal.

“Not a chance. I’m outta here before you tear my face off.”

Inside the terminal building, Pace leaned against a wall and scribbled three pages of notes on his conversation with Ridley. The subject might never come up again, but if it did, he would need a reliable record of Ridley’s allegations. Pace wondered what had prompted Marshall to risk trying to influence an NTSB investigation. Ridley obviously thought Marshall’s concern for Converse was sufficient motive. Pace didn’t. If Marshall was trying to subvert the investigation, disclosure of that could ruin him politically. Hell, it could send him to prison. You don’t take a risk like that in the name of constituent service. He made some further notes to cover those questions, snapped his notebook closed, and rode an escalator to the main level.

The terminal was littered with the detritus of the thousands of participants in the tragedy of the day before. Empty maroon-and-white Marriott coffee cups, waxed-paper Coke cups, candy and sandwich wrappers, and crumpled cigarette packs were mounded in cylindrical receptacles that couldn’t hold the volume.

The airport was operating again, albeit with only one of its three runways open, and the throaty roars of departures and arrivals came quickly, one atop another, as controllers sought to keep air traffic flowing under severely constrained conditions.

Pace couldn’t see the crash site from the terminal, but he could make out the silhouette of the crane used to stabilize the fuselage. Glenn Brennan was down there reporting on the operation to recover bodies. Pace knew from experience the process of extracting victims and personal effects could take days, the removal of the wreckage even longer. In the meantime, for perhaps a week or more, passengers arriving and departing would be able to look down and see huge pieces of the dead Sexton strewn around the grassland. After that, after all of the aircraft was removed, they still would be able to see the burned and blackened spots that would serve as Flight 1117’s epitaph until spring growth next year covered the area in green.

Pace spotted two ambulances crossing the field under escort, their tragic cargoes undoubtedly bound for the refrigerated morgue trucks. There also were several baggage haulers pulling sections of black and twisted metal—small pieces that had been checked, inventoried, and cleared for removal—toward a gaping hangar that carried the ConPac logo. That would be Hangar Three, where the Sexton 811 would be reconstructed, and in all likelihood, where he would find McGill. Pace knew he couldn’t get into the hangar. Somehow, he had to bring McGill out.