LACKING VIRTUES (28 page)

Warner felt a surge of relief. He was getting the support he had hoped for, and getting it from some very important members of the administration.

Secretary of State Olsen went on. “If it was Jeff Galloway’s assignment today to come here and ask for Mr. Warner’s resignation – and I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was not – then I’m sure, now that he better understands the feelings of some of the top members of the cabinet, that he will work hard to convince the President to change his mind.

“If, on the other hand, it was Mr. Galloway’s assignment to set in motion a coordinated investigation, which I hope it was, then I suggest we drop the rancor and get on with our agenda. Will you buy that, Jeff?”

“Yes, of course,” Galloway said. “And the record should show that Mr. Warner’s attack was uncalled for. We are not interested in scapegoats. We’re united in our – ”

“I’m pleased you’re not interested in creating scapegoats, Jeff,” Olsen said, deftly taking control of the meeting. “So let’s move on. Who would like to speak next?” 

Warner nodded at Hal Larsen. He knew the Boeing CEO had been invited as window dressing, a symbolic presence from the private sector who would add legitimacy to the Warner beheading. But now it was beginning to look as though Galloway had made another mistake. Circumstances had conspired to give Larsen the chance to speak, and judging from what Larsen had told Warner on the phone, he had a lot to say.

Warner nodded at him again, urging him to grasp the moment.

Larsen got the message. “If I may,” he said.

“Of course, Mr. Larsen,” Olsen said. “In fact, it will be refreshing to hear someone’s perspective who is not caught up in the political fray.”

Thank God for a few good men, Warner thought. Instead of being a political farce, this morning’s meeting had acquired the potential to get an effective investigation off the ground.

Larsen, managing to show none of the discouragement Warner knew he felt, began his presentation with his usual board room authority. “I want to thank all of you for inviting me to this closed session,” he said. “I am aware of what the appearances are, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Galloway. As you know, the parts implicated in these crashes were all new parts that had been installed during recent servicing procedures. Our private research has confirmed that the parts were indeed manufactured by Boeing or its suppliers.

“This looks incriminating, I agree. But what you do not know, what nobody knew until I spoke with Warner this morning, is this. The results of independent tests, copies of which I’m going to make available later, show beyond a shadow of doubt that some of these parts were manufactured
years earlier
than their serial numbers would indicate.”

There was a chorus of murmurs in the room, punctuated by the staccato of Galloway’s pen hammering like a tiny gavel on the table top.

“Go on, please,” CIA Director Willis said.

“The tests involve molecular analyses of surface metals and show degrees of harmless but telling corrosion that can date the origin of these parts quite accurately. The tests were conducted by different labs who did not know their work was being duplicated. In one instance, the part in question is at least seven years old, but according to its serial number, it was manufactured in January of 1999.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Larsen,” FBI Director Daniels said. “But you are saying that you, as an engineer, are convinced these tests are correct.”

“Exactly, sir. I hope you’ll run tests of your own. I assure you, you’ll come up with the same findings.”

“What, in your view, does this mean, Mr. Larsen?” FAA Chief Shelton asked.

“Simply this. That the parts that have failed and caused the recent sequence of disasters had been extracted from the production lines
before
they were stamped with serial numbers; that the parts were then modified to make them defective; that the defective parts were then somehow exchanged for good parts and given serial numbers matching those of the parts whose place they took in parts stream.”

“All right,” Galloway said. “This is a great-sounding hypothesis that would explain everything. But with all due respect, Mr. Larsen, how the hell is anyone in his right mind going to believe your scenario? The only way it could be true is for someone to have started a massive sabotage operation against us years ago.”

Larsen took a sip of water and raised his eyebrows. “That is correct.”

CIA Director Willis said, “I think you’re grasping for straws there, Mr. Larsen. If parts were modified, and if these were parts lifted from your assembly line several years previously, this means that the foundation for the present sabotage – if it is sabotage – was, as Mr. Galloway suggests, laid long ago. But who back in the seventies and eighties had a motive for sabotaging our commercial airline fleet?”

Larsen said, “The Soviets. The KGB. Whenever there’s a war, we use those commercial aircraft to ferry our troops to and from the front. They obviously knew of this practice from Vietnam, if not before.”

“That’s correct,” Galloway said. “But the East Bloc no longer exists. Hell, there’s not even a Soviet Union. These crashes we’re talking about did not begin until
1999
. Therefore you have an inconsistency between motive, which you place with the Soviets in the Cold War period, and deed, which I gather from your written statement you place with the Iraqis in the present.”

“Respectfully, sir,” Larsen said, “there is an inconsistency only if you permit your thinking to be limited by a static view of the world. If there was a sabotage network in the States aimed at our civil aviation industry, then the individuals responsible for setting it up did not necessarily disappear with the collapse of Communism. If you fear our ex-Cold War enemies might sell nuclear warheads to countries such as Iraq and Iran, why is it far-fetched to think that Iraq might have bought the end product of an old KGB plot to sabotage our commercial fleet?”

The room erupted in whispering and buzzing. It was clear to all those present, Warner included, that Larsen, left to fend for himself by official Washington, had been waging an intense private battle to understand the calamity that had befallen his company.

He might not have all the answers, or even be on the right track; but he was at least opening up new avenues of inquiry. This was sorely needed. Warner hoped Larsen’s example would inspire everyone, himself included, to rise above the assumptions that had defined until now the outer boundaries of their thought.

***

Driving home late that afternoon, listening to NPR on his car radio, Warner reflected with satisfaction on the results of the meeting that had been convened to end his career. Rather than being fired, he had received a vote of confidence.

And he was going to get some badly needed help. Bill Daniels, the director of the FBI, had decided to throw his agency’s vast resources into the investigation.

Even the sluggish FAA had come to life. Agency director Jack Shelton had accepted Warner’s request to ground all Boeing 767s and 757s operated by U.S. carriers, and Boeing had volunteered to issue Air Worthiness Directives to carriers beyond the authority of the FAA, instructing them to return at Boeing’s expense all Boeing and Pratt and Whitney parts ordered on or after the date of the Iraqi break-in.

Not bad for a day’s work.

The traffic was horrendous. Stalled, he watched overhead as jets from National Airport climbed and banked steeply to the right. People were still flying; they had to. But he doubted they would ever board an airplane again with the same peace of mind.

A National Public Radio reporter, usually so knowledgeable, was talking nonsense about the NTSB’s failure to answer everyone’s question of
why
. It seemed to Warner as if they wanted him to be some sort of mythical Hollywood hero: air crash detective, cop, spy.

Sorry, but real people had limits.

Irritated, he switched stations just in time to hear the new Delta Airlines commercial. They were being responsible, they were looking after their loyal customers, they were building a new fleet whose acquisitions would be limited to the world’s safest jets, the state-of-the-art aircraft of Airbus Industrie. And just to make sure everyone understood that Boeing was out, the commercial went on to describe the orders Delta had just placed for 90 new Airbus 330s and 340s.

Ninety!

Warner knew from Hal Larsen that this was coming. But there was an aspect to Delta’s strategy he hadn’t grasped. By placing orders rather than options with carriers other than Boeing – orders that would cover the airline’s needs for the next decade or more – and by making this fact public, Delta might force its competitors to do the same.

American, Northwest, TWA, U.S. Air and Continental had already canceled or postponed extensive orders and options with Boeing. Warner had assumed they would come back to the corporation that had served them so well in the past as soon as the problems causing the recent crashes were found and remedied.

But now, given Delta’s bold step and the short-range planning mentality of American business, the other U.S. carriers might feel constrained to make similar deals with Airbus. If they held off, Delta could rake them over the coals for being wishy-washy on their commitment to change. It would be like a price war over air fares; one airline would start the insanity, the rest would be forced to follow.

The implications of such a possibility sent a chill down Frank Warner’s spine. It would mean that leadership in the manufacture of commercial aircraft would go to the Europeans, an unimaginable scenario just a short time ago. He didn’t want to think about the drastic political, economic and
symbolic
consequences of a passing of the torch of this magnitude.

As Warner pulled into his driveway in Silver Spring, the sun was setting in a wreath of pollution. He sat in his car a while, stunned. A thought had just taken possession of him, body, mind and soul.

Could it be that Airbus was behind the crashes? The company certainly had a motive, and the French government hadn’t gone to any great lengths lately to hide its contempt for the U.S. There was also a precedent of sorts. French intelligence agents had been caught last year spying on Hughes Aircraft. Could economic warfare have reached such despicable heights?

He knew Jean Duvalier, the director of Airbus. He had never met a more principled man. Airbus involvement, he decided, wasn’t even a remote possibility.

Or was it?

He felt thoroughly baffled. He simply did not know. The international scene had changed so drastically in the last few years he had lost his sense of the ground rules. The French had been caught spying at Hughes Aircraft. Didn’t this say enough about the extremes to which supposedly friendly countries would go?

He experienced a moment of self-doubt. Maybe Galloway and the NPR reporter had a better case against him than he realized. Maybe he had remained too rigid in his thinking, too unwilling to take a leap into the grotesque. Sure, he’d given Simmons the go-ahead to look for irregularities. But what had he himself done? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. He had continued to cling fiercely to the belief that his job was to view each air crash as an occurrence in its own right, not part of a larger mosaic of crime. His friend, Hal Larsen, had changed with a changing world. Warner had not; not yet.

***

He got out and slammed the door of his government Caprice. In his home office, he poured himself a scotch, sat down at his desk and lit a cigar, his first in months. It was time for him to move in another direction. He knew someone in France who might be able to help. He would begin with her.

He had renewed his acquaintance with Sophie Marx several years ago when he spotted her during one of her rare visits to the States while he was taking his noon walk on the Mall. She was besieged by a group of enthusiastic young Washington journalists. He couldn’t get close to her so he called out, “Sophie, is that you?”

“Frank! Frank Warner. I was going to look you up at the NTSB tomorrow. I hardly ever leave Paris anymore unless I’m summoned by a marriage or a funeral.”