Stuart managed to wrap up his current assessment of the crash investigation, having avoided words that might foster the sort of graphic images painful to a man who had recently lost his only child. Without having asked a single question, eyelids drooping wearily and fingertips touching a steeple to his lips, Cole didn’t appear to be listening.
Stuart mentioned his hope that the Mojave video might help solve the puzzle.
Cole closed his eyes.
Stuart searched rapidly for something to add. “The good news is that we’ve eliminated a number of components from the list of probable causes. We’ve released manufacturing to reopen those.”
“That’ll certainly please Hackett.”
Stuart knew Morton Hackett probably topped the list of those with their knives drawn, seeing as he, the CEO’s former fair-haired boy, had quite literally driven the program into the ground. After all, Cole had hired him specifically to shake up the corporate bureaucracy, the equivalent which Roget’s Thesaurus defined as Hackett. It was also probably the case that either he or Hackett, not both, would still be around come the end of the investigation. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
Cole actually smiled. “What do you think of the help you’re getting from the chief engineer’s office?”
Stuart considered the qualitative nature of the question; he presumed Cole had asked for a specific reason. “Hackett’s good in the role of process watchdog.”
Cole folded his hands.
“Problem is, he stifles imagination and frustrates the assertive individuals who tend to be the best problem solvers. He bogs meetings down with his asinine little book, which I think he uses to track how well disciplined a decision was reached rather than what it was that we learned, or how it may advance a theory one way or the other. It’s frustrating to me that he chooses to subordinate his considerable intellect to the role of bureaucratic scold.”
“All that helpful, is he?”
“I’d say for a man in his role he reaches conclusions with an astonishing absence of rigor. He spurns the use of the scientific method. His latest position is to propose a bogus shopping list of probable causes—three or four, I think, compiled by some sort of consensus opinion. By shotgunning a redesign he seems to think we’ll improve the odds that the problem is solved. I keep reminding him we can’t fix the problem unless we know what broke. For that matter, we could wind up creating a new set of problems.
“Other than that,” Stuart concluded with a laugh, “I think the chief engineer’s office is doing a wonderful job.”
Cole parted his lips in a smile, albeit a faint half smile—he’s not completely lost his sense of humor, Stuart thought. Especially as Cole was the one who had promoted Hackett to chief engineer.
“There’s a place for a man like Hackett in an organization like this. So, to summarize where we are…?”
“Right. Bear in mind I’m trying to prevent people from getting too comfortable with any one failure scenario. That said, this much we know.” He counted off with his fingers. “We have Federov’s admission to a minor assembly snafu that probably explains the carbon seal damage. Two, this damage precipitated an oil leak that unbalanced, and then corn-cobbed, the forward rotor. Three, the subsequent energy unbalance caused the aft rotor overspeed that burst the engine, and took down the aircraft.
“However, the fly in the ointment is the fact that we lost all electronic data transmission before the engine oversped—a good two seconds before.” Time measured in seconds were an eternity in such engine failure events.
“Some sort of an electrical aberration?” Cole suggested.
“It’s obvious the electrical system malfunction preceded every other failure. We heard that from Sandy on the aircraft, and confirmed it in the IDR at Mojave. Otherwise the speed traces and so forth would have run all the way to engine burst. The traces cut out before anything significant really happens.”
“You have the black boxes, don’t you?”
“They’re pretty outdated, which is not unusual for an old experimental bird. We sent ’em to Fairchild to make sure we didn’t do anything to jeopardize whatever data they did contain. I’m told the flight data recorder captured the entire event. Unfortunately, the lapse in the electrical system blanked out all the data being collected for the prototype engine.”
Cole seemed to be absorbing the information.
“There’s something else I’d like to say.” Stuart leaned forward. “It’s my opinion that the possible presence of an electrical malfunction makes moot the decisions leading up to the crash, none of which considered any such malfunction.”
Their eyes met briefly before Cole looked away and said, “There’s no need for you to adopt an unpopular position, or to otherwise martyr yourself, on account of me.”
Stuart shrugged. “I’m not inclined to martyr anyone, especially myself. Neither do I recognize any need to ingratiate myself to you. I’m only calling it the way I see it.”
“Noted. Thank you. Do we have any idea how much more time you’re going to need?”
Stuart thought for a moment. “I’d rather answer you tomorrow afternoon, if that’s okay. We’re reviewing a plan that I believe is closer to the mark than anything so far.”
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Cole said quietly. “I don’t need to remind you of the effect this is having. Everything’s been pushed way out. The problem isn’t just your propfan program. The economy is killing airline growth projections and profits, such as they are. We haven’t had a single new order since last quarter—that’s a record.
“Which brings me to the least palatable reason I invited you here. Last Wednesday night the board approved a reduction-in-force. I’d like you to have your managers begin compiling their lists. Human resources is preparing the guidelines to be used. Now, I know what you’re going to say, that when your program picks back up there’s going to be a lot of work to be done. I don’t know what to tell you. If our earnings aren’t there then we’ve no means of paying them anyhow. I know the propfan is important to our future. Unfortunately, the propfan isn’t generating revenue.”
11
ONE OF EMILY CHANG’S few extravagances, a chocolate-point Himalayan who answered to the name of King-Pu, stopped purring and jumped from her lap at the sound of a knock at the door of her apartment. The wall of the neighboring apartment had been pulsating for hours with the rumble of music, and it was a wonder she could hear much of anything else.
In fact the knock at the door was Debi, her next-door neighbor and friend with whom Emily liked to share her morning jog. The flight attendant was young and pretty, one of many living in the complex whose assignment at their airline’s Midwest hub seemed to be frequently rotated. She politely declined Debi’s invitation to join her, citing a deadline of work she was attending to on her computer.
Her hand still pressing the door shut, Emily felt a sense of regret. She could recall some of the parties she had attended with her friend, Sandy Cole... Thinking of Sandy was to be reminded of the spinelessness that had led to her death. Had she not fulfilled her professional responsibility by having convinced her boss of the risk to the flight test? It seemed that Stuart had failed rather spectacularly in his. And to think there once was much I admired in the man...
Emily slid the deadbolt into place and turned from the door.
Her two-room efficiency in the working-class neighborhood of suburban Cleveland was comparable to the living conditions at university. That it cost only a fraction of her salary had been her principle reason for signing the lease. Similarly, inside the bedroom were a mattress and box spring on a simple metal frame. Her clothes she kept in a trunk, which she had hauled home and scrubbed with disinfectant after discovering it next to the parking lot dumpster. Even her excuse for being reclusive that evening was on loan to her from Thanatech, and the small cherry desk beneath the laptop computer had been a birthday gift from her parents. Frugal by nature, her current penny-pinching was not without a specific objective. The
account balance displayed on the computer screen totaled a monetary sum, Emily hoped, that soon would allow her to smuggle her parents to freedom.
Events in her life had convinced Emily to believe in her fate. Estrangement from her conservative father had grown, ironically, out of his insistence that she learn to always question—that she use her brain to think, to take nothing for granted. She could recall their discussions as if they had just taken place; See, my child, how the sun rises higher in the sky during summer than winter? It is for the same forces of nature that your bicycle is easy to ride. Why, do you think, does the leaf fall slower than the stone? See how the bird can fly through the air? What allows ice to float on water? Think, to where does the ice disappear in the subzero air of the winter? Emily remembered how pleased he had been when she asked: From where comes the essence, Father, for a seed to branch into the sky? And years later, to his silent dismay: Father, is it true that others decide what I read? Finally he would quietly shake his head and walk from the room: Why do men in Beijing decide how everyone else is to live? Why, Father, must you be so resilient as a mountain? They eventually grew to infuriate each other. Emily believed fate had pre-ordained that their friction would drive them apart, allowing her the American job she enjoyed and thus the money to free him.
A national merit scholar equipped with a mathematics degree, Emily had obtained a student visa to attend Stanford University’s doctoral program in control systems theory. Her father’s prestige ensured that the Chinese government would pay the expenses. Months into her dissertation and ecstatic over her promising future, she was informed of Beijing’s decision to assign her to the Ministry of Defense. Why, she asked, would she not be permitted to choose her place of employment, as allowed even graduates with lesser scholastic credentials? They said that she could choose her place of employment, within the Ministry of Defense.
At age twenty-seven, she made the decision that would forever alter her life—a decision her father had pleaded against: Emily renounced her Chinese citizenship. Her first subsequent visit by the State Security officer was to inform her of the disgrace she had brought upon her family; the second informed her of the physical risk she was exposing them to. When she ignored the phony threats, they gave notice that both her scholarship and stipend were being revoked. Beijing pronounced her a political dissident and the security apparatus took steps to discourage communication with her family. Finally, even the money her parents were sending no longer arrived.
Struggling with part-time jobs tutoring math to high school students, and writing software under university grants, finally she was able to complete her dissertation. When the United States refused to grant her resident alien status, she tried but failed to receive political asylum. Three years later an extended student visa allowed her to earn her second doctoral degree, this in software engineering. Graduation finally in sight, Emily began her on-campus interviews. Her highest offer came from an investment banking firm in New York. America had entered the grip of an energy crisis, and the Midwest firm Thanatechnology Corporation invited her to participate in the development of a fuel-efficient family of aircraft engines. The day after receiving their offer letter a second arrived, amending the first; Thanatech would assume her tuition debt. Emily was thrilled—they were desperate for somebody like her! The work sounded important and exciting. It appeared that anything was possible.
Two months into the job, her career assumed an unexpected urgency. Emily learned through a network of relatives that Chinese doctors had diagnosed her mother with a rare form of liver cancer. Distraught by the news, Emily investigated options and determined that Western medicine regularly achieved the highest efficacy rates for treating this particular disease. She approached the Chinese embassy in Washington to propose they fly her mother to the States; they refused to even grant her an audience. Suddenly it seemed her selfish decision to expatriate had earned her not only dishonor at home but pain and suffering for her mother. A woman from the U.S. State Department attempted to intervene, whereupon they were told that the socialist order of China delivered the finest medical care in the world.
During her undergraduate days at Qinghua University, Emily dated the son of a mid-level official in the People’s Liberation Army. The young man liked to boast of his family’s numbered accounts in Switzerland and the Caribbean islands; profits arising from their Quangdong factories were deposited offshore in order to evade the whims of the communist government. Armed with this recollection, Emily learned how to set up her own offshore account, choosing a reputable international bank branched in Tortola. Soon she was making sizable deposits from the money she made at Thanatech, mailing postal money orders via FedEx—a technique she’d found on the Internet. This way, when the time arrived to pay her parents’ illicit benefactors, there would be no reason to fear American Homeland Security inquiries into the whereabouts of some $40,000 of savings.
Emily placed one stockinged foot on the chair by her desk and sat down. While scrolling through the bank statement it occurred to her that the sum would represent different things to different people. The individuals to whom she would hand over her money were criminals—unscrupulous cheats who often as not stole from the fugitives of oppression rather than deliver them from it. For this she blamed not the unsavory scum who exploited the desperate, but the elitists in Beijing who fostered their desperation. She had grown up the daughter of a prominent scientist and money was never portrayed as the solution to any of their needs; a powerful ministry ran the corporation that employed her father. The danwei provided their modest home and all of her schooling, coupons to subsidize the cost of their food, clothing, electricity, even hot water, and a doctor for every illness—except, apparently, for her mother’s condition.
Tonight the question was whether she would complete preparations in time to save her mother’s life. She was several thousand dollars shy of the amount demanded by the Democracy Underground, the smuggling ring ‘snakeheads’ with whom her relatives had put her in touch. Money for beginning her mother’s treatments in Pittsburgh would also have to be found.
Weeks had passed since the latest word of her mother’s condition. Typing into the keyboard and logging off the Internet, Emily hoped with a sigh that no news meant good news.
12
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON Emily Chang sat primly straight, hands clasped on the small table inside of her cubicle, her ears literally ringing from the shouted acrimony and frayed nerves of today’s meeting. Stuart’s lingering obsession, as to what had caused the total loss of electronics in the back of the aircraft in the seconds before the explosion, remained unaddressed. Arm waving vagaries on the part of Morton Hackett, the chief engineer, had been met by Stuart’s impassioned demand for a sound calculation, ‘One that inspires confidence that we understand the problem—a chimpanzee can throw a dart! I’d expect a little more precision from this organization!’ And so, seated opposite her was a young and gifted engineer by the name of Sean Thompson, who slouched in his chair, arms folded over his chest, his legs sprawled out underneath the table. Thompson was unquestionably one of the best electrical engineers in her group, as adept at writing software as he was designing the integrated circuitry for which it was written.
Privately, Emily Chang wanted nothing to do with what she viewed as Stuart’s effort to score political points in his perpetual clash with the chief engineer. She had become profoundly disillusioned by Stuart’s cowardice in not having stood up for own his decision to cancel the test flight. Personal feelings aside, she had no choice but to conduct this ridiculous calculation of his. As did Thompson, although his uncharacteristic reluctance to embrace the task suggested that he held out hope to the contrary.
“That’s a hard calculation to make,” Thompson observed for the third time.
Emily considered Sean’s assessment. “I’m so sorry.”
Sean withdrew his gaze from the cubicle wall and looked at her. “What?”
“I’m very sorry that this is going to be
so hard for you.”
Thompson looked at her uncertainly. Finally, he snatched the page of instructions up from the table. “When do you need it?”
“When can you have it?”
Thompson stood up from the table. “By the end of the day.”
13
Wednesday, April 22
FOR EMILY, THE NOISY distractions of telephones ringing, voices rising over partitions, a fax being sent, all disappeared. Sean Thompson was supposed to be briefing her on the calculation summary he had left for her this morning, but he was nowhere to be found. She scanned the trembling sheet of paper in her hands a second time in an attempt to spot the source of what had to be her own misunderstanding. Her chest moved in tight, shallow breaths as her mind raced with the words, Oh God, what have we done what have we done...?
Her secretary hailed from over the cubicle wall to remind her of the 8:00 meeting in Stuart’s office. Emily noted by the time stamp on the bottom of the paper that Thompson had run the print at 3:47 A.M. “Did Sean call to say what time he’d be in?” Emily asked.
“No,” came the empty reply.
“ALREADY?” STUART ASKED minutes later, cocking an eyebrow. “After all that melodrama?”
Only minutes earlier, Emily would have resented being drawn into what until then she viewed as nothing more than Stuart’s petty turf battle with the chief engineer. “It’s only a first cut,” she said. “As you suggested, we made several simplifying assumptions. But judging from the results, I doubt a more refined approach will be necessary.”
“Really?”
Emily averted her eyes from the paper she had just placed on his desk. “We extrapolated to the conditions immediately preceding engine burst. Based on this approach, it would appear that a great deal more power would have to be introduced to the engine than what some of the other teams have asserted.”
Razing Beijing: A Thriller Page 7
