Final Approach

by John J. Nance

  Now Joe was moving to the edge of the couch. “I do have some ideas.”

  “I knew you would,” Kell told him. “And we’ve got quite a body of staff work around here which I helped to spark several years ago, Joe. As I mentioned, I do have a man who’s done some work for me on this, and the reason I want to keep his name out of it for the moment is because he’s still with the Board.”

  Kell had a hand up, as much to stop himself as to trigger Joe’s response. “You were going to tell me your ideas, Joe.”

  “Well, we too are somewhat prepared, not just from bull sessions and scuttlebutt among the staff—though there’s plenty of that—but because of a staff group formed by a number of us very quietly two years ago. We made it a semisocial sort of thing, get together and brainstorm what the ideal Board would be. Never produced a written report, but I know the proposals by heart.”

  “Go ahead, please. Cynthia? Could you take some notes?”

  “No problem.” She had already been scribbling incessantly, in a steno book.

  “Okay,” Joe began, “for starters, we need to break it into two boards, one just devoted to aviation. The current work load in aviation is enough for two NTSBs. Bogging us down and diluting our aviation expertise with all these rail and pipeline and highway and ship accidents is idiotic. We try to do a professional job on the aviation accidents, but we don’t have the time or the funds. We’re supposed to monitor safety trends as well, but who has time? We’re almost totally reactive. There should be a separate board, perhaps called the National Surface Transportation Safety Board, to handle all that. Separate staff, separate board members, separate funding, everything.” Joe felt himself getting enthusiastic.

  “Let’s look at that,” Kell replied. “What else?”

  “Well, the chairman problem is because of two things. One, the current guy is a political hack without sufficient aviation experience. Yes, he was on the blue-ribbon panel, but he had no credentials for that, except being a loyal party man. Sorry, your party again, but the lesson would be the same whether Democrat or Republican. The chairmanship of the NTSB—and for that matter all the board positions that are appointed—should not be political patronage plums. I may be stepping on your toes saying that—”

  “No. It so happens I agree. Go on.”

  “It just creates trouble. The staff has to try to educate the Board members who want to be educated, and work around the ones who are just biding their time till they get a cabinet position or ambassadorship, or whatever they want out of the White House. The rules were changed several years back to require technical experience in two of the five Board members, but for the chairman in particular, there are no requirements for technical knowledge. I’m convinced that Farris is one of those just biding his time. He should never have been appointed.”

  “So, we should change the appointment process? Or just the criteria for selection?”

  “Both.” Joe nodded. “Make certain only highly knowledgeable aviation people are eligible, preferably people with a technological pedigree and substantial experience in aviation-accident investigation. And as for the appointment process, there should be a technically qualified board appointed to pick the NTSB members and the chairman, and a longer term for all involved so they’ll outlast the president who picked the board that picked them, and therefore they won’t feel the need to check which way the wind is blowing before watering down our findings.”

  Kell didn’t answer, but he was agreeing, and Joe went on.

  “And perhaps the most important thing, Kell, the charge of the Board, or both Boards, must be changed. Right now, we’re charged with finding the “probable cause” in every aviation accident. But there is almost never a single probable cause. We should be charged with finding the various causes that contributed to the occurrence of an accident, and with addressing each and every one of them. With trying to correct each one of them. With kicking the FAA to correct each one of them.”

  “You want authority to compel the FAA to do the things you think are needed?”

  “Some want that, but I don’t. That ties our hands. Then we get into all the legal cautions and political problems of rule-making.” Joe watched Kell for a second, deciding finally to mention a hotly debated idea. “We might benefit by having standby authority whereby, if some future FAA administrator tried to ignore us completely on an emergency matter, we could take this statutory shotgun down from the shelf and force the issue legally.”

  “Good. Good list, Joe.” Without warning Kell turned to Cindy. “Other than the session tomorrow, anything on my agenda I can’t clear for the weekend?”

  She flipped through a notebook on the table, mumbling to herself. “Just a minute.” Cindy jumped up and moved behind the senator’s desk, punched some keys on his computer, looked at some sort of calendar, then turned toward the two men. “No problem. We can clear everything.”

  “Excellent.” Kell turned back to Joe. “Can you come by here about nine in the morning and, in effect, spend the weekend here hard at work?”

  “I … I guess so.” Susan’s image flashed in his mind. They had made no plans, but somehow committing the weekend without talking to her now seemed wrong, and that was disturbing. Already he was measuring his commitments in reference to her. “Sure, I can be here.”

  “Well, it’s lucky this came up on a Friday.”

  “What are we going to be doing?” Joe asked.

  Kell Martinson rocked back in his chair with a broad smile. Joe had seen a picture of John Kennedy in that exact pose, in a rocking chair in the Oval Office, a room Joe had always wanted to see in person.

  “We, Mr. Wallingford, since we want to hold a hearing and extract eyeteeth, we need a bill. You and I and Cynthia and at least two of my staff members who are good legislative draftsmen are going to write one.”

  Joe was out the door and down the hall when he remembered the question—and the idea—that had imposed itself early that morning. He retraced his steps, startling the receptionist by sailing past her back to Kell’s office.

  “I think I may have a solution for your Kansas City car problem.”

  “How?”

  “First, where do things stand?”

  Kell shook his head and sighed. “I wish I knew. The suspense is driving us all crazy, and Cynthia …” Kell looked out the office door, but Cindy was nowhere to be seen. “Cynthia is quite upset that I have not gone public with this, and I can’t believe it hasn’t leaked yet. The FBI turned it over in the form of an information packet to both the Kansas City Airport authorities and the FAA, but I’m told the FAA dumped it back on the FBI’s desk like a hot potato, saying they weren’t interested in prosecuting me. I don’t know about the airport’s attitude. What’re you thinking, Joe?”

  “You held a hearing on security this year, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you have a security clearance for classified military information, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, whether it was your intent or not to probe their security defenses at Kansas City, your actions did just that, and could be viewed as a somewhat unorthodox test, for which no prosecution should ensue.”

  “That’s stretching it, Joe.”

  “Have you made any recommendations as a result of slipping in?”

  Kell broke into a smile, slowly. “How’d you know that?”

  “I assumed. It fits your character. You’d be concerned enough to want to plug the hole. I’d say the fact that you’ve taken steps to do just that means that there was a legitimate purpose in going through that gate, or at least that a purpose has been served. And certainly your security clearance would attest to your qualification to be trusted, if you had applied or asked for an escort.”

  Kell nodded. “I don’t know if the folks in Kansas City will buy it, but it’s …”

  “Let me call them,” Joe said.

  Dr. Susan Kelly leaned out of her office doorway, catching her secretary’s attention. “Any wo
rd from Joe Wallingford yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Thanks.” She moved back to her desk, anxious to tell Joe that Farris had been buffaloed. With the other three members in agreement that the chairman’s so-called firing of Wallingford as IIC of the North America crash was ridiculous and maybe even in violation of civil-service regulations, Farris had backed down. “I’ll reinstate him myself,” the chairman said, none too happy. “This is a disciplinary matter. I started it and I’ll finish it.”

  Like hell, she thought, am I going to let Joe walk in there and get treated with condescension without advance warning.

  That had been around noon. It was now 2 P.M. and no Joe, despite messages on his desk and one on the windshield of his car. Susan was almost ready to go guard the elevators in the lobby when an animated Joseph Wallingford walked briskly into her office, shutting the door behind him. “I got your note, and I’ve got some things to tell you.”

  “Good. Me first. We won, you’re IIC again, but you’ve got to bite your tongue and let Dean tell you that himself in his authoritarian tones.”

  “I see. How’d you do that?”

  Susan noticed the guarded response. “You haven’t done anything rash, have you, Joe?”

  “Rash?” He looked worried. She seemed amused.

  “Rash. Like slashing Dean’s tires.”

  He smiled thinly. “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Which,” she began, more guarded and curious now, “implies that something has gone on. What’s up?”

  She looked even more beautiful than on Wednesday night, he thought, though her position on the other side of an imposing desk reemphasized the distance between them in professional terms. He had worried about telling her of the meeting with Kell, let alone the call from John Phelps or the visit from Mark Weiss. The worry that she would be upset with his actions, upset enough to hurt their blossoming relationship, had eaten at him all the way back. But he launched into the story anyway, relating the entire sequence of events—his lunch with Kell, his trip to the Hill, and thus his betrayal of the bureaucratic code against consorting with known legislators. When he finished, Joe noted with dismay that Susan’s jaw was set, the happy look gone.

  “Well, you have been busy. You know what you’re doing?”

  “I hope so, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure I should involve you with this information.”

  She pursed her lips and laughed, a singular sound, then got up and moved to the window, looking at the Capitol in the distance. “Joe, I’m not sure what you’ve just started. I agree Dean is way out of line, but you just moved to politically assassinate him, do you realize that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not to mention open up a congressional investigation. Did the good senator explain where that can lead?”

  “To some degree, yes.”

  “And did he tell you that your ability to function here may be destroyed if you don’t win this battle?”

  “You mean the Ernie Fitzgerald syndrome? Exile or freeze out the whistle-blowers?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” Susan replied, turning to him suddenly with an edge in her voice. “God, Joe, couldn’t you have waited a few hours? Couldn’t you have trusted me with this first?”

  Joe’s eyes wandered to the rose he had left for her when he arrived a few hours back. It was sitting to the right of her blotter, in a place of honor. Obviously she had been pleased with him then. He wished that was still the case. “Susan …” How to go about this? What to say? “Susan, here I am with a ticking bomb or two in my lap, not knowing whether it would be ethical to reveal them to you and feeling like I needed to move right then. I owed it to Mark Weiss and to John Phelps down in Florida. I’m not a political animal. You know that.”

  “You are now, fella—although we’ve got to keep this absolutely quiet.” She had resumed looking out the window. Now she whirled back to him, angrily. “You could have at least waited until I finished fighting the battle for you, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I’m sorry, Susan. But what would you have advised?”

  “Well, let’s see.” She walked back behind her desk to consult a notepad. “First, Dr. Weiss came to see me too, with a copy of the same tape. I agree Timson’s lying, but there were things we could have talked about that could have been done other than creating a Senate hearing, which isn’t going to smoke the man out.”

  “I didn’t know he …”

  “Of course you didn’t. You didn’t bother to ask me.” Susan picked up a piece of paper and came back around the desk in front of Joe and leaned against a chair, her eyes on his.

  “And, Joe, this intriguing message was on your desk. Perhaps I shouldn’t have picked it up, but I figured I’d see you before you got back to your office. I wasn’t sure I understood it before. Now that you’ve told me about your FBI friend’s call, it makes sense. You let the stock ownership panic you, right?”

  “Well …”

  “It contributed, at least?”

  “Yes.”

  Susan’s face was grim. She handed Joe the small piece of pink paper bearing Jeff Perkins’s name and a cryptic message: “Cancel stock ownership allegation—different D. F. Jeff.”

  Joe was silent for a minute, running over the different possibilities. There were none. Perkins had turned up another Farris. The chairman owned no such stock.

  “I guess I’m relieved.”

  “I am too,” Susan said, “but you’ve still started something you can’t stop.”

  “Susan, think about the rest of it, please. We’ve got an airplane down in Florida with evidence of fraudulent noncompliance with FAA airworthiness directives, a cover-up of which may reach to Caldwell at the FAA and Farris of the NTSB. The stock thing may have fizzled, but the other seems valid. We’ve got confirmation of lying by the pilot of the crashed North America airplane, which may have led to a mistaken lawsuit and unwarranted damage to the reputation of what may be a perfectly sound airplane. I’ve got a panicked inspector in Florida telling me to watch my backside and making clandestine phone calls through local bars, for heaven’s sake, and on top of that you’ve had to go in to try to get my position back for me against what seemed like heavy odds. What would you have advised on those matters? That we confront Farris? What about Caldwell? And, as Martinson said, what about the greater good? Doesn’t the NTSB side of this mean we need to change the way the Board is picked?”

  Susan looked back at Joe. “Including me, remember.”

  That stunned him. “Hey, Susan, any criteria for selection I would want to see, you would qualify for just as easily.”

  “I’m not worried about that, Joe. It’s just …” Her voice trailed off as she walked behind the desk and picked up the vase with the rose, looking at it lovingly. “We work so well together, you and I.” She looked up at him and smiled. “We, uh, do well together in other ways, too.” Susan turned away and walked to the window. “We ended up being a good team in Kansas City, Joe. We’re a good team here. You may have done the right thing, I suppose. I just guess I felt that anything of that magnitude, we would do together. This surprised me.”

  “You’d go over there with me? Jump ship?” he asked.

  “At the very least, I would have supported you.”

  “Would have?”

  “Will.” She put the vase down. “Will, of course, Joe. You’re right, there are more issues here than just Dean trying to get you off the case. Maybe this thing with Martinson will have an effect.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t, and I get booted out, I still wouldn’t leave Washington. As tough as it would be to leave the Board, I suppose in some ways … uh … it might be easier with me on the outside.” He forced a smile and she finally returned it.

  “It? What’s this ‘it’ you’re referring to?” she asked, her voice now absent the hard edge.

  “Us. You and me.”

  No reply.

  “Susan, you’re the one who said this would get complicated.”

 
; “I did, didn’t I?”

  “You did. I heard you. I was there.”

  Susan gave him a sidelong look. “Yes, now that you mention it, I do seem to recall keeping company with a gentleman of your description and saying those words.”

  “Would you be at all interested in, um, getting together with that fellow again tomorrow night or Sunday?”

  Her smile drooped a bit as she looked down, fingering something on her desk. “I think not, Joe. You’re going to be busy with the senator.”

  “Susan?”

  Her eyes met his, her expression a disappointment. “We’ll see, Joe. Maybe I need to define the full range of what ‘complicated’ means.”

  The short walk back to his office was painful, his thoughts on Susan, but his eyes catching the course reversal of one of Andy Wallace’s people when she saw Joe coming down the hall. He had already noticed a coolness on the part of some staff members in reaction to his removal as IIC. Suddenly getting too friendly with him was dangerous to one’s career. When this story finally broke, he thought, they would be diving into broom closets to avoid passing him in the hallways. Such was the self-protective instinct of bureaucratic life.

  The note from Farris was there, as he expected. This time it was done more correctly, a folded piece of paper on his desk. The meeting was as expected: ten minutes of professorial, face-saving lecture. “I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson,” Farris had the gall to say. Joe took it, made the right noises, and left, feeling no better or worse than when he’d left Susan’s office, but inwardly chagrined that he was ready to believe the worst of Farris. Joe took the time to call Cynthia Collins to relay the word that Farris held no aircraft company stock.

  Things were happening too fast, and Susan’s rejection—although temporary, he hoped—stung badly. Joe gathered the notes he and the other staffers had made in past years about reforming the Board’s structure—the if-we-had-our-druthers file named after the song of L’il Abner fame—and headed to the elevators, relieved to find himself the only one waiting.

  The doors of the elevator had barely opened before a figure punched through them, obviously in a hurry to get somewhere in the NTSB’s eighth-floor complex. The look on his face was one of controlled seriousness, and Joe recognized him immediately and with a start: it was Bill Caldwell. The close encounter with a man he had just targeted professionally was unsettling. Farris was one thing. This powerful, almost brooding presence from higher up in the hierarchy of bureaucratic power was entirely another. Caldwell disappeared around the corner in the direction of the chairman’s office as Beverly Bronson held the door and then joined Joe in the elevator.