Airframe (23 page)

Jennifer entered the outer office, stopped by Marian's desk. "Going to see Dick?" Marian said.

"Is he in?"

She nodded. "You want company?" "Do I need it?" Jennifer said, raising an eyebrow. "Well,"

Marian said "He's been drinking." "It's okay," Jennifer said. "I can handle him."

Dick Shenk listened to her, eyes closed, fingers pressed together to make a steeple. From time to time, he nodded slightly as she spoke.

She ran through the proposed segment, hitting all the beats: the Miami incident, the JAA certification story, the Trans-Pacific flight, the jeopardized China sale. The former FAA expert who says the plane has a long history of uncorrected design problems. The aviation reporter 126

who says the company is mismanaged, drugs and gang activity on the factory floor, a controversial new president, trying to boost flagging sales. Portrait of a once-proud company in trouble.

The way to frame the piece, she said, was Rot Beneath the Surface. She laid it out: badly run company makes a shoddy product for years. Knowledgeable people complain, but the company never responds. FAA is in bed with the company and won't force the issue. Now, at last, the truth comes out. The Europeans balk at certification; the Chinese have cold feet; the plane continues to kill passengers, just as critics said it would. And there's tape, riveting tape, showing the agonies passengers went through as several died. At the close, it's obvious to all: the N-22

is a deathtrap.

She finished. There was a long moment of silence. Then Shenk opened his eyes.

"Not bad," he said.

She smiled.

"What's the company's response?" he asked, in a lazy voice.

"Stonewall. The plane's safe; the critics are lying."

"Just what you'd expect," Shenk said, shaking his head. "American stuff is so shitty." Dick drove a BMW; his tastes ran to Swiss watches, French wines, English shoes. "Everything this country makes is crap," he said. He slumped back in his chair, as if fatigued by the thought.

Then his voice became lazy again, thoughtful: "But what can they offer as proof?"

"Not much," Jennifer said. "The Miami and Transpacific incidents are still under investigation."

"Reports due when?"

"Not for weeks."

"Ah." He nodded slowly. "I like it. I like it very much. It's compelling journalism—and it beats the shit out of 60 Minutes. They did unsafe airplane parts last month. But we're talking about a whole unsafe aircraft! A deathtrap. Perfect! Scare the hell out of everybody."

"I think so, too," she said. She was smiling broadly now. He had bought it!

"And I'd love to stick it to Hewitt," Dick said. Don Hewitt, the legendary producer of 60 Minutes, was Shenk's nemesis. Hewitt consistently got better press than Shenk, which rankled. 'Those jerkoffs," he said. "Remember when they did their hard-hitting segment on off-season golf pros?"

She shook her head. "Actually, no ..."

"It was a while back," Dick said. He got fuzzy for a moment, staring into space, and it was clear to her that he had been drinking heavily at lunch. "Never mind. Okay, where are we? You got the FAA guy, you got the reporter, you got tape of Miami. The peg is the home video, we lead with that."

"Right," she said, nodding.

"But CNN is going to run it day and night," he said. "By next week, it'll be ancient history. We 127

have to go with this story Saturday."

"Right," she said.

"You got twelve minutes," he said. He spun in his chair, looked at the colored strips on the wall, representing the segments in production, where the talent was going to be. "And you got uh, Marty. He's doing Bill Gates in Seattle on Thursday; we'll shuttle him to LA Friday. You'll have him six, seven hours."

"Okay."

He spun back. "Go do it."

"Okay," she said. "Thanks, Dick."

"You sure you can put it together in time?'

She started collecting her notes. 'Trust me."

As she headed out through Marian's office, she heard him shout, "Just remember, Jennifer—don't come back with a parts story! I don't want a fucking parts story!"

QA/NORTON

2:21 P.M.

Casey came into the QA office with Richman. Norma was back from lunch, lighting another cigarette. "Norma," she said, "have you seen a videotape around here? One of those little eight-millimeter things?"

"Yeah," Norma said, "you left it on your desk the other night. I put it away." She rummaged in her drawer, brought it out. She turned to Richman. "And you got two calls from Marder. He wants you to call him right away."

"Okay," Richman said. He walked down the hall to his office. When he was gone, Norma said,

"You know, he talks to Marder a lot. I heard it from Eileen."

"Marder's getting in with the Norton relatives?"

Norma was shaking her head. "He's already married Charley's only daughter, for Christ's sake."

"What're you saying?" Casey said. "Richman's reporting to Marder?"

"About three times a day."

Casey frowned. "Why?"

"Good question, honey. I think you're being set up."

"For what?"

"I have no idea," Norma said.

"Something about the China sale?"

Norma shrugged. "I don't know. But Marder is the best corporate infighter in the history of the company. And he's good at covering his tracks. I'd be real careful around this kid." She leaned across her desk, lowered her voice. "When I got back from lunch," she said, "nobody was 128

around. The kid keeps his briefcase in his office. So I had a look."

"And?"

"Richman's copying everything in sight. He's got a copy of every memo on your desk. And he's Xeroxed your phone logs."

"My phone logs? What's the point of that?"

"I couldn't begin to imagine," Norma said. "But there's more. I also found his passport. He's been to Korea five times in the last two months."

"Korea?" Casey said.

"That's right, honey. Seoul. Went almost every week. Short trips. One, two days only. Never more than that."

"But—"

"There's more," Norma said. "The Koreans mark entry visas with a flight number. But the numbers on Richman's passport weren't commercial flight numbers. They were tail numbers."

"He went on a private jet?"

"That's what it looks like."

"A Norton jet?"

Norma shook her head. "No. I talked to Alice in Flight Ops. None of the company jets has been to Korea in the last year. They've been shuttling back and forth from Beijing for months.

But none to Korea."

Casey frowned.

"There's more," Norma said. "I talked to the Fizer in Seoul. He's an old beau of mine.

Remember when Marder had that dental emergency last month, and took three days off?"

"Yeah..."

"He and Richman were together in Seoul. Fizer heard about it after they'd gone, and was annoyed to be kept out of the loop. Wasn't invited to any of the meetings they attended. Took it as a personal insult."

"What meetings?" Casey said.

"Nobody knows." Norma looked at her. "But be careful around that kid."

She was in her office, going through the most recent pile of telexes, when Richman poked his head in. "What's next?" he said cheerfully.

"Something's come up," Casey said. "I need you to go to the Flight Standards District Office.

See Dan Greene over there, and get copies of the flight plan and the crew list for TPA 545."

"Don't we already have that?"

"No, we just have the preliminaries. By now Dan will have the finals. I want them in time for the meeting tomorrow. The office is in El Segundo."

"El Segundo? That'll take me the rest of the day."

"I know, but it's important."

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He hesitated. "I think I could be more help to you if I stayed here—"

"Get going," she said. "And call me when you have them."

VIDEO IMAGING SYSTEMS

4:30 P.M.

The back room of Video Imaging Systems in Glendale was packed with row after row of humming computers, the squat purple-striped boxes of Silicon Graphics Indigo machines. Scott Harmon, his leg in a cast, hobbled over the cables that snaked across the floor.

"Okay," he said, "we should have it up in a second."

He led Casey into one of the editing bays. It was a medium-size room with a comfortable couch along the back wall, beneath movie posters. The editing console wrapped around the other three walls of the room; three monitors, two oscilloscopes, and several keyboards. Scott began punching the keys. He waved her to a seat alongside him. I

"What's the material?" he said.

"Home video."

"Plain vanilla high eight?" He was looking at an oscilloscope as he spoke. "That's what it looks like. Dolby encoded. Standard stuff."

"I guess so..."

"Okay. According to this, we got nine-forty on a sixty-minute cassette."

The screen flickered, and she saw mountain peaks shrouded in fog. The camera panned to a young American man in his early thirties, walking up a road, carrying a small baby on his shoulder. In the background was a village, beige roofs. Bamboo on both sides of the road.

"Where's this?' Harmon said.

Casey shrugged. "Looks like China. Can you fast-forward?"

"Sure."

The images flicked quickly past, streaked with static. Casey glimpsed a small house, the front door open; a kitchen, black pots and pans; an open suitcase on a bed; a train station, a woman climbing on the train; busy traffic in what looked like Hong Kong; an airport lounge at night, the young man holding the baby on his knees, the baby crying, writhing. Then a gate, tickets being taken by a flight attendant—

"Stop," she said.

He punched buttons, ran at normal speed. "This what you want?"

"Yes."

She watched as the woman, holding the baby, walked down the ramp to the aircraft. Then there was a cut, and the image showed the baby in the woman's lap. The camera panned up and showed the woman, giving a theatrical yawn. They were on the aircraft, during the flight; the cabin was lit by night lights; windows in the background were black. The steady whine of the jet 130

engines.

"No kidding," Casey said. She recognized the woman she had interviewed in the hospital.

What was her name? She had it in her notes.

Beside her at the console, Harmon shifted his leg, grunted. "That'll teach me," he said.

"What's that?"

"Not to ski black-diamond runs in chowder."

Casey nodded, kept her eyes on the video monitor. The camera panned back to the sleeping baby again, then blurred, before turning black. Harmon said, "Guy couldn't turn off the camera."

The next image showed glaring daylight. The baby was sitting up, smiling. A hand came into the frame, wiggling to get the baby's attention. The man's voice said, "Sarah ... Sar-ah ... Smile for Daddy. Smi-le..."

The baby smiled and made a gurgling sound

"Cute kid," Harmon said.

On the monitor, the man's voice said, "How does it feel to be going to America, Sarah? Ready to see where your parents are from?"

The baby gurgled and waved her hands in the air, reaching for the camera.

The woman said something about everybody looking weird, and the lens panned up to her.

The man said, "And what about you, Mom? Are you glad to be going home?"

"Oh, Tim," she said, turning her head away. "Please."

"Come on, Em. What are you thinking?"

The woman said, "Well, what I really want—what I have dreamed about for months—is a cheeseburger."

"With Xu-xiang hot bean sauce?"

"God no. A cheeseburger," she said, "with onions and tomatoes and lettuce and pickles and mayonnaise."

Now the camera panned back down to the kid, who was tugging her foot into her mouth, slobbering over her toes.

'Taste good?" the man said, laughing. "Is that breakfast for you, Sarah? Not waiting for the stewardess on this flight?"

Abruptly, the wife jerked her head around, looking past the camera. "What was that?" she said in a worried tone.

'Take it easy, Em," the man answered, still laughing.

Casey said, "Stop the tape."

Harmon hit a key. The image froze on the wife's anxious expression.

"Run it back five seconds," Casey said.

The white frame counter appeared at the bottom of the screen. The tape ran backward, streaking jags again.

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"Okay," Casey said. "Now turn the sound up."

The baby sucked its toes, the slobbering so loud, it almost sounded like a waterfall. The hum inside the cabin became a steady roar. 'Taste good?" the man said, laughing very loudly, his voice distorted. "Is that breakfast for you, Sarah? Not waiting for the stewardess on this flight?"

Casey tried to listen between the man's sentences. To hear the sounds of the cabin, the soft murmur of other voices, rustle of fabric moving, the intermittent clink of knives and forks from the forward galley...

And now something else.

Another sound?

The wife's head jerked around. "What was that?"

"Damn," Casey said.

She couldn't be sure. The roar of ambient cabin sound drowned out anything else. She leaned forward, straining to hear.

The man's voice broke in, his laugh booming: 'Take it easy, Em."

The baby giggled again, a sharp earsplitting noise.

Casey was shaking her head in frustration. Was there a low-pitched rumble or not? Perhaps they should go back, and try to hear it again. She said, "Can you put this through an audio filter?'

The husband said, "We're almost home, honey."