Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Why?” Sally asked.

“Because one crashed at Dulles, and we don’t know why. The NTSB says a bird strike. But somebody committed murder to cover up something, and that might mean there’s more wrong with the 811 than birds it can’t digest.”

“You know,” Sally said to Pace, “it’s possible—even if our theory is correct—that it didn’t bear any relationship to Dulles. Maybe it was coincidental that you and your friend were expecting to meet somebody at the same time the bumper-car incident went down.”

Pace and Helm looked at Sally for a long moment.

“On the other hand,” the young reporter said, “I guess I wouldn’t want to bet another 300 lives on that.”

“Bright girl.” Helm smiled.

“You can’t have her,” Pace said. “She belongs to the Chronicle.”

“But I’m taking her home,” Helm replied.

The phone was ringing when Pace entered his apartment. It was Mike, eager to hear about the dinner with the cop. The pilot listened without interruption to Pace’s account.

“Fascinating,” he said when Pace had finished. “So the cops are ready to call this a murder case.”

“Not cops, Mike. Cop. Singular. And not ready to do it, exactly, but ready to consider the possibility. All of which means nothing until we know who the victim is.”

“Any timetable?”

“Helm says you never know. But I’d bet next week’s salary he’ll be on the medical examiner’s back until he gets that report.”

When Pace hung up, he checked his recorder for messages. There was one.

“Hi, Steve, I’m home. I got in about eight and thought you might like to have a brandy or a cup of coffee. You’re working incredibly long hours, aren’t you?” Kathy paused, but only briefly, so the recorder didn’t cut her off. “The funeral was okay, as those things go. Mercifully short. Daddy said no High Mass because he knew Jonny wouldn’t have wanted it, and, of course, Betsy isn’t Catholic. She held up pretty well, but she said she felt sick. I hope she doesn’t lose the baby. I’m rambling. Call when you can.”

She sounded anguished. His watch said it was 10:45, and he took a chance she’d be up at that hour, despite her difficult day.

Kathy answered on the second ring.

“Hi,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, I’m up,” she said, an edge of exhaustion in her voice. “Even if I went to bed, I couldn’t sleep.”

“How are you holding up?”

He heard her begin to cry softly. “I don’t feel like I’ll ever get over this,” she said. “The funeral was gut-wrenching, especially for Betsy, with the baby coming and all.” Kathy sighed heavily. “I wanted so much to do something for her, but I can’t even hold myself together. I wanted to stay, at least the night, but Daddy wouldn’t hear of it. I wanted to because they put Betsy under a doctor’s care, mainly to protect the baby. But Jennifer said she would take care of everything and I should come home. She’s just like Daddy.”

Jennifer Wheaton was Joseph McGovern’s second wife, and from all accounts, Pace thought she must be one hell of a woman.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

“What I want most is an explanation,” she said again. He desperately wanted to give her one; the bird-strike theory seemed so mundane and inadequate.

“I know,” he said. “We’re all doing our best. Do you want me to come over?”

“Oh, it’s probably too late now.”

“How about tomorrow, if you feel up to it?”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll catch up with you late tomorrow afternoon when I see how the day’s going.”

“Fine. I’ll be at the office.”

Pace shook his head. “Don’t you think you deserve another day to yourself?”

“And do what? Sit around here crying? That won’t help anybody.”

“As Daddy would put it?”

“And as I would put it.”

“Oh, shit!”

Pace cursed himself as he emptied the pockets of his slacks onto the top of the bureau in his bedroom. Sitting there in the old souvenir ashtray where he normally kept his change, staring at him like an accusatory eyeball, was the metal ball he’d found at Dulles when he was on the field with Mike.

He picked it up and inspected it closely. Deep scratches marred the surface, and it was chipped in two places. Maybe the ball wasn’t from the Sexton after all. A new aircraft shouldn’t have any parts that badly worn. It probably was a discard from some old aircraft, or from another type of vehicle entirely. Pace tossed it back into the ashtray and headed for a shower.

Later, dressed only in a pair of denim shorts, he went to the kitchen and poured himself a stiff Black Jack on the rocks. Comfortably settled in his favorite chair, he let his head fall onto the top of the backrest and allowed his mind to wander to Kathleen McGovern, the mysterious metal ball forgotten completely.

When he opened his eyes again, it was 2:30. Half his drink stood untouched, diluted by melted ice. He set it in the kitchen sink, turned off the lights, and went to bed.

“This is AP Network News. I’m Frank Greshhold.”

Pace was at the dawn of consciousness, the half-sleeping, half-waking time when reality and dreams intermingle and the mind is at peace. He was aware he was in danger of losing the thread of a pleasant dream about Kathy and himself and a child he didn’t know playing with the wind on a catamaran in the middle of a body of water that could have been an ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps. He fought to shut out the voice threatening to sever the fantasy.

He was lying on his left side, his head on one pillow and his right arm thrown over another, the covers creating the right degree of soft warmth in the air-conditioned bedroom. The effect was a sense of well-being he would not willingly relinquish. He thought he had fifteen minutes to listen absently to the world and national news. But the opening story smashed his reverie and left his dream as splintered as if the imagined catamaran had shipwrecked on a rocky shore.

“The New York Times reports today the crew of ConPac Flight 1117 apparently tried to take off using only its left engine after the engine under the right wing suffered catastrophic failure. The effort to get the crippled Sexton 811 into the air was doomed because whatever destroyed the right engine set off a chain reaction that also destroyed the right wing, something the crew could not have prevented, according to the Times. Although officials of the National Transportation Safety Board unofficially attributed the accident to a bird strike, the Times’ report raises new questions about the structural strength of commercial aviation’s newest aircraft. The Sexton Corporation had no immediate comment on the story, nor did the NTSB. The accident at Dulles International Airport northwest of Washington, D.C. last Thursday, killed 334 people, making it the worst in U.S. aviation history. More after this…”

Pace’s fist hit the off button as the first notes of a familiar jingle for a popular headache remedy drifted from the speaker. He stared at the radio in disbelief, his body shocked by a rush of adrenaline and awash in perspiration. He could feel disappointment knotted high in his stomach.

Justin Smith had passed him on a straightaway and taken the lead, with sources someplace deep inside the NTSB. He’d lost his advantage without even feeling anyone brush by him. How could that information be around the agency without Eddie Conklin knowing about it, and if he knew, why hadn’t Eddie alerted him, especially if he knew the Times had the story? Or was Eddie the Times’ source? Had he pushed Conklin so hard that he pushed him right into the Times’ arms? Or did the Times have a source inside the go-team? Elliott Parkhall, head of the power-plants group, or Vernon Lund? Pace had a dozen questions. He lacked even a single answer.