“There’s a question you haven’t asked me, Mr. Wallingford, but I’ll answer it anyway. Why have I stepped out of the mold? Why have I angered my leader over there and, as he will see it, defected? I sat here, Mr. Wallingford … I sat here yesterday and especially today, and it finally sank in how much damage has been done. No, I don’t know what happened in that cockpit, but I agree the copilot should have been able to recover and was intimidated out of it. I knew Don Leyhe. He was scared to death of Timson.” Butler paused, his eyes searching the audience again, this time for the captain of Flight 170.
“Look at Captain Kaminsky out there. It’s not just the fact that Dick Timson crashed into him, the fact that wrenches me is that because of this crash his world has become so dark. I never knew … I never wanted to know … that what we did in that office could have such an effect that … that …” He looked down again, shaking his head slightly. “I … haven’t slept very well in the past few weeks knowing that even though Dick wanted me to stay out of the way, I was part of a management operation that could have contributed to this … did contribute to this. I just can’t be a part of that anymore, even if I do flunk my next checkride.” He looked over at Walters again. “I’m sorry Mr. Walters.”
There was sudden silence in the room, John Walters sitting back in his chair, tapping his pen on the table with increasing vengeance, glaring daggers at Butler while Joe, Susan, Dean Farris, and the entire staff sat there effectively speechless.
Joe leaned forward at last and began guiding Butler through more questions, fleshing out the picture of Timson’s methods and his day-by-day management of North America pilot matters. Susan permitted the ALPA and FAA members to continue the questioning until around 4 P.M., when there was simply nothing more to say.
Joe took the microphone again and thanked him, but before Susan could begin the rituals of closing the hearing, Dan Butler stepped off the platform and walked past the North America table, stopping by John Walters, who refused to look at him.
“By the way, Mr. Walters,” he said, “I’m going back to the line. I’ll save you the trouble of firing me.” Butler moved on to the ALPA table, where he pulled out a chair and sat down as Susan read her closing statement and brought the hearing to an end.
Joe got up from his chair and looked at Susan, who was looking back, both of them obviously galvanized by what had transpired. Joe glanced around at his other colleagues, reading the same shocked, destabilized look on each face. Seldom had any of them experienced as dramatic a change in the middle of a hearing as the sudden crumbling of Dan Butler’s facade. Butler’s words would force the entire Board to deal with copilot intimidation, and the fact that Don Leyhe hadn’t acted in time. Even if the Star Wars radar was responsible for the crash, Dick Timson was responsible for deactivating the most important emergency system he had, his copilot, by creating an operational environment of intimidation throughout the entire airline. Having the consequences come back on the perpetrator in such an unpredictable and fatal way was somewhere beyond ironic.
The immediate aftermath of an eventful hearing is always the same, as people crowd forward to talk to various individuals, the staff and Board members included. Dean Farris had his glut of people, Susan hers, and several were pressing for Joe’s attention—which was difficult for Joe to deal with, his mind spinning around a quick review of the previous half hour. Joe realized with a start that one of the people pressing forward to speak to him was Dan Butler. He started to thank Butler, but the pilot stopped him. “Don’t. I should have come forward sooner, but I have one more thing to tell you. It may be nothing, but he acted so secretive about it.”
“What?”
“Dick was supposed to be in perfect health, and I’ve seen his first-class medical come down without restriction from our company doctor, but I tell you, Timson took aspirin constantly. He always had a bottle in his briefcase. You might want to take a close look at that.”
Dick Timson had remained motionless for much of the previous hour, his hands in his lap, his head down, listening impassively. There had been no one sitting with him, and Louise Timson was nowhere in sight. As soon as Susan gaveled the hearing closed, Timson got to his feet slowly and walked from the room, utterly ignoring a couple of reporters who tried unsuccessfully to talk to him. His eyes were on the carpet ahead, his pace leaden.
Pete Kaminsky caught him by the door, physically stopping him with a big hand on Timson’s sleeve, forcing him to look up. Pete saw a haunted look there, an emptiness accentuated by the dark circles under his eyes. Dick, he knew, had a way of jutting his lower jaw out and hunching his shoulders when he was angry, but Pete saw only defeat.
“Dick, would you like some company?”
Timson just stared at Kaminsky.
“I … I wanted you to know … I had to say what I believed to be true.”
Timson’s right hand came up in a gesture of dismissal as he looked away. “Don’t worry about it, Pete.” He sighed deeply and slowly pulled away then, disappearing down the hotel corridor, Pete watching him go and thinking him in many respects the saddest victim of all.
19
Wednesday, December 5 Washington, D.C.
Joe Wallingford walked into Dean Farris’s office with the fatalism of a Roman gladiator facing the lions, having been warned by Andy Wallace a few minutes before that Farris was going to attempt to take him off the North American investigation. The odds were impossible, of course—Farris was the boss—but Joe wasn’t about to surrender without a fight. The note to report immediately to the chairman’s office had been affixed to his door for the staff to see, and that alone was infuriating.
“Well, Joe, you just couldn’t take a hint, or an order, could you?” Farris was grinning ruefully as he motioned Joe to a plush chair while he moved to his throne behind the desk. “You hadn’t been back from Kansas City for ten minutes yesterday before going after North America’s doctor again, right?”
“First, Mr. Chairman, I don’t appreciate the public note on my door.”
Farris shrugged and smiled as Joe continued.
“Second, as the hearing broke up two days ago, Dan Butler came up and said that Timson was using medicine heavily, perhaps aspirin, perhaps not, and that John Walters has been guarding the files since the crash. Now that, to me, raises flags I can’t ignore. There was no mention of medication on any of the medical records we received, nor on any of the FAA medical forms Timson filled out each year.”
“I told you to leave the doctor alone.” Farris’s voice was even and threatening.
“We did, for heaven’s sake. All we did was renew our request to talk to him.”
“I told you to come to me first. I ordered you to lay off, Joe. I’ve spent half the damn morning on the phone listening to David Bayne yelling at me and then Bill Caldwell upstairs griping at me.”
“What …?” Joe cocked his head. “How does this concern Caldwell?”
“Bayne says you’re harassing him, and Caldwell, who’s an old friend of the man, agrees.”
“Harassing Bayne? North America’s CEO?”
“No, the doctor. McIntyre.”
“That’s not true, we—”
“Dammit, Joe, I told you not to call them again.”
“Wait a damned minute here, Mr. Chairman! We did not call the man in Canada yesterday or today. All I did was authorize Andy to get on the phone to John Walters after the hearing and demand to see all of the files, and to talk to the doctor in person, on the record, when he gets back. I don’t know what they’re saying to you, but it looks to me like it’s not the doctor that’s scared, it’s North America.”
Farris had turned toward the window, ignoring Joe’s response, and merely waiting for him to finish.
“In addition, Joe, I told you that it is the policy of this Board that there will be no further probing into the presence of that Air Force plane or its cargo.” Farris whirled around to face him. “That, too, was an order. It’s a closed issue! Yet you’ve had
Andy Wallace running all over the landscape behind my back asking questions about it.”
“Mr. Chairman, how the bloody hell can I conduct an investigation if you’re going to keep second-guessing me?”
“You’re not.”
Joe looked at him. “What? I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t understand. You don’t understand who’s in charge around here. Your conduct at the hearing was inexcusable.”
“In what way?”
“In terms of respect for the chairman of this organization, Joe. You’re not going to have to worry about this investigation because I’m removing you.” Farris had sat down and was leaning back in his chair, looking imperious, enjoying the upper hand. “I’ve had it with your insubordinate, I-know-everything-I-was-here-before-you attitude. You are hereby removed as IIC. I’m directing every department not to talk to you about any aspect of it. And, as to whether I let you keep the position of chief of the aviation accident division, or even keep working here at the Board, depends on whether you can learn to follow a directive from your superior.”
Joe set his jaw and stared at Farris. “Fine. Fire me. But what are you planning to do about the medical records, the doctor, and what’s beginning to smell like a cover-up of some sort? In addition, what are you going to do to satisfy the bulk of the American public who aren’t going to believe us any more than they now believe the Air Force if we don’t make an honest effort to find out about that damned radar?” Joe was leaning forward in his chair, tapping the desk, looking Farris in the eye and trying hard to keep hold of his temper. It would be very satisfying to throttle that sanctimonious son of a bitch, he thought.
“We’re not the FBI on the trail of a murderer, Joe. In due time. In due time, we will address the North America issue formally with them. There will be no addressing of the other issue. The radar unit was turned off. Anyway, none of this is your concern now.”
Joe stood up, his finger still touching the desk. “While you’re worrying about your political reputation, Mr. Chairman, consider this. In this town, those who know about and fail to expose a cover-up, become part of it.”
Joe returned to his office in a dark mood, and equally shaken. Intellectually he knew he could take retirement—the ultimate revenge of a professional bureaucrat. But what the hell would he do? He was an accident investigator. A technical detective with a government ID. He didn’t want to do anything else. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could do anything else. Life without the NTSB was, quite simply, unimaginable. But Farris had embarrassed him and might even fire him. And that was reality staring him in the face.
“Joe, d’you get the word?”
He looked up to see one of Andy Wallace’s people in his doorway.
“About what?” he said acidly. It was starting already.
“The crash. In Florida. Just came through, and we’re scrambling the Go Team.”
All his instincts came back on line in an instant, even though he wasn’t on the team this week. “Who, what, when, and where?”
“In the Everglades, a Miami Air Boeing 737. It was a charter flight of some sort, and the initial word is that it came apart in the air while climbing out of Key West northbound. It came down in pieces near Naples, Florida.”
“No survivors, then?”
“I don’t know … probably not. It killed people on a highway, too.”
“Miami Air, did you say?” Somewhere he had a vague memory about Miami Air, but what was it? “Who’s going?”
“John Phelps is in the IIC position this week. I’m not sure of the others yet. This just came in.”
“Thanks for telling me.” The usual adrenalized rush of excitement had hit him, then as quickly escaped. Thanks to Farris, he was truly a man without a mission.
In his FAA office one floor above the NTSB, Bill Caldwell took the news of Miami Air’s crash with a stoic expression, calmly closed the door to his office, and immediately picked up the phone to send one of his more trusted subordinates to Miami. That task complete, he sent his secretary on an unnecessary errand, and once she had gone, quickly took her telephone log to his desk, flipping through the pages looking for two specific telephone-number entries, a pen of the same color ink poised in his right hand. The man who had elevated him to associate administrator had left the FAA several years back, but was still a close friend. In fact, there was a network of recent alumni from the senior executive service positions of the FAA with whom he kept in touch. Two of them had gone to work for Frank Lorenzo’s Texas Air group as instant vice-presidents. Two others—including his mentor—had ended up in control of a small airline in south Florida. An airline called Miami Air.
It was snowing lightly when Joe arrived home. He loved snow, and the dusky beauty of a snowy afternoon. But only the gray of the darkening skies matched his mood. He had never been truly in professional jeopardy from the Board’s chairman before. He had disagreed occasionally with whoever occupied the office, but he had never been threatened. True, as a government worker he would be hard as hell to fire. He could always find another government position with his GM-15 rating, but he realized, perhaps too late, that for him there was only one right answer to the question: “And what do you do?” “I,” he had always said, “am an accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.” Could that really come to an end?
Damn that stupid egomaniac academic anyway! He needed to think, but first he intended to destroy a bottle of wine. The radio tower lights from nearby Cheltenham Naval Communications Station were a welcome sight as he took the nonmilitary fork in the road south of Andrews Air Force Base and motored the final mile to his house, looking forward to a fire in the fireplace and a view of the countryside through the sliding glass door onto his patio.
The thought of Susan Kelly’s offer tugged at him a bit, but he wanted to lick his wounds in private—which was more or less what he had said to her when she had stormed into his office with the assurance that she and the other Board members were going to confront Farris and try to reverse his decision.
“Susan, I really appreciate it.”
“We need you, Joe.”
“Farris doesn’t.”
“We’re going to change that.”
“Susan, at least make sure Andy doesn’t drop the medical matter. I’m not supposed to even talk to him.”
“That’s bull. Farris can’t issue such an order.”
“Well, he sure did.”
“We’ll see. Meanwhile, let me take you out to dinner tonight, Mr. Wallingford.”
Joe had struggled with the decision. He was exhilarated when he was around her, and the offer was tempting, but the harpoon from Farris had lodged too deep to enjoy an evening with her properly. Susan confused him, his feelings about her uncertain, his conduct around her becoming more guarded lest he treat her like something other than a colleague. Not tonight. Not when his guard was down. She would be too easy to turn to for solace of a more physical kind, and that could wreck their friendship.
“Not tonight, Susan,” he said, trying to force a grin, “I have a heartache.”
She had laughed easily and then stopped, looking him in the eye with her head slightly tilted, as if trying to fathom a deeper meaning behind that line. “Okay, then come to my place and I’ll try to remember how to cook something. I make some of the best TV dinners this side of the Monongahela River.”
“No. Really. But a rain check would be appreciated.”
“You’ve got it, Joe.” She got up and headed out the door, stopping then and turning back to him. “Do me a favor. Promise you won’t make any rash decisions until we’ve talked, okay?”
“Like shooting Farris? Don’t worry, I won’t.”
The memory of that brief conversation kept playing in his mind as he uncorked the bottle of German Moselle wine he’d been saving for nearly three months and listened to CNN’s latest coverage of the Miami Air crash while he worked on building a fire. The media’s facts were subject to change, but the
accident aircraft was apparently one of the older 737s, and that was a problem, since by now they should all have been rebuilt. The FAA’s change to a stringent philosophy of rebuilding certain parts at predetermined times in the life of an older jet was supposed to solve the problem, and had—until now. One hundred twenty-one dead, scattered over the countryside just like the Pan Am crash in Scotland back in 1988, but this time no initial indication of a bomb.
Once the fire caught, Joe closed the damper slightly to smoke up the room a bit, giving it the aroma of a smoky mountain cabin—a procedure Brenda used to hate. He turned off the TV then and settled into the recliner chair, the curtains onto the patio open, facing the snowy scene outside—a scene which suddenly included a figure emerging from the shadows and moving to the glass of the sliding door to stare in, her form feminine and her breath fogging the glass.
“Susan!” Joe was on his feet in an instant, fumbling slightly with the balky latch, sliding the glass open for her then as she stamped the snow off her boots.
“Hi. I’m not very good at taking no for an answer,” she said, holding up a large paper bag emitting delicious aromas.
Final Approach Page 34
