Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Well, some Godfuckingdamnbody knows,” Sachs suddenly thundered. “And when I find him, he’d better give his soul to God, because his ass belongs to me!”

At the Chronicle office, Pace turned over his desk and telephone to McGill, who needed to check in with his systems analysts at Dulles. Pace was chatting with Paul Wister when the pilot finished, and the three of them went to Schaeffer’s office. After exchanging introductions, Pace and McGill took opposite ends of Schaeffer’s sofa.

“Okay, you two cowboys, suppose you bring the foremen up to date,” the editor said.

They took turns in the telling, and when they finished, Schaeffer regarded them gravely. His question sounded bizarre in the context. “Why,” he asked, “should we do this? Why shouldn’t we drop it right here?”

Pace was stunned. “Drop it? Why?”

McGill frowned, and even Wister looked puzzled.

Schaeffer explained. “We have an intriguing mystery before us. We have a high-level Senate aide who’s furious about carrying water for a member he despises. We have a couple of anonymous phone calls alleging some sort of cover-up, and a horrible death that appears to be related. But does it mean anything? The aide’s allegations are far from definitive. He might have read something into the situation Marshall didn’t intend. We have nothing to corroborate the allegations of Captain McGill’s tipster except, unfortunately, his death, and that isn’t proof of anything, really. It could have been a coincidental accident.”

Pace, deeply frustrated, interrupted. “But the state police—”

Schaeffer held up a hand. “Let me finish, Steve.” He picked up the thread of his argument. “We have no hard evidence to argue for continuing. We have a series of events that lead nowhere. And we know nothing about the NTSB that would suggest the agency or anyone in it would ever be party to a cover-up. In short, we’ve got nothing.”

“And what do we tell Ken Sachs?” Pace asked with a harder edge in his voice than he wanted his supervisors to hear.

Schaeffer shrugged. “The truth… we went over the evidence and came up short.”

Pace was desperate. “You were so excited this morning. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I’m not saying I want out. I’m asking why we should stay in. I don’t want to treat this project any differently than I’d treat an item on the AP daybook. You look at the potential for a good story, evaluate it in terms of the needs and interests of your readers, plus the time and resources it will take to cover it, and then you make a decision to go or to pass. That’s all I’m trying to do here: make a cold decision.”

“Leaving George Ridley and Harold Marshall out of it for the moment, don’t we have sufficient reason to try to explain what happened to Mark Antravanian?” Pace asked.

McGill had a thought. “I’m probably out of line in suggesting what you should do, but Mark was a man who, in the normal course of things, you would be predisposed to believe,” he said. “Since we don’t know anything that would cast doubt on his credibility, you have to assume he stumbled onto something worthy of concern.”

“I’d have to agree, Avery,” said Wister.

“If he was your mysterious caller,” said Schaeffer. “We don’t know that, do we?”

“I think I do,” McGill said. “I told Steve at the time there was something about his accent I recognized. When I heard the crash victim was Mark Antravanian, the voice and the identity matched perfectly.”

“That’s the key, then,” the editor said, nodding. He smacked his open right hand down on the desktop. “We go.”

“You had me worried there for a second,” Pace said with a smile.

“Good,” said Schaeffer. “I’m probably going to worry you a few more times as this investigation goes along. We’re going to take careful stock of where we are and where we’re going each step of the way. And I have to warn you, there could come the day when I tell you it’s time to pass. If that day comes, you’re going to have to accept it and walk away.”

Pace nodded. He and McGill stood to leave.

“What do you say we have dinner?” Schaeffer suggested suddenly. “Who’s got anything better to do? And I could use the night out. I’m batching it these days.” He smacked his palms together in the manner of a man with a bang-up idea and heaved himself from his chair. “Every so often my wife gets some bee in her bonnet about going off to Great Britain for two or three months to do castles and drive through the heather. When the urge strikes, I send her up to her sister’s in Philadelphia, and that cures her traveling itch for a year or so. I sent her away for the cure again last week, so whatta you say? Paul, you can get away for an hour or two, can’t you?”

“I don’t think so tonight, Avery,” the national editor replied. “We’ve got the Central American aid bill snarled up in filibuster, and there’s a major hostage situation going down in Baltimore. We have four people on the way. I need to hang tight.”

Schaeffer turned to the sofa. “What about you two? Steve?”

“I need to make a couple of calls first.”

“Sure. Mike?”

“I don’t see any reason why not.”

It was settled. Three for dinner at Maison Rouge, one of the best French restaurants in the city and, handily, a half block from the Chronicle’s front door. It was Schaeffer’s favorite place.

Pace placed a call to his ex-wife.

His daughter, Melissa, answered the phone. “Hi, Dad,” she said cheerily. “I hope you’re not calling to cancel next week.”

“Not a chance, kiddo. I’m looking forward to it. Is your mom around?”

“No, she went to the store. She’ll be sorry she missed you.”

“Actually, you could probably help me. Do you have your airline tickets handy?”

“Yep. I’ve been carryin’ ’em around in my purse so I wouldn’t lose ’em.”

“What are the numbers of your flights here and back?”

“Hang on,” she said. He heard the receiver clatter on the table as Sissy went off to retrieve her bag. She was back shortly.

“Gosh, Dad, there are bunches of numbers here.”

“Look at the seat-assignment card attached to the ticket. It’ll say ‘flight,’ and there will be a number there.”

“Yeah, here it is. I’m flying east on 1571 and back on, let’s see here, 1592. Why?”

“That’s United, right?”

“Yeah. Why do you need to know?”

He lied. “To check your arrival time so I don’t leave you stranded at Dulles.”

“That’d be bogus.”

“Be what?”

“Bogus. Bogue. You know, bad.”

“Oh, right. I knew that.”

She giggled. They spent a few more minutes chatting until a call-waiting alert diverted Sissy’s attention. Pace dialed a UAL 800 reservations number. He asked the agent if he would check the two flights to see what kind of equipment was being used.

“Boeing 767 both ways,” the agent replied.

With a sigh of relief, Pace thanked him.

His next call was to Kathy. It was 7:30, so he tried her at home first. To his surprise, he found her there. “Early day at the office?” he teased.

“Well, as you pointed out, the Senate’s not in session,” she said. “I got away at 6:30. By the way, if I’m still invited, Hugh was delighted to give me next Monday off.”

“Great!” Pace responded. “I was going to ask you to go out tonight, but Avery asked Mike McGill and me to have dinner with him, so it’ll have to be tomorrow, if you’re free.”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” she said.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m hanging in. I hope I don’t put a damper on the picnic Monday.”