Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“I know it,” Marshall said quickly. “I wish it was over.”

“Be reasonable. These episodes aren’t ever over for years. Slowly, methodically—with appropriate public-relations hype—we’ll take care of inspections, replacements, whatever the C-Fan needs. Life, and profits, will go on. Your investments are safe.”

“It’s not my investments I’m concerned about right this precious minute. It’s my political and personal neck.”

“You’re insulated. Christ, you’re better insulated than my house. Chappy Davis is the one whose neck is exposed.”

“This was a dirty deed, my old friend,” Marshall said sadly.

“Well, life ain’t always fair.”

NTA2464 sliced into the midday sky, outbound from Dulles en route to Denver’s Stapleton International Airport. The gathering clouds Harold Marshall watched from his office window had bloomed into full-fledged thunderstorms, with tops to 50,000 feet. There was a solid line stretching in an arc from Louisiana north and east all the way to upstate New York. TransAm Captain Eric Bijoren and First Officer Fred Cooper fought to keep the swirling winds from blowing them off course as they climbed out under full power, noise-abatement procedures be damned. Cooper kept an eye on the onboard weather radar.

Earlier, when the storms closed in on Dulles, all westbound traffic was held on the ground; lightning, high winds, and hail were too great a threat, even to a mighty Sexton 811. NTA2464, designated as Flight 762 for this trip, sat on the apron of Runway 19L for half an hour, waiting for weather radar to find a break in the storm line. At 1:34, the break came. A Delta 727 bound for Dallas-Fort Worth was first off. The flight crew reported manageable turbulence. A United 767 bound for Seattle was next out in similar conditions.

“TransAmerican seven-sixty-two heavy, the storm line is closing again,” a controller radioed to Bijoren.

Both pilots checked their radar. It was painting a barricade of red and yellow storm cells thirty-five miles west, running along the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There was an opening near the Linden VORTAC, the radio nav station near Warrenton.

Both men saw it. “Heading two-seven-zero will get us there,” Cooper said.

“Dulles control, this is TransAm seven-sixty-two heavy. If you can clear us with an immediate turn out to two-seven-zero, we should be able to make it through.”

Since decisions involving aircraft safety always rest with the captain, and because the controller could make out the same light spot in the dark wall of clouds to the west where Bijoren planned to fly the 811, he gave clearance for immediate takeoff.

“TransAm seven-sixty-two heavy, cleared for takeoff. Turn right after takeoff to two-seven-zero. Climb and maintain three thousand feet.”

“TransAm seven-sixty-two heavy, roger. We’re rolling,” Bijoren acknowledged, even as he and Cooper shoved the twin throttles forward.

NTA2464 hit the cloud ceiling seconds after wheels-up. The buffeting became intense. Two passengers seated near the tail became ill. Others looked out their windows apprehensively, their faces drained of color, although there was nothing to see but gray wetness engulfing them.

On the flight deck, the crew watched lightning flash in embedded storm cells.

“Estimating one minute, twenty seconds to breakthrough,” Cooper called out.

Bijoren glanced again at the radar. The “gate” was still there, but it appeared to be shrinking. If it closed any more, he would have to return to Dulles. He would not subject the aircraft or its passengers and crew to the danger of flying with violent storms off each wingtip. He got Departure Control permission to climb through 3,000 feet.

“One minute,” Stevens reported.

The turbulence abated. The 811 continued to climb, punching through slashing rain.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Good deal,” Bijoren responded.

Then suddenly they were through. The 811 burst clear of the roiling clouds into sunshine so bright that the two pilots squinted and grabbed for sunglasses. All around them, mountainous thunderheads soared upward, but the buffeting was over.

Cooper laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t want to do that again today.”

“Call departure control and advise them of conditions,” Bijoren ordered. “I don’t think anybody else should do that, either.”

NTA2464 leveled off at 37,000 feet. The air was smooth. The passengers were placated with a round of free drinks.

But deep inside Number One engine, the condition of the flawed turbine disk had become serious. The hammering of the full-throttle takeoff and climb-out had enlarged the microscopic crack and divided it. The disk was splitting now in two directions.

Its time was running out.

Pace was ten minutes late for his seven-o’clock dinner at Heritage House, a two-year-old building constructed to look like a colonial inn of two hundred years earlier. It had a flat weathered-wood front, small double-hung windows with leaded-glass panes, a front porch with wooden rocking chairs, electric lights that looked like old oil lamps, horse tie-ups, and a livery boy who doubled as a doorman. The place might have been from the Revolutionary era but for the asphalt parking lot filled with late-twentieth-century cars.

One can carry authenticity only so far.

The period look carried through the interior, with exposed beams, dim lighting, and dark wood, but it bypassed the maître d’, who fancied the traditional black tux. He led Pace to his party with a practiced smile. The menu was two slabs of wood held with a leather thong. The host laid it on the pewter serving plate at Pace’s place and pulled out the chair. Pace didn’t know if he should tip him or kiss him, so he opted for a nod of gratitude. That seemed sufficient.

If he’d had to pick Sally Incaveria and the police captain from among all the diners, Pace probably would have guessed incorrectly. He’d pictured Sally as a very young, very shy Mexican or Puerto Rican, just out of college and feeling her way, alone in the world for the first time. The woman across the table from him was young, all right, and appeared to be Hispanic, although Pace was ready to bet she also was part Indian. But she was neither shy nor apparently feeling alone in the world. Sally was stunning and slim, with very dark eyes, very dark hair, very high cheekbones, and a smile that nearly took Pace’s breath away. She appeared to have been dressed by a fashion house in Paris, and she took charge of the introductions immediately.

“Steve, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sally said, extending a hand with long fingers and immaculately-done nails at the end of a slim wrist encircled by several expensive-looking gold bracelets. “I was telling Captain Helm that despite the fact we work for the same newspaper, I’m rarely in the downtown office and you’re rarely in Virginia, so we could have gone years without meeting face to face.”

“It would have been a pity,” Pace replied.

Sally nodded toward the other man at the table. “Steven Pace, Captain Clay Helm of the Virginia State Police.”

Helm was not your stereotypical Southern cop, either. Even seated, he appeared to be about six-feet-four. He had very broad shoulders above a well-developed chest, obvious even beneath his light-wool suit coat. His face was narrow but not thin, his features chiseled, his hair sandy and stylishly long, and his eyes were the clearest blue Pace thought he had ever seen. And if he was a day over forty-two or forty-three, Pace was ready to eat the wooden menu.

“You’re Captain Helm?” Pace asked.

Helm smiled broadly, and even before Pace saw them, he guessed the teeth would be perfect. They were.