Airframe (20 page)

“
What
? We shot four days of B-roll on the set in Tangier. His picture opens this weekend—and he’s slated for the full twelve.” A twelve minute segment on
Newsline
, the most-watched news show on television, was the kind of publicity that money couldn’t buy. Every star in Hollywood wanted on the show. “What happened?”

“Marty was chatting with him during makeup, and mentioned that Pacino hadn’t had a hit in four years. And I guess he got offended, and walked.”

“On camera?”

“No. Before.”

“Jesus,” Jennifer said. “Pacino can’t do that. His contract calls for him to do publicity. This was set up months ago.”

“Yeah, well. He did.”

“What’s Marty say?”

“Marty is pissed. Marty is saying, What did he expect, this
is a news show, we ask hard-hitting questions. You know, typical Marty.”

Jennifer swore. “This was just what everyone was worried about.”

Marty Reardon was a notoriously abrasive interviewer. Although he had left the news division to work on
Newsline
—at a much higher salary—two years before, he still viewed himself as a hard-hitting newsman, tough but fair, no-holds-barred—though in practice he liked to embarrass interviewees, putting them on the spot with intensely personal questions, even if the questions weren’t relevant to the story. Nobody wanted to use Marty on the Pacino shoot, because he didn’t like celebrities, and didn’t like doing “puff pieces.” But Frances, who usually did the celeb pieces, was in Tokyo interviewing the princess.

“Has Dick talked to Marty? Can we salvage this?” Dick Shenk was the executive producer of
Newsline
. In just three years, he had skillfully built the show from a throwaway summer replacement, into a solid prime-time success. Shenk made all the important decisions, and he was the only person with enough clout to handle a prima donna like Marty.

“Dick is still at lunch with Mr. Early.” Shenk’s lunches with Early, the president of the network, always lasted late into the afternoon.

“So Dick doesn’t know?”

“Not yet.”

“Great,” Jennifer said. She glanced at her watch: it was 2
P.M
. If Pacino had dumped, they had a twelve-minute hole to fill, and less than seventy-two hours to do it. “What’ve we got in the can?”

“Nothing. Mother Teresa’s being recut. Mickey Mantle isn’t in yet. All we have is that wheelchair Little League segment.”

Jennifer groaned. “Dick will never go with that.”

“I know,” Deborah said. “It sucks.”

Jennifer picked up the fax her assistant had dropped on the
console. It was a press release from some PR group, one of hundreds that every news show received each day. Like all such faxes, this one was formatted to look like a breaking news story, complete with a headline at the top. It said:

JAA DELAYS CERTIFICATION OF N-22
WIDEBODY JET CITING CONTINUED
AIRWORTHINESS CONCERNS

“What’s this?” she said, frowning.

“Hector said give it to you.”

“Why?”

“He thought there might be something in it.”

“Why? What the fuck’s the JAA?” Jennifer scanned the text; it was a lot of aerospace babble, dense and impenetrable. She thought: No visuals.

“Apparently,” Deborah said, “it’s the same plane that caught fire in Miami.”

“Oh. Hector wants to do a safety segment? Good luck. Everybody’s seen the tape of the burning plane already. And it wasn’t that good to begin with.” Jennifer tossed the fax aside. “Ask him if he has anything else.”

Deborah went away. Alone, Jennifer stared at the frozen image of Charles Manson on the screen in front of her. Then she clicked the image off, and decided to take a moment to think.

Jennifer Malone was twenty-nine years old, the youngest segment producer in the history of
Newsline
. She had advanced quickly because she was good at her job. She had shown talent early; while still an undergraduate at Brown, working as a summer intern like Deborah, she had done research late into the night, hammering away at the Nexis terminals, combing the wire services. Then, with her heart in her mouth, she had gone in to see Dick Shenk, to propose a story about this strange new virus in Africa, and the brave CDC doctor on the
scene. That led to the famous Ebola segment, the biggest
Newsline
break of the year, and another Peabody Award for Dick Shenk’s Wall of Fame.

In short order, she had followed with the Darryl Strawberry segment, the Montana strip-mining segment, and the Iroquois gambling segment. No college intern in memory had ever gotten a segment on air before; Jennifer had four. Shenk announced he liked her spunk, and offered her a job. The fact that she was bright, beautiful, and an Ivy Leaguer did not hurt, either. The following June, when she graduated, she went to work for
Newsline
.

The show had fifteen producers doing segments. Each was assigned to one of the on-camera talent; each was expected to deliver a story every two weeks. The average story took four weeks to build. After two weeks of research, producers met with Dick, to get the go-ahead. Then they visited the locations, shot B-roll for background, and did the secondary interviews. The story was shaped by the producer, and narrated by the on-air star, who flew in for a single day, did the stand-ups and the major interviews, and then flew on to the next shoot, leaving the producer to cut the tape. Sometime before air, the star would come into the studio, read the script the producer had prepared, and do the voice-overs for visuals.

When the segment finally aired, the on-camera star would come off as a real reporter:
Newsline
jealously protected the reputations of its stars. But in fact the producers were the real reporters. The producers picked the stories, researched and shaped them, wrote the scripts and cut the tape. The on-camera talent just did as they were told.

It was a system Jennifer liked. She had considerable power, and she liked working behind the scenes, her name unknown. She found the anonymity useful. Often, when she conducted interviews, she would be treated as a flunky, the interviewees speaking freely, even though tape was rolling. At some point, the interviewee would say, “When will I get to meet Marty Reardon?” She would solemnly answer that that hadn’t been
decided yet, and continue with her questions. And in the process, nail the stupid bozo who thought she was just a dress rehearsal.

The fact was, she made the story. She didn’t care if the stars got the credit. “We never say they do the reporting,” Shenk would intone. “We never imply they are interviewing someone they didn’t actually interview. On this show, the talent is not the star. The star is the story. The talent is just a guide—leading the audience through the story. The talent is someone they trust, someone they’re comfortable inviting into their home.”

That was true, she thought. And anyway, there wasn’t time to do it any other way. A media star like Marty Reardon was more heavily booked than the president, and arguably more famous, more recognizable on the street. You couldn’t expect a person like Marty to waste his valuable time doing spade-work, stumbling over false leads, putting together a story.

There just wasn’t time.

This was television: there was never enough time.

She looked again at her watch. Dick wouldn’t return from lunch until three or three-thirty. Marty Reardon was not going to apologize to Al Pacino. So when Dick came back from lunch, he was going to blow his top, rip Reardon a new one—and then be desperate for a package to fill the hole.

Jennifer had an hour to find him one.

She turned on her TV, and started idly flipping channels. And she looked again at the fax on her desk.

JAA DELAYS CERTIFICATION OF N-22
WIDEBODY JET CITING CONTINUED
AIRWORTHINESS CONCERNS

Wait a minute, she thought.
Continued
airworthiness concerns? Did that mean an ongoing safety problem? If so, there might be a story here. Not air safety—that had been done a
million times. Those endless stories about air traffic control, how they were using 1960s computers, how outdated and risky the system was. Stories like that just made people anxious. The audience couldn’t relate because there was nothing they could do about it. But a specific aircraft with a problem? That was a product safety story. Don’t buy this product. Don’t fly this airplane.

That might be very,
very
effective, she thought.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

Casey found Ron Smith with his head in the forward accessory compartment, just back of the nose wheel. All around him, his electrical team was hard at work.

“Ron,” she said, “tell me about this fault list.” She had brought the list with her, all ten pages.

“What about it?”

“There’s four AUX readings here. Lines one, two, three, and COA. What do they service?”

“Is this important?”

“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”

“Well.” Ron sighed. “AUX 1 is the auxiliary power generator, the turbine in the tail. AUX 2 and AUX 3 are redundant lines, in case the system gets an upgrade and needs them later. AUX COA is an auxiliary line for Customer Optional Additions. That’s the line for customer add-ons, like a QAR. Which this plane doesn’t have.”

Casey said, “These lines are registering a zero value. Does that mean they’re being used?”

“Not necessarily. The default is zero, so you’d have to check them.”

“Okay.” She folded up the data sheets. “And what about the proximity sensor faults?”

“We’re doing that now. We may turn up something. But look. The fault readings are snapshots of a moment in time. We’ll never figure out what happened to this flight with
snapshots. We need the DFDR data. You’ve got to get it for us, Casey.”

“I’ve been pushing Rob Wong …”

“Push him harder,” Smith said. “The flight recorder is the key.”

From the back of the airplane, she heard a pained shout: “Fuck a hairy duck! I don’t
believe
this!”

It had come from Kenny Burne.

He was standing on a platform behind the left engine, waving his arms angrily. The other engineers around him were shaking their heads.

Casey went over. “You found something?”

“Let me count the ways,” Burne said, pointing to the engine. “First off, the coolant seals are installed wrong. Some maintenance idiot put them in backward.”

“Affecting flight?”

“Sooner or later, yeah. But that’s not all. Take a look at this inboard cowl on the reversers.”

Casey climbed the scaffolding to the back of the engine, where the engineers were peering inside the open cowls of the thrust reversers.

“Show her, guys,” Burne said.

They shone a work light on the interior surface of one cowl. Casey saw a solid steel surface, precisely curved, covered with fine soot from the engine. They held the light close to the Pratt and Whitney logo, which was embossed near the leading edge of the metal sleeve.

“See it?” Kenny said.

“What? You mean the parts stamp?” Casey said. The Pratt and Whitney logo was a circle with an eagle inside it, and the letters
P
and
W
.

“That’s right. The stamp.”

“What about it?”

Burne shook his head. “Casey,” he said. “The eagle is
backward
. It’s facing the wrong way.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t noticed that.

“Now, do you think Pratt and Whitney put their eagle on backward? No way. This is a goddamn counterfeit part, Casey.”

“Okay,” she said. “But did it affect flight?”

That was the critical point. They’d already found counterfeit parts on the plane. Amos had said there would be more, and he was undoubtedly right. But the question was, Did any of them affect the behavior of the plane during the accident?

“Could have,” Kenny said, stomping around. “But I can’t tear down this engine, for Chrissakes. That’d be two weeks right there.”

“Then how will we find out?”

“We need that flight recorder, Casey. We’ve got to have that data.”

Richman said, “You want me to go over to Digital? See how Wong is coming?”

“No,” Casey said. “It won’t do any good.” Rob Wong could be temperamental. Putting more pressure on him wouldn’t accomplish anything; he was likely to walk out, and not return for two days.

Her cell phone rang. It was Norma.

“It’s starting,” she said. “You got calls from Jack Rogers, from Barry Jordan at the LA
Times
, from somebody named Winslow at the Washington
Post
. And a request for background material on the N-22, from
Newsline
.”

“
Newsline
? That TV show?”

“Yeah.”

“They doing a story?”

“I don’t think so,” Norma said. “It sounded like a fishing expedition.”

“Okay,” Casey said. “I’ll call you back.” She sat down in a corner of the hangar and took out her notepad. She began to write out a list of documents to be included in a press package. Summary of FAA certification procedures for new aircraft.
Announcement of FAA certification of the N-22; Norma would have to dig that up from five years ago. Last year’s FAA report on aircraft safety. The company’s internal report on N-22 safety in flight from 1991 to present—the record was outstanding. The annual updated history of the N-22. The list of ADs issued for the aircraft to date—there were very few. The one-sheet features summary on the plane, basic stats on speed and range, size and weight. She didn’t want to send too much. But that would cover the bases.

Richman was watching her. “What now?” he said.

She tore off the sheet, gave it to him. “Give this to Norma. Tell her to prepare a press packet, and send it to whoever asks for it.”

“Okay.” He stared at the list. “I’m not sure I can read—”

“Norma will know. Just give it to her.”

“Okay.”

Richman walked away, humming cheerfully.

Her phone rang. It was Jack Rogers, calling her directly. “I keep hearing the wing’s being offset. I’m told Norton is shipping the tools to Korea, but they’re going to be transshipped from there to Shanghai.”