Final Approach

by John J. Nance

  Kell worked hard to smile. “I don’t think that condition will last, but if the occasion arises, Beverly, let’s talk.” Kell’s mind was elsewhere, and the sparkle of unfocused interest in Beverly’s eyes which went slightly beyond the professional made no more of an impression on him than her statuesque beauty.

  Joe’s attention returned to the room suddenly, his head snapping up just enough for the others to notice that he’d been drifting from the conversation. “What should we do?” Joe asked, embarrassed at the lapse.

  Kell Martinson looked Joe straight in the eye to the point of discomfort. The senator was trying to read something there.

  “Joe, what do you want?”

  “From you, Senator?”

  “No, what do you really want to do professionally?”

  “I just want to be an NTSB investigator. That’s all.”

  Kell looked at him a bit longer before replying. “You may have to look beyond that, Joe.”

  Which means, Joe thought with sinking heart, that it may truly be over. He almost didn’t hear Kell’s call to action.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Where?” Joe was confused.

  “I’m sorry Joe, you were deep in thought a minute ago. We’re going to go over to the Executive Office Building to meet with some of the President’s people on this. I’d like you both to come along.”

  Joe followed Beverly out the door, trying to look engaged, but feeling dead inside. Kell asked him to hold a cab, that he had one phone call to make, and with that they left him and headed for the street.

  Kell sat back down for a moment in troubled thought. Beverly’s question had triggered feelings he was trying to hold at bay. His divorce from Julie had become final on the eighth, two days ago. He had hoped they could remain friends, but Julie’s voice when she’d called about the final decree had been frosty and distant. He was truly alone now, and with Cindy still in Missouri, he was lonely as well. What was she thinking out there? he wondered. Had she watched the hearing? Was she thinking of him? Should he call her? They hadn’t talked for a week, and even then it had been strained and she had been noncommittal. He was living in fear she might call to say it was over, yet he longed to hear her voice. God, how he missed her.

  Kell Martinson got up and slowly pulled on his coat as he looked around at the impressive collection of framed plaques and certificates and pictures, shots of him with presidents and dignitaries, the sort of thing a U.S. senator collects as a visible record of achievement. Yes, he was proud of all that. Yes, it was his life. But it wasn’t enough, and he knew that now more than ever. Without the right someone to share the victories, they were hollow. Kell sighed and stood up, grabbing his briefcase as he headed out the door to join the others.

  For Joe, the short taxi ride to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue served only as a distant and blurred background for the rapid progression of desperate thoughts of where he would go, what he would do, how he would live. It wasn’t that life away from his position at the Board had never been considered, it had simply never been taken seriously. Ethereal thoughts of “What if?” were simply that: ethereal thoughts.

  This, however, was reality—the result of a technician blundering stupidly into the maelstrom of the political world. In that game, Joe now knew only too well, he was no match for anyone.

  As they got out, Kell motioned Joe aside for a moment.

  “Joe, did you talk to someone at Kansas City Airport about the problem we discussed?”

  “Yes I did. Over the weekend.”

  “Well, I want to thank you. It worked. I got a call this morning from their security chief, and the general gist of the conversation was, if I won’t make a big deal out of which airport had the breach in security that would permit a car to roll through undetected, they won’t make a big deal about the technical impropriety of my probing their defenses, especially since the FAA has declined prosecution.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “It can still blow up publicly, but I think now I could handle it. Thanks again, Joe.”

  A deputy to the chief of staff was waiting to escort them over to the White House itself. The domestic-policy group had become involved, given the embarrassing nature of the situation to the administration. Joe had always wished he could be invited to some nonpublic function within the walls of the world-famous building, but not in the present circumstance. Now they loomed more like the fortress housing the gallows than a place of awe and beauty and power.

  “Mr. Wallingford, Senator Martinson …” The voice came from a small man with flint-hard features and eyes like tiny coals, both of them boring into Joe’s. “We’ve got a difficult problem here.”

  The hearing, the bill, and especially the unmasking of Bill Caldwell at the hand of the NTSB chairman, who was appointed by the sitting administration, had been a political embarrassment that could only be handled by the departure of both men, along with Presidential support of a bill the President’s domestic staff had originally thought unnecessary, but which now would be politically expedient. “We’ll have to support it now to make it look like this was a Republican response to the very problems created by our Republican chairman.”

  They were mad as hell at Martinson and mad as hell at Joe for starting the entire affair, but they were also realists. “There are,” the deputy said, “… solutions.”

  The man who entered the room at that point with profound displeasure showing clearly on his face was far too familiar to trigger the appropriate recognition response in Joe, until, as he shook the proffered hand, he realized it belonged to the President of the United States, who sat on the edge of a desk and regarded Joe in silence for a few seconds.

  “Dean Farris has just given up. His resignation will be on my desk in an hour. I had to twist his arm nearly off, but he’s out.” The President’s hand swept toward the door for emphasis, and he got up then and walked toward the end of the small office. “We offered the job to Susan Kelly this morning, on the supposition that Farris would leave. She turned us down … said she hasn’t been there long enough. I know this new bill, if it makes it, will require the chairman to have technical expertise and since I’m now forced to support the damn shake-up, I might as well put us on the side of the angels with a qualified individual. Mr. Wallingford, for all the grief you’ve caused me so far, I should support your canning by Dean Farris as his last act on political earth. Instead, I’m going to appoint you chairman.”

  Joe just stared at him. That made no sense. “Of what, sir?”

  The President laughed—a short, rapid chuckle replaced instantly by the same serious face. “Things been moving a little fast for you, Joe? Of the NTSB. I want you to take over for Farris and lead the Board into the new world you and my overly exuberant friend from the Hill here”—he motioned to Martinson—“have concocted.” The chief executive’s eyes were hard and none too friendly and they were aimed directly at Joe, cutting through any imagined defenses like a laser through butter.

  “Sir, I’m flattered, but …”

  “Goddammit, Wallingford, I’m not here to flatter you. I’m here to put you back to work. You got yourself fired this morning for going around your boss, and I don’t, in principle, disagree with that. Federal employees must maintain some degree of decorum when it comes to a chain of command or we’d have anarchy. I’m sure as hell not honoring what you did in running to the senator here, but I have to admit two things: One, you were right that Farris was damaging your operations. The admissions that you drew out, Senator, at your subcommittee hearings made that clear. Two, there seems to be no better-qualified person at the Board to take care of it with the technical side in mind, especially if the Board is broken away as an aviation-only entity. Even if the bill fails, there’s no better candidate around, since Susan won’t take it. I have to tell you, parenthetically, that you are my second choice because I don’t know you, and my people do know Susan Kelly by reputation. Now. The ball’s in your court. You’re not being honored, you
’re being given a serious assignment of great import. I expect a quick decision.” The President looked at his watch, then at an aide who had materialized at his elbow. “About time, Fred?”

  “Yes sir. They’re waiting.”

  “Okay.” He turned back to the thunderstruck former IIC of the Kansas City investigation. “Joe … may I call you Joe?”

  “Uh … good Lord, of course, Mr. President.”

  “Good. Joe, I need a quick answer.”

  “Sir, I’m not a politician …”

  “Which is exactly why I’m appointing you.” The President turned and left, smoothly transitioning to a running discussion with his aide over another unrelated problem waiting in the Oval Office.

  Joe hadn’t seen Susan and didn’t realize she was there, standing in the background. Now she appeared at his side. Kell had called her an hour before, knowing instinctively that she would be needed to reassure Joe that the appointment was appropriate. Kell had no inkling that the Board member and the investigator were anything other than professional friends, but he had dealt with men of Joe’s sensitivities before. Since Susan had been offered the job, and even though she’d turned it down, only Susan could convince Joe he should accept it.

  She motioned Kell away with a tiny flick of her hand and led Joe to the far end of the room.

  “Why didn’t you take it, Susan? You should be chairman, not me!”

  “I’m still learning. It’s far too soon. I’m not qualified, especially not for a proper, technically oriented Board with a chairman possessed of a seven-year term. Good grief, Joe, you helped design the way this new Board should be. You know I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable.”

  “Bull, Susan. You’re a psychologist, the world is turning to human factors and human performance, and nuts-and-bolts guys like me are becoming dinosaurs—confused dinosaurs at that. Look”—he started counting off fingers—“I don’t have a doctorate, I never got beyond a masters degree, I … I’m just not …” Joe put both his palms up. “Susan, I’m a technician, a technocrat. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. I do not want this job. I don’t have the slightest idea if I can do this job!”

  She put her right hand on his arm, her eyes searching his, looking for the resolve she knew was there. “You can, and you must. Joe, it’s not what you started that counts in this equation. It’s the fact that he’s right—the Board you just designed needs a Joe Wallingford on it. It’ll be tough. It’ll be alien terrain to you. There will be duties and requirements you are not used to, and a rank you have never dealt with. But I know you, and you’ll do an honorable and excellent job.”

  Deep down he knew she was probably right, yet he was scared—so very scared. He had feared losing the job he loved. Now he feared taking the job he had loathed, yet, what was the choice? There were people depending on him. Kell Martinson was depending on him, and had probably helped engineer this. Andy needed his job back. Beverly, now sitting quietly at the other end of the room, watching Joe with apprehension, certainly needed hers. The President, who had cleverly turned the tables on him—the old that’s-a-great-suggestion,-why-don’t-you-form-a-committee-and-look-into-it? method taken to an extreme, also, he supposed, needed him.

  But most of all his mind embraced the image of the beautiful woman before him and the advice he knew by instinct he could trust. Besides, he couldn’t let her down if this was what she expected of him.

  “You really think I could do the job?” he asked at last.

  “No question. I’ve seen you work as a diplomat, a commander, and even as a politician, whether you believe it or not. And you’re certainly a consummate technical expert. You’ll make mistakes, Joe, without question. You’ll make mistakes, but in the long run, you’ll be excellent.”

  He sighed then, the exhalation sounding somewhat ragged, his heart beating an accelerated tattoo.

  “You did say, Susan, that it would get complicated, didn’t you?”

  She smiled, sensing the crumbling defenses. “I did indeed.”

  “By the way, are there any rules about Board members … that is, against …”

  “Fraternization among Board members?”

  “Something like that.”

  She smiled a radiant smile as she withdrew her hand from his shoulder and cocked her head slightly to one side.

  “If there are, Mr. Chairman, dear, you’ll have the power to change them.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Without all those folks at the NTSB who helped by example and otherwise over the years (some 300 dedicated pros who try to do so much with so little), this story could not have come to life with such “real” people against a background of such vivid reality.

  Without all my fellow airline professionals who spend their lives trying to achieve perfect safety in an industry that never before realized it was based on the performance of human beings, the human struggles reflected here would not be credible.

  About the Author

  John J. Nance is the author of thirteen novels whose suspenseful storylines and authentic aviation details have led Publishers Weekly to call him the “king of the modern-day aviation thriller.” Two of his novels, Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child, were made into television miniseries. He is well known to television viewers as the aviation analyst for ABC News. As a decorated air force pilot who served in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm and a veteran commercial airline pilot, he has logged over fourteen thousand hours of flight time and piloted a wide variety of jet, turboprop, and private aircraft. Nance is also a licensed attorney and the author of seven nonfiction books, including On Shaky Ground: America’s Earthquake Alert and Why Hospitals Should Fly, which, in 2009, won the American College of Healthcare Executives James A. Hamilton Award for book of the year. Visit him online at www.johnnanceassociates.com

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1990 by John J. Nance

  Cover design by Andy Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2791-5

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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