Phoenix Rising

by Nance, John J. ;

  Elizabeth quickly pushed through the door of the shop and found the volume control on one of the sets.

  “… Conrad, director of maintenance for the newly restarted airline, has revealed that the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the possibility of sabotage in last week’s near disaster involving a Pan Am 747.”

  She had heard Conrad’s name, but had not met the man. His face looked haggard as he appeared now, live from a Seattle TV studio. The word sabotage caught her cold. No one, not even Ron Lamb, had mentioned such a possibility, nor had anyone told her about the intruder at the Moses Lake facility.

  Who would want to sabotage us? she wondered.

  Conrad answered the first few questions cautiously, but when asked why the NTSB had yet to confirm such suspicions, he seemed to explode, leaving a clear impression that he thought the NTSB was engaged in a coverup. Conrad vigorously defended Pan Am maintenance, but when asked how an intruder could have gotten into a Pan Am hangar in the first place, and whether their security was competent, he stumbled badly. It was obvious that Bill Conrad hadn’t thought about the implications of his argument. If Pan Am was sabotaged, that would prove that Pan Am had failed to provide adequate security for their airplanes. Either way, Pan Am looked guilty, sloppy, and perhaps less than safe. After all, he was claiming that Pan Am was still an active target of someone who hadn’t succeeded on the first try.

  When she was ushered into his office, Elizabeth was relieved to find that Harold Hudgins had apparently not seen either the interview or the story she had just found in her copy of the Times as she waited in his outer office. At least he didn’t mention it.

  As they went through the usual pleasantries, she found herself wondering if Mr. Conrad had given the interviews without clearing them through the corporate public affairs department. If so, the man was in deep trouble.

  It took an exhausting two hours of discussion and explanation, but Elizabeth hit Park Avenue around 11:00 A.M. with real hope coursing through her veins. Hudgins would, he promised, spend the rest of the day on the loan and have an answer for her in the morning. His words had rung like sunshine through the mist: “I think we’ve got a deal here, I just need to cement it together.”

  The pain of trying to walk in high heels the twenty blocks to her next appointment finally reached her consciousness and she gave up and hailed a cab, feeling a pang of hunger at the same moment. The sight of a restaurant made it worse, but there simply wasn’t time for food.

  She’d been out of contact all morning on purpose, but now she opened her briefcase and pushed the “power on” button on the small cellular phone Ron Lamb had obtained for her in Seattle.

  A chirping sound erupted from the phone almost immediately, signifying an incoming call with the company president on the other end.

  The corporate office was a madhouse of reporters and reacting executives. As she had expected, everyone was ready to kill Bill Conrad, and the chairman of the NTSB had been on the phone for thirty minutes, warning a room full of Pan Am executives headed by Ron Lamb that such outbursts were going to backfire.

  “He’s holding a press conference in a little while to try to counter what Conrad did, and Conrad’s already called and apologized to the man.”

  She reported the progress in the first meeting before asking why no one had bothered to tell her about the sabotage possibility.

  “Elizabeth, I didn’t even know until Thursday, when Conrad told us, and he hadn’t known the details until that morning.”

  In the back of her mind, though, as Ron answered, another question burned to be answered. Had Brian known about this? Had he known about it Saturday night when he was so angry with her over questions of corporate rank and responsibility? Even when she’d chased him home to Bellevue and told him everything she shouldn’t have, he had said nothing about sabotage, or any intrusion in Moses Lake. Why? If he had known, what kind of game was he playing?

  The question started to form on her lips, but she suppressed it. Her interest in what Brian knew and when he knew it was personal. Very personal.

  The memory of Brian’s infuriated speculation that someone had “sabotaged” their training files began to merge with Conrad’s statements, and suddenly she felt a bit dizzy.

  “Call me, Elizabeth, day or night, if you make any progress. I’m not sleeping anyway,” Ron said as he rang off.

  There had been an intrusion at Moses Lake, stolen files in the Seatac operations center, the suspicion of sabotage on their 747—which would constitute attempted mass murder—and something else. Oh yes! The anonymous tipster with a penchant for calling FAA headquarters in Washington. Like an arsonist who keeps tipping off the fire department to his own handiwork, Brian had growled.

  This isn’t bad luck, it’s all part of a pattern!

  The abrupt insight left her feeling cold and shaken.

  The next banker she was going to see had been alerted to upcoming coverage of the news conference on CNN. He had a TV in his office and had it tuned up as he showed her in. They watched together as a distinguished man approached the podium and introduced himself as Joe Wallingford, chairman of the NTSB.

  “The impression was left this morning on national television that the NTSB might have access to certain information regarding the Pan American Flight Ten incident last week, information suggesting possible sabotage, and yet might be sweeping it under the rug or otherwise hiding it. Not only is that totally untrue, the gentleman who left that impression, Bill Conrad, director of maintenance for Pan Am, assured me by phone a little while ago that he never intended to imply any such thing.”

  Wallingford characterized it as an honest difference of opinion on whether the NTSB should speak in public about the unproven details of an ongoing investigation. Generously, graciously, the NTSB chief defused the controversy, leaving both the NTSB and Pan Am relatively intact—and Elizabeth impressed.

  The NTSB chairman, still commanding the camera, paused and looked around at his staff before holding aloft a small manila envelope.

  “It so happens that as Mr. Conrad was speaking this morning, the FBI’s crime lab was delivering to us a report that indicates, and I quote …”

  Wallingford put on a pair of half-frame reading glasses and peered at the paper he had taken out.

  “… residue removed from the lower right wing of the subject aircraft by FBI personnel under NTSB supervision and labeled item 482, has been found to be of a metallic nature foreign to any metallic alloys used in the construction of either the subject aircraft or the subject aircraft engine.”

  He removed the glasses and let it sink in.

  “In other words, folks, the small shard of metal found impaled in the underside of the wing did not originally come from Boeing or Pratt and Whitney, and that raises a real possibility of sabotage. When we have more information of the exact alloy, and so on, we’ll release it. The FBI remains fully involved in this case.”

  Elizabeth was shocked. That was confirmation of sabotage, wasn’t it? Surely that would help her win over someone in the financial quarter.

  But the banker had been looking for an excuse to declare Pan Am too hot to handle, and with rolled eyes and a reference to the volatility of the market—as well as the prospects of an airline that had someone out to get them—he now had it. It was nice to see her and all that, say hello to Eric Knox, and by the way, good luck, but don’t even think of asking for money here.

  “We saw the name change on that building once,” he said, motioning uptown to the old Pan Am tower, now owned by Met Life. “And that’s enough of a warning about putting money in airlines.”

  There were meetings with Chemical Bank and another investment house in the early afternoon, followed by a dozen hurried phone calls and two more late-afternoon exploratory meetings in the financial district, but by five-thirty in the afternoon, starved and somewhat numb, it was obvious to Elizabeth that Hudgins was the only viable possibility so far. Every other institution, banks and invest
ment houses in particular, were unconvinced that Pan Am could make it—and none of them wanted to end up someday having to liquidate pledged security located somewhere in the middle of the state of Washington.

  Okay, I’ll have faith that it’s a go from Hudgins in the morning, and I’ll get a good night’s sleep without worrying, and … who am I kidding?

  The light changed to DON’T WALK in front of her yet again, and Elizabeth realized she had been standing in deep thought through at least two cycles.

  Heels or no heels, she started walking. The subway had carried her back to Eric’s neighborhood, and that was only a short distance from her own.

  The eight blocks back to the condo went quickly. She shucked her shoes and settled down with the phone to call Kelly and her mother.

  “We’re fine, dear, but you mentioned those passes?”

  “On Pan Am? Sure. Where do you want to go?”

  Elizabeth realized she was only half listening, most of her mind still preoccupied with how she was going to handle the next day. She tried to focus on what her mother was saying, but her thoughts kept snapping back to the frustration of having been a part of the New York financial world for so long, and yet having so much trouble with a simple corporate loan.

  “I’m not sure, Elizabeth, but Kelly doesn’t have to be in school until next Monday, so I thought I’d fly her somewhere.”

  That got her attention. It would be far less lonely if they were in town.

  “How about coming out here to New York, Mom?”

  “Well, maybe. I’ve got a Pan Am schedule. Let me see what Kelly wants.”

  “Call my secretary when you’re ready. I’ll tell her to give you first-class passes wherever you go, but just don’t forget to get back in time, and if you’re thinking of anywhere overseas, check on visas and let me know.”

  Smiling, Elizabeth promised to call the next evening, then dialed Ron Lamb’s office in Seattle.

  He answered on the first ring.

  The day had been a constant battle, he told her, with little good news to report. In fact, a new problem had begun to show up in late afternoon. Scores of reservations were evaporating, presumably at the hands of frightened passengers. It wasn’t yet a trend, but it had made an otherwise terrible day even worse.

  “Maybe I’ll have some good news in the morning,” she told him.

  “Praise the Lord and pass the money,” he replied, a tired chuckle in his voice.

  “You’re showing your southern roots, Ron.”

  “Texas roots, ma’am. That comes from one of our colorful governors, W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel, in 1939.”

  “Ron, is someone trying to ruin this airline?”

  She hadn’t planned the question, but it tumbled out suddenly and lay there between them. She heard Ron Lamb clear his throat before replying, “Why … do you ask?”

  “Suspicions, Ron. Flight Ten, Moses Lake, the FAA actions, the missing files in Brian Murphy’s shop …” She spun the verbal web of industrial sabotage—a paranoid delusion, to be sure—expecting to hear his easy laugh as he swept it aside.

  Instead there was silence.

  “Ron?”

  “Yeah. Well, I’ve had the same thoughts, Elizabeth. But who the hell would do such things as a planned campaign? Who? We have no enemies, as far as I know. Unless there’s some very sick nut out there, avenging the old Pan Am or something. Flight Ten may be genuine tampering, but the rest of it has to be coincidence.”

  There was one other call she had been waiting to make, but she hesitated, half dreading it. It was just after 6:00 P.M. in Seattle, and Brian would probably still be at his office, too. She longed to talk to him, but was afraid she’d hear that same cold edge in his voice.

  Fatigue was making her foggy. She wobbled into the bedroom, set the alarm for midnight New York time, and decided to take a nap.

  Then she would call Brian.

  13

  Monday, March 13, night

  Pan Am Operations, Seatac Airport

  Brian Murphy sat down heavily behind his desk and rubbed his eyes before squinting at the wall clock. It was 9:10 P.M., and the duty to get a decent night’s sleep before report time at eleven in the morning was pressuring him almost as much as the hunt for the thief who had stolen the pilot files.

  There was no way he wanted to pilot a Boeing 767 to Frankfurt and back in the middle of a crisis, but with nine captains grounded and recertification of their training records still a day away at best, it was either step in and take the flight or let crew scheduling cancel it for lack of 767 pilots, costing the company tens of thousands in revenue and leaving him with yet another black eye.

  He hadn’t slept much Sunday night, and what little rest he did get was on his office couch.

  And Saturday night, of course, had been a red-eyed disaster.

  For the umpteenth time he thought of calling Elizabeth and decided to wait a while. What could he say to her anyway that he hadn’t already said in the early hours of Sunday morning? He had acted like a spoiled brat, a stupid idiot, and a male chauvinist piglet all rolled into one.

  He decided to call and check on Kelly at her grandmother’s in Bellingham, glad she didn’t know what had happened. Her plans for getting her mother and him to marry were anything but subtle, and, sure enough, two sentences into the conversation, she brought up the subject.

  “Okay, I left town so you and Mom could be alone. Have you proposed yet?”

  “Kelly! Stop pushing. Things take time.”

  “I can’t wait!” she said, sounding wounded. “I’m growing up! You guys wait any longer, I’ll be finished with college and married myself.”

  “You’re fourteen, young lady. Slow down.”

  He was surprised when Elizabeth’s mother joined them on an extension and asked for suggestions on where she and Kelly should fly. Brian hadn’t known Kelly would have the better part of a week before she had to be in school.

  “Well, look, I have to fly a trip to Frankfurt tomorrow as captain, and I’ve got a two-day layover there. If we’ve got seats left on the flight and you’ve both got your passports, why not come along with me on that one?”

  “Frankfurt? I haven’t been there in years,” Virginia Sterling said. “And don’t worry about the passports, Brian. I always keep mine up, and so do Elizabeth and Kelly. Kelly’s is right here.”

  “That’s great! We stay in a hotel on the Rhine in Mainz, Germany, not far from the city, and we catch a train to Mainz in the basement of the airport. It’s fascinating, and I can show you the area in two days. We’ll rent a car and go down the Mosel Valley.”

  The prospect of playing tour guide in a land he loved made him smile. The Air Force had stationed him at Ramstein Air Base, south of Frankfurt, in 1979, flying F-4 fighters. With his well-established love for languages and an undergraduate major in linguistics, polishing his classroom German to perfection had been a joy. He was somewhat fluent in Spanish, French, and Japanese, so it had been wonderful to immerse himself in another tongue while living in its homeland.

  “Sounds wonderful, Brian,” Virginia said. “Is that okay with you, Kelly?”

  Kelly’s voice was not so childish anymore, Brian noticed. She was growing up, and it showed in her more mature tones—if not in her use of a pet name for her grandmother.

  “Are you kidding, Nana? I can be packed in ten minutes!”

  “Good,” Virginia said. “Then, barring a full airplane, it’s settled. What time should we be at the airport, Brian? When does the flight leave?”

  “At three P.M. I’ll call you at nine A.M. tomorrow to coordinate things. Okay?”

  “Fine, Brian, thanks. Now I’ll give you back to Kelly.”

  “I can’t wait to tell Mom!” Kelly said excitedly before hanging up.

  Brian sat back for a moment, thinking about Elizabeth. She would be at her former partner’s place in New York tonight, he reminded himself. She had relayed the number of the condo as well as the number of
her new cellular phone through her secretary to his secretary. He had kept too busy to call, however, though he knew he was just making excuses. Brian recognized shades of a silly one-upmanship in his refusal to call.

  And what difference did it make, anyway? He had nothing to say worth her listening to—nothing that would remove the wedge that had come between them.

  Brian realized someone was leaning into the office. The clerical staff had been pressed into late-night service to search for the handwritten proof the FAA was demanding so that they could reconstruct and recertify the missing pilot records, and they had been busily working away for the last five hours. It was Gail, his secretary, who was clutching the doorjamb and regarding him carefully. He came forward in his chair with a smile and nodded as she spoke.

  “Captain, I’ll think we’ll go on home now. We’ll be back at it around seven in the morning, if that’s okay.”

  “Absolutely, Gail. Thanks again for staying so late. I’ll look in on you around noon, before I head for the airplane.”

  He heard the office doors close behind her and the others, and heard the new guard they’d hired asking if the chief pilot was still in his office.

  Indeed he is, Brian thought.

  Brian got to his feet and looked at the yellow legal pad on his desk. He had made some progress in trying to narrow down the field of who the thief could be. At least he had isolated the date the files were taken by backtracking through the computer training records and looking for the last date of entry, which had been done from the primary files.

  It had to have been the previous Thursday.

  But there were scores of people who could have wandered in and rifled through the file cabinet, and he was at a frustrating impasse without some additional clue.

  Brian turned off his office light and pulled on his suit coat as he headed down the carpeted hallway. Pan Am had built a beautiful and comfortable facility for their operations staff, and he was proud of it. Everything was in its place and sparkling …