Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“We knew before,” Pace said. “You wouldn’t come right out and say ‘bird.’ But you said it was something with feathers so it didn’t take a brain surgeon to eliminate cows.” Pace’s colleagues laughed tentatively. They didn’t know where his questions were leading.

“Once again I ask: what’s your point, Mr. Pace?” Lund demanded.

“Well, the tone of your remarks tends to deflect culpability from Converse,” the reporter replied, trying to keep accusatory nuance from his voice. “Your purpose seems less to enlighten the public than to lighten the burden on the engine manufacturer.”

Pace’s colleagues were stunned by the statement, but no less so than Lund. Russell Ethrich, sitting closest to Lund, saw beads of perspiration pop on the board member’s upper lip. Justin Smith looked from Lund to Pace and back again, sensing something important behind the question, but not immediately able to discern what it was.

“I won’t dignify that with a response,” Lund snapped. “Are there any other… pertinent questions?”

At the forty-minute mark, Lund called it quits, and most members of the media left grumbling about learning virtually nothing new.

Smith hung back to walk out with Pace. “You hittin’ below the belt there, boy, or you know somethin’ the rest of us don’t?” he asked playfully.

“Fishing, Justin,” Pace replied. “Just fishing.”

“Yeah? And my Aunty Eloise can grow bullfrogs outta cornmeal.” The older reporter stopped, and Pace stopped, too. Smith rubbed his chin. “You remember me tellin’ you some of the people around me are talkin’ about you as my replacement when I retire?”

“Sure, and I’m flattered, Justin,” he said, “but I don’t know why I’d want to jump from the Chronicle to the Times .”

“Money, sonny. They say it talks.”

“Maybe,” Pace said, nodding, “but I’ve never pictured myself as a Times- man . I don’t own enough gray suits.”

Smith snorted. “An old saw,” he said. “I look like that stereotype to you?”

“No,” Pace acknowledged with a laugh, “but everybody else in the bureau does.”

“Can get used to anythin’,” Smith replied. “Even gray suits.”

“I’d have to give it a lot of thought, old friend.”

“Ain’t offerin’ you the job, Steve. Ain’t mine to offer. Just puttin’ you on notice. You got some scoop tucked in your britches you’re plannin’ to embarrass me with, I could steer Times talk away from you pretty quick.”

Pace wasn’t quite certain how to take that. “Is that a threat?”

Smith smiled warmly. “Nah, just jerkin’ your chain.” He put a hand on Pace’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Want to see you do good,” he said. “Wouldn’t make me unhappy at all to see you followin’ these old shoes. You got somethin’ good up your sleeve, I wish you luck with it.”

“A hunch,” Pace said honestly. “It’s probably about the wildest goose I ever chased.”

“Hope you bag it, boy. See ya ’round.”

Smith left—sauntered off would be a better description. Pace felt genuine affection for the man. Their competition had never detracted from their friendship, although the friendship never became as personal as it was professional. Pace found himself wishing it were otherwise.

He followed Smith out of the terminal moments later, reflecting on how touchy Lund had been about the possibility of grounding the 811 fleet. Pace intended nothing malevolent by his question, nor were precautionary groundings out of the ordinary. Yet Lund jumped at the question as though he’d been stung.

So Lund’s a defender of the Converse Corporation. Big fucking surprise. How much they pay you, Vern?

That thought would force Pace to make a phone call he dreaded more than anything.

Three hours out of Seattle, on a direct run to Boston, TransAm Captain Phillip Jeffries laid his middle finger lightly on the throttle of the Number One engine of his Sexton 811, the ship bearing the registration NTA2464. The first officer, Graham Washington, looked at Jeffries quizzically.

Jeffries glanced at his copilot. “Feel that,” he said.

Washington laid his palm against the white-plastic knob. He lowered his head for a moment as if listening for something, then glanced at the digital-engine readouts. “What are you getting?” he asked the captain.

“I thought I felt vibration—more than usual,” Jeffries said. He put his hand back on the throttle. Then he shook his head. “It’s not there now.”

“Readouts are nominal,” Washington said.

“Probably my imagination,” Jeffries said.

“She just got out of overhaul, Skipper,” Washington recalled.

“Maybe I ought to go in for one,” the captain joked, and they both laughed.

From his seat in a leather armchair in his Capitol Hill office, Senator Harold Marshall reached across a polished-mahogany table and killed the power on his small color-television set, tuning out a commentator’s summation of the NTSB press conference. He’d heard enough. He had a broad smile on his face. He turned to the aide sitting beside him.

“We did it, Chappy,” Marshall said. “I had moments I doubted we could pull this off, but we did it.” He reached his right hand toward Chapman Davis, who took it with a nod.

“Yes, sir, I think it sounded all right,” Davis said.

“Better than all right.” Although it was only a bit past noon, Marshall rose and went to a sideboard where he opened his bar, dug some whitish-looking ice cubes from a small freezer, and poured generous portions of bourbon for himself and for his aide. Davis preferred vodka, but he said nothing and accepted the glass. “I don’t know what brand of soft-soap you used to rub down old Lund, but I don’t think he could have made a stronger defense if I’d written it myself.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Senator, I’m not displeased,” Davis said after a sip of his strong drink. “But I’m going to feel a lot better in a few weeks when people have gone back to worrying about who’s got the nukes in Russia, or when some huge asteroid will hit the earth and wipe out all life as we know it—anything but airplanes.”

Marshall eased himself back into his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “Well, you can worry this thing for a few more weeks if it will make you feel better,” he said, “but I, for one, am going to sleep very soundly tonight.”

“Tell him it’s Steve Pace from the Chronicle, and I badly need to talk to him,” he said to Ken Sachs’s secretary on the other end of the telephone connection. “Sylvia, something unfortunate happened between us, and Ken won’t want to talk to me, but it’s important. I’d be happy to come over and grovel in person, if that would help fix things.”

“I heard you two had a spot of a problem,” Sylvia Levinson replied. “I didn’t get all the gory details, but I know he was one enraged puppy when he had to cancel that trip to Chicago. I gather the President wasn’t thrilled, either.”

“I bet not. The whole incident was my fault. I was out of line. I’d like to apologize.”

“He’s at a luncheon meeting, but I’ll give him the message when he returns. Meanwhile, if you have anything else to do, I’d suggest you go ahead and do it.”

“In other words, don’t waste time hanging around waiting for him to call back?”

“Well, it’s not my place to say that, but that’s what I’m saying.”

“Do the best you can for me, will you, please?”

“The best I can. Yes.”

Attempting optimism, Pace ignored Sylvia’s caution and ate lunch at his desk while he tried to make sense of his notes. He had three lists: what he knew, what he suspected, and questions remaining. There probably was a story in the unanswered questions.