“No outside press, then?”
“No, sir.” Evans licked his lips. He had an opportunity to make points, and he didn’t intend to blow it by saying or doing something stupid. He had, however, done something daring. He took a deep breath and put a confident tone into his voice. “I followed procedures—up to a point.”
Johnson took a step toward him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I mean I didn’t call anyone on the list except you and Mr. Metz from our liability carrier—Beneficial.” He shot a quick glance at Miller.
Miller gave him an annoyed look.
Evans continued. “I didn’t call the hull carrier either, because we have no real idea of the damage. I also did not call the Straton company’s representative.” He looked at Johnson.
Johnson’s face was expressionless. “Did you also not call the president of the airline or our press office?”
Evans nodded. “I only called you and Mr. Metz.”
“Why?”
“There seemed to be no pressing need. I thought I’d wait until you arrived, sir. I knew you were in the executive dining room. I thought I’d let you make the decision about who to call. This is not like a crash. This is an ongoing thing, wouldn’t you say, sir? Also, at first it didn’t seem too bad. That was my reasoning, sir.”
“Was it?” Johnson reached down and picked up his unlit cigar. He put it back in his mouth. He let a few seconds go by. “Good. Good thinking, Evans.”
Evans beamed.
Johnson looked up and addressed everyone. “Now, listen to me, all of you. No one does a thing unless they check with me. Nothing. Clear?”
Everyone in the room nodded.
Johnson continued. “Except for Miller, I want everyone to go back to his usual routine. Evans, you take complete charge of the Pacific desk. It’s all yours except Flight 52. I am taking personal charge of 52. If anyone asks you about 52, refer them to me.”
Miller suddenly felt that he had been relegated to a sort of limbo. He had become a junior assistant. He wished he could get back to his desk, or anywhere that was away from Johnson.
Johnson pointed with his cigar. “No one—I repeat, no one —is to say anything to anyone. No calls home to your wives or to anyone else. Also, the normal duty shift is extended indefinitely. In other words, no one goes home. Night-differential and double time will be in effect. The incoming shift is to report to the employees’ lounge and stay there until further notice. I want as few new people as possible to know what’s happening. We’ve got a four-hundred-and-ten-ton aircraft streaking back toward the California coast with some weekend pilot in the left-hand seat and three hundred dead or injured passengers onboard. I don’t have to tell you why I want the lid on this. Understand?”
Everyone murmured his assent.
“All right, make sure everyone out there understands too. Get back to work.”
The dispatchers filed quickly out of the hot, airless room.
Evans hung back a second. “Mr. Johnson, if there’s anything further I can do . . .”
“You’ve done enough, Evans. Good initiative.”
Evans smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“And the next time you fail to follow procedures, it had fucking well better make me happy, Evans, or your ass is out. Got it?”
Evans’s smile faded. “Yes, sir.” He left quickly.
Johnson turned to Miller. “Well. Here we are, Jack.”
Miller nodded. He and Johnson went back a lot of years. Now, with the audience gone, Johnson would start thinking and stop playacting. As if to confirm this, Johnson threw his cigar into the garbage can in the corner. Miller was certain that the man hated cigars, but trademarks, like the Trans-United logo and Edward Johnson’s cigar—mostly unlit these past years—took a long time to cultivate and develop, and one didn’t drop them so easily.
Johnson glanced down at the printout in his hand. “This is one hell of a thing.”
“Yes, it is.”
“A bomb. Why the hell do people want to blow up an airliner? Shit.” He paced a few feet. “Tell me, Jack, do you think they’ve got a chance?”
Miller glanced at the video screen, then at Johnson. “At first I didn’t give them any chance. Now . . . maybe. That pilot—Berry—handled the turn all right. Just to get as far as he did—taking the controls, figuring out the link, turning—that took a lot of guts. Skill, too. He’s got what it takes. Read the messages again. He’s a cool character. It comes through in the messages.”
Johnson stepped up to the Pacific chart that had been hung in the room earlier. He examined the markings on it. “Is this their estimated position?”
“That’s our guess. We didn’t have much to go on.” Miller rose from his seat at the data-link console and walked to the wall chart. He pointed to another spot on the chart. “This is the Straton’s last verified position. This one is an extrapolation that Jerry Brewster worked up. Now we’re working up another one based on their turnaround and present heading. Brewster will have—”
The thin sound of the data-link’s alerting bell cut him off. Both men glanced up at the video monitor.
FROM FLIGHT 52. ALL FIVE SURVIVORS WERE TRAPPED IN POSITIVE PRESSURE SPOTS DURING DECOMPRESSION. MOST PASSENGERS STILL ALIVE, BUT SUSPECT SUSTAINED LACK OF AIR PRESSURE CAUSED BRAIN DAMAGE.
Miller stared at each letter as it appeared, knowing what the last two words were going to say after he saw the B. The message went on.
SOME PASSENGERS BECOMING UNMANAGEABLE. ATTEMPTING TO CLIMB STAIRS INTO LOUNGE/COCKPIT. STEIN HOLDING THEM BACK. BERRY.
Miller looked up. “Jesus Christ Almighty.”
Johnson slammed his hand down violently against a countertop. “Son-of-a-bitch! Goddamned rotten luck!” He turned to Miller. “Is this possible? Could this happen?” Johnson’s technical knowledge was sketchy, and he never saw a need to pretend otherwise.
Jack Miller suddenly understood exactly what had happened. A bomb had torn two holes—two big holes—in the Straton’s fuselage. Had they been smaller holes, the pressure might have held long enough. Had it been one of their other jets, its lower operating altitude would have made it possible for everyone to breathe with oxygen masks. But at 62,000 feet, where the only commercial traffic was the Straton 797 and the Concorde, a decompression, if it was sudden and complete, could theoretically cause brain damage. Miller would have guessed that it would be fatal, but Berry said that most passengers survived. Survived. Good Lord. How did this happen? He stood up and felt his legs wobble a bit. “Yes,” he said weakly. “It’s possible.”
Johnson looked through the glass enclosure into the dispatch office. Dispatchers and assistants in the main room were trying to read the new message on the video screen. Johnson motioned to Miller. “Erase the video screen. Shut it off. We’ll use only the small display screen from now on.”
Miller pushed the buttons to do away with the video screen’s repeater display.
Johnson walked over to the door and locked it. He stood next to the data-link, put his foot on a chair, and leaned forward. “Type a message, Jack.”
Miller typed as Johnson dictated.
TO FLIGHT 52: LOCATE SATELLITE NAVIGATION SYSTEM. IT IS ON RADIO PANEL AND IS LABELED AS SUCH. READ OUT YOUR POSITION. ACKNOWLEDGE.
A few seconds passed before the message bell rang.
FROM FLIGHT 52: HAVE PREVIOUSLY LOCATED SATELLITE NAV SET. IT MUST NEED REPROGRAMMING FOR READOUT. IT READS NOTHING NOW. ADVISE ON PROGRAMMING.
Johnson walked over to the Pacific chart again and stared up at it. He had a vague idea of how to plot positions and no idea of how to program a satellite set. Still looking at the chart, he spoke to Miller. “Tell him that we’ll advise later.”
Miller typed the message.
Johnson turned. “He really can’t land that thing, can he?”
“I don’t know.” Miller was already in over his head. Despite years in the dispatch office, he couldn’t tell a man how to program a satellite navigation set.
In fact, he had a vague memory of having read that they couldn’t be altered or reprogrammed en route. Johnson had only a textbook image and knowledge of the cockpit of a 797, no conception of what actually flying the craft was about, and he knew that Johnson had even less. “Why don’t we get Fitzgerald in here?”
Johnson thought for a moment about the chief pilot. Kevin Fitzgerald was another candidate to fill the president’s chair. It would be good to have a pilot in the room with them, but not Fitzgerald. But to ask another pilot in would be an unforgivable insult whose intentions would be obvious to the Board of Directors. Though why give Fitzgerald an opportunity to play hero? The answer was to exclude him from the game for as long as possible. It was generally known that if either of them became president, then the other one would spend the rest of his career in oblivion. Johnson knew that he could easily wind up supervising lost baggage claims instead of in the president’s office. He looked at Miller. “Not yet. If that Straton gets within, let’s say, two hundred miles of the coast, we’ll get Fitzgerald.” He thought for a second. “If we can’t find him, we’ll get the head flight instructor. He’d do a better job of it, I think.”
Miller knew that it would be a good thing to start Berry’s flight instructions immediately. Either man would do. But Miller also knew that Johnson did not make any decisions based purely on rationality. Edward Johnson’s decisions were always based on ulterior motives. “Do you think it’s time to put out a brief statement to the press?”
“No.”
“Should we have the PR people privately contact relatives of the passengers? We can start booking them on flights to San Francisco and—”
“Later.”
“Why?”
Johnson looked at him closely. “Because we are not going to encourage a media circus here. This is not some cheap TV drama. This bullshit about right-to-know is just that—bullshit. There is not one damn reporter or hysterical relative who is going to make a useful contribution to this problem. It’s about time somebody started exercising their rights to privacy and secrecy again in this country. This is Trans-United’s business and no one else’s except, unfortunately, the Federal Aviation Agency. We’ll notify them in just a few minutes. As far as a public statement, it may be necessary to release only one. The final one.”
“Ed, my only concern right now is to bring that aircraft home,” Miller said. “I don’t care about any shit that is going to be flying around here later.”
Johnson frowned. “You ought to.” But then he suddenly patted Miller on the back. Johnson had forced himself to change gears. “You’re right. We have to bring 52 home before we can think of anything else.”
Miller turned away and walked to the Pacific chart. A little red spot of grease pencil on a field of light blue represented more than three hundred seriously sick and injured people heading home. And the thought that their fate was in the hands of Edward Johnson was not comforting. Miller hoped that John Berry was an exceptionally competent and discerning man.
Wayne Metz sat comfortably in his silver BMW 750 as he cruised in the right lane of Interstate 280. He adjusted the knobs on his Surround-Sound CD player until the resonance of Benny Goodman’s “One O’clock Jump”—one of his favorites from his old jazz collection—was just right. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. Yesterday’s tennis had deepened his tan.
He passed Balboa Park and looked at his dash clock. He’d be at the San Francisco Gold Club early enough to review his notes before tee-off with Quentin Lyle. He glanced up at the sky. Beautiful June day. Perfect for business. Before they reached the ninth hole, the Lyle factories would be the latest client of Beneficial Insurance Company. By the last hole he might have the trucking company as well. He hummed along with the music. His reverie was broken by the insistent buzzing of the cellular phone that lay on the passenger seat. He shut off the CD player and picked up the phone. “Yes?”
The voice came through with a slight hollow sound to it. “Mr. Metz, this is Judy. Trans-United Airlines has just called.”
He frowned. “Go on.”
“A Mr. Evans. The message was as follows: Flight 52, Straton aircraft, sent Trans-United a message saying aircraft damaged. But Mr. Evans said they were still transmitting so it might not be too bad.”
“That was the whole message?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not too serious?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Hold on.” He put the phone down in his lap and turned over several alternatives in his mind. But none of them was viable, really. Trans-United was far too important a client for him to pretend that he was out of touch with his office. Still, Beneficial didn’t insure what they called the hull—the aircraft itself. They were only the liability carrier. If no one was hurt, he was safe. He picked up the phone. “All right, I’ll call them from here. I may have to go down there. Call Mr. Lyle at the club. Tell him I may be late. Emergency. Hope to be there for the back nine. Maybe sooner. Make it sound really catastrophic, but don’t mention Trans-United. Got all of that? I’ll call you later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Metz hung up and drove by the San Jose Avenue exit. With any luck at all, his presence at the airport wouldn’t be necessary. He slowed his car, picked up the telephone, and punched a pre-stored number. The cellular phone immediately dialed the private New York number for Beneficial’s president, Wilford Parke. A few seconds later, Parke’s secretary put him through.
“Wayne? You there?”
Metz held the phone away from his ear. Like many older men, Parke was speaking too loudly into the mouthpiece. “Yes, sir.” He glanced at his clock. It was almost quitting time in New York. “Sorry to bother you so late in the day, but—”
“That’s all right, Wayne. Some sort of problem out there?”
Metz smiled. Out there. To most New Yorkers, anything west of the Hudson was out there. To Wilford Parke, anything west of Fifth Avenue was in another solar system. “Possibly, sir. I thought I’d keep you posted.” Metz’s thoughts were already two sentences ahead. “A call from Trans-United Airlines. Some sort of problem with an aircraft. No details yet, but they said it didn’t seem too bad and may only involve the hull. Still, there may be a liability claim. I thought I should call you before you left the office.” And before you heard it from another source, he thought.
“Good thinking, Wayne.”
“Yes, sir. And I thought I might go out there and see to it personally.”
“Fine, Wayne. Fine. Keep me posted. Glad to see you’re taking care of it personally. Where are you calling from?”
“Car. I’m already on the highway to the airport.”
“Very good. Let me know when you have some details.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good-bye, Wayne.”
Metz spoke quickly. “Sir, where can I reach you later?”
“Later? Oh, yes. Atrium Club. Having dinner. Over on East Fifty-seventh.”
Metz did not care where the club was located. “Can I page you there? Is the number listed?”
“Yes. Of course. You know the place. We were there last February. We had a bottle of Chateau Haut-Brion ’59. You can reach me there until about ten o’clock. Speak to you later.”
Metz tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. Wilford Parke was somewhere between senile and brilliant. In either case, he liked the old man. Talking with him was always a pleasure. He was a real gentleman of the old school. He was a man who believed in his company and who shared management’s privileges with those whom he trusted—like Wayne Metz. Metz had always been sure to stress his own Long Island boyhood and his college days at Princeton, which was also Parke’s alma mater. But the main reason he liked Parke was that Parke thought Wayne Metz could do no wrong. And he had thought so even before those embarrassing lapses of memory had set in. Wayne Metz hoped that Wilford Parke could hold on to his job long enough to secure Metz’s next promotion.
Metz wheeled his BMW through a pack of cars,
then accelerated again through an open stretch of highway. He knew he’d been lucky to get the call when he did, on the highway, not far from the airport. From his downtown office it would have taken him over an hour to get there. That was typical of the luck that had propelled him to the head of the West Coast office. Yet he might have to miss the first few holes with Quentin Lyle. That might be ominous. He half believed in omens, and though he found astrology silly, many of his friends read their horoscopes each morning. Money can be worrisome. Set example for loved ones by cutting down. Do what you believe to be correct. Don’tbe afraid to trust your heart.
But certainly his success had not all been luck, thought Metz. It was talent. Wilford Parke had years before seen something in Metz that as a young man he had not been aware of himself. In the corporate hierarchy, where a significant battle could be announced by a gesture as innocuous as the polite declining of a drink, Wayne Metz flourished. He was the master of the oblique and muted signal. He had an uncanny talent for projecting, in the most subtle ways imaginable, his likes and dislikes. He was, to quote his own analyst, perhaps too young a man to be so blessed.
Metz’s cellular phone buzzed again. He picked it up. “Metz.”
“Ed Johnson, Wayne.”
Metz stiffened in his seat. If the Operation VP was calling, it had to be a real problem. “I was just about to call you, Ed. What’s the latest?”
“It’s bad,” said Johnson, evenly. “It’s the Straton 797.”
“Oh, shit.” He and Johnson had once, over drinks, kidded each other about their mutual jeopardy in the Straton program. It had been Metz’s idea that Beneficial be the sole liability carrier for Trans-United’s fleet of the giant supersonic transports. He’d offered lower premiums with the elimination of the usual, but cumbersome, insurance pool. Johnson, for his part, had been one of the people to vote for the idea. Also, he had once admitted candidly to Metz, after a third martini, that his career was closely tied to the Straton’s success for a variety of other reasons. “Where did it crash?” Metz asked. “How many were killed?”