Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Sachs was in no mood to joke. “The FAA’s making a decision on what to do about the 811 fleet, and I want your report on the Seattle incident to provide perspective,” he said.

Greenwood felt himself go tense. “What decision?” he asked.

“Whether to ground them for engine inspections.”

Greenwood came off the lounge chair. “Why in the hell would they do that?” he thundered. “There’s nothing wrong with the C-Fan. Your own top investigator said so.”

“Ours is an advisory role, as you know, George. The FAA makes the decision.”

“Then why didn’t the FAA call for the Seattle report?”

“Because depending on what it says, it will be a part of our recommendation. I want it now, George. Your man has my fax number. Today.”

“Well, I lean toward waiting for the final report,” Greenwood said smugly.

“Fine, then I’ll tell the FAA you’ve refused to disclose what happened in the Seattle case, and I consider that alone to be grounds for suspicion about the C-Fan’s durability.”

“Simmons won’t buy that,” Greenwood said.

“Are you willing to take the chance?”

He was not. “I’ll have it faxed within the hour,” he promised. He called Birkenkopf and told him to send the report to Sachs.

“It’ll take me a little bit to get to the office and get it sent off,” Birkenkopf said.

“I told him an hour,” Greenwood replied. “If you stretch that, I won’t care at all.”

Then Greenwood began trying to reach Lane Simmons.

While Greenwood talked to Sachs, Steve Pace got a call from his ex-wife.

“What happened to the United flight?” he asked when she told him of Melissa’s schedule change.

“It broke down, that’s all I know,” Joan replied.

“What’s the new flight?”

“TransAm 957. It’s due to arrive at 4:50, your time.”

Pace felt a hot sting of anxiety. “What’s the equipment?” he asked urgently.

“What?”

“What kind of equipment is it, Joan? What kind of plane?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped in response to the tension she heard in his voice. “You know I don’t understand that stuff.”

“Describe it,” he ordered.

“It was blue and silver. It had two wings and a tail and big wheels underneath.”

“Joan!”

“I don’t know, Steve. It was a new airplane, I guess. The agent told Sissy it was so fast she’d get to Washington only fifteen minutes later than her original flight.”

“Damn, it’s an 811.”

“Steve, you’re frightening me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I don’t like the idea of her being on an 811 when we still don’t know what’s wrong with them.”

“There haven’t been any problems since the crash.”

“No, but there was an incident before Dulles.”

“I didn’t know that. You should have told me.”

“I called a few days ago to ask about Sissy’s flights. When I found out she was on 767s, that was the end of it. Who can predict a flight will be canceled?”

“Well, I don’t think there’s any need to worry,” Joan concluded. “The flight got off fine, and the weather’s good all the way to Washington.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Pace said.

Kathy McGovern listened to the Washington end of the conversation from the living-room. When Steve hung up, she joined him in the kitchen. “Anything wrong?” she asked.

“Sissy’s going to be a little late getting here,” he said. “Her flight was canceled and she took a later one.”

“Is that all?” Kathy asked.

“Uh, no,” he said, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his denim shorts. “Joan let her switch to a TransAm flight. It’s an 811.”

Kathy’s hand flew to her mouth and she swallowed hard. Then she shook her head, as if dismissing a thought. “They’ve been flying safely for more than a week since the accident, Steve,” she said. “I don’t think…” She let the thought slide.

Pace put an arm around her shoulders. “I promise not to become a basket case in the next four hours if you won’t,” he teased.

“Okay,” Kathy said. And her mouth smiled.

Her eyes didn’t.

George Greenwood wasn’t having luck reaching Lane Simmons because Simmons was driving from Kensington, Maryland, into Washington, D.C. to meet with the board of the NTSB. Simmons had resisted the meeting. He made up his mind the day before there was no need to take the drastic step of grounding the 811 fleet. But earlier that morning, Ken Sachs had called him at home. During the previous evening, Sachs said, he had contacted all the members of the NTSB board, and they were assembling in Sachs’s office to discuss his recommendation. Simmons thought he had no choice but to join them. He also thought he was being sandbagged.

By the time Simmons arrived, the board members were there.

Sachs met him. “Appreciate you coming down, Lane,” he said. “You know everyone?”

Simmons called each of the board members by name as he shook hands around the conference table. He paused longer when he got to Vernon Lund.

“Good to see you, Vernon,” he said. “It’s a shame you have to come in on Sunday when what you probably need more than anything is rest. Nice job on the ConPac thing.”

“Thank you,” Lund replied dourly. “It was a terrible tragedy.”

Simmons sat down and rocked back in his chair. “Why are we here, Ken?” he asked.

Sachs pointed to a photocopy of the report faxed from Youngstown minutes earlier. Each place at the table had a copy. Simmons could see that some board members had read and marked theirs already.

“Take a minute with that,” Sachs said.

“Don’t we have this on file?” Simmons asked.

“We didn’t,” Sachs said. “We should have, I think, but we didn’t. I doubt your people have it, either. From the way George Greenwood talked, he didn’t intend for any of us to see it until after the final came in.”

“Personally, I’d prefer it that way,” Simmons said.

“In ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Sachs pressed. “I don’t consider this an ordinary circumstance.”

With a sigh of resolution, Simmons picked up the sheaf of papers and read. Some members reread with him. Lund sat still, staring straight ahead. Sachs guessed he objected to having his personal conclusion about the C-Fan engine challenged. He’d get over it.

Six minutes later, Simmons tossed the papers on the table. “So what?” he challenged.

“Vibrations, Lane,” Sachs said. “Unidentified excessive vibrations. I don’t have to lecture you on the damage excessive vibrations can do to an aircraft engine.”

“No, you don’t,” Simmons agreed testily. “But you do have to explain to me how this… this very preliminary statement could possibly justify grounding a fleet of airplanes.”

“Amen,” Lund said.

Martha Halleck, the junior member of the five-member safety board, leaned over the table. “Maybe excessive vibrations weakened the C-Fan at Dulles, so when the bird was ingested, the disk was too weak to withstand the additional stress,” she suggested.

“Pure speculation,” Simmons replied.

Sachs banged a fist onto the table. “Lane, before you got here this board voted four to one to recommend grounding. Are you prepared to dismiss that without consideration?”

“I have considered it,” Simmons insisted.

“Maybe not long enough.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You should consider how it will play to the public that the FAA turned down a nearly unanimous recommendation by the NTSB on such a serious safety matter.”

“You’d tell the press?” Simmons asked. “That’s the most underhanded blackmail—”