Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Behind him, he heard the alarm of a walkthrough metal detector. Watching uniformed security people wait for the bewildered passenger to empty his pockets, Pace devised his plan. It was slightly unethical, but hard times call for resourcefulness, and these times qualified as hard.

The airport police offices were located at the west end of the lower level. So Pace took the easternmost escalator down and ran the length of the terminal. At the door marked “Dulles International Airport Police,” he skated to a stop, achieving the effect he wanted, sweating lightly and breathing hard. Thirty-nine and out of shape, the typical American male. He pulled open the glass door, trying to look as though he were on urgent business. The officer behind the counter was young and smartly decked out in uniform.

“I’m Steven Pace from the Chronicle ,” he gasped. “Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got an emergency. I need to call my office. You have a phone I could borrow for a minute?”

“I’m not supposed to,” the young police officer said hesitantly. “There are pay phones all over the terminal.” His badge identified him as C. Arguilla. Pace fished for his wallet and pulled out his press card, recognized by police all around Washington.

“You’re really Pace, huh? I read your stories about the crash this morning. They were very sad. Very good.”

“Officer Arguilla, this is important.” Pace’s breath was coming easier. He sensed the young policeman would like to help and pressed his advantage. “Look, I’ve come up with some new information on the crash yesterday, and I’ve got to call my editors. It’s an exclusive story. I don’t want to have the conversation at a public phone.”

That was too important a mission for Arguilla to send him away. He motioned Pace into the office and pointed to an empty cubicle at the back of the room. “You can go in there. You’ll have privacy.”

Pace thanked him and moved toward the cubicle fast enough to convey urgency. No sense lousing up a good show at the end of the first act.

He got the number for Dulles Operations out of his address book and dialed it.

“Operations. Johnson.”

“This is Pace at Airport Police. You got a number for the NTSB at Hangar Three?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

Pace could hear papers shuffling and repressed an urge to hold his breath.

“Uh, yeah, here it is. 555-8763.”

“Thanks.” Pace hung up quickly. Act Two had gone as planned, although he’d lied his way through it. Well, maybe “lied” wasn’t the right word. After all, his name was Pace, and he was “at” Airport Police headquarters. He hadn’t said he was “with” or “employed by” the police. The essence of truth made him feel better. Besides, he had a number where he could find Mike McGill, and that was what mattered.

On his way out of the office, Arguilla approached him. “What’s your story?” he asked with a grin. “When I see it in the paper tomorrow, I’ll know I was there when you filed it.”

Pace shook his head. “I work for an idiot,” he said, feigning anger. “He isn’t sure he wants to run it. Maybe in a day or two. But I promise, you’ll know it when you see it.”

As he walked out the door, he saw Arguilla frowning. Either the police officer didn’t understand, or he understood all too well. In either event, Act Three was not being well received by the critics.

Using the private number, this time from a pay phone, Pace reached McGill on the first try. Sometimes reporting was ridiculously easy.

TransAm’s chief pilot sounded genuinely happy to hear from him, but he was in the middle of a briefing and couldn’t get away. They agreed to meet for lunch in an hour at the airport’s Marriott Hotel, headquarters of the go-team.

With time to kill, and remembering Schaeffer’s order to keep in touch, Pace called Paul Wister. He advised the national editor he didn’t have a lot yet for the next day but was having lunch with McGill. He knew Wister would be concerned about the slow-developing story; urgency was Paul’s style.

Wister was a tall, slim, studious sort who served as counterpoint to Avery Schaeffer. While Schaeffer worried about the big picture, Wister worked the details. While Schaeffer rolled up his sleeves and loosened his tie, Wister lectured on the values of propriety, appearance, and duty. Wister never loosened his tie or took off his suit coat at work, never raised his voice anywhere, and only once in recorded history had anyone caught him in a grammatical error. During a staff softball game against The Washington Post in 1985, after trying to stretch a triple to deep right into a home run and being thrown out at the plate, it was alleged he used a “he” where a “him” was proper during the ensuing argument with the umpire. Wister denied it to this day. He also continued to claim he was safe. The incident was a part of the Chronicle’s newsroom lore, and it was funny to everyone but Paul Wister.

Pace could picture him leaning back in his chair and considering the possibilities for Saturday copy, all the while tapping his right temple with his fountain pen. Wister collected fine fountain pens. He worshiped at the altar of Waterman and Mont Blanc.

“We need information on the probable cause,” Wister said. “ ‘Why’ is still the biggest question. If it was the engine, why? If it wasn’t, what was it? Keep after it hard. We’ll have a lot of good sidebar stuff and Glenn’s body-recovery story, but the accident’s still the lead. Sexton and Converse issued the typical statements: There will be no statements until the investigation is over. The desk is putting the wire copy in your basket, but you ought to check with your contacts to see if they’ll go any farther, maybe on background.”

Pace told Wister about his conversation with George Ridley. Wister wasn’t excited. The information meant little unless Marshall actually interfered in the investigation.

“I’ll mention it to Avery, though,” Wister added. “It’ll jump-start his heart.”

“I could take some time and try to verify what George told me,” Pace suggested.

“We can’t spare you now,” Wister said. “Besides, nothing improper’s been done that we know of. Let it alone and get after something for page one tomorrow.”

Pace put in obligatory phone calls to Whitney Warner, vice-president for public affairs of the Sexton Aircraft Corporation in Los Angeles, and Cullen Ferguson, vice-president for corporate relations of the Converse Corporation in Youngstown. He’d talked with each the day before, after the accident, and they’d offered nothing of substance. Today neither was available. He left his office number with their secretaries.

There was nothing more to do at the airport, so Pace drove to the Marriott and found himself standing conspicuously idle in the lobby with forty minutes to wait until McGill showed, assuming he was on time.

He bought a copy of Time with regret. The cover date said it was obsolete. “You have this week’s edition?” he asked the counter girl.

“That’s the only one,” she replied indifferently. So he paid for it, sank into a comfortable lobby chair, and began to read old news, the dullest material imaginable.

McGill arrived promptly at 12:30 and rescued Pace from a four-page takeout on the foreign-trade deficit. The pilot was dressed in Levi’s, western boots, a Patagonia sport shirt, and had a cracked brown-leather flight jacket thrown casually over his right shoulder and held in place by a finger hooked through a chain loop inside the collar. He might have stepped from the pages of an Eddie Bauer catalogue. The outfit, so casually put together under a thick crop of salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes, served to show how well he cared for himself, even into his fifties. The effect was natural, not deliberate, but Pace could see by the hint of a self-satisfied smile on the pilot’s face that McGill was well aware of the seven pairs of female eyes following every move he made through the lobby. Women, in infinite variety, were Mike McGill’s hobby.