Final Approach (37 page)

“I know,” she replied. “I'm curious to hear more about his analysis, especially now.”

“Oh?”

“Joe, let's assume the Air Force is right, and in addition, let's assume there was nothing internally wrong with the captain's flight-control stick. This captain was flying alone, effectively. He'd beat that copilot into silence and inaction. In my opinion, whether you ever find out what happened with the control stick, the question is how many captains out there would treat a copilot like that? How many airlines tolerate it and set that precedent? That's a valid area to probe, regardless of what happened to push the nose over.”

Joe sat down again across from Susan, enjoying her company and the brief respite. “Remember, Susan, this was the chief pilot.”

She smiled and nodded. “That's exactly my point. He sets the pace.”

“Well, it's an interesting ancillary issue, but it's not primary.”

“No?”

The edge in her voice halted a quick reply. Joe studied Susan's face, noting the sly smile. She had opened a small trap and was waiting for him to step in. “
You
believe it's primary?”

“Maybe. Consider this.” She moved forward, gesturing urgently. “Regardless of what caused the nose to push over, if the copilot had taken over a little sooner, they would not have crashed, correct?”

“Probably, but these were grown men, experienced pilots. If the copilot should have taken over sooner and didn't, he was trained improperly or was insufficiently assertive, which are his own problems, not the captain's.”

“But you just proved my point,” she said.

“How?”

“Whether it's training, defective personality traits for the job, or intimidation, the failure to take over in a timely fashion is a
system
failure, and that is always significant.”

It went against the grain, but it made sense to Joe. And in any event, he didn't want to counter her, which was an unprofessional response born of the realization that he really liked this lady. He could do nothing about it, of course, but he could enjoy being around her, and, perhaps, fantasize a little.

Susan's eyes were on Joe's right hand as he played, unconsciously, with a paperweight, carefully and precisely raising it a few millimeters above the surface of the table, and landing it again, over and over, tilting it back each time as if flaring an aircraft, a part of his brain still working on the aerodynamics of Flight 255.

“You know, there
is
something more here, Susan. There is something about this accident that disturbs me very deeply. With all the tragedy I've seen, and all the crazy accidents I've worked, it frustrates me. There's something wrong here involving Timson. It's just a vague suspicion, but while on one hand I'm all but convinced this is mechanical, electronic failure—you know, since radar interference is more than probable now—I've also got a gut feeling that something human happened. But with Caldwell upstairs outflanking this investigation and no doubt influencing the chairman, who in turn is hovering over every decision with a portfolio of hidden agendas, I don't know if we've got a prayer of unraveling this. Someone may get away with murder.”

“You mean that?” she said at last, looking him deeply in the eye.

He nodded slowly. “I do.”

16

Monday, December 3 Kansas City International Airport

Strange how lonely it looked. Joe Wallingford stood just inside the doorway of the huge main ballroom of the same Kansas City Airport hotel they had used for the field investigation, feeling slightly intimidated by the emptiness. In two more hours it would become a battleground of sorts, but at 7
A.M.
it was nothing but an empty stage, the ranks of tables and chairs arrayed like silent ghosts in the gray light from a single lamp visible near the back.

The great ceiling of hanging chandeliers loomed dark above him, their mirrored panels with no light to reflect, their light bulbs unpowered. Joe realized he had nearly tiptoed into the maw of the room, moving with the respectful stealth of an Indian crossing through enemy territory. Yet this was anything but foreign territory. It was uniquely his forum.

Two months had passed since the crash and the five days the ballroom had held the frantic comings and goings of Joe's NTSB team in full cry. The table and chair arrangements were far different now, the long head table on a raised platform along the western wall providing places for the hearing officer—which was Joe's role—plus five additional chairs for other NTSB staff members. Dr. Susan Kelly, as a Board member, would act as chairman of the hearing, and Joe would run the questioning. Whether or not the hearing would produce any answers was another question. What seemed to be the central issue overshadowing all other possibilities—whether the Star Wars radar was off or on—would hardly be mentioned. If it had been on and caused the Airbus to pitch down, then almost everything Joe had scheduled for the hearing would be superfluous. If the radar had been off, however, the mystery was still deep and compelling, and the hearing would be vital. Joe had wanted the hearing to probe the question of the radar, but Dean Farris had forbidden it, on political grounds as far as Joe could tell. The government's position was clear, and Farris saw no reason to contradict it. But even if Farris had approved, there was no one to question. The Air Force refused to provide witnesses, as had the contractor—and from the Defense Department there had been nothing but stonewalling. Without names of people to question, even subpoenas were ineffective.

Four floor-level tables sat at right angles to the raised head table, looking in the darkness like miniature fortresses—shields of cloth and plywood behind which the worried and warring parties would consult and scribble, listen and react, each of them trying to preserve the interests closest to their professional hearts. Airbus, the FAA, North America Airlines, and the Air Line Pilots Association were the four officially admitted parties to the investigation, and each had a table.

Joe sat on the edge of one of the tables and thought back over the conflicting events of the past few weeks.

Without evidence, the sabotage accusations of the Wilkins group had faded from the media, leaving in their place a dangerous undercurrent of public belief that the Defense Department was lying to the Congress and the American people—though the FAA had flatly announced that electronic interference was not a possibility, and Caldwell had washed his hands of the issue. Increasingly, all eyes were on the NTSB—and Joe Wallingford—to solve the problem once and for all of what, or who, brought down North America 255. Yet Joe had been blocked in so many ways, turning out of near-desperation to Kell Martinson, who could probe the defense establishment in ways Joe couldn't. Dean Farris had been angry and threatening when Joe kept pushing at the radar issue, but there was no responsible way to let it go. It woke him up at night and kept scratching at the back door of his mind.

At the same time, Joe knew that Kell Martinson and other Brilliant Pebbles supporters were under siege from congressional colleagues for what looked to many like a foiled, sneaky attempt to test the tracking radar, and high-level thunderbolts continued to pass over Joe's head daily in a battle of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between the Pentagon and Capitol Hill on matters too Olympian to concern a mere accident investigator.

“What if it
was
off, Joe?” Andy had kept reminding him. “We can't assume it was on. We have to keep looking at all possible causes.”

“Already at work, I see.” Joe turned, startled at the sound of FBI agent Jeff Perkins's voice as he pushed through the double doors and walked toward him, his hand outstretched.

“Jeff. What are you doing here? Some new development?” Joe got off the edge of the table and shook his hand warmly. He had known Jeff for—what was it?—at least twenty years. Yet the two of them were always passing in the night, so to speak. They had met at Quantico Marine Air Station in Virginia in the late sixties, both assigned by their respective agencies to a special antihijacking course. Despite Jeff's postings outside Washington throughout the intervening years, they had kept in touch.

“Naw. I live in Kansas City, remember? Just can't pass up a good show, and a good excuse to officially get away from the office.”

“Well, we'll try to accommodate.” Joe checked his watch, squinting to read the 7:05
A.M.
displayed on its face. “With a good show, I mean. By 9
A.M.
we should be ready to start the fireworks.”

“Actually, Joe, I do have one small item for you.”

“Oh?”

“The senator you accompanied to our offices in D.C.? The owner of the mystery car seen here on the night of the crash?” A look of astonishment crossed Joe's features. “Hey, don't look so startled.”

“How'd you get involved in that, Jeff?”

“I was assigned to the crash, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Well, the word is they may turn the package over to local authorities here to prosecute for criminal trespass.”

“Oh, no. Martinson's a helluva nice guy, and very sincere. I'd hate to see that. He came forward voluntarily. In fact, he's been following this investigation. I expect him here this morning.”

“The law is the law, Joe.”

“Is it certain?”

“Not yet. But you know, Christ, a
senator?
You can't push that under the rug. Anyway, it's not rape or murder, and the locals may decline to pursue it.”

“If it hits the media, it could damage him.”

Jeff simply shrugged as Joe began moving toward the head table, both of them looking at the empty audience chairs set in multiple rows and the press platform at the far end where at least eight television cameras would blossom within the next hour. Wherever the NTSB held a public hearing of this magnitude, the room setup was almost identical.

“I've done so many of these now, Jeff, I sometimes look up and forget which city I'm in. Ever have that happen with what you do?”

“Only in shopping malls when I'm on the road. They're all the same. I get vertigo.”

Joe plunked himself down in one of the chairs, looking back at Jeff Perkins, waiting for him to catch up and pull out a chair of his own. “There are so many things I'm going to have to fight over to get the right information on the record in this hearing, yet it's not supposed to be adversarial. You've heard the opening statements we use on these things, haven't you?”

“What, you read them their Miranda rights?”

“Hah. Sometimes I think we should, but that's for you guys to use to help protect the guilty. We don't have guilty parties, you see. Crashes just happen, at least according to FAA, the airlines, the manufacturers, and the pilots.”

Joe paused and looked at Perkins, gauging how much to tell him. “Jeff, this is not to be repeated, but aside from the radar interference question, there have been some strange things going on at North America. It would be too easy to attribute some sinister intent to their actions, but something isn't quite right. Back in early November, a member of my human-performance staff noticed an odd gap in Dick Timson's FAA medical record.”

“That was the Airbus captain?”

“Yeah. Even management captains need recertification by an FAA-certified doctor every six months. But several years back Timson went eight months between exams. Now, that's not a terribly big deal, but the man crashed an airplane, so we have to ask the question, did he fly illicitly during that two-month period? And, of course, the root question is why wasn't he recertified? Was he sick during that period? Was he on vacation? What was going on while the chief pilot was legally grounded?”

“What
was
going on?”

“We don't know. That's the problem. The FAA's records showed Timson to be in perfect health, with no sick periods. North America has a company flight doctor on the payroll—a guy named McIntyre—who has given Timson his exams for many years, and Andy Wallace just routinely called up and asked the doctor for his medical files on Timson, the ones which back up those medical certificates the doctor had issued every six months, but the next thing we know, North America is getting hysterical and threatening to go to court to get an injunction because we're harassing them!”

“And you weren't?”

“Hell no! But their reaction raised flags for us. It was like painting a red target on the file cabinet, and what had been routine suddenly became a matter of some urgency. When Andy Wallace tries to interview the doctor, the doctor leaves on a sudden vacation. Finally, this week, we get an envelope from Banff, Canada, with the requested records of those medical exams inside. Now, the flight records which North America had already given us showed that Timson had not flown during that suspect two-month period, so a temporarily expired medical was no problem. But Friday we find that Timson, who has green eyes and brown hair in reality, has brown eyes and blond hair on the records the doctor sent. In addition, on the doctor's records Timson's blood is O positive, when we already know from hospital tests he's B negative.”

Jeff was wearing a knowing grin and nodding. “That would make
me
suspicious.”

“Well, that's what it did for us. We want to know why Timson seems to have dual hair and eye colors, and a changeable blood type.”

“
Was
he in good health?”

“That's the point. The records say yes. Are the records lying?”

Dean Farris had told his wife the trip was necessary, but omitted the part about having no official duties at the Kansas City hearing. He had left Monday afternoon, arriving very quietly, checking with the one staffer who had been his eyes and ears in what Dean had started calling “the Wallingford camp”—a faction Dean Farris couldn't seem to control. Wallingford was going to have a small coronary when he ambled into the hearing room in a few hours and found the chairman there. Susan would be insulted too, but she would just have to handle it. In Dean's estimation, she was giving Wallingford too much support. No, adult leadership was called for, and he intended to provide it.