Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Pace reached him at Hangar Three. “You know a pilot named L. K. Junker?” he asked.

“Larry Junker, sure. He’s one of our senior guys.”

“Would he talk to a reporter about an incident a few months ago with an 811?”

“You mean the one in Seattle? He shouldn’t discuss it outside the company without proper authorization, and I doubt he’d violate that rule. Why do you want him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m reaching. His incident report talks about a power failure, and the controller I interviewed yesterday said the ConPac 811 seemed to be having trouble generating enough power to rotate. I don’t know if there’s a connection.”

“I doubt it’s the same thing, but it’s worth checking,” McGill agreed. “I’ll see if I can run him down. If he’s flying, there won’t be much I can do until he gets back, but if I find him, I’ll authorize him to talk to you.”

It was 10:00 P.M. before McGill called back. Pace’s story for the first edition was pegged to the foreign matter found in the wrecked engine. His next deadline was less than an hour away. The early story would stand if there was nothing to add.

“Sorry it took me so long to get back, Steve. Larry Junker’s on a few days’ leave, and it took a while to track him down. The bottom line is: he doesn’t want to talk to you. Nothing personal. A lot of transport jocks don’t like dealing with the media. But he gave me the details of the Seattle thing, and I don’t have any problem talking about it. The incident report’s public anyhow. You ready to take some notes?”

Pace already had a file open on his computer screen. “All set, Mike. Shoot.”

“Let me say first I’d put this in the realm of interesting but not conclusive. The crew had initiated their takeoff roll when there was a, well, a ‘bump’ is the way Larry described it. There was an immediate falloff in power in Number Two engine, and an abort was mandatory. Junker ordered Number Two shut down and taxied her back to the terminal without further problems.”

“Number Two!” Pace said in surprise. “That’s the same one that failed here.”

“Well, there are only two engines on the plane. You’ve got a fifty/fifty chance if one fails, it will be the same one that failed before. All the engines are identical. Anyhow, our maintenance crew tore down the engine in Seattle and found a crack in one of the turbine disks. We don’t know why it cracked. Most likely it was a defect in the titanium alloy. It went back to Converse for testing and analysis. I checked with our ops people, and they say there’s been no report yet from Converse on its findings. I presume the disk was simply replaced and the engine put back into service.”

“The report said there was minor damage to the aircraft.”

“Uh, yeah. Something bent in one of the wheel assemblies. Nothing serious.”

“So what does that mean for yesterday?”

“I wish I could tell you it’s significant, but I don’t know,” McGill apologized. “There’s certainly the possibility of a connection, but it’s far from definitive. I’m going to give this to the guys in the power-plants group because I think they should know, but I’d be jumping the gun if I told you it was a key to the ConPac failure. That deed was done by a bird.”

“Or something with feathers,” Pace responded, telling McGill of Jeff Hines’s confrontation with Lund earlier.

McGill laughed, but absently. He had other things on his mind. “Steve, there’s something else Larry Junker told me that, frankly, I’d forgotten when we had lunch yesterday. But it’s fascinating in the context of this accident.”

“What?” Pace asked eagerly.

“In all the hoopla over the Sexton 811, one of the things that got overlooked to a degree was the technology that went into the Converse Fan. You should remember. You wrote about it. The engine pod was designed specifically to be more efficient than older generations of engines at channeling ingested debris.”

“That’s right,” Pace said. “There’s supposed to be a fifty-percent better chance that anything sucked through the fan blades will be routed around the engine instead of through it.”

“That’s what Converse claims,” said McGill. “If you mention it in your story, it would help your readers to know the working part of this jet engine takes up only about half the space inside the pod. The rest is all open. If everything works right, what gets sucked into the front gets blown out the back through that open space around the engine. Every commercial jet engine has that design. The Converse Fan enlarged and improved on it. Seems to me the design should have mitigated the effects of a bird strike fairly easily.”

“Unless the bird broke some of the fan blades, and they penetrated the engine.”

“Could happen. But broken fan blades should go around the engine works, too.”

“What a hell of a story.”

“Write it, then. Raise the question. You can quote me on the stuff about the Seattle incident, but raise the question about the engine design on your own. You have the expertise. Hell, it’s in Converse’s advertising. They made a huge deal of it. Ask how a damned bird could rip up an engine that was supposed to be impervious.”

While the information wasn’t conclusive, it was enough to allow the reporter to write a much tougher and more complete story, and Pace felt good about it. The competition might have some decent material tomorrow, but they wouldn’t have the Seattle angle—thin as it was—and might not think to question the extent of the damage done by the bird strike.

He dumped the new story into Wister’s computer along with a note saying he would call Converse on the chance of finding a spokesman working late. On a story like this, fairness dictated the company that built the engine be given the opportunity to defend it.

An answering-service operator told Pace that at ten-fifty on Friday night, all Converse employees and executives, including Cullen Ferguson, had left for the weekend and were not expected back until Monday morning.

“Isn’t there anyone on call for emergencies?” Pace asked.

“Of course,” the operator replied with a huffy edge to her voice. “But my order was to take messages from the media.”

“Well, excuse me for disturbing you,” Pace snapped. “I don’t want to interrupt anybody’s bridge game, but if he has a free moment, maybe he could call me back.”

Pace left his numbers at work and at home and slammed the phone down, already a little ashamed at venting his anger on an operator who was only following the orders of her employer. Wister caught his eye.

“Anything?”

“No,” Pace grumbled. “They’re only taking messages from the media. Can you feature that? Those idiots are treating this like a fender-bender on the Beltway.”

“Did you try Ferguson’s home?”

“Not yet. I just got done ripping them a new one at his office.”

Pace called area code 216 Information and found what he was looking for.

There was no answer.

“You keep trying all weekend ’til you get him,” Wister suggested.

“I’m going to. I’ve got a few niceties I’d like to exchange with Mr. Ferguson.”

“You’ve got a long haul ahead of you on this story,” Wister cautioned. “Don’t waste your energy on useless confrontation. And don’t alienate a source you’re going to need later.” It was good advice, but the way Wister said it made it sound like a lecture. Just once, Pace wished, Paul Wister would make a mistake he would have to admit.

His irritation showed. “Quit acting like a petulant little kid,” Wister added.

Pace fiddled with a pen, running it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. He felt stupid and childish. But the anger was dissipating. “Is it okay if I sit here and act morose and sullen for fifteen minutes?”