Fly by Wire (2010)

by Larsen, Ward

  Chapter THIRTY-ONE

  They woke up early, entangled in the sheets. Entangled in each other. Davis wasn't sure who was the first to stir. There was only gentle movement, an arm under a shoulder, a foot under a calf Here and there, give and take, until light began to register at the window's edge. They didn't make breakfast for another hour.

  At the restaurant, they lingered. Both hungry, both unrushed. They talked about the Air Force Academy and the 2000 Olympic trials. Daughters in Virginia and cabins in Colorado. Not a word was said about the investigation. It was a magnificent diversion from their work, a continuation of what had started last night. When the check eventually came it landed with a thud, like some kind of grim subpoena demanding their appearance before the real world.

  They headed south to Marseille on the A7, passing through the region known as Provence. Davis knew the area well, and so he knew there was no specific federation or administrative boundary to claim the name. It was more of a culture, really. A mind-set. The geography of Provence was varied, gentle hills and abrupt massifs, all ceding eventually to the Mediterranean at the southern limit. Life here was slow, adaptive. The marks of man fell into flow with the mistral, the cold, dry wind that whipped down the Rhone valley with such fierce regularity that most farmhouses faced south to keep their backs to the maelstrom. Davis noted that the mistral was active today, the trees showing a stronger than usual southward tilt. He concluded, summing the cold and distinct lack of sun, that the Provence of mid-winter was not the Provence of tourist brochures.

  The road was wet from an overnight rain, and the tires of their Fiat 600 hissed over wet asphalt, punctuated by the occasional splatter of puddles into the wheel well. Reflecting the greater European way, driving in France was one part mode of transportation, one part sport. Sorensen held her own, negotiating the manual transmission smoothly as she maneuvered through the mid-morning rush.

  Davis found himself watching her. She looked better than ever, fat lip and all. Or maybe his perspective had just changed.

  She caught his stare and smiled. "What?"

  "I was thinking you handle the car pretty well."

  "The car."

  Davis grinned.

  She went back to the road.

  He went back to her.

  "Roundabout," she announced.

  A distracted Davis looked up and saw a traffic circle closing in. Acting navigator, he referenced the map. "Straight through, the A7. No, wait--"

  The signs at the intersection came fast, and thin wisps of fog had begun to bring the visibility down. They missed their turn.

  "Sorry," he said, giving her the correct road.

  "No problem. I'll bet even Lindberg got lost once or twice."

  "Once or twice."

  Sorensen kept in the circle and found their road on the second pass.

  Davis' mood descended. A relationship with Sorensen was only going to complicate things. But then, how much more complicated could they get? A vision came to mind of the Fiat going round and round in the traffic circle, stuck in an eternal left turn and going nowhere. Just like his investigation.

  He said, "So did you find out how Bastien got in charge of this fiasco?

  "Sort of. The Bureau Enquetes-Accidents assigns all the spots on the board. Their original choice to head up the team was another guy -- I think his name was Fontaine. Anyway, he pulled out and recommended Bastien."

  "This all had to happen pretty fast," Davis said. "The airplane only crashed a few days ago."

  "Yes. The word is, nobody thought very highly of Bastien."

  "I don't think very highly of him either."

  "You think they'll figure out why this airplane crashed?"

  "Oh, they will. Like I said, there are plenty of good people here. Just not enough direction at the moment."

  "Langley did mention one other thing of interest," she said.

  "What's that?"

  "It seems that last night one of our officers was gunned down in an alleyway. Before he died, he got a call through and was able to spit out one word -- Caliph."

  "So Caliph took out one of your agents?"

  "Apparently."

  "Where did this happen?"

  She hesitated before saying it. "Marseille."

  The two exchanged a look.

  "So maybe you have good instincts," she offered.

  "Maybe I need my head examined."

  Silence fell for a long moment. Davis sensed Sorensen glancing back and forth between him and the road. He changed tack. "I spent a little time yesterday getting smarter on flight control software."

  "Sounds scintillating."

  "You can't imagine. Network protocols, information domains. Heavy stuff."

  "So what did you find out?"

  "The certification process is very, very thorough. Lots of review, lots of what they call beta testing on the programs. The whole airplane runs on code, just like any computer. When the pilot moves the joystick, he or she is essentially making a request for the airplane to do something--like say, turn right. That input commands the computer to look at air loads and performance data, then cross-check against gains and limits. Of course, this all happens in the blink of an eye. Once everything is sorted, the computer sends signals to move the flight controls. That's fly by wire. It's all buried deep in three independent flight control computers. They run in parallel and crosscheck each other continuously. If one fails, the others rule."

  "And the airplane can fly on one?"

  "Supposedly."

  "You said gains and limits. What's that about?"

  "Think of them as restrictions -- the software won't let the airplane go too fast or accelerate too hard, won't let it command any maneuver that would be dangerous or abrupt."

  "Like pointing straight down from seven miles up?"

  "Exactly. I asked Jaber that very thing -- how would the computers have allowed what this airplane did?"

  "And?"

  "He threw it back on Earl Moore. Suggested that there are modes in which the pilot can override the computer."

  "And are there?"

  "Sometimes. It depends on what the designers build into the system."

  Sorensen blew out a long breath as she worked through traffic.

  "And I found out something else," Davis said. "Once this software is installed in the airplane, you can't get at it. When regulatory agencies like the FAA certify these systems, they make sure the flight control software is shielded, segregated to maintain its integrity. The big concern relates to passenger airplanes -- you don't want somebody in row six hacking into the aircraft's systems using an airborne WiFi port."

  "Okay, that makes sense. So it's secure."

  Davis looked at the map, then outside. "That's what they tell me."

  The guard at the gate of the U. S. Consulate in Geneva saw the young man coming. He was probably seventeen or eighteen, but looked ten years older. The Marine sergeant had seen the type before. Switzerland, for all its prosperity and orderliness, had a firm underclass of the homeless and drug addicted. They were kids mostly, swept aside into little-used corners of parks and public buildings. Hidden and unacknowledged.

  The sergeant watched the kid come straight at the gate. Straight at him. He was carrying an envelope. Having served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine was suspicious. In either of those places, he'd already have a hand on his sidearm. But then, in either of those places he'd be packing something more intimidating than a holstered 9mm.

  The kid stopped right in front of him and held out the envelope. "Here," he said. "Take it, please."

  The guard put on his I-eat-nails-for-breakfast face, and asked, "What is it?"

  The kid raised the palm of his empty hand to the sky, like he'd just been asked to explain quantum theory. The Marine took a good look at the envelope. It seemed harmless enough. He looked over his shoulder at his partner, a corporal standing behind a concrete blast barrier. His buddy shrugged. The guard took the envelope and the young man scurried
off.

  There were procedures to be followed now. It was a regular thing to be handed trinkets and missives. Most of the letters were appeals for visas or political asylum, along with a few hostile rants against American foreign policy. Last week they'd gotten a scathing review of Leonardo DiCaprio's newest movie, somebody figuring that the U. S. Consulate in Geneva was the best way to get word to Sony Pictures. Still, when the sergeant read what was carefully typed on the front of the envelope, it did get his attention: information on caliph.

  They'd had a few Caliph tips lately. Diplomatic stations all over the world were getting them. Put ten million bucks on a guy's head, the sergeant figured, and you'd get lots of tips. The two guards couldn't leave their post, so the man with the envelope in his hand called inside. Another Marine, the captain in charge of the detachment, came out and took the offering.

  Inside the consulate, the captain's first task was to run the envelope through a scanner at the entrance. The machine was normally used for luggage and coats and briefcases -- pretty much everything that came through the front door. He didn't like what he saw on the display monitor. Inside the simple white envelope was a vial containing some kind of liquid. This complicated things greatly.

  It took another thirty minutes of scanning and careful manipulation to reveal the envelopes complete contents. A letter of demands, a printed record of a laboratory workup, and a test tube full of-- something. The vial could not be dealt with here, so it was locked down. The rest was commandeered by the station CIA man, scanned into a computer, and forwarded by a secure line to Langley.

  Within the hour, three men and a woman -- a contingent no one at the consulate had ever seen -- rushed into the building. Guided by the in-house CIA man, the original documents and glass tube were collected and whisked to a waiting car.

  The tires began squealing before the back door had even closed.

  Chapter THIRTY-TWO

  They weren't exactly welcomed. Admitted without prejudice was more like it.

  Davis had arranged the visit to CargoAirs production facility on short notice. He and Sorensen were escorted from the visitor's area by a serious guy -- crew cut, square suit, shiny shoes. He reminded Davis of a JAG he'd once known, a military lawyer. Or at least the French version. Their guide explained that a full-scale factory tour was available, but Davis figured it was the one that tourists got. He said they weren't interested. He made it clear that he and Sorensen wanted only one thing -- to get inside a C-500.

  The hangar where they ended up looked a lot like the one attached to Building Sixty-two in Lyon. It had the same bright lights, but everything here was cleaner, more antiseptic. The floor sparkled, and massive banners on the wall exhorted everyone, in both French and English, to be safe. A wide net to cast, Davis thought. He considered all the unfortunate things he'd seen happen in aircraft factories -- people falling off scaffoldings, stray screwdrivers getting left behind in newly assembled jet engines. Once he'd seen a work crew forget to put chocks under the wheels of a half-million-pound airplane, watched as it rolled free and crashed into a hangar door. In one bold stroke, CargoAir had made it all expressly against company policy, writ large, be safe.

  Davis had seen a lot of hangars in his time. This one reminded him of a showroom at a new car dealership. Everything was neat and tidy, ready for sales pitches and public relations tours. There had to be a production hangar elsewhere on the property, bigger and dirtier, a place where wrenches turned and machinists cussed. But at the moment, Davis was happy to be right here -- because in the middle of it all was what he wanted. A C-500.

  Their guide stopped. He didn't say anything, and Davis figured he was letting them have a look from a distance, letting them experience the airplane in all its glory. The guy must have thought they'd be impressed.

  Davis was.

  "Wow," Sorensen exclaimed. "It's bigger than I expected."

  "Yeah," Davis agreed, "it's a monster, all right."

  He decided the impression of size was likely due to the aircraft's unconventional shape. Davis was familiar with the B-2 bomber, and in terms of general layout, it was the closest thing he'd seen. The C-500 was shaped liked a fat boomerang, or a flat V if viewed from the top. Its four engines were integral, built into the fuselage instead of hanging out like some afterthought appendages. It was wide, at least two hundred feet from wingtip to wingtip, Davis guessed. The center portion was all business, thick and spacious for swallowing cargo, but the body of the craft tapered and blended into sleek wings. It was a nice design, simple and clean -- the kind of design that made engineers proud. This particular airplane was tagged in the colors of a Japanese cargo carrier, a white fuselage under red accents and a logo.

  "So this thing really flies," Sorensen mused. "It's such a strange shape."

  "It does look different. Gets good gas mileage, though."

  "The Toyota Prius of airplanes?"

  "Something like that."

  The JAG led them closer to the airplane and stopped near a ramp that rose on an incline up into the belly of the beast. The ramp had to be twelve feet wide and was hinged at the forward edge, integral to the structure of the C-500. Davis figured it was a feature that would make loading and unloading a cinch, another advantage over any kind of recycled passenger airframe where the cargo containers had to be lifted twenty feet in the air and shoved through doors.

  Their guide spoke again, a tricky thing where his lips moved but the rest of his face seemed set in stone. He said, "Wait here, please." And that was it.

  The guy marched away, and no sooner had he gone than a woman came bounding down the loading ramp with a clipboard under one arm. She smiled broadly, and her free arm stretched open in welcome -- a severe contrast in hospitality to the brick who'd brought them this far.

  "Hello, I am Rene Scharner." She spoke English with a stiff German accent.

  Davis and Sorensen introduced themselves.

  "I'm here to provide any assistance you might need," Scharner said cheerily. "I am the vice president for operations here at CargoAir."

  Davis was surprised. "The VP for operations? Giving tours?"

  Scharner cocked her head. "I would hardly call this a tour, Mr. Davis. We have had a very serious event. CargoAir is committed to finding the reasons for this tragedy. When I heard you were coming, I decided to personally offer any and all assistance."

  Davis had the impression she meant it. "I appreciate that," he said. "I need all the help I can get. If you don't mind my asking, Miss Scharner, how long have you served in your present position?"

  "I've been with CargoAir for roughly a year now. I was previously in a parallel position at Dornier."

  "I see." Davis pointed to her clipboard and said, "So is there something in particular you wanted to show us?"

  "Oh, this? No. Only a few last minute checks. I try to get out of my office each day and spend time on the factory floor. This particular airplane is scheduled for acceptance and delivery tomorrow."

  Sorensen was peering into the cavernous opening above, and Scharner said, "Feel free to step inside. I'll join you in just a moment." She scurried off.

  Sorensen and Davis exchanged a glance.

  "So," he said, "let's have a look."

  Davis led the way up. The incline was mild, and he envisioned a stream of pallets and cargo containers motoring up the ramp in a constant flow. When they arrived in the main hold, he stopped and studied things. The cargo area was massive, at least a hundred feet in width, maybe forty in depth. It had to out volume any conventional freighter design he'd ever seen.

  Sorensen took it all in. "You could play football in here."

  "Even rugby. But the tries would be hell." He stomped hard on the metal floor.

  "I have to say, though, the decor is kind of basic."

  Davis saw her gaze locked on the sidewalls where green primer was sprayed over metal stringers and composite siding.

  He said, "It's prettier on the outside, I have to admit. But remember, Honeywe
ll, this is a freighter. They're not going to waste any weight on carpet or plastic fittings. Nothing rides back here but boxes, and they don't care about the temperature or color schemes or how many bathrooms there are."

  Scharner came bounding back up the ramp. "Impressive isn't it?"

  "Very," Sorensen agreed.

  Davis moved forward to a short set of metal stairs. It led up to a second, mid-level tier. "Is this the flight deck?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Scharner.

  He noticed a door nearby on the forward bulkhead. It was marked electronics bay. "Is this where the avionics are racked?"