Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

Pace wasn’t so humiliated by the move to general assignment as he was furious it happened when he was getting close to a break in his investigation. He’d tried to argue his way out of the change, but Schaeffer was adamant.

“I told you not to obsess on this, Steve, and you turn around and start calling police to your apartment at all hours with stories about lost phone messages and mysterious blue vans that follow you in the night,” Schaeffer said, almost sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not making up this stuff,” Pace insisted. “So the cop has his doubts. Frankly, I don’t blame him. But I’m not hallucinating or fabricating these things. Those messages were on my machine. That van was there yesterday. More on point, yesterday I talked to two members of the power-plants team who can place Elliott Parkhall and Mark Antravanian at Dulles within a few hours of the accident. Both could have seen the engine before the bird remains were reported the next morning. What if Antravanian saw Parkhall do something? He might—”

“Enough,” Schaeffer said with a raised hand. “If what you’re telling me is true, give it to your friend at the state police and let him follow it up. If what you suspect is true, the potential danger to you is too great.” He shifted in his chair. “And if what Detective Lanier suspects is true, we need to put some distance between you and this story before he has you up on charges of filing a false police report. This is the only solution I see.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to decide if the danger to me is too great?” Pace asked. “I don’t need anybody making that decision for me.”

“Nonetheless, I made it,” Schaeffer said. “And my vote’s the only one that counts.”

Pace sank into a chair in front of the editor’s desk. “Avery, what happened to initiative on this story? What happened to the decision to push and push until somebody pushes back? Why are we so timid all of a sudden?”

Schaeffer grabbed a huge sigh. He rocked back in his chair.

“Look at the whole picture,” he said. “There is not one single shred of evidence to link your suspicions to any reality I can think of. The NTSB isn’t considering anything beyond the bird strike. The other newspapers don’t show any sign of sharing your conviction that a conspiracy’s afoot. Steve, it’s always great to be out front all alone on a big story. And you gave us that for a time. But you only want to be out front for so long. At some point you want the other guys to catch up, to confirm on their own what you’ve been writing. There are good reporters working for those other papers. Russell Ethrich and Justin Smith are two of many. Are you telling me Justin wouldn’t have hold of this thing by the throat if he thought there was something to it? Back off from it. Look at it through a window of objectivity. The story isn’t there. You’re chasing a red herring. I’ve got to put some distance between you and this… this obsession of yours.”

Pace stood. “I understand what you’re saying. I think you’re wrong. I think there is evidence of a conspiracy, at least enough to warrant more reporting.”

“Stay away from it, Steve. That’s an order.”

It was a far greater blow when he arrived home that evening and discovered Kathy had come during the day and removed the rest of her things. What a waste. He’d shoved her out of his life for nothing. He wasn’t even able to keep his promise to find the clear cause of the accident that killed her brother.

It was roiling his gut the next morning when his phone rang.

“Pace.”

“Hearin’ a dastardly rumor about you, boy.” The drawl and the syntax clearly belonged to Justin Smith.

“I don’t know what you’ve been hearing but it’s probably all true,” Pace replied.

“Up to talking about it?”

“Not much to say. Shit! Why do I talk like you every time we have a conversation?”

Smith chuckled. “Economy of words,” he said.

“An act,” Pace countered. “So what are you hearing about me?”

“That you got yourself busted off aviation because you wouldn’t let go of some daggone, pie-in-the-sky theory about the Dulles accident.”

“True.”

“Really?” Smith sounded surprised at Pace’s easy acknowledgment. “Want to talk?”

“Not here.”

“Lunch, then.”

“Where?”

“Old Ebbitt?”

“One-thirty?”

“Sounds good, kid. Call and have me paged if something comes up.”

“Will do, Justin.”

Even at the end of the lunch rush, the Old Ebbitt Bar & Grille on 15th Street was a mob scene. The tables were close and the din could be unnerving. Despite the proximity of the diners, there wasn’t a chance in hell that anybody nearby could pick up the threads of a private conversation.

Pace ordered a Beck’s; Smith ordered Heineken. They flipped through the menu and settled on burgers. They gave the waiter the order when he returned with the drinks.

“So how’re you doing?” Smith asked.

“Well enough, under the circumstances.”

“Feel like talking about it?”

“Not much to tell,” Pace said. “I was following some leads…” He shrugged. “And some leads were following me. My editors didn’t like it. I wouldn’t quit so I got busted to GA.”

Smith looked into his beer glass for a long moment and then drained it. He set it on the table and leaned over it toward Pace. “You remember that story I beat you on, the one about the ConPac crew trying to fly the 811 even after the starboard engine failed?”

“In my nightmares.”

“Sources on that story—and I got two—say the flight data-recorder readings on the engine aren’t consistent with a bird strike.”

“What?” Pace gasped.

“Try to steal that story and I’ll be the next one beats you up,” Smith warned.

“Justifiably,” Pace conceded. “What’s the rest?”

“Just violated every rule the Times has by tellin’ you as much as I did,” Smith said. “That’s as far as I go.”

“Fine,” Pace said. “Fine, I understand completely. When are you going to write this, Justin? It’s my ticket back onto the story.”

“How so?”

“Your ass will be sticking out there, too, and my editors will know I’m not the only one who doesn’t accept the NTSB line.”

“Rightly enough,” Smith said. “Can’t tell you when or even if it will run. Still got some checking to do. Supposed to head out to Dulles this afternoon to see Lund.”

“Look,” Pace said, “I’m not trying to be an asshole or anything. I wouldn’t try to steal your story. Hell, I couldn’t if I wanted to, not from a GA desk. But those black-box readings, how far are they off the norm?”

“Don’t know the answer and probably wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

“What more do you need to write?”

“A lot. But it’s comin’ together. Reason I suggested lunch, thought there might be somethin’ you could tell me.”

Pace stared at Smith. “You find me lying in a gutter and you’re going to try to pick my pockets before I get washed away by the street cleaners?”

“No,” Smith said definitely. “You know me better than that. I feel obligated to make an exchange of information. That’s why I told you about the black-box data, a gesture of good faith.”

Pace sagged back in his chair. He believed his colleague, but in reconsidering the lines of inquiry he’d been following, he thought his investigation and Smith’s didn’t overlap. They’d been following parallel courses on entirely different tracks. He said as much.

“You know where to reach me,” Smith said.

Pace felt a sudden chill. “Justin,” he said, “watch your back.”