Power Curve (13 page)

“In the break,” Chris radioed as he pitched out to the right. But it was in the wrong direction. They were landing on the left runway and should have pitched out to the left. He was tired.

The tower caught the mistake immediately. “Continue,” the controller transmitted. “No one else is in the pattern. Cleared to land runway 5 left. Check gear down and locked.”

“Cleared to land,” Chris repeated. “Three in the green.”

“Push it up,” Laurie said, “we’re a bit slow.”

Chris didn’t answer and turned final. But he was tired and overshot final, rolling them out well to the left of centerline. He started to correct back as they slowed still more. The F-15’s nose came up as the angle of attack increased. Laurie glanced at the airspeed. “Let’s go around,” she said, not liking the way the approach was developing.

“No fucking pro-blem-o,” Chris muttered, determined to salvage the approach after screwing up the break. He
cross-controlled the jet by feeding in right aileron and opposite rudder to get lined up on the runway.

“Chris,” Laurie repeated, “go around.”

At the same time, the supervisor of flying, the pilot who monitored all flying in the tower, came on the radio. “Beagle One, go around.” Even in the dark, he could see Chris had blown the approach.

Chris jammed the throttles forward. The left engine did as commanded and started to spin up. But the rear compressor variable vanes on the right engine failed and a massive dam of air built up in front of the compressor blades, causing a compressor stall. A loud bang filled the cockpit as the engine tried to clear the stall and sort itself out.

The jet yawed into the stalled engine. Because of the high nose-up attitude, slow airspeed, and cross-control, it rolled to the right into the dead engine. Chris and Laurie yelled “Eject!” in perfect unison. Laurie jerked at the ejection handles on the side of her seat. The canopy blew off, and her seat went up the rails with an 11-g kick.

But the F-15 had rolled past the vertical, and she was on a downward trajectory as the seat’s rocket pack ignited. Chris was still coming up the rails when the F-15 hit the ground and fireballed. The drogue chute in Laurie’s seat had not deployed when she hit the ground, bounced into the air, and then skidded over 300 yards before slamming into the wire cyclone fence that surrounded the base.

David Martini was alone in his office when his vice commander, a full colonel, entered. Martini stood up and paced the floor, warning the colonel it was going to be a very short meeting. “You’re the acting president of the SIB until whoever they appoint as the permanent president gets here.” The SIB, Safety Investigation Board, was the panel that would investigate the accident. “Get cracking. Find out what the hell went wrong. I don’t want to see you until the permanent board is in place and you’ve turned everything over to them.”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel replied.

“One more thing,” Martini said. “Captain Leland was a marginal pilot and still flying because of my decision.
Make sure the board is aware of that fact and that it is part of the investigation.”

The colonel was speechless. Martini was admitting to the SIB that supervisory error may have been the cause of the accident. If that was true, Martini’s career was as dead as the pilot. “This is no time to fall on your sword and do push-ups,” the colonel said.

Martini banged his fist down on his desk. Hard. “If the buck belongs here, it stops here.”

“I understand, sir,” the colonel said. He saluted and turned to leave.

“George,” Martini said, stopping him, “I want the truth.” The colonel nodded and left. Martini sank into his chair and hunched over his desk, leaning on his elbows and massaging his bruised fist as he stared at the wall.

Washington, D.C.

“General Bender,” the White House usher said, looking around the small basement office. He wondered how anyone could survive in such a dank dungeon. But he assumed that Bender, like everyone else in the White House, would tolerate any discomfort to say they worked in the executive mansion. “The president has requested that you join her in the Oval Office.”

Why the formality?
Bender thought. Normally, a secretary gave him a call and he was on his way. He followed the usher up the stairs and waited while he knocked and opened the door to the Oval Office. The moment he entered, he sensed something was wrong. The president immediately stood up and came around her desk. “Please,” she said, gesturing toward one of the couches opposite her desk. She sat down next to him.

“Robert, I’m afraid there’s bad news.” She looked at him, and her eyes filled with tears. “General Charles called a few moments ago—your daughter has been in an accident.”

Bender knew. Laurie was dead. Laurie, his only child. He nodded dumbly as Turner’s words echoed through him, confirming his daughter’s death. A dark chasm spread be
fore him. He half heard her words as he fought for his balance, swaying on the edge of the dark void. Slowly, he regained his composure and stepped back from the edge. What had she said? “Please excuse me, Madam President, I didn’t hear—” His words trailed off. He felt her hand on top of his.

“Robert, I’m so sorry. If there is anything I can do.”

Suddenly, he had to know. It was a compelling need that had to be satisfied. “Do you know what happened?”

“Only that it was an aircraft accident during an exercise being conducted at Kadena Air Base.” She stopped, searching for the words to explain, to comfort. “Robert, I”—again she hesitated, determined to take the weight—“I approved that exercise. If I had known your daughter was there—” Her words trailed off. What would she have done? Would she have made a different decision?

For a moment, her words did not make sense, and her hand burned as it lay on his. He looked at her, finally hearing the pain in her voice. “What happened was not your fault,” he said. “It’s one of the risks we take. I’ve”—his voice started to fade, then more strongly—“I’ve had to tell three wives that their husbands had been killed”—he worked to keep his voice steady—“in the line of duty.” Then he broke down and buried his head in his hands. He wanted to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. He pulled out his handkerchief and rubbed his eyes, fighting the tears.

“It’s all right,” Turner said.

Her words snapped at him like a whip. It was not all right. He regained control. “Thank you for your concern, Madam President.” He stood up. “I need to tell my wife.”

She stood with him. “I meant it when I asked if there was anything I could do.”

“Perhaps if Laurie could be buried here—in Arlington.”

“Of course,” she said. She walked with him to the door. She wanted to say more, but the words weren’t there. She watched him leave, his back ramrod stiff as he marched down the hall. She closed the door and returned to her desk. But instead of sitting, she stared out the win
dow at the pin oak planted by Dwight Eisenhower. “Oh, Robert,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”

Arlington, Virginia

Bender drove slowly into Arlington National Cemetery and parked at the southern end of the visitor’s center parking lot. They could have driven to the chapel, but Nancy understood his need to walk. The bitterly cold December wind that had cleared the sky whipped at them as they made their way down McClellan Drive.

It had been twelve days since the crash and the demands of bringing Laurie home, going through the lockstep of gathering the family, and making the necessary arrangements had buffered them from their sorrow. Nancy had cried at first, little more than a few tears gently dried with a handkerchief, then a rigid control snapped into place and she was the general’s wife, doing what had to be done. She would save her grief for later.

“Remember the first time we came here?” Nancy asked. “Laurie wanted to see President Kennedy’s grave.”

“It was for a school assignment,” Bender said. “She ended up writing about silence.”

She slipped her arm in his. This was an old story, one they found comforting in the retelling. “Silence is what she saw.”

“She always did have a funny way of looking at things,” he said. “Sometimes, I really despaired, wondering if she would ever get her act together. Finally, I just accepted it.”

“Laurie had her act together, you just didn’t realize it.”

“I know that—now,” he admitted.

“She so wanted to be like you,” Nancy said. “Remember when you used to come home with the Thunderbirds at the end of the show season? And how the families would all go out to meet you?”

“I remember the short skirts you used to wear.”

“What did you expect me to wear? I had been a widow for seven months while you were on the road and wanted your undivided attention.”

“You always were the worst of the Thunderbrides.”

She took his hand. “I was a Thunderbroad and don’t you forget it.” He looked up at the sky and remembered. “Remember how Laurie would run out and jump into your arms?”

“It was like being hit with a bowling ball.”

“And she always insisted on carrying your hangup bag.”

“It was too big for her.”

“And how she ended up dragging it across the parking lot?”

“I remember,” he said, the ache retreating one more step.

They entered the chapel and walked down to the front, sitting on the opposite side of the aisle from the honor guard of officers assigned to Arlington. The chapel filled and the crowd spilled outside, shivering in the cold wind. The chaplain entered through a side door and stood at the head of the casket. “Welcome, friends,” he began.

The service played out with the formal, predictable routine that Bender found comforting. Then the pallbearers carried the flag-draped casket to the waiting caisson that would carry Laurie to her grave. Bender and Nancy walked behind as the funeral cortege made its way to the far side of the cemetery. As they approached the grave site, five black limousines approached from the other direction and stopped. Men in dark overcoats were spreading out quickly on the outskirts, moving through the white rows of crosses.

“Robert?” Nancy whispered.

“I didn’t know she was coming,” he told her.

He was surprised when General Charles stepped forward and opened the door of the second limousine. Madeline Turner stepped out, and Charles escorted her to the open grave. She stood quietly as the casket was placed over the grave. The wind whipped at her hair, stinging her, but she didn’t move, suffering in the cold with them.

Again, the ordered, predictable routine of the interment service helped Bender make it through. The pallbearers were standing rigidly at attention on both sides of the casket when he heard the sound of approaching jets. Three
F-15s from the First Fighter Wing at Langley, Virginia, approached from the south in a perfect missing-man formation. General Charles looked up and saluted the fighters as they flew past. Bender glanced at the president, wondering if she was aware of what the formation symbolized. He hoped so.

The flag was lifted from the coffin and folded with precision. Then Turner stepped forward and stood for a moment at the head of the casket. With slow, deliberate solemnity, the sergeant smoothed the flag, his hands caressing the triangular fold before he handed it to her. She cradled the flag in her arms as she took the few steps to Bender and Nancy. She stopped in front of Nancy.

“On behalf of a grateful nation and your president, please accept this as a small tribute for your daughter’s sacrifice.” Turner handed the flag to Nancy and the two women stood there, their hands touching as the firing squad fired three volleys over the grave. The haunting refrain of taps echoed down the wind. It was over.

“Thank you, Mrs. President,” Nancy said. Turner looked away and Bender caught the traces of tears at the corners of her eyes. Was she crying or was it just the wind? He and Nancy stood there as the mourners dispersed, returning to what was left of the day.

They were alone with their daughter for the last time. “The missing-man formation,” Nancy said. “I remember when you did that.”

“Only when I flew with the Thunderbirds,” he said.

“We were happy then.”

“But I was gone most of the time.”

She took his hand and looked at him. “We were happy then,” she repeated. “The three of us.” She buried her face in his chest and cried as he held her in his arms.

Okinawa, Japan

T
he two men walked through the hangar, picking their way through the wreckage that had been carefully collected and laid out in a pattern that resembled an F-15. The president of the Safety Investigating Board, a colonel, clasped his hands behind his back and did most of the talking. The investigation of the crash was finished, and the meeting with Martini was a courtesy, a verbal summary of the report he had just signed. “There were two causes of the accident. One was pilot error.”

“I expected that,” Martini grumbled. He had served on too many accident boards to avoid the grim truth that pilot error was the most common, direct cause of accidents.

“The other cause was a mechanical malfunction. The rear compressor variable vanes in the right engine failed at the worst possible time.”

“I thought they failed to the safe position,” Martini said.

“They do. But until the system sorts itself out, a massive dam of air builds up in front of the compressor, which takes a few seconds to clear—seconds they didn’t have. They were slow, high AOA, in uncoordinated flight, and too damn low to the ground.”

Martini’s head came up. This was the first he had heard about the jet being in uncoordinated flight. There was only
one way that could happen. “Are you sure Leland was cross-controlling the jet?” Martini asked.

The colonel probed among the remains of the right engine, the one that had stalled. “We modeled the crash in your simulator.”

“How close can a simulator come to the real thing?”

It was a fair question, and the colonel was slow to answer. “We took the civilian contractors who run the sim up for a ride in an F-15E. They came back and fine-tuned the simulator for us. They came damn close. The only way we could get the sim to roll under the same conditions, with a compressor stall, was when it was being cross-controlled with a high AOA. Six pilots tried it with the same results.”

“Were any of them able to recover?” Martini asked.

The colonel mumbled the word
no
and shook his head. “I tried it myself. God, it happens fast. I’m surprised Captain Bender was able to initiate ejection. We flew that approach over 100 times in the sim where the pilot overshoots and cross-controls to save the landing. Without a compressor stall, the pilot could salvage the approach. When we did it the other way ’round, compressor stall with no cross-control, they recovered every time.”

“So you’re telling me it took the two occurring in conjunction to cause the accident.”

“It’s all in the mishap report,” the colonel said. “It was a unanimous vote for the primary cause: pilot error combined with a mechanical malfunction. You’ll have your copy today.” They moved into the section where the cockpit had been reassembled. Martini touched the ACES-II ejection seat that had not burned—Laurie’s seat. The area in the cushions where the seat and back pad joined was stained dark with dried blood. “Blunt massive trauma,” the colonel said. “Her spine collapsed on impact.”

The colonel took a deep breath. He and Martini were old friends. “Mafia, there’s a contributing factor. It was a unanimous vote. Supervisory error.”

Martini nodded in agreement. He had no trouble accepting bad news. It was good news that he didn’t trust. “I should have grounded Leland.”

“Or at least kept him with an instructor pilot,” the colonel added. “You’ve got another problem. Your flight surgeon, Captain Ryan, knew a great deal about your decision to team Leland with Bender. He testified that after the over-g incident, you ordered her to continue flying with Leland. She asked you, ‘Why kill a perfectly good wizzo?’ and you responded, ‘Because I’m an equal opportunity employer.’ Nothing damning in itself, but when combined with the accident, it makes you look bad. We voted to exclude his testimony from the mishap report when we learned he was engaged to Captain Bender—emotional stress, we figured.”

“It’s the truth,” Martini growled. “Include it.”

“Reworking the report will keep us on the island at least another day,” the colonel protested.

“You got anything better to do?”

Washington, D.C.

Saturday, December 15. The date burned into Patrick Flannery Shaw, branding him forever. He would remember it like his parents remembered JFK’s assassination and his grandparents, December 7, 1941. It was the day when the handwriting appeared on the wall, the veil was parted, and Armageddon occurred. The situation was so desperate that he was thinking in biblical terms, a hangover from the countless hours he spent as an altar boy in New Orleans where the parish priest had made an unknown, yet indelible impression.

Shaw had spent his entire adult life in politics and could not even breathe outside the corridors of power. He wasn’t in it for money, and although he had tweaked the system enough to keep him off the streets, politics satisfied a much more basic need. By picking up the phone, people reacted to his will and did things that he was incapable of doing. It was everything to him, all he was, all he had. It gave him control.

December 15 was the day he started to lose it.

His fingers beat a relentless tattoo on his desk, an outward sign of his agitation. What were Maddy Turner’s
exact words? He couldn’t remember he had been so shocked. But she wanted one Lieutenant General Robert Edward Bender to join her kitchen cabinet. It was her support group that met once or twice a week to discuss whatever was bothering her. Originally, it was made up of Maura O’Keith, Richard Parrish, the secretary of the treasury, and Noreen Coker, an African-American congresswoman from Los Angeles.

Occasionally, they asked Shaw to join them when they needed his particular take on a knotty problem. Until recently, that had not been a problem because Maura was a nobody and the other two were political lightweights easily controlled. But then Sam Kennett, a loose cannon who owed Shaw nothing, had been asked to join. Now Turner wanted Bender. Two loose cannons with access to the president added up to disaster on his political abacus.

Although Kennett was beyond his control, perhaps Bender was another story. He opened his private safe and fished out the file his staff had recently compiled on the general. There wasn’t much, and the incurable optimism that marked his personality took a heavy blow. Bender was fifty years old, born April 1, 1951. His father had graduated from West Point in 1950, married in July of the same year, and shipped out for Korea two months later. He was killed in December. Almost nine months to the day after his parents were married, Robert Edward was born to the still grieving widow.

Bender’s mother had eventually remarried, and he had spent an uneventful early life in Sacramento, California. There was no hint of the usual teenage pranks or misdeeds contrived to drive parents up the nearest wall. He had played football in high school, become an Eagle Scout, and graduated at the top of his class in 1969. There was not even a hint of one antiwar demonstration or experimentation with marijuana. He had gone directly into the Air Force Academy and, again, played football. He graduated number 2 in the class of 1973, missing the Vietnam War.

He had met the eighteen-year-old Nancy Beth Orren while a first classman at the Academy, courted her relentlessly, and they were married two days after he pinned on
his second lieutenant’s bars in June of 1973. Nine months later, Laurie Ann was born.

Shaw took some hope in that Bender was descended from a lusty lot who procreated at the earliest possible moment. But there were no other children and no hint of sexual impropriety. Damn! Shaw raged. How could a man do business with someone like that? Bender had gone to pilot training, flew F-16s, had a two-year tour as a Thunderbird, and moved up the rank structure, making early promotion to lieutenant colonel and then colonel. He was the commander of an F-15 wing during the 1990–1991 Gulf War and had shot down an Iraqi MiG-29 in what was described as the most aggressive and hair-raising encounter of the entire war.
Well
, Shaw thought,
the Iraqis had at least one good pilot. But apparently, Bender was better
.

After that, Bender’s career had skyrocketed, and he moved through a variety of headquarters slots, commanded the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base, made brigadier general at an early age, and seemed to never slow down.

Come on
, Shaw thought.
There’s got to be something. The guy has got to have a chink in his armor. What or where is it?
He thought about the man he knew, the unbending Bender. He chuckled inwardly at his play on words. Maybe there was a way to bend him—if the temptation was right. He picked up the phone and dialed a number in the Pentagon. “What have you got on the crash that killed Captain Laurie Bender?” he asked.

Bender came through the west gate of the White House at the usual time the Monday after Laurie’s funeral. He walked up the drive with a small group of workers. Although all of them worked for other government agencies and were, supposedly, only assigned to the White House for special projects, Bender had seen them so often that he knew each by sight. They often talked, and it struck him how much they had in common. All of them worked there temporarily and it was not the be-all and end-all of their existence, not like so many others who came and went with each change of administration.

“Only eight more days until Christmas,” a gardener said. “Then we get to take it all down.”

“It must get pretty routine,” Bender replied. A nod answered him.
Eight days to Christmas
, Bender thought.
Eight more miserable days
. He would give it until the first of the year, he decided. Then he would be gone, one way or the other.

He was surprised to see his office door open. Then he saw two skinny legs in black leggings swinging back and forth from the only chair. Sarah was waiting for him. “School’s out?” he asked as he came in.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sarah replied. She slipped off the chair and handed him an oversized homemade envelope. She looked up at him and then darted out the door. He glanced at the envelope. “To General and Mrs. Bender” was written on the front in a childish scrawl. He broke the seal and pulled out a handmade card. On the front was a finger painting of long, narrow green, yellow, and gold leaves with white flowers on top. Inside, Sarah had written, “We’re so sorry.” She and Brian had signed it.

It was a card that Nancy needed to see.

“General,” a seductive voice called. It was one of Shaw’s gorgeous assistants. “The chief of staff would like to see you in his office.”

Bender checked his watch. It was three minutes after seven. “I didn’t know he came to work this early,” Bender replied. There was no reply, and he followed the young woman up the stairs.

“Close the door,” Shaw said when Bender entered his large corner office. He waved at a chair. “The president,” Shaw began, “wants you to join her kitchen cabinet.”

“I’m the wrong man,” Bender protested. “General Overmeyer is not going to approve—”

“What Overmeyer approves of,” Shaw muttered, “is not the issue. First meeting’s this morning, eight-thirty. The president’s private study in the residence. Be there.”

“Will that be all?” Bender asked.

Shaw’s fingers drummed his desk.
Was this the time?
He decided to chance it. “I saw the preliminary report on the accident,” Shaw said. “It didn’t say much.”

“They never do,” Bender replied.

“I’ve heard,” Shaw said, carefully watching Bender, “through the grapevine that accident investigators often cover up what really happened to save some asshole’s career.”

“It’s been known to happen,” Bender conceded. He made no attempt to explain how a previous Air Force chief of staff called the Buzzard had solved that problem with a vengeance. The Buzzard had simply held everyone to a higher standard—the commanders, the investigators, everyone. Those who couldn’t meet the new standard found themselves on the outside as civilians looking in.

“It must be terrible knowing there’s a chance of the accident being covered up, especially when your child was a victim.”

Was Laurie a victim?
Bender wondered. He had to step back from that pit. To look into it was too threatening, too close to chaos. “She knew the risks,” he finally said.

He’s thinking about it
, Shaw decided. He made his voice gentle. “General, if there’s a cover-up, we can fix it. No one needs to get away with killing your daughter.”

An icy cold gripped Bender. He knew what Shaw was offering—vengeance. It was his for the taking.

“What do you know about this guy Martini?” Shaw asked, dangling the bait. “I hear they call him Mafia. That doesn’t sound good.”

So that’s the offering
, Bender thought.
A wing commander’s career for my daughter’s life
. What did he know about Martini? Not much. Only that he had been a Thunderbird and had flown right wing. “Without seeing the final report,” he said, “anything on my part would be pure speculation.”

“If you want, I can get you a copy of the Safety Investigation Board’s mishap report.”

So he knows the right terminology
, Bender thought. He stared at Shaw for a moment before nodding his head and leaving.

Shaw watched him disappear out the door. He went back to work, humming a tuneless melody.

“I hope you all know Robert Bender,” Turner said, introducing him to the small group. To be sure, she went
around the room, introducing her kitchen cabinet. The two women and two men were seated comfortably in her private study drinking coffee and only Richard Parrish, the secretary of the treasury, stood up. They shook hands. “And of course, you and Maura have already met.”

Sam Kennett stretched his hand out. “Good to have you aboard.” They shook hands, and Bender felt reassured by his firm grip and steady look. His instincts told him that Kennett was a man he could trust.

Noreen Coker gave him a warm and friendly smile. The African-American representative was a big woman, over six feet tall and weighed 285 pounds. The tight dark red outfit she was wearing did little to streamline her bulk. “Honey, it’s a good thing I’m a married woman,” she said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be safe.”