Final Approach (45 page)

“We're not the FBI on the trail of a murderer, Joe. In due time. In due time, we will address the North America issue formally with them. There will be no addressing of the other issue. The radar unit was turned off. Anyway, none of this is your concern now.”

Joe stood up, his finger still touching the desk. “While you're worrying about your political reputation, Mr. Chairman, consider this. In this town, those who know about and fail to expose a cover-up, become part of it.”

Joe returned to his office in a dark mood, and equally shaken. Intellectually he knew he could take retirement—the ultimate revenge of a professional bureaucrat. But what the hell would he do? He was an accident investigator. A technical detective with a government ID. He didn't want to do anything else. In fact, he wasn't sure he
could
do anything else. Life without the NTSB was, quite simply, unimaginable. But Farris had embarrassed him and might even fire him. And that was reality staring him in the face.

“Joe, d'you get the word?”

He looked up to see one of Andy Wallace's people in his doorway.

“About what?” he said acidly. It was starting already.

“The crash. In Florida. Just came through, and we're scrambling the Go Team.”

All his instincts came back on line in an instant, even though he wasn't on the team this week. “Who, what, when, and where?”

“In the Everglades, a Miami Air Boeing 737. It was a charter flight of some sort, and the initial word is that it came apart in the air while climbing out of Key West northbound. It came down in pieces near Naples, Florida.”

“No survivors, then?”

“I don't know … probably not. It killed people on a highway, too.”

“Miami Air, did you say?” Somewhere he had a vague memory about Miami Air, but what was it? “Who's going?”

“John Phelps is in the IIC position this week. I'm not sure of the others yet. This just came in.”

“Thanks for telling me.” The usual adrenalized rush of excitement had hit him, then as quickly escaped. Thanks to Farris, he was truly a man without a mission.

In his FAA office one floor above the NTSB, Bill Caldwell took the news of Miami Air's crash with a stoic expression, calmly closed the door to his office, and immediately picked up the phone to send one of his more trusted subordinates to Miami. That task complete, he sent his secretary on an unnecessary errand, and once she had gone, quickly took her telephone log to his desk, flipping through the pages looking for two specific telephone-number entries, a pen of the same color ink poised in his right hand. The man who had elevated him to associate administrator had left the FAA several years back, but was still a close friend. In fact, there was a network of recent alumni from the senior executive service positions of the FAA with whom he kept in touch. Two of them had gone to work for Frank Lorenzo's Texas Air group as instant vice-presidents. Two others—including his mentor—had ended up in control of a small airline in south Florida. An airline called Miami Air.

It was snowing lightly when Joe arrived home. He loved snow, and the dusky beauty of a snowy afternoon. But only the gray of the darkening skies matched his mood. He had never been truly in professional jeopardy from the Board's chairman before. He had disagreed occasionally with whoever occupied the office, but he had never been threatened. True, as a government worker he would be hard as hell to fire. He could always find another government position with his GM-15 rating, but he realized, perhaps too late, that for him there was only one right answer to the question: “And what do you do?” “I,” he had always said, “am an accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.” Could that really come to an end?

Damn that stupid egomaniac academic anyway! He needed to think, but first he intended to destroy a bottle of wine. The radio tower lights from nearby Cheltenham Naval Communications Station were a welcome sight as he took the nonmilitary fork in the road south of Andrews Air Force Base and motored the final mile to his house, looking forward to a fire in the fireplace and a view of the countryside through the sliding glass door onto his patio.

The thought of Susan Kelly's offer tugged at him a bit, but he wanted to lick his wounds in private—which was more or less what he had said to her when she had stormed into his office with the assurance that she and the other Board members were going to confront Farris and try to reverse his decision.

“Susan, I really appreciate it.”

“We need you, Joe.”

“Farris doesn't.”

“We're going to change that.”

“Susan, at least make sure Andy doesn't drop the medical matter. I'm not supposed to even talk to him.”

“That's bull. Farris can't issue such an order.”

“Well, he sure did.”

“We'll see. Meanwhile, let me take you out to dinner tonight, Mr. Wallingford.”

Joe had struggled with the decision. He was exhilarated when he was around her, and the offer was tempting, but the harpoon from Farris had lodged too deep to enjoy an evening with her properly. Susan confused him, his feelings about her uncertain, his conduct around her becoming more guarded lest he treat her like something other than a colleague. Not tonight. Not when his guard was down. She would be too easy to turn to for solace of a more physical kind, and that could wreck their friendship.

“Not tonight, Susan,” he said, trying to force a grin, “I have a heartache.”

She had laughed easily and then stopped, looking him in the eye with her head slightly tilted, as if trying to fathom a deeper meaning behind that line. “Okay, then come to my place and I'll try to remember how to cook something. I make some of the best TV dinners this side of the Monongahela River.”

“No. Really. But a rain check would be appreciated.”

“You've got it, Joe.” She got up and headed out the door, stopping then and turning back to him. “Do me a favor. Promise you won't make any rash decisions until we've talked, okay?”

“Like shooting Farris? Don't worry, I won't.”

The memory of that brief conversation kept playing in his mind as he uncorked the bottle of German Moselle wine he'd been saving for nearly three months and listened to CNN's latest coverage of the Miami Air crash while he worked on building a fire. The media's facts were subject to change, but the accident aircraft was apparently one of the older 737s, and that was a problem, since by now they should all have been rebuilt. The FAA's change to a stringent philosophy of rebuilding certain parts at predetermined times in the life of an older jet was supposed to solve the problem, and had—until now. One hundred twenty-one dead, scattered over the countryside just like the Pan Am crash in Scotland back in 1988, but this time no initial indication of a bomb.

Once the fire caught, Joe closed the damper slightly to smoke up the room a bit, giving it the aroma of a smoky mountain cabin—a procedure Brenda used to hate. He turned off the TV then and settled into the recliner chair, the curtains onto the patio open, facing the snowy scene outside—a scene which suddenly included a figure emerging from the shadows and moving to the glass of the sliding door to stare in, her form feminine and her breath fogging the glass.

“Susan!” Joe was on his feet in an instant, fumbling slightly with the balky latch, sliding the glass open for her then as she stamped the snow off her boots.

“Hi. I'm not very good at taking no for an answer,” she said, holding up a large paper bag emitting delicious aromas.

“Apparently.” He closed the door and took her coat, a stylish camel hair, ankle-length affair with fur trim around the sleeves, collar, and hem. She looked like a fashion model in it, he thought. Especially with her snow-flecked auburn hair.

“Dinner, in case you're interested. I hope you like Chinese food.”

“Sure.”

“Good. Where is your kitchen?” Joe pointed and Susan disappeared in that direction, her voice bending back around the corner.

“I see you're a good housekeeper, Mr. Wallingford.”

“It used to bother Brenda.”

“Your wife?”

“My former wife.”

“I knew that.” She popped her head around the corner to look at him. “Or, of course, I wouldn't be here.”

She was back in minutes with a loaded tray, the open wine bottle he had left on the counter, and a glass for herself.

“Aren't you going to ask the lady why she's invaded your privacy?”

“I'm just glad you're here. Being alone ain't all its cracked up to be.”

“Sometimes it is,” she said, licking a dab of spilled sweet and sour sauce off her finger. “I like my privacy, part of the time. But I like to share my privacy, if that makes any sense.” They sat on the couch and balanced the tray between them, digging at the individual cardboard food containers.

“By the way, I, ah, have never asked you about your husband,” Joe said, having heard she had lost him years before.

“Story of my life, you mean?”

“Love to hear it.”

“Only in brief. I've other things we should talk about, too.” Susan sipped her wine and looked at Joe until he felt slightly uncomfortable, the eye contact downright intimate.

“My husband never was, Joe. People just assume I was married. But I was only engaged.”

“I didn't know.”

“Course not. Anyway, my fiancé and I were childhood sweethearts back in Des Moines. We met in grade school, always best friends, grew up together, more or less always knew we'd get married, but weren't in a rush. He looked around, I looked around, but we always came back to each other.” She paused, watching him, gauging his interest.

“So what happened?”

“Vietnam happened. His family was an Air Force family. Father, uncles, everyone former Air Force flyers. He had to do the same thing, and when he graduated from pilot training, he was assigned to F-105 Thunderchiefs and rotated to Da Nang. I was really proud of him. Later he flew F-4's with Chappie James and Robin Olds, before they became generals, in what was called the Wild Weasels.”

“I'm familiar with that mission,” Joe said. “They're the ones who went out looking for North Vietnamese antiaircraft missile installations, getting them to fire, then flying back down the radar beam to wipe out the control trailer.”

“That's right. As happened to too many of them, that big twin-engine jet didn't get him home one night, and he punched out somewhere around the DMZ. His backseater never got out, as far as we know. His wingman picked up an emergency beacon and a brief voice message indicating he was safe on the ground, but before the rescue choppers could get in the next morning, the beacon, and my fiancé, were gone.”

“Killed?”

She sighed, her smile drooping slightly. “I'm convinced now that I'll never know, Joe. I rather hope so, but we got word he had been captured. This was in 1968, mind you. All those years I watched with his parents for his name to be on a list somewhere, other than the missing-in-action list. It never showed up. There was never an accounting. To this day I don't know, although I've asked many returnees, and some were convinced they had seen him in the same compound in Hanoi. Anyway, we finally got his name on the memorial, and I still have trouble visiting it.”

Susan was looking out at the snow, her legs pulled under her as he had seen her do before, much as a cat curls up before a warm fire. “In some ways I've never given up.” She looked at him suddenly. “But don't get the impression that I'm carrying an eternal torch, Joe. I felt cheated for the life we never had, but he belongs to the past.”

“Susan, you're …” Joe caught himself for a moment, but decided the caution wasn't necessary. After all, she was here. “You're such a warm, caring person to be around—not to mention a real knockout, lady—”

“Sure, Joe. I bet you say that to all the Board members.”

They both laughed easily. “No, just the sexy ones. But I had wondered why you weren't married.”

“That's not the reason, Joe. Oh sure, the first few years after Operation Homecoming, after the prisoners came home, I held out hope and just wasn't interested in anyone else. Since then, it's simply been a case of the right guy never coming along, a growing career, and miles to go before I sleep … with anybody.” She was looking up at him slightly, a sultry look, he decided, smiling, her beautiful eyes saying very disturbing, very provocative things to him, whether she knew it or not. And he had the unsettling feeling that she did indeed know it.

Susan carried the empty boxes back to the kitchen then, searching for coffee and figuring out how to work his grinder and coffee maker while he stood in the doorway and watched her, his eyes following the contours of her well-proportioned body beneath another of her flowing, silky dresses that were at once businesslike and revealing. She obviously kept herself in good shape, in trim shape. Seldom-used logistic and procedural strategies for maneuvering a date into more intimate positions were replaying in his mind, the thoughts amusing as well as disturbing. That surely wasn't the way she meant the evening to go. They were just friends, colleagues, right? But she was so comfortable to be around. No, not comfortable, invigorating. Inviting. Seductive.

“I rounded up the other three members this afternoon for a war council, Joe,” she was saying as she worked on the coffee. “I gave them a rundown of what had happened, how I've watched this thing unfold, and the things that Dean said to me when I confronted him earlier in the day with the question of why he was pounding you.”

“What did he say, by the way?”

She looked over her left shoulder with a knowing smile. “He told me too much. He told me, basically, that he's allowing external pressure from the airline and the FAA to massively influence our investigation. He's told me enough to nail him to the wall.” She turned back to the coffee. “So, that's just what we're going to do. Tomorrow, all four of us have requested the dubious pleasure of his company at an eleven o'clock closed Board meeting, and I intend to rip him a new tail pipe.”