Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Pace’s pleasure at seeing McGill again was tempered only slightly by a news dealer’s delivery man, who entered the lobby behind the pilot and threw a bundle of new Time magazines onto the floor five feet away.

“Easy come, easy go,” Pace muttered and tossed his barely-read edition into the white sand of an institutional ashtray.

Lunch began a little stiffly over prosciutto and melon. Pace asked about McGill’s work, and McGill inquired about Pace’s job and his love life. They talked about the weather in Tennessee and the weather in Washington. McGill needled Pace for what had to be the hundredth time about how he should get his pilot’s license if he was going to be an aviation writer. Both skirted the reason they were having lunch together.

Pace was halfway through a nice bluefish fillet, feeling childish about his reluctance to broach the subject of the crash investigation, when he saw McGill grinning at him.

“This is the point at which you’re supposed to put your napkin down, lean across the table, look to each side to make sure no one’s eavesdropping, and say to me, ‘Mike, small talk isn’t the real reason I asked you here today.’” They both laughed, and Pace felt marginally better.

“I don’t want you to think I’m abusing our friendship,” the reporter said.

“I don’t,” McGill said. “I know what your job is, and I accept it. But right now I don’t have anything to help you. We don’t have the bodies out, or the wreckage in the hangar.”

Pace frowned and nodded. “Any choice speculation?”

“Everybody’s got a pet theory,” McGill said. “Most involve the right engine, big surprise. Preliminary accounts from a few witnesses indicate there was an explosion in the engine or a defect in the pod’s attachment to the pylon.”

“Square One City, huh?”

McGill hedged. “Well, maybe not quite that bad. I picked up some scuttlebutt a couple of minutes ago that we might be looking at a bird strike.”

Pace looked surprised. He was almost disappointed that it should be anything so mundane. “A bird strike? Really?”

McGill held up his knife like a stop sign. “I said ‘might be,’ remember? Apparently there’s something in the engine that looks like the remains of a bird. Nobody knows for sure. Lund will cover it at the press briefing tonight, I’m sure.”

McGill finished his sea bass, laid the knife and fork carefully across his plate, and sat back in the banquette. “I don’t mind helping you on this, Steve,” he said. “We’ve always worked well together, and I don’t expect that to change. I don’t mind telling you about the bird rumor because a lot of people know, and it’s going to come out later today anyhow. If and when it goes beyond that, I’ll have to be circumspect about what I disclose, and I hope you understand. We’re supposed to play things close to the vest, and there are good reasons. This is a system that’s never been questioned, either in its effectiveness or its integrity. As much as I want to help you, I can’t jeopardize that.”

Pace nodded. The mention of the integrity of the NTSB reminded him of his conversation earlier with George Ridley. He told McGill about it. The pilot’s reaction was a little stronger than Paul Wister’s had been.

“I don’t like the idea of anybody trying to leverage us, but as you say, it may be nothing more than constituent concern. I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“But if you hear Marshall’s pressing this, will you let me know?” Pace asked.

“You bet,” McGill promised. “That’s a whole new ball game. I wouldn’t hesitate to help you nail somebody trying to skew our work.”

Pace smiled. “I’ll know I’ve pressed too hard when you quit returning my calls.”

McGill laced his fingers together and leaned forward with his chin on his thumbs. He chose his words carefully. “I can’t imagine a situation in which I wouldn’t return your calls,” he said. “Even though I’m going to be under constraints about what I can say, if you want to call to knock around some ideas, I’ll try not to let you go to press with bad information. If you call me and tell me you’ve heard A and you’ve heard B, I’d be willing to tell you to lay off A. If you wish to infer that B’s the right course, I can live with it, because I won’t have violated my trust here. Am I making any sense to you?”

He was, Pace thought. Mike McGill always made sense.

“In the parlance of Washington, what you’re saying is you’ll give me guidance,” Pace joked. “That’s as opposed to going off-the-record, on deep background, plain background, and not-for-attribution.”

“Ah, yes. The games we play in Washington, D.C.”

“No games.” Pace smiled. “Attribution is very serious business here. Not knowing the rules can lose you access to sources. It’s an art form. The best innovations are voted into a hall of fame and immortalized on a wall at The Grapevine, a press pub downtown.”

McGill looked skeptical. “Okay,” Pace said. “I’ll test you. Name this official, and I pick up the check. He was best known as ‘a senior official on the President’s airplane.’”

“Come on, Steve. That’s too easy.”

“Okay, if it’s so easy, who was it?”

“Henry Kissinger, during Nixon’s second term, such as it was.”

Pace’s eyebrows arched. “How’d you know that?”

“The whole world knows it. The Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the Tierra del Fuegans. I think Kissinger probably told them himself: ‘Watch for me. I’m the one who’ll be identified as the senior official on the President’s airplane.’”

They laughed, and then the waitress came and put the check on the table, a discreet equal distance between them. McGill picked it up and made a show of handing it to Pace.

“Let it be a lesson for you. You’re not the only one who knows history. In fact, you weren’t even in Washington during the Nixon administration. You only heard stories about the senior official on the President’s plane. I was there.”

“You were? I didn’t know that.”

“You knew I went to TransAm out of the Air Force?”

Pace nodded, and McGill grinned. “My last duty station was at Andrews Air Force Base. My assignment was pilot-in-command of Air Force One during the final months of Richard Nixon’s first administration.”

Pace’s chin dropped. “Are you serious? As many years as we’ve known each other, and you never told me that?”

McGill eased out of the banquette and headed for the door. “Well, the crews never want to assume a very high profile. Part of the mystique, I guess. Besides, you never asked. First rule of a good reporter is, always ask. I learned that on Air Force One, too.” He put a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and waved. “Thanks for lunch.”

After paying the check, Pace walked out of the dark restaurant into the sunny lobby. He squinted in reflex and turned away from the windows. His gaze fell on McGill, who was performing his best manly act for the girl at the hotel newsstand. It didn’t look as though Mike was trying seriously to pick her up, just reassuring himself the act still worked.

Pace waited for him at the lobby door. “Aren’t you a little long in years to be driven all the time by your glandular activity?” the reporter asked.

“Hormones ‘R’ Us,” McGill responded, mirth dancing at the corners of his smile. “Actually, I was killing time waiting for you.”

“I could see.”

“No kidding. Thought you might like to come down to the field, breathe in a little of the color of the accident.”

“The bodies have been under the sun for a while. It’s not color I’d be breathing.”