Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“McGill.” He held the phone away from his ear so Pace could listen.

“I gather you received my message.” McGill thought he heard a hint of an accent in the voice, something vaguely familiar.

“I got your message, but for all I know, you’re some crank who crawled out from behind the woodwork with a novel idea for a practical joke that isn’t very funny.” The insult elicited no rise from the caller.

“I understand. But I’m no crank. I’m a desperate man living a nightmare and looking for help. The investigation is rigged.” Pace detected a tightness, almost pain, in the voice.

“If that’s true,” McGill said, “I’m willing to help. But I have no way to judge your integrity or your ability to distinguish a conspiracy because I don’t know who you are.”

“How do you suggest we resolve this dilemma?”

“I suggest we meet somewhere, in a private place you may choose, and you tell me who you are, what you know, what you suspect, and how you got involved.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

The caller thought for a minute. “You know where Georgetown Pike is? Route 193.”

“No, but I can find it.”

“Be careful,” the caller said. “It’s a narrow, hilly, winding road.”

“Right,” McGill replied.

The caller gave the pilot very specific directions to a small bridge near Great Falls, where, he said, there was a secluded pullout that would afford them privacy.

“Can you be there in an hour?” the caller asked.

“No problem,” McGill replied. “You’re certain you’ll be there?”

“Sir, this is neither a practical joke nor a joking matter. I’ll be there.”

The line went dead.

The telephone at the other end of McGill’s connection was in Hangar Three. The hand that held the receiver belonged to Mark Antravanian, who had spent his entire career dealing through channels, not anonymously over the telephone in the middle of the night. He hated what he was doing, and he was frightened. But he had no choice.

Thursday night he’d witnessed a man wearing an NTSB identification badge tampering with the crumpled starboard engine of the doomed ConPac flight. When the saboteur finished his task and left the scene, Antravanian took a quick look at the engine and recognized immediately what had been done to it. At that moment he had been too stunned to believe what he saw, let alone to act on it. It wasn’t until the power-plants group met early the next morning that Antravanian recognized the stranger at the engine to be the very man who would head the investigation of its performance.

The engineer flirted with the idea of confronting Parkhall at the breakfast table in the dining room of the Marriott Hotel in front of the two other members of the power-plants team. But his Eastern European civility wouldn’t allow him to make an accusation publicly before confronting Parkhall privately. His decision to wait was sealed by the approach of three men. Antravanian recognized the squat, barrel-chested, balding man in the lead as Walt Havens. He reckoned correctly that the other two also were representatives of the Converse Corporation, who would have come both to aid in the investigation and to oversee the interests of the company.

So Antravanian waited until after breakfast, when the group broke up to reconvene at the site where the Converse engine rested. He carefully moved into a position at Parkhall’s elbow as they walked out of the hotel into the parking lot.

Antravanian considered a diplomatic opening, but in the end, when the two were isolated from the others, he blurted it out. “What were you doing to the engine last night?”

Parkhall’s head snapped around as though he’d been struck from the other side. Antravanian saw the color drain from the man’s face.

“What are you talking about… Mark, is it? I wasn’t out at the engine last night.”

“Yes, you were,” Antravanian insisted. “I saw you there. And after you left, I looked at the engine. I had seen it for the first time during the late afternoon, and I saw immediately the difference. I didn’t know who you were until this morning, and now I demand an explanation or I will go to higher authority.”

“All right,” Parkhall relented. “Ride out to Hangar Three with me, and I’ll show you. It’s nothing to get all lathered up about.”

Inside a maroon Dodge sedan, Parkhall used his car telephone. “The warehouse. Five minutes,” was all he said. They rode across the airport grounds and through the guarded gates in silence. Antravanian once tried to press his questions, but Parkhall waved him silent. They parked beside the hangar. Antravanian started walking toward the entry door, but Parkhall called him in the opposite direction, toward a small warehouse.

Inside, they were met by two men who looked out of place, more like retired pro football tackles or soldiers of fortune than aviation engineers. Parkhall sat down behind a small desk. Antravanian stood in front of him, his back to the door and the hired help. Antravanian thought Parkhall looked more comfortable since they’d entered the warehouse. He surmised correctly the men standing behind him were hired muscle and the diminutive NTSB engineer felt less threatened—and more threatening—with them acting as back-up.

Without hesitation, Parkhall told Antravanian he’d been given a great deal of money to pay for an investigative conclusion that exonerated the Converse engines from blame in the Dulles accident. He said he was willing to share the money in return for Antravanian’s silence about what he saw Thursday night.

Even before Parkhall got into the details, Antravanian’s reaction was explosive, an accusation that Parkhall had gone mad. Parkhall remained calm, explaining that if Antravanian did not intend to accept the money or meant in any way to cast doubts on the contrived engine report, there was more cash available to take him out of the picture.

“What does ‘take me out of the picture’ mean, exactly?” Antravanian demanded.

“Well, let’s see,” Parkhall thought aloud. He was wearing the smug look of a bully when his gang of friends is nearby. “You could be discredited, your life and career ruined. Or, as our friends at Langley would say, you could be terminated with extreme prejudice.”

“That’s bullshit,” Antravanian screamed. “That is total bullshit. I don’t know why I’m even standing here talking to you. You can’t do those things. I don’t know how you could ever condone the suggestion of a false report. That’s ludicrous! That’s insane!”

“Mark, hear me out. If we do this thing, we get rich, and I’ve been assured the Converse people won’t rest until they find the cause of the engine failure and fix it on their own. Nobody gets hurt unless somebody screws up.”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” Antravanian breathed. “I will not be a party to this. I won’t even stand here and listen to any more of it.”

Parkhall came out from behind the desk and put a hand on his arm as Antravanian took a step to leave. “Mark, I’ve agreed to go along. I can’t back out. And I can’t let you out.”

“And I’m saying no way.” Parkhall glanced over Antravanian’s left shoulder, but the gesture made no impression on the angry engineer. “I’m going to Padgett, and if I have to, I’ll go to Lund. If I get no satisfaction from them, I’ll go higher. Somebody will stop you.”

“It won’t do any good, Mark. Everyone’s been reached.”

“Everyone?” Antravanian blanched, then regained his outrage. “Then I’ll go to Congress, to the White House!” he screamed. As he tried to turn, determined to leave, he was grabbed from behind by four hands, two on each arm. He attempted to twist away, but the hands on his left jerked his arm up to shoulder height and slammed it down at the wrist across a steel bar on a baggage trolley.