Final Approach (58 page)

God, how much does he know? Farris thought frantically. That's the problem. Wallingford had probably started all this, so anything he said to Wallingford would now be in front of the Senator. “I instructed my investigator-in-charge, Aviation Accident Bureau Chief Joseph Wallingford, to accept the reality that the doctor was out of town, and to wait for him to get back before they pursued the matter of the records. They had tried to track him down in Canada on vacation, for heaven's sake. I, well, now as I remember it, I believe Bayne said one of his people, John Walters, would provide the records, and so there was no need for the doctor.”

“Isn't it true that Mr. Wallingford, and the head of your human performance group, wanted to interview the doctor?”

“Well, in time I'm sure …”

“Isn't it true, Mr. Chairman?”

“Maybe at that time.”

“Isn't it also true that you told Mr. Wallingford, and I quote—”

Here it comes, Farris thought to himself. This is where all this originated, that goddamn Wallingford!

Kell continued, quoting from the paper in his hand: “You said to Wallingford, ‘I have assurance from North America they can give you whatever you want and I have given them assurance the harassment would stop, so you leave the doctor alone'?” Kell had been reading from a piece of paper, his half-frame reading glasses balanced on his nose. He left them that way as he looked up, peering over the top of them at Farris, watching the man squirm.

“Senator, I probably said those words, but you've got the whole thing out of context.”

Kell Martinson reached up with his right hand and took hold of his glasses, removing them across his face with a small flourish while staring at Farris, holding the glasses like a prop. He had watched so many excellent trial lawyers use the gesture, and it worked well. In one small movement he had told Farris and the world that the NTSB chairman's last answer was unbelievable. “Out of context, Mr. Chairman?”

“Yes.”

“You assured North America that the harassment would stop, and that's out of … well, let's go on, shall we?” Kell put the glasses on again and looked at the paper again. “Did you also tell Mr. Wallingford—just before the start of the December Board of Inquiry in Kansas City, by the way—did you also tell him that, and I quote again, ‘If you so much as breathe that physician's name again without my written permission, you can kiss your job with this Board good-bye'?”

Farris sat stone still without answering.

“Well, sir, are those words yours, and are they out of context too?”

“Again, Senator, I may have said those words, but in the context of trying to keep my employees from going too far in pursuing this doctor.”

Kell summarized the actions taken by Joe and Andy Wallace to talk to McIntyre and get his records. “You consider that harassment?”

“It could be considered harassment, yes.”

“It could be,” Kell said, “by a company that had something to hide.”

“You could read it that way, yes.”

“And since you're supposed to be looking for the truth, why were you saying these things to the investigator-in-charge?”

Farris took another deep breath, squared his shoulders, and slightly overboosted the microphone trying to sound confident. “Well, Senator, I don't expect any layman to fully understand how we do things, but a certain amount of discretionary authority is necessary in my position, and I exercise it even if I have to take the heat for it later on. Now, you're characterizing all this as if I were trying to help North America hide from responsibility. You can twist it however you like, but all I was attempting to do was rein in some overzealous investigators of mine who were, in fact, harassing an honest doctor.” Farris swept his right hand through the air. “Dr. McIntyre's friends were just concerned that we'd been too harsh with him, okay?”

“Oh, okay, I see now. Then these were people simply concerned that you'd overstepped the bounds of
propriety
… people other than David Bayne?” Kell asked him in a conciliatory voice, as if the problem had been solved by that revelation.

“Yes, you've got it, Senator.” Farris said, visibly relaxing. “I mean, even Bill Caldwell of the FAA, who's a friend of his too, called and pleaded with me to call off my dogs.”

Dean Farris's words had stopped echoing around the hearing room before he realized what he had done. The reaction from the subcommittee members, the staff members, the knowledgeable people in the audience, and a particular FAA associate administrator watching the C-SPAN broadcast from his office at 800 Independence Avenue, was subtle but decisive. Dean Farris had just stabbed Bill Caldwell in his professional heart.

“For the record, Mr. Chairman,” Kell said, “that was William Caldwell, associate administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration here in Washington, who called you to intercede on behalf of an FAA-certified medical examiner, Dr. McIntyre, a North America employee, then under NTSB investigation as the flight physician who had for many years certified the medical qualifications of the captain whose actions may have been at least one of the direct causes of the terrible airline tragedy in Kansas City three months ago? Is all that correct?”

Cold fear had gripped Farris as he recognized the depth of his gaffe. It took two tries to get an answer out, the first one too soft for the microphone to pick up. “Yes, Senator.” There was nothing more he could say that wouldn't make it worse. Damn, damn, damn, damn! Caldwell would never speak to him again, of that he was certain.

It went downhill for Dean Farris from there. Kell guided him into a rambling, revealing series of answers about North America's attempt to get the NTSB to back off probing the management climate at the airline. His statements to Joe, his trip to Kansas City, the transcript of his remarks from the head table—all wove a heavy noose of evidence and circumstantial presumption that Dean Farris had not only let North America influence him, but also had led him to whipsaw his investigators in general, and Joe Wallingford in particular, trying almost frantically to thwart a deeper probe into why Dick Timson had pushed the control stick forward in Kansas City.

Farris was almost inaudible by the time Miami Air came up.

“Mr. Farris, did anyone, and I do mean
anyone
, outside the NTSB call you or communicate with you in such a way as to request, directly or indirectly, that the NTSB should back off a deeper investigation of the quality of maintenance at Miami Air?”

Farris hesitated just long enough to raise eyebrows, and another senator jumped in. “Chairman Farris, with Senator Martinson's approval, if it would make you feel better about unhesitating truthfulness, we could have you sworn in. We don't like our witnesses to feel uncomfortable, sir, and I see you spending more and more time considering your answers to very simple questions. Now, since I'm sure you wouldn't be contemplating telling us anything but the truth, I can only conclude that perhaps it would help to be able to say to whomever you might need to say it to, ‘I was under oath, I had no choice.' Would that help?”

Farris had shaken his head, a horrid scowl on his face. “I do not need an oath to tell the truth, Senator. I am not in the habit of lying to Congress or anyone else.”

“I'm truly glad to hear it. I yield my time, Senator.”

“To repeat the question, Chairman Farris—”

“I know what the damn question is,” Farris snapped. “And the answer is yes. One person. But before you take it out of context, he simply called to tell me … to give me a quality rating on this airline, Miami Air, and assured me that they were a quality operation.”

“This man called you?” Kell asked.

“Yes he did.”

“Out of the blue?”

“Well, after the incident we discussed, where the hole was blown in the top of their airplane. Before the crash.”

“And who would that caller be, Chairman Farris? Would that be Bill Caldwell too?”

“Yes.”

“And did you call off your investigator?”

“Yes.”

“And that was about a month before what appears to be an improperly maintained Boeing 737 crashed in Florida, killing all aboard?”

“Yes.”

“And, Mr. Chairman, you came here today to oppose this bill, and tell us the NTSB cannot be effectively influenced from outside by political or commercial considerations?”

There was no answer.

“Mr. Farris?”

“Yes.”

25

Tuesday Night, January 8 Dallas, Texas

Mark Weiss pulled his coat tighter around him, hunching his back against the biting-cold wind of a Texas blue norther as it lashed at his face and ears, making the short walk to the curb a painful trek through an alien winter landscape. The frigid air mass had thundered in from the northwest earlier in the day, bringing a Siberian winter to Dallas, an annual symphony of impeded human convenience and heavy coats accompanied by the cacophony of breaking pipes, roaring furnaces, and soaring utility bills.

Mark clutched the manila folder of medical records as he fumbled for the keys to the rental car, his hands numb from the freezing temperatures, his head in shock from what he had just heard. Louise Timson had just handed him the key to the crash that had killed his family.

He plopped quickly behind the wheel and started the car, putting the heater on full blast and jamming the shift lever into drive, anxious to get away—to head for the airport—as if a slower getaway might prompt Mrs. Timson to emerge from her house and retract everything.

The last flight back to Washington left in less than an hour, at 11:35
P.M.
He already had a ticket, but there would be no time to leave the car in the proper rental lot and take their shuttle. He would abandon it at the terminal and call its owners tomorrow. Getting on that flight was far more important than a penalty charge. He had to be back in Washington for the second day of the Senate subcommittee hearings.

Wednesday, January 9

Washington, D.C.

“Our first witness this morning is Captain Richard Timson, staff vice-president and chief pilot of North America Airlines. Captain Timson, would you come forward please?”

Kell Martinson watched Dick Timson get gingerly to his feet, a North America attorney at his side. The airline had protested the subpoena, but finally decided it would look better to comply than make a messy public battle of it. After all, they were only investigating the NTSB.

“As the captain is coming forward, it would be appropriate to mention, since Captain Timson was pilot-in-command of one of the airliners involved in the tragic North America accident in Kansas City on October twelfth, and since that crash is still under active investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, we should make it clear that this forum is not trying to supersede that investigation, nor search for the cause. We have asked Captain Timson here today because we are probing undue political interference in NTSB investigations, and a prime example of that has been the attempts from various parties within and without the government to prevent NTSB investigators from probing certain medical records pertaining to the Kansas City crash. Since the records involved are those of Captain Timson himself, it is appropriate that he be deposed under oath in this forum to establish why a probe of these records might be important to the investigation.”

Kell administered the oath to Dick Timson and let him take his seat. The early morning phone call and meeting with Mark Weiss and Joe Wallingford at Dulles Airport had left Kell sleepy, and he shook his head slightly to clear the cobwebs. It was inordinately warm in the hearing room, and that always made it difficult to stay awake when hearings droned on and became boring. This one, however, would be lively.

Copies of Timson's medical records had been made and distributed, but Timson had seen nothing as yet. He was walking into an ambush carefully laid.

The normal preliminary questions of name and job and other establishing items out of the way, Kell paused, looking directly at the captain, who was keeping a neutral expression and a steady voice.

“Following the accident, were you aware that your company was seeking to block NTSB access to your medical records held by Dr. McIntyre?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know why they would have made such an effort?”

“No, sir. I learned about it later. I believe they felt the method of pressuring the doctor was wrong … not that there was any problem with the records.”

“What is your blood type, Captain?”

“Ah, my blood type is B negative. Why?”

“Let me ask the questions, please. Our committee staff is handing you copies of the medical records the NTSB was sent finally by Dr. McIntyre. These have your name written on each page, is that correct?”

Timson studied them quickly before looking up. “Yes.”

“And a stack of some ten FAA medical forms is included, each one representing the form you and every pilot must fill out each time your medical certificate is renewed pursuant to a medical exam, is that correct?”

“They're all here for about five years, yes.”

Kell thought he saw Timson's jaw muscles working as he realized the significance—and the danger—of the five-year time period.

“Now, Captain, would you look in the block circled in red on page one of Doctor McIntyre's internal office forms—the ones on which he records the results of his examinations each time—and tell me what blood type is listed?”

Timson was puzzled, but he complied, looking at the page Kell had indicated, and stiffening a bit in response.

“Uh, it says O positive, Senator. But that's not right.”

“Have you ever been O positive?”

Kell suppressed a smile. The question had befuddled Timson.

“Wha … what?”

“Have you ever had a blood type of O positive?”