Final Approach

by John J. Nance

  “No! I’m …” Jason Manning’s voice cut through the tangled space between them, startling Jeff. Manning’s sudden attempt to shift his position began with a lurch of his upper body, which moved the debris supporting Burnsall, dislodging his foothold, throwing him to the right. He tried to hang on to the rib in the millisecond of movement, but the distraction was too much, and like a slow-motion sequence the rib slipped from his fingers and slammed back toward Manning, impacting the sheet metal separating Manning from the rib, knocking the breath out of him and sending the one thing they had all feared the most—a shower of tiny sparks—right at the man.

  “Fire! Goddammit, fire! Foam. Get the foam in!”

  Manning exploded in flames almost instantly, a cry of surprise coming from his throat simultaneously with the impact of the snapping rib and the ignition of the kerosene-soaked clothes and seat.

  Burnsall felt himself tumbling off to the side into an unsecured area of sharp metallic debris as he turned to scream at the firemen at the controls of the foam nozzle. It took only seconds, but the firemen had relaxed their vigil, and he heard someone clambering to the controls as voices echoed the yell of fire, the flames now radiating heat at his head and back as he tumbled down uncontrollably, something sharp piercing his back, searing pain accompanying the sensation, his breath coming hard all of a sudden as the sound of a hand-held fire extinguisher being directed helplessly from too far away met his ears along with the screams of Jason Manning, now fully engulfed in flames and literally about to burn to death. Burnsall tried to look up and back, but a wall of flame blocked his view, flame which found more puddles of kerosene beneath where he had fallen, fuel which now began to engulf him as he lost consciousness.

  The stream of fire-suppressant foam shot from the end of the nozzle after what seemed like an eternity to the firemen who had heard Burnsall’s first call, then seen the flicker of flames. They had foamed the structure repeatedly through the morning, yet within seconds Jason Manning had been horribly burned, and his would-be rescuer lay impaled on a shard of aluminum, also seared with third-degree burns. Two of the firemen jumped into the tangled rubble within seconds of quashing the fire, one grabbing for Burnsall and pulling him up before realizing the extent of his wounds. With help from the crane, they had him lifted free and onto the pavement in minutes, another paramedic tending to his injuries: a collapsed right lung and internal bleeding.

  Manning, however, was just as trapped as before. A chain was thrown around the offending rib and attached to the jaws mechanism with great haste, the possibility of creating sparks now a distant concern after what had happened. Once attached, the chain pulled the metal permanently back with an ease that Burnsall couldn’t have managed.

  Finally they had Manning exposed, and two men struggled to get the sling beneath him, the odor of burned flesh sickeningly pungent in their faces. He was still breathing but blackened and unconscious as they lifted him quickly, swinging him over to a stretcher by the ambulance, where a doctor immediately searched for a heartbeat and heard the faint sounds of a heart entering coronary arrest.

  For fifteen minutes they labored, using every means available to keep him alive, but at last the bone-weary doctor looked up and shook his head. It had been just too much.

  At 5 P.M. Joe pushed open the door to his room and flung his topcoat on the bed. The organizational meeting had gone on longer than he had wanted, several of the parties wrangling over who should be assigned to what group. He needed sleep, but that would have to wait a few more hours.

  Joe flipped on the TV as he ran mentally through the events of the previous hours, searching for anything he’d missed. He knew Airbus would be in complete turmoil, hoping and praying the crash hadn’t been caused by any basic design defect in their sophisticated electronic fly-by-wire control system, but if sabotage was a possibility, that too could involve the flight controls.

  The item that had him almost scared, however, was the initial search in the Airbus tail section for the black boxes. The flight recorder had been exactly where they expected, but the cockpit voice recorder—the CVR—was nowhere to be found, and even its mounting bracket was missing. They needed that CVR as soon as possible. The solution to the accident could be on that tape. The flight recorder readout would tell them volumes about what the aircraft did, but only a live crew member and the CVR could tell what the pilots did. Barbara Rawlson’s group was stepping up its search. Joe wanted to get the cockpit voice recorder on the way to the NTSB lab in Washington on a late-evening flight, if possible.

  Connie Chung’s face was on the screen now with the CBS Saturday Evening News, and Joe turned up the volume as the scene shifted to a CBS correspondent at the hammerhead of Runway 19 at Kansas City Airport, reporting the latest on the crash and the rescue efforts, which had come to such a tragic end for the father of the little children pulled from the wreckage. Most of the story was on the rescue and the fire. The injured paramedic was in critical condition, as was the little four-year-old. The sabotage story was repeated then, along with a diagram of how the flight-control system worked, and how, presumably, it could be sabotaged.

  And without warning, Joe’s own face appeared on the screen, a shot from the briefing a few hours ago. Joe, not Susan. The correspondent was talking over the picture, saying that the NTSB was refusing to acknowledge the possibility that the congressman had been assassinated.

  “… I can tell you categorically that there is no evidence whatsoever of any sabotage, and it’s ridiculous to keep pursuing the question,” Joe heard himself say as he stared at the screen, dumbstruck. The clip had been the sum total of the news conference used, and Joe had just told the world, apparently, that there was no possibility of sabotage. At least, that’s how it would appear. Susan was right. This would be a problem.

  Within fifteen minutes the phone rang, and the voice of the NTSB’s chairman, Dean Farris, was instantly recognizable. Undoubtedly he had seen the newscast.

  “Joe, you there?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Joe, what the hell are you doing to me out there?”

  “I’m trying to conduct an investigation. What do you mean?”

  “You see the news?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, congratulations old dad, you made NBC, ABC, CBS, and several other newscasts with the same statement, and your face hadn’t been off the screen thirty seconds before my phone began to melt down.”

  “Look, they took the middle of a statement. What I said …”

  “Oh, come on, Joe, you’ve been at this game long enough to expect that. You know they’ll take it if you give it to them, and you apparently paused in all the right places.”

  “I’m very sorry, but it certainly is not a major problem.”

  “Oh no? Hey, I’m the one on the political hot seat, okay? Let me tell you, within ten minutes I had several calls from friends on the Hill who were very concerned that this might really be a political assassination and you might be refusing to consider that possibility.”

  “That’s ridiculous! All I said was …”

  “Joe, I know what you said, I heard it. The point is, this wild man from Louisiana has a lot of faithful followers and they scare people up on the Hill, and frankly they scare me. Has the FBI shown up?”

  “This morning. Of course. An agent was here before we arrived. By the way, I need to talk to you about Caldwell and the FAA airplanes we didn’t get to use.”

  “Later. What did you tell the FBI?”

  “What do you mean, what did I tell them? We compared notes on what we had, which isn’t much just out of the starting blocks. They’ll stick with us every inch of the way, just as they always do. What are you getting at?”

  “Well, it looked on television like you might have told them to go home.”

  “You know I wouldn’t and couldn’t do that. They can do as they please.”

  “You should have told the TV cameras the FBI was hard at work on it. Matter of fact, you shouldn’t h
ave been on camera at all. Where the hell is Susan Kelly?”

  Joe decided to ignore that question and hope it would not be repeated. He did not want Farris knowing he had upstaged and angered Susan.

  “Good Lord, Mr. Chairman, all we’ve got so far is someone making anonymous phone calls with unsubstantiated allegations.”

  “Yeah, and an upset Congress, and an upset electorate, and an upset press. We’ll probably be tarred and feathered by every radio evangelist in the country by tomorrow morning. Look, I know we tend to look at Wilkins as a racist and white supremacist, but Joe, the man was an elected congressman with a massive constituency which runs far beyond his district. He was powerful, and any hint of an assasination must be taken with stoic seriousness. I don’t want to interfere with your investigative prerogatives, Joe, but I can’t allow you to get this Board in trouble, however accidentally. You understand me?”

  “Yes … yes I understand.”

  “Get this problem fixed, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Okay. First thing in the morning. We’ll hold another briefing and trot out the FBI.”

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  Joe hesitated, several ill-advised remarks fluttering across his mind. Susan had been right. Joe’s mistake had mushroomed, and he had said too much already. However much he detested this pompous politician, the man was still the boss.

  “The truth.”

  There was a snort from the other end, followed by a dial tone. Joe sat holding the receiver for a few seconds, wondering if it really could have been sabotage. That mystery car, for instance. Was that connected? It seemed very farfetched, but with Farris upset, he’d have to pay it lip service.

  “Goddammit!” He slammed the receiver back down. “Here we go again. More political games!”

  Yet how abysmally powerless he was to change anything—clearly outmatched and outgunned by Farris. As infuriating, as upsetting as it was, he had to face the reality of the matter: if he wanted to play in Dean Farris’s game, he had to play by Dean Farris’s rules.

  The phone rang again immediately, and Joe ripped it out of the cradle, fully expecting Farris with a postscript. Instead it was Barbara Rawlson.

  “Something weird, Joe. That Air Force C-5 trapped at the north end?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I guess he didn’t like our wreckage on Runway one-nine, so he moved it.”

  “What?” That made no sense, and Joe’s tone was impatient.

  “About an hour ago. A swarm of Air Force security people suddenly drove out on Runway one-nine and shoved most of the wreckage to one side; the C-5 taxied by and immediately took off on the other runway. The airport manager finally got around to telling us. He said they didn’t even ask him.”

  “They can’t move that wreckage!”

  “I know, but they did, Joe. No apologies, no explanations, and no warning. They even threatened one of the airport cops who tried to stop them. I guess he wasn’t going to argue with automatic rifles.”

  “Jesus.”

  “No harm done, though. We already had the wreckage photographed and located. There wasn’t much on the runway, as you know.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I know, but at least they didn’t monkey with the main wreckage.”

  Joe shook his head.

  “There is some good news, though,” Barbara continued.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Your bag is on the way up. Our luggage just returned from its unaccompanied holiday in San Francisco.”

  6

  Saturday, October 13 Salina, Kansas 5:02 P.M. CST

  Kell Martinson was the only one on the planet who knew that Cynthia Elizabeth Collins was dead, and that fact was tearing him up. He had wasted most of Saturday afternoon pacing the floor and wondering what to do when Fred Sneadman called. His young legislative assistant had been working late on what was supposed to be a quiet Saturday afternoon.

  “Senator? I’m sorry to bother you at the farm, but the phone hasn’t stopped ringing with media calls about Congressman Wilkins, and I can’t locate Cynthia Collins.”

  “The plane crash, you mean?”

  “Yes sir. The media is determined to get your reaction. You know, because of your opposition to Wilkins.”

  “I have no public reaction. Why are they calling me?”

  “I think, Senator, that you’re pretty well considered Wilkins’s number-one detractor inside the Beltway.”

  “That’s bullshit, Fred. The man was an insult to the process and I’ve said that, but I wasn’t out to get him.”

  “They seem to think so, sir.”

  “Look …” Kell realized his right hand was in the air in a frustrated gesture Fred Sneadman couldn’t see. “I’m not interested in dealing with that right now. You say you can’t find Cynthia?” Cindy’s trips to meet him in Kansas City were always clandestine, so no one in Washington would suspect that she had been on that airliner. Cindy’s parents lived in St. Joseph, Missouri, a sleepy, historic town northwest of Kansas City. She had grown up there, so a trip back to St. Joseph had always been the backup excuse she was to use if her flights to meet Kell in Kansas City were ever discovered. Now her folks would have to be told the tragic news, but by whom? He wasn’t even sure she had booked the flight under her own name, and there were no passenger lists out as yet. How could he alert Fred innocently?

  “No sir. I’ve tried all afternoon.”

  “She might have left town for the weekend, Fred. Try her once more, and if you get her on the line, tell her to call me out here immediately. And call me back if you can’t locate her.”

  He replaced the receiver, knowing Sneadman would call within a few minutes to report Cindy still wasn’t there. He would mention her parents in St. Jo, then, and the possibility she had flown out to see them.

  “Damn!” He sat down hard in the wingback chair in the living room, feeling numb. Cindy had meant far more to him than he had ever really admitted to himself, and now a deep hollowness filled him, as if all the bright promises and dreams that had seemed to be just ahead of him had suddenly been ripped away. Loving her had always been heavenly: the sex, the companionship, and even the feeling of playing out some fantasy role, as though they were clandestine operatives skulking around, beating the system, using code words and phrases, making certain they didn’t compromise his political future. He was, after all, a married man. That would come to an end quite soon, but in the meantime, there were vast numbers of loyal voters and political enemies alike in the state of Kansas who would never understand or forgive—not even if they knew the agony he had gone through losing his wife to his career.

  Julie had hated political life from the first, and moving to Washington had quickly eclipsed their earlier, happier years when he was a young lawyer in Wichita. She hated the constant public attention, but she claimed it was his priorities that had frozen her out, forcing her into an also-ran position when it came to his time and attention. What Julie and he had felt for each other had died with the second term, and the idea of a quiet divorce became a welcome coup de grace for an empty shell of a marriage. Finding Cindy had helped fill the void, not create it.

  With surprise he realized he had a great urge to call Julie. The automatic need to have her hold him and help soothe the pain, as she used to do when the path became rough, was nothing but a learned response—a ghost of a memory of happier times. Yet Kell was acutely aware of how urgently he needed that sympathy.

  “My God, Martinson, you’re an idiot.” He shook his head in disbelief, sitting back in the chair a little deeper as if to guard against moving toward the phone. “That’s right, boy,” he said, and snorted, “call your estranged wife for sympathy because you’ve lost your girlfriend. She’ll be touched.”

  Kell realized he was listening for the phone to ring. Sneadman had the number, and enough time had passed. Why hadn’t he called? The waiting was intolerable. He realized he needed someone to grieve with him.

  Ke
ll had been ignoring the flashing message light on the phone answering machine since he’d arrived early that morning. It was always blinking when he came home. Absently he pressed the message replay button as he walked past, getting several feet away before the beautiful voice filled the downstairs of the house, the words merely incomprehensible music at first, and a music that filled him with great sadness.

  It was Cindy’s voice.

  He covered the distance to the answering machine before her message had finished. Her voice had startled him, and he couldn’t think of a single reason why she would have called the farm on Friday when she knew he would be in Wichita, and then on the road to pick her up in Kansas City. He fumbled for the right control, rewinding the tape and pushing the play button once more, listening intently for the words as her voice began again, quiet and subdued, devoid of her usual flair or enthusiasm.

  “Hello there. I know you’ve just walked in from what was probably an angry trip back from Wichita, and I imagine you’ve spent the last few hours on the road quite upset over my message about the Kansas City situation, so I figured I’d better explain a bit more. I’m sorry I had to do it that way, leave it on your cellular voice mailbox rather than call you directly, but I guess I didn’t want to be second-guessed or talked out of it. I just think things are too complicated with that issue to discuss it over the phone with you. It’s confusing me, and I think what this assistant of yours needs is a little time. Therefore, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t do what I know you’re thinking of doing—calling me at home the instant you get to the farm. I know you, Senator. Let’s please give me enough time to get this issue in hand, and we can discuss it on Tuesday when you get back. Please. I’m just not prepared … with this brief, I mean.…”

  What message? What brief? What on earth had she been talking about?