Final Approach (56 page)

Joe looked at her and sat back in his chair, keeping an even expression. “Where would you get that idea, Beverly?”

“Oh, come on, Joe. The first proposed legislation in a decade affecting the NTSB and it just happens to whistle in out of the blue a mere three weeks after I see you at Martinson's door. Some coincidence!”

“Did you call Cynthia Collins to ask what I was doing there?”

“Not until this morning when we got this, but she's out of town somewhere, as I'm sure you already know. I'm equally sure she'll cover your story, Joe. But with you and Dean at loggerheads the day before, and this bill proposing new ways for appointing board members and the chairman, even a first grader could figure out what's going on.” A wry smile broke through her apparent anger at him, and that was puzzling.

“You're jumping to unwarranted conclusions.”

“Am I?”

“But I'm sure you've long since told Dean where you saw me.”

Beverly looked at him in silence for a few seconds. “No, as a matter of fact I haven't.”

Joe was surprised, and let it show. “Why not? I thought the very day I saw you in the elevator …”

“Yeah. You called me Dean's KGB. I
really
appreciated
that.
”

“Well …”

“Okay, Joe, let's stop shadowboxing. It's just you and me in here—unless you've got us bugged.” She shook her head ruefully. “Now
I'm
getting paranoid.”

“Beverly, please sit down.” Joe motioned her toward a chair across the desk, and she finally sat on the edge of it, as if ready to bolt.

“Joe, I am well aware that everyone around here thinks I'm merely an extension of Dean Farris.” She sat back and shook her head slightly. “I'm also aware that people think my intellect must vary in inverse proportion to my bra size. However, I do happen to have a mind of my own—she followed Joe's gaze and looked down at her blouse—“despite my big tits. Yeah, I know, you can't take your eyes off of them. Don't be embarrassed, you're not alone.”

“I'm sorry Beverly, I didn't mean to—”

“You're male, I'm overbuilt, that's normal. But I am not Dean's mindless bimbo. And I happen to think this bill is a damn good idea. Does that surprise you?”

“In fact, yes.”

“Okay. Good. It has obviously surprised you that I have not said a word to the chairman about your none-too-subtle involvement in this bill and this hearing. In fact, when he asked me about it a while ago I dismissed it. I told him such things tend to pop up every few years when committee staffs run out of other things to do. And he bought it.”

“Why didn't you …?”

“Why not tell him to raise his defenses?”

“Yes. Isn't that your job?”

“My job, Joe, is congressional liaison. I try to keep us out of trouble with Congress and keep our funding coming. Yes, I do try to put a good spin on our image over there, and yes, I am supposed to advise the chairman what to say and when to say it when he's called to testify. But nowhere in my job description does it say I'm also supposed to hide this chairman's abject stupidity.”

“What? So you're …”

“Setting him up? You might say that. That's why I'm pretty ticked off at you. You've apparently done what I've wanted to do all along, and when I tried to send you signals to tell you I wanted to join the effort, you just figured I was trying to protect Dean's interests. That hurt. The way you dismissed me hurt.”

“I'm sorry, Beverly, really, but the truth is, we don't know each other very well. I never suspected you might be fed up with Farris too.”

“He's damaging this Board, Joe. That's why I want to be on the team, on your team, whatever it's up to. You staging a mutiny? Hand me a cutlass, laddie, and move over. But you've got to trust me and tell me what the hell's going on. Now, is someone preparing an ambush over there or not?”

It was Joe's turn to stare at her, looking carefully for signs of duplicity. The North America investigation was still in disarray, and Joe was trying to keep the lid on until the subcommittee met, hoping to get some new answers. He had to be careful. If Beverly tipped off Farris with nearly two weeks to go before the chairman was due to walk into Kell Martinson's trap, it would give him time to burn the evidence and circle the wagons. But if Beverly
was
lying about keeping Farris in the dark, then the chairman would already know there were people gunning for his official hide, and telling her more wouldn't make much difference. Either way, with caution, he could probably fill her in.

“Beverly,” he began cautiously, “how familiar are you with Dean's outside contacts on the North America investigation?”

She smiled and looked down before replying. “You mean, do I know about all the phone calls from David Bayne, North America's chairman, and the calls from upstairs—from Bill Caldwell—about the doctor? Do I also know something's up with the Miami Air accident which I can't quite isolate because John Phelps won't talk to me? The answer is yes, Joe. That's why I'm concerned about the damage he's doing to all of you in the trenches. This poor dolt may be a great college professor, but here at the NTSB he's in way over his head, and the thing I cannot forgive is his letting people reach in and manipulate us, sometimes in scandalous ways. In fact, I probably know of some you don't.”

“I wouldn't doubt it.”

“Academically and socially he's smart. But politically and legally he doesn't understand how careful and circumspect you have to be.”

“From my vantage point, Beverly, the main problem is he can't understand why his people in the trenches must not be interfered with.”

She was nodding. “Okay, coconspirator, am I in the club now, or what? Is there a test? An initiation rite? As long as it's not kinky …”

Joe smiled at her. “Okay, you're in the club. There's someone in the Hart Senate Building I want you to talk to.”

“Wouldn't be an elected official, would it?”

“How'd you know?” Joe asked, smiling.

Beverly got up from her chair and put a hand on the door. “Joe, I am sincere. Make an appointment for me with whomever you think I should talk to, and tell whoever it is that I'm willing to help. I do have Dean's trust for a little while longer.”

“Will do.” Joe felt stunned, but far less isolated.

As Beverly Bronson left Joe Wallingford's office in Washington, North America Airlines's government affairs vice-president Mark Rogers was on the hot seat in Dallas, facing North America's chairman, David Bayne, across his imposing desk—a copy of Senate Bill 323 on the blotter, along with the letter from the subcommittee asking for Bayne's personal participation.

“What do we think about this, Mark?”

“I think you'd better go, David. It would send the wrong signals if you didn't.”

“Why?”

“Well … after Putnam and Walters went off half-cocked two weeks ago, and then got you broadsided and embarrassed on national television, our previous position of alleging that the Board's investigators were out of control has no credibility. Before that, though, we were sufficiently upset with NTSB actions that you had to complain and put pressure on people in D.C., right? Well, here's a bill to reform things, but if it passes, it will make the Board much more powerful and independent. We've
got
to have an opinion on
that.
”

“You think we should oppose it?”

Mark Rogers snorted and shook his head. “Can you imagine an NTSB with almost as much power as the federal judiciary? That's where this bill is headed. If a federal judge goes off the deep end and does something essentially stupid, we have to grin and bear it while we appeal. There's no one we can contact to apply pressure to a judge. Well, sir, if this bill goes through, the NTSB's people will be almost as insulated.”

“That's an extreme view.”

“David, what's the alternative? Support this bill? Don't forget why we fought them on Doc McIntyre: because they were on a witch-hunt. This bill licenses witch-hunts.”

Bayne leaned back in his chair and thought a minute. He had reasoned through the same logic, but listening to someone else present the case helped put it in perspective. “Mark, how do I argue this in a hearing? I can't accuse them of staging witch-hunts.”

“True. But we want them to be accountable to the industry. That's the argument, just like we want elected officials to be accountable to the electorate. The way the Board is structured now, they can be pressured if they stray too far from reason. Even when there's not a crash we have some degree of influence currently to encourage them to face the realities of the business world, you know, when they want to demand hideously expensive safety features no one can afford. If this bill passes? No way. It might be a criminal act for you to even hint at having objections to their methods.” Rogers got to his feet and gathered the papers from Bayne's desk, watching him for signs of objection. There were none, so he continued. “I'll draft your statement and a briefing paper for you, if you're going.”

Bayne looked at him and nodded. “Do it. I'm going.”

Mark Rogers left David Bayne's office at the same moment John Walters was facing professional panic in a small office at North America's operations base. On his right was Senior Vice-President Ron Putnam, on his left Doctor McIntyre, and teetering in the balance was his future as an airline executive—a future looking increasingly bleak. Before them on a small coffee table in Walters's office was a stack of medical papers from McIntyre's files. Walters had finally confronted the doctor on his return from the Canadian Rockies, and to his horror, the whole story had tumbled out.

Putnam shook his head slowly as he picked up some of the medical forms and let them drop, looking incredulously at McIntyre, who was not looking back. “Not one time did you examine him? Not one godforsaken time? What the fuck were we paying you for, Doctor?”

McIntyre looked up slightly, talking to Putnam's shoes. “I
did
examine him in my own way. I watched him daily, I'd check his heart rate or blood pressure in his office at intervals, I just didn't bring him down to my office for a formal exam. I mean, this guy is a company officer and chief pilot and my superior, right? He shouldn't be treated the same way as some bozo line pilot. I knew Dick could be trusted! If there was anything wrong in the way I was medically supervising him, he'd tell me. Besides, he wasn't flying much anyway.”

“Right. And of course God had given him authority to suspend federal rules. Jesus!” Putnam picked the papers up and slammed them down. “Now, tell me again, 'cause this is beyond belief. He'd just send you the signed FAA medical form and you filled out the doctor parts?”

“Yes.”

“What'd you do, make up the blood pressure and temperature or whatever else I see on these?”

There was a long pause before the doctor replied, his face crimson. “Yes.”

“And he obviously knew you were doing this?”

“I think so … yes, I'm sure he did.”

“Wasn't he supposed to have an electrocardiogram each time?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn't do that? And you didn't have any EKGs in his file, which is why you came screaming harassment to us and pulled us into your web of deception, is all that correct, you fucking idiot?”

McIntyre signed and nodded, his head still cupped in his hands.

“So you put someone else's EKGs in Timson's file, didn't you?”

McIntyre simply nodded.

“For Christ's sake, man, you're an FAA-certified doctor. Those are federal requirements you were screwing around with. The goddamn FAA doesn't care how much you trust the man. They don't care if he's a vice-president and chief pilot. Before he gets a medical certificate, they want a doctor looking at a warm body. Jesus, McIntyre, do you know the meaning of the phrase
gross negligence?
”

There was no response, so Putnam continued, getting out of his chair and stalking around the room, arms flailing, his voice a barely contained shout. “When an airline crashes or an oil company grounds a ship and oils up half a continent, one of the things the lawyers do is try to prove that it wasn't just
ordinary
negligence, it was
gross
negligence. Like a company permitting an alcoholic sea captain to keep sailing supertankers, or an airline filing fraudulent company medical examinations to keep a captain flying. And you know what happens when they find gross negligence? That means tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars more in liability. That means insurance premiums off the chart. That means having the FAA paint a large bull's-eye on the side of the company logo.” Putnam adopted a gruff voice. “Here's North America. Watch those sneaks! They don't play by the rules!”

John Walters sighed and looked up at Putnam. “Even with this, Ron, we don't know whether there was anything medically wrong with Dick. I haven't asked him. I called you immediately.”

Putnam whirled on him. “Shall we talk about presumptions? The sonofabitch nosedives into the terrain with a perfect medical history, everybody
assumes
he must have had, at worst, a brain fart. But when the man hasn't had an honest medical certificate in ten goddamn years, they'll assume he's suffered some sort of impairment, which means we shouldn't have let him fly, which means gross negligence. Even if there's not a thing in the world wrong with him right this minute, we're screwed.” Putnam walked to a far wall, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against it with gritted teeth visible, hitting the wall hard with the fist of his right hand, the
thunk
reverberating through the room. “Bayne is gonna come fucking unglued! He'll probably fire all of us.”

Ron Putnam turned suddenly in Walters's direction, his face a dark visage of rage and betrayal. “Okay, what else? Let's get it all out. John, did you know this irresponsible quack was hangar flying Timson's records?” Putnam pointed at McIntyre like a harbinger of doom.