Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Steve, well hello.” Warner’s voice purred along the fiber-optic cable. She would be at her desk, Pace thought, her blond hair loose at the shoulders, her makeup perfect. Because it was Saturday, she probably would be wearing blue jeans tucked into high-heeled boots, and maybe a red silk blouse with the perfect accents of gold jewelry. Whitney Warner was one of those women who always looked just right. Men fell in love with her despite no conscious effort on her part to attract them. There was plenty of brain to go along with the looks. She’d earned a master’s degree from CalPoly in molecular physics and a Ph.D. in aerodynamic engineering from Cal Tech. She held an air transport license, was rated to fly about every jet in the skies, and had flown 737s for four years, both as a first officer and as a captain with Delta Airlines.

But her favorite toy was her Christen Eagle, a colorful biplane that could stunt with the best. It was in that aircraft that Pace first flew with her. “Mah instructah says it’s verrah, verrah safe,” she told him in soft Southern tones. “Ah just have to be careful not to let it spin.” So of course, as soon as they gained enough altitude, she stalled deliberately and spiraled into a spin. In the front of the two tandem seats, Pace grew dizzy and nauseous and found God. Warner later swore he screamed, but Pace insisted he had no recollection of any such thing, although he acknowledged he might have whimpered once. He had not been her first victim, but she said he was the best sport of the bunch.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to chat with you yesterday, Steve. It was more than a little bit mad around here. How have you been?”

“Probably better than you, Whit. I wasn’t sure you’d be in today.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be, but there’s too much to clean up. We’ve been getting fax copies of your stories. I see you’ve been busy, too.”

“Keeps me out of worse trouble. Is there any speculation around you’d care to share with an old flying buddy?”

He heard the smile in her voice. “I didn’t realize you were such a fan of my aerobatics. As to speculation, you seem to be doing most of that. After I saw your story today, I asked some of our people about the specs we required for the Converse engines. I also asked for any information they had on the cracked turbine disk in Seattle and on the probability a bird strike could cause the level of damage we saw at Dulles. They haven’t gotten back to me yet. But if any choice tidbits cross my desk, unless they’re for restricted distribution, I’ll give you a call. The rest of my morning I’ve spent on calls from reporters and two members of our board about your story. All I get is questions, no answers.”

“Who’d you send to work with the NTSB?”

“Dave Terrell. He’s one of our best engineers.”

“Well, I’ll probably be calling again,” Pace said. “By the way, how’s Brig?”

“He’s fine. NASA’s flying him all over the place, showing off its astronaut hero, and he’s about sick of it. He was coming home this weekend, but with the accident and all, well… he’s going to work now and maybe get a whole week off later.”

“Tough life,” Pace commiserated.

“Well, it’s hard to make babies long-distance. But we’ve waited this long, I guess another few months won’t matter to the child.”

“I didn’t know you were thinking about it.”

“Thinking and trying, finally.” Warner’s laugh carried 2,500 miles and made Pace feel good. “AP did a story. Did you miss it?”

“I guess I did. I would have sent a card of encouragement or something.”

“I’ll keep you posted. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I don’t know any more than you do—maybe not as much.”

“It was good talking to you anyway, Whit,” Pace said sincerely. “It’s always good.”

In Youngstown, the Converse operator was still in her “messages only” mode, but Pace caught Cullen Ferguson at home. Ferguson said he was sorry, but he couldn’t go beyond the one press release the company had issued right after the crash.

“For God’s sake, Cullen, that’s two days old, and a lot’s happened since then. What about the Seattle incident? What about the deflection capability of the engine design? What can you tell me about that?”

“Nothing right now. We’re not going to speculate on what happened to the engine. We’re checking to see if we can release any information about the cracked turbine disk, but our insurance carrier has basically told the CEO everybody’s to keep his mouth shut, and those are the orders he issued to me.”

“That makes it look like you’re hiding something.”

Ferguson exploded. “Well, we’re not! Do you realize the position we’re in? If we don’t say anything, we look like we’ve walled ourselves in, but if we do, we could wind up screwed in court by our own words. We’re damned sorry it happened. We said that two days ago. We have confidence in our new fan jet. We said that two days ago, too. And that’s all we’re going to say. Period. End of message.”

“You have any people on the scene here?”

“Our whole team was in early yesterday.”

“A day after the accident? Why didn’t they come on Thursday?”

“For Christ’s sake, Steve, be reasonable. We wanted to send our best, and that’s Walt Havens. He was on business in Seattle. It took time to get him back here, hook him up with the rest of the team, and get them all out of town. They were on scene the next morning.”

“Sorry, Cullen, but it’s strange, with your engine at the center of the investigation, you’d wait until the day after the crash to get your people connected with the NTSB.”

Ferguson reined himself in. He chose his words carefully and spoke deliberately. “We don’t need you to tell us how to run this company. We do what we have to do, as quickly as we can do it. If that doesn’t meet with your approval, that is too fucking bad.”

The reporter had the name he wanted—Havens—and he had no other questions for which Ferguson would have answers, so the conversation terminated.

Pace was considering whom to irritate next when his phone rang. It was Con Phillips, at the FAA. Like everyone else, he was spending Saturday at the office.

“Welcome to the world of indentured slavery, Con. What’s up?”

“You are indeed the wunderkind, the boy who can find magic in an innocuous FAA report,” Phillips said sarcastically. “You sure got me in a barrel of hot oil. I’ve already had some hard questions from my colleagues and three calls from other reporters who think I tipped you to the Seattle connection.”

“You didn’t. And we don’t know for sure there is a connection.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. And while you’re at it, maybe you’d like to tell me how you got onto that. The brass thinks maybe you should head the investigation. You’re the only one in town with a working crystal ball.”

“I can do without the sarcasm.” Pace was irritated, but he thought he owed Phillips an explanation. “When I first read the reports, I figured your assessment was good: there was nothing there. The Seattle incident was the only one even remotely interesting. I checked it out. Unless my Journalism 101 instructor was wrong, that’s what I get paid for.”

“What rabbit are you going to pull out of your hat tomorrow? So I’m prepared.”

“You’ll know it when you read it in the morning.”

“I’m tired, Steve. And I don’t like surprises. I didn’t mean to start a brawl. I really called to congratulate you. That was a nice scoop.”

“Thanks. You want to help me find another one for tomorrow?”

“And bring down the wrath of more of your colleagues? Not for a million dollars.”