Miller looked at the two men. Trans-United was still like a big family—but it had become a family that had something to hide. Miller realized that there was no point in trying to buck Edward Johnson—not on this point. “All right . . .” He walked to the door and left the room.
Johnson rebolted the door, then turned back to Metz. “Okay. You have your minute.”
Metz took a deep breath and sat himself in a chair. “Okay. We’ve got to be very careful from a liability standpoint. We can’t contribute to the problems of the Straton. Legally, we’re better off doing nothing than doing the wrong things.”
“In other words, don’t give them landing instructions?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. The courts and juries have set the precedent. Everyone’s a Monday-morning quarterback. Whatever you do now will be judged later in court and it will be judged by the results of your actions, not your good intentions. In other words, if you talk him down and he crashes, you’re worse off than if you hadn’t tried. Your only obligation as I see it is to mount a rescue operation.”
Johnson looked at Metz. He was saying one thing but meaning something else. “That sounds like bullshit to me. But if that’s true, then we’ve done the right thing so far by sitting on our thumbs and not giving Berry correspondence courses in flying a supersonic jet. And I’ll tell you something else—talking a pilot down by radio is a bitch; talking him into a final approach and landing by data-link is a joke. When I get the chief pilot here and tell him what he has to do, he’ll shit.” He paused. “Of course, with the way my luck has been going, Fitzgerald will pull it off and become an overnight national hero. He and Berry will do the talk-show circuit. Terrific.”
Metz sat up in his chair. “Then there is a chance that the Straton can be landed?”
Johnson shrugged. “There’s always a chance. Stranger things have happened in the air. All kinds of bullshit about God in the copilot’s seat, bombers landing with dead crews, mysterious lights showing the way to the airport in a storm. And don’t forget that Berry may well be an excellent pilot. Who knows?”
Metz nodded. The phone call from air traffic control was something he hadn’t planned on, and he wondered what other surprises were still in store. He had to have more facts. “Why doesn’t air traffic control know where the Straton is? Aren’t they supposed to be watching on radar?”
“There’s no radar that far out over the ocean. Each aircraft determines its own position, then radios it in to ATC. They, in turn, work like a central clearinghouse. They coordinate the flights so that none of them try to fly the same route at the same time. With the Straton 797 it’s very simple. It flies so high that there’s no one else up there except for an occasional Concorde or a military jet. That’s probably why ATC isn’t too excited by the loss of radio contact with 52. There’s nobody up there to conflict with.”
Metz leaned forward in his chair. “Then air traffic control still thinks the Straton is on its normal course and headed for . . . Where did you say . . . Japan?”
“Right.” Johnson heard an unmistakable tone of eagerness in Metz’s voice. Clearly, the man was leading up to something, and his first statement about not giving landing instructions was a clue. That bullshit about courts and juries was just a trial balloon. Maybe Metz had something that would lessen their personal liability in this thing.
Metz stared down at the floor. There was an exact psychological moment to go in for the kill, and it had not yet arrived—but it was close. He looked up. “So it’s not unusual to lose radio contact?”
Johnson nodded. “Not too. Radios have problems. I’m told that all sorts of things affect radios at sixty-two thousand feet. Sunspots. The variables of the stratosphere. But all those things are temporary. If contact isn’t established soon, everyone will know there’s been trouble.”
Metz nodded again. “So if ATC can later pinpoint the time of the accident, Trans-United is in trouble?”
Johnson didn’t answer.
Metz let the statement take hold for a few seconds, then changed the subject. “How far out will the air traffic control radar pick up the Straton?”
“Depends on altitude. They’re flying low now. They won’t be seen by radar until they get within fifty miles of the coast.”
“That close?”
“Right. But what the hell does this have to do with my liability coverage, Wayne? You’re like my god-damned automobile insurance broker. Wants to know all about the accident while I want to know when you’re going to pay.”
Metz forced a smile. “It’s all related.”
“Is it?” Johnson could sense that Metz was about to make a proposition, and he tried to look less intimidating and more receptive. He sat down on a high stool and smiled. “What are you getting at, Wayne? Time’s wasting.”
“I can speak freely?”
“Sure. Just cut through all the bullshit and give it to me straight. If it sounds good for Ed Johnson and Trans-United, you probably have a deal. But if it sounds good for Wayne Metz and company, I’m going to toss your ass out of this office. Hurry. I have to call ATC.”
Metz stood. He looked at Ed Johnson for a long time, then spoke softly. “Ed . . . the Straton has to go down. And it has to go down over the water, not over land.
No survivors on the aircraft. No further casualties on the ground.”
Johnson stood also. Metz’s proposition was not a complete surprise. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”
Metz exhaled softly. Johnson had not immediately thrown him out of the office, and that in itself was encouraging. He knew enough to say nothing further.
Johnson turned and faced the Pacific chart. He stared up at it, then looked down at the floor and began pacing. He stopped and stared at Metz. “Okay. I’ll bite. What do we gain if it goes down in the drink?”
Metz knew he was in a position to score. He let the silence drag on, then he spoke. “We gain everything. We save our companies, our jobs, and we insure our future prosperity in this rat race of life.”
“All that? Sounds great. And all we have to do is commit mass murder.”
“This is no joke, Ed.”
“No, it’s not. Murder is no joke.” He paused. “And how would you propose we deep-six that Straton? There are no guided missiles or fighters in our fleet at the moment.”
“We’ll come to that later—if you’re interested.” Metz glanced at the door as though he were offering to leave.
Johnson pretended not to see the offer. “I’m interested. I’m interested in listening.”
Metz nodded. “All right. Listen to this. Beneficial’s liability potential is manageable if those people die. The death benefit wouldn’t be pleasant to pay, but it’s within our calculable exposure. We’ll pay it all, and we won’t involve Trans-United.” He paused. “But . . . if they come back and that pilot is correct about their condition, our liability is enormous. Beyond enormous. It would bankrupt Beneficial Insurance and—”
“Before they paid all the bills?”
“That’s right. We will be totally liable for each of those three hundred poor bastards for the remainder of their lives. And we’d be totally liable to every relative and organization that is dependent on them. Potentially, that liability might span another seventy-five years.”
“And Trans-United might get stuck for the amount you couldn’t pay?”
“That’s right. The amount we couldn’t pay, plus the amount we don’t have to pay because of the limits of liability on your policy. Your limits of liability are very high, but I know you’ll exceed it if that aircraft lands.”
“Maybe it won’t exceed it.”
“I’m talking billions, Ed. Billions And let me just mention again, without you getting too excited, that Beneficial will undoubtedly subrogate against Trans-United. In other words, we’ll try to stick you with half the bills from the first dollar on by going to court and claiming negligence on your part. And that won’t be too hard to do. The bomb was on the Straton
because your people allowed it to be there. There have been cases like this before, you know; Trans-United will be guilty of contributory negligence. Poor security. Poor supervision. Inadequate safeguards. Look at what Lockerbie did to the old Pan Am—it was what finally drove them out of business. Besides, maybe you’ve done something in your maintenance or engineering programs that’ll look bad in hindsight. You know, the
Valujet scenario. Then Beneficial will gang up with the FAA and make you look real bad.”
“I’m not buying that,” Johnson said, but in his heart he knew that it was all true. Even if the basic cause of the accident was an onboard bomb and nothing more, the lawyers and government bureaucrats could still make his maintenance economy program look responsible. Pan Am had some Arabs blow a 747 out of the sky, and eventually it put them out of business. Valujet put the wrong shipment into the cargo compartment of that doomed DC-9 out of Miami, and the FAA shut the airline down a few weeks later for bad maintenance. Metz was absolutely right.
Metz shrugged. “You’re not the jury. And there’s no sense arguing with me. This is the age of liability and automatic fault. Cause and effect. Modern logic says that whenever something goes wrong, then it must be someone’s fault. Risk avoidance is today’s buzzword. Try to convince a judge and jury that the Straton just ran into a shitload of bad luck and see how sympathetic they’ll be to Trans-United. Picture, if you will, three hundred drooling plaintiffs in the courtroom. We’ll take you right down the tube with us. The FAA would probably ground you—at least for a month or two. It’ll make them look more efficient to the press.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right about that.”
“It’s a tough business. Tougher when you don’t have an insurance pool.”
“We fucked up there, didn’t we?” Johnson said.
“Sure did,” Metz agreed.
Johnson sat heavily into a chair. “You bastard. Okay. You just try to prove negligence, then.”
Metz moved to the door. He put his hands on the knob, then turned to Johnson. “Ed, I’m sorry I suggested such a thing. The best we can hope for now is that the Straton lands with a minimum loss of life on the ground. Just do us all a favor and suggest to ATC that they try to land him at sea, near a rescue ship. San Francisco is a nice town. I wouldn’t want to see a Straton 797 plow through it.”
Johnson waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Spare me that bullshit.”
Metz nodded. “All right. But I won’t spare you from the truth.” He paused and seemed to be lost in thought. “When I think of the liability of a few thousand people on the ground . . . over four hundred tons of steel and aviation fuel . . . Jesus Christ. It would be a holocaust. Think of it. Think of it. Property damage in the hundreds of millions . . . Well, at least we don’t insure the hull. Save a hundred million bucks there.”
“A hundred and twenty-five million,” Johnson said.
“Right. Well, there’s the chance the Straton will land at the airport. But it might crash into a crowded passenger terminal or plow into a couple of taxiing airliners. Which reminds me, aren’t you supposed to notify the airport of a possible crash landing or something? How about the city of San Francisco . . . Civil Defense or something?” He paused. “And remember, even if we don’t stick you with negligence, you still have to cover everything that exceeds your limits of liability and everything we can’t cover because of bankruptcy.” He let a second pass, then continued, “Beneficial might be able to restructure the company. Trans-United, on the other hand, will go under for good. This is potentially the biggest bad-news media event of the decade. No one even cares to know the name of the insurance company involved. But the Trans-United logo will become as notorious as the swastika. Front page of Time, for Christ’s sake. And not just for a week or two, as with most accidents. No, sir, if that plane smacks into Frisco, or especially if it lands, the attorneys will parade those poor bastards through the courts . . . through the media. Three hundred human beings whose brains have been turned to mashed potatoes. You will personally spend the next ten years in courtrooms. And there won’t be a lot of people lined up at your ticket counters in the interim. If we don’t take you down, the FAA will and the press will. It’s happened in the past, for less nightmarish accidents.”
Johnson scowled but didn’t speak. Metz was making sense—too much sense.
“How many people earn their livelihood here?” Metz asked. He took a deep breath. “God, I almost wish that thing would go down by itself. I mean, dead is dead. Final. A few weeks of splashy media happenings. Then no one will even remember the name of the airline. Hell, I don’t remember the name of the airline involved in the last big crash. All airline names sound the same to the average guy. Like insurance company names. You see, if the thing goes into the drink, then all the facts go down with it. Nothing to photograph. No one to interview. The media gets bored with that. The National Transportation Safety Board can’t poke through the debris and sift it all and reconstruct the events. At those depths in the mid-Pacific, and with the Straton’s position unknown, the flight recorder with all that information is gone. John Berry and crew are gone. No one knows anything for sure. It would take years of legal hassling to determine who was liable, and to what extent. The airline itself could even be a sympathetic victim, what with the likelihood of a bomb.”
“Right,” said Johnson. Bombs were out of his jurisdiction, even if the airline’s security department could be faulted. And with no physical evidence in hand, there was no way any lawyer could prove that the maintenance cutbacks somehow lessened the aircraft’s survivability.
Metz was speaking faster now. “We can implicate the Straton Aircraft people, too. We could drag our feet in court for ages and retire with our distinguished careers intact before it gets untangled. But if John Berry sails into San Francisco International Airport . . . well, there’s no room for legal maneuvering when conclusive evidence of the airliner’s negligence is parked on the ramp, and the local mental institutions are packed to the rafters with living, breathing, drooling proof of the outcome of Trans-United Flight 52.”
Metz had not yet mentioned the idea that those people would be better off dead. It was a touchy argument, so he left it in reserve. “Okay, Ed. That’s all the cards, all face up on the table. Think about it. Good luck to you. Good luck to us.” He unbolted the door and opened it.
“Shut the goddamned door. Get in here.”
Metz shut and bolted the door. He looked at Edward Johnson and asked him, “The question is, can you give Berry flying instructions that will put that aircraft in the ocean?”
Johnson nodded. He’d already given it some thought.
“I think so. The poor bastard will never know what happened.”
11
John Berry turned his head and looked over his shoulder into the lounge. He was about to call to Stein, but Stein wasn’t there. Terri O’Neil stood at the door, looking in like a departed spirit who had returned home and who could not cross the threshold without an invitation. Berry looked past her. His eyes darted around the lounge. “What the hell . . . ?”
Sharon Crandall looked over at Berry. “What’s the matter?” She turned her head and followed his gaze. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
Berry jumped down from the pilot’s chair and stood in the doorway. Harold Stein was gone. But worse than that, six passengers from the lower cabin had found their way up to the lounge. As he watched, Berry saw another appear out of the stairwell. He looked back at Sharon Crandall. “Stay here and keep them out of the cockpit.”
Crandall stood and placed herself in the doorway. Terri reached out toward her. Crandall took her friend’s hands in hers and held them, but would not let her pass.
Berry stepped quickly into the lounge, taking Terri by the arm and pulling her along.
He saw Linda Farley sprawled out near the piano. He walked to the middle of the lounge, ignoring the people milling around him. “Linda!”
She didn’t answer.
; Berry felt an unexpected fear seize him. He released the flight attendant’s arm and ran across the carpeted lounge. John knelt beside the girl, took her shoulder, and shook her. “Linda!”
Linda Farley opened her eyes slowly.
First Officer Daniel McVary, lying a few feet away, opened his eyes also. But his eyes opened quickly, in a flash, wide and staring, like a night creature’s when the sun goes down. He lifted his head.
Berry helped the girl to a sitting position. He could see that her lips were dry and cracked, and dried tears streaked her face. “Almost home, honey.”
Linda Farley’s head turned, out of habit, toward the man she had been told to look after. She screamed.
“He’s awake!”
Berry looked down into the bloodshot eyes of the copilot.
Daniel McVary sat up, his head hitting the leg of the piano. He let out a grunt and rolled over, then crawled toward Berry, his tongue hanging out like a dog’s.
Berry pulled the girl toward him and lifted her to her feet.
McVary continued to crawl toward them.
Berry pushed the girl behind him, then slowly, cautiously, bent over and helped the copilot stand. He looked into the man’s eyes. This was the man on whom Berry, a few hours before, had placed all his hopes. But that was before he had fully understood the scope of what had happened to the men, women, and children of Flight 52. Before he had made contact with San Francisco, before he had gained some confidence in himself. He saw now that this man standing in front of him, red eyes blinking and face twitching, could be of no more help to him than the others. Reluctantly, with some sense of guilt, he turned the man around and gently pushed him away. McVary stumbled a few feet, collided with the piano, and lay sprawled across it.
Berry looked up at the cockpit door. Terri O’Neil was again trying to enter the cockpit. Sharon was standing in the doorway with her arms thrust in front of her, pushing her friend away, too gently, Berry thought. A man who had come up from the cabin was also heading toward the cockpit. Berry looked quickly around the lounge. The other passengers were aimlessly stumbling into the lounge furniture and into each other. Berry wondered what force, what residual human intelligence it was that possessed and propelled them in so persistent a fashion. What were they seeking? What were they thinking?