Airframe (39 page)

Everybody but the people in the company, she thought.

“This is a done deal,” Richman said. “All we needed was somebody to publicly trash the N-22. And you just did that for us.”

Casey sighed. Her shoulders dropped.

Looking past Richman, she saw herself in the mirror. Makeup was pancaked around her neck, and now it was cracking. Her eyes were dark. She looked haggard, exhausted. Defeated.

“So I suggest,” Richman said, “that you ask me, very politely, what you should do next. Because your only choice now is to follow orders. Do as you’re told, be a good girl, and maybe John will give you severance. Say, three months. Otherwise, you’re out on your fucking ass.”

He leaned close to her.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Casey said.

“I’m waiting. Ask politely.”

In her exhaustion, her mind raced, examining the options, trying to see a way out. But she could see no way out.
Newsline
would run the story. Marder’s plan would succeed. She was defeated. She had been defeated from the very beginning. Defeated from the first day Richman had shown up.

“I’m still waiting,” Richman said.

She looked at his smooth face, smelled his cologne. The little bastard was enjoying this. And in a moment of fury, of deep outrage, she suddenly saw another possibility.

From the beginning, she had tried so hard to do the right thing, to solve the problem of 545. She had been honest, she had been straight, and it had just gotten her into trouble.

Or had it?

“You have to face facts, here,” Richman said. “It’s over. There’s nothing you can do.”

She pushed away from the sink.

“Watch me,” she said.

And she walked out of the room.

Casey slipped into her seat. The soundman came over and clipped the radio pack to the waist of her dress. “Say a few words for me, will you please? Just for level.”

“Testing, testing, I’m getting tired,” she said.

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

She saw Richman slip into the room, and stand with his back to the far wall. He had a faint smile on his face. He didn’t look worried. He was confident there was nothing she could do. Marder had made a huge deal, he was shipping the wing, he was gutting the company, and he’d used Casey to do it.

Reardon dropped into his seat opposite her, shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his tie. He smiled at her. “How you holding up?”

“I’m okay.”

“Hot in here, isn’t it?” he said. He glanced at his watch. “We’re almost finished.”

Malone came over, and whispered in Reardon’s ear. The whispering continued for some time. Reardon said, “Really?” and his eyebrows went up, then he nodded several times. Finally he said, “Got it.” He began to shuffle his papers, going through the folder in front of him.

Malone said, “Guys? We ready?”

“A camera ready.”

“B camera ready.”

“Sound ready.”

“Roll tape,” she said.

This is it, Casey thought. She took a deep breath, looked expectantly at Reardon.

Reardon smiled at her.

“You’re an executive at Norton Aircraft.”

“Yes.”

“Been here five years.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a trusted, highly placed executive.”

She nodded. If he only knew.

“Now there is an incident, Flight 545. Involving an aircraft
you say
is perfectly safe.”

“Correct.”

“Yet three people died, and more than fifty were injured.”

“Yes.”

“The footage, which we’ve all seen, is horrifying. Your Incident Review Team has been working around the clock. And now we hear you have a finding.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You know what happened on that flight.”

Careful
.

She had to do this very, very carefully. Because the truth was she didn’t know; she just had a very strong suspicion. They still had to put the sequence together, to verify that things had happened in a certain order: the chain of causation. They didn’t know for sure.

“We are close to a finding,” Casey said.

“Needless to say, we’re eager to hear.”

“We will announce it tomorrow,” Casey said.

Behind the lights, she saw Richman’s startled reaction. He hadn’t been expecting that. The little bastard was trying to see where she was going.

Let him try.

Across the table from her, Reardon turned aside, and Malone whispered in his ear. Reardon nodded, turned back to Casey. “Ms. Singleton, if you know now, why wait?”

“Because this was a serious accident, as you yourself said.
There’s already been a great deal of unwarranted speculation from many sources. Norton Aircraft feels it is important to act responsibly. Before we say anything publicly, we have to confirm our findings at Flight Test, using the same aircraft that was involved in the accident.”

“When will you flight test?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Ah.” Reardon sighed regretfully. “But that’s too late for our broadcast. You understand that you’re denying your company the opportunity to respond to these serious charges.”

Casey had her answer ready. “We’ve scheduled the flight test for five
A.M.
,” she said. “We’ll hold a press conference immediately afterward—tomorrow at noon.”

“Noon,” Reardon said.

His expression was bland, but she knew he was working it out. Noon in LA was 3:00
P.M.
in New York. Plenty of time to make the evening news in both New York and Los Angeles. Norton’s preliminary finding would be widely reported on both local and network news. And
Newsline
, which aired at 10:00
P.M.
Saturday night, would be out-of-date. Depending on what emerged from the press conference, the
Newsline
segment, edited the night before, would be ancient history. It might even be embarrassing.

Reardon sighed. “On the other hand,” he said, “we want to be fair to you.”

“Naturally,” Casey said.

“Fuck her,” Marder said to Richman. “It doesn’t make any difference what she does now.”

“But if she’s scheduling a flight test—”

“Who cares?” Marder said.

“And I think she’s going to let the news crews film it.”

“So what? Flight Test will only make the story worse. She has no idea what caused the accident. And she has no idea what will happen if she takes that TransPacific plane up. They probably can’t reproduce the event. And there may be problems nobody knows about.”

“Like what?”

“That aircraft went through very severe G-force loads,” Marder said. “It may have undetected structural damage. Anything can happen, when they take that plane up.” Marder made a dismissive wave. “This changes nothing.
Newsline
airs from ten to eleven Saturday night. Early Saturday evening I’ll notify the Board that some bad publicity is coming our way, and we have to schedule an emergency meeting Sunday morning. Hal can’t get back from Hong Kong in time. And his friends on the Board will drop him when they hear about a sixteen-billion-dollar deal. They’ve all got stock. They know what the announcement will do to their shares. I’m the next president of this company, and nobody can do a thing to stop it. Not Hal Edgarton. And certainly not Casey Singleton.”

“I don’t know,” Richman said. “I think she may be planning something. She’s pretty smart, John.”

“Not smart enough,” Marder said.

The cameras were packed up; the white foam sheets removed from the ceiling, the microphones unclipped; the electrical boxes and camera cases removed. But the negotiations dragged on. Ed Fuller, the lanky head of Legal, was there; so was Teddy Rawley, the pilot; and two engineers who worked on FT, to answer technical questions that arose.

For
Newsline
, Malone now did all of the talking; Reardon paced in the background, occasionally stopping to whisper in her ear. His commanding presence seemed to have vanished with the bright lights; he now appeared tired, fretful, and impatient.

Malone began by saying that since
Newsline
was doing an entire segment on the Norton N-22, it was in the interest of the company to allow
Newsline
to film the flight test.

Casey said that presented no problem. Flight tests were documented with dozens of video cameras, mounted both inside and outside the plane; the
Newsline
people could watch the entire test on monitors, on the ground. They could have the film afterward, for their broadcast.

No, Malone said. That wouldn’t be sufficient.
Newsline
’s crews had to actually be on the plane.

Casey said that was impossible, that no airframe manufacturer had ever allowed an outside crew on a flight test. She was, she said, already making a concession to let them see the video on the ground.

Not good enough, Malone said.

Ed Fuller broke in to explain it was a question of liability. Norton simply couldn’t allow uninsured nonemployees on the test. “You realize, of course, there is inherent danger in flight test. It’s simply inescapable.”

Malone said that
Newsline
would accept any risk, and sign waivers of liability.

Ed Fuller said he would have to draw up the waivers, but that
Newsline
’s lawyers would have to approve them, and there wasn’t time for that.

Malone said she could get approval from
Newsline
’s lawyers in an hour. Any time of the day or night.

Fuller shifted ground. He said if Norton was going to let
Newsline
see the flight test, he wanted to be sure that the results of that test were accurately reported. He said he wanted to approve the edited film.

Malone said that journalistic ethics forbade that, and in any case there wasn’t time. If the flight test ended around noon, she would have to cut film in the truck and transmit it to New York at once.

Fuller said the problem for the company remained. He wanted the flight test portrayed accurately.

They went back and forth. Finally Malone said she would include thirty seconds of unedited comment on the outcome of the flight by a Norton spokesperson. This would be taken from the press conference.

Fuller demanded a minute.

They compromised on forty seconds.

“We have another problem,” Fuller said. “If we let you film the flight test, we don’t want you to use the tape you obtained today, showing the actual incident.”

No way, Malone said. The tape was going to be aired.

“You characterized the tape as having been obtained from a Norton employee,” Fuller said. “That’s incorrect. We want the provenance accurately stated.”

“Well, we certainly got it from someone who works for Norton.”

“No,” Fuller said, “you didn’t.”

“It’s one of your subcontractors.”

“No, it’s not. I can provide you with the IRS definition of a subcontractor, if you like.”

“This is a fine point …”

“We have already obtained a sworn statement from the receptionist, Christine Barron. She is not an employee of Norton Aircraft. She is not, in fact, an employee of Video Imaging. She is a temp from an agency.”

“What’s the point here?”

“We want you to state the facts accurately: that you obtained the tape from sources outside the company.”

Malone shrugged. “As I said, this is a fine point.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Malone thought for a minute. “Okay,” she said.

Fuller slid a piece of paper across the table. “This brief document conveys that understanding. Sign it.”

Malone looked at Reardon. Reardon shrugged.

Malone signed it. “I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.” She started to push it back to Fuller, and paused.

“Two crews, on the aircraft, during the flight test. Is that our agreement?”

“No,” Fuller said. “That was never the agreement. Your crews will watch the test on the ground.”

“That won’t work for us.”

Casey said that the
Newsline
crews could come to the test area; they could film the preparations, the takeoff and landing. But they couldn’t actually come on the plane during the flight.

“Sorry,” Malone said.

Teddy Rawley cleared his throat. “I don’t think you understand the situation, Ms. Malone,” he said. “You can’t be walking around filming inside the airplane, during a flight test. Everybody on board has to be strapped in in a four-point harness. You can’t even get up to pee. And you can’t have lights or batteries, because they generate magnetic fields that might disrupt our readings.”

“We don’t need lights,” she said. “We can shoot available light.”

“You don’t understand,” Rawley said. “It can get pretty hairy up there.”

“That’s why we have to be there,” Malone said.

Ed Fuller cleared his throat. “Let me be entirely clear, Ms. Malone,” he said. “Under no circumstances is this company going to allow your film crew on board that aircraft. It is absolutely out of the question.”

Malone’s face was rigid, set.

“Ma’am,” Rawley said, “you’ve got to realize, there’s a reason we test over the desert. Over large uninhabited spaces?”

“You mean it might crash.”

“I mean we don’t know what might happen. Trust me on this: you want to be on the ground.”

Malone shook her head. “No. We must have our crews on board.”

“Ma’am, there’s going to be big G-forces—”

Casey said, “There’ll be thirty cameras all over the plane. They’ll cover every possible angle—cockpit, wings, passenger cabin, everywhere. You’re getting exclusive use of the film. No one will know your cameras aren’t getting the footage.”

Malone glowered, but Casey knew that she had made the point. The woman only cared about the visuals.

“I want to place the cameras,” she said.

“Uh-uh,” Rawley said.

“I have to be able to say our cameras are on board,” Malone said. “I have to be able to say that.”

In the end, Casey hammered out a compromise.
Newsline
would be allowed to position two locked-down cameras, anywhere in the plane, to cover the test flight. They would take the feed directly from these cameras. In addition, they would be allowed to use footage from other cameras mounted in the
interior. Finally,
Newsline
would be allowed to shoot a stand-up with Reardon outside Building 64, where the assembly line was located.