Final Approach

by John J. Nance

  “Any time, Doctor.”

  Mark Weiss shook Andy’s hand as well and walked away, thoroughly undeterred. If he couldn’t go in the front door of the investigation, he’d go in the back door. Or maybe he’d create his own door. It wasn’t just the pain of losing Kim and the boys driving him to some vengeful attempt to find someone to blame. That was there too, he had to admit. But the only way he felt he could accept their loss was knowing it had served some purpose other than just causing the mindless agony of those left behind. For their sake—for his sake—he had to know that whatever killed his family was identified and corrected, if possible. He had to be useful. He couldn’t just sit around and grieve.

  Mark thought of Timson and his wife, and the empty look in her eyes. He had recognized the captain’s fears immediately, but he couldn’t quite read his wife, and the visit had been too brief, and too difficult, to learn more. But Mark had an intuitive sense that Timson’s ability to live with what had happened was somehow tied to his wife’s reaction.

  Walt Rogers was waiting for them when Joe and Andy returned to the ballroom at the airport Marriott.

  “You gotta see this readout.” Walt ushered them into the small conference room and began spreading the 8½-by-11-inch sheets of paper on the table, multitudes of numbers in seemingly endless columns representing the readout of different flight parameters sampled and recorded digitally every few seconds.

  “Thank God this was a digital recorder,” Joe said as he leaned over the sheets.

  “Tell me about it. I felt like throwing a party when the last of the foil-tape stylus boxes was removed. Eighty percent of our efforts used to go into deciphering the readings themselves. It was hard to get to the questions of what the data meant.”

  Joe looked at Walt. “You’ve been going over these, give me a clue.”

  Rogers smiled and shuffled through the papers until he found the sheets representing the last minute of flight for the Airbus. The columns of numbers held engine-power settings, flight-control positions, the speed, altitude, attitude, and several other key readings.

  “In a nutshell, Joe, the speed never dropped.”

  “Really?”

  “Never. It increased in the last twenty seconds. The aircraft did pitch down, the G forces lightened, meaning he unloaded the back pressure, and then suddenly you see in these numbers that the elevator moved back to the nose-up position, the engines started accelerating, the bank shallowed and they tried to roll wings level, and they started trying to pull up. I’m not sure whether the flight recorder captured any data past the moment of first impact or not, but the last pass of figures shows that the engines are almost at full power and the aircraft is level at an altitude of about fifteen feet.”

  Joe said nothing for a while as he followed Andy and Walt through the columns, muttering occasionally and constructing a three-dimensional picture in his mind of the last seconds of the Airbus 320’s flight. Finally he straightened up and looked at his two colleagues. “Okay, check this logic, and my conclusion. If this had been windshear, whether a headwind shearing to a tailwind suddenly, or even a major downdraft, we could see it in the airspeed, which would drop, and even though they’d be losing altitude, the airspeed would not increase.”

  Walt Rogers, an experienced pilot, nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “How about a catastrophic downdraft?” Joe asked. “One that doesn’t change the airspeed, but simply gives them a high sink rate?”

  Walt sat on the edge of the table and sighed as he thought that over. “I can’t say it’s impossible, Joe, but we should have some other indication. This is awfully low to the ground—less than 300 feet—for that sort of phenomenon. Any major down-burst should have spread out laterally by this point. But I can’t say it’s impossible.”

  “Look here, though. You’re missing the key element.” Andy was pointing to the figures and Joe followed his finger. “Look at the position of the elevator just as the rate of descent begins to increase. It’s negative. It’s moving to nose down. He had positive elevator, nose up all through the turn here … and here … see?”

  “Yeah … right there.”

  “… and then it suddenly moves down from plus three to minus values, and the descent starts. All that time the airspeed is steady.”

  Joe was nodding. “He pushed the nose over.”

  “Or,” Andy corrected, “the airplane itself nosed over despite controls positioned to the contrary.”

  Joe Wallingford looked up at Andy and smiled, glancing at Walt Rogers for support. “Walt, you’re a witness to this. Andy, my human-factors guru, is arguing nuts-and-bolts failure versus human failure.”

  “Hey,” Andy said, trying to look offended and not succeeding, “call a spade a spade. Even I will acknowledge it when a wing comes off.” He grinned at last, and Joe shook his head in mock disgust.

  “Check this logic,” Joe began again. “In order for windshear to have contributed, it would be merely coincidental to the fact that the airplane got a nose-down command and followed it. The main failure point is the nose-down command, right?”

  Andy and Walt both were nodding guardedly. “Yeah.”

  “That’s what I see, Joe.”

  Joe took off his reading glasses and looked at them both. “Then, subject to a careful, in-depth reading of these numbers, we can rule out weather and windshear, microbursts and down-bursts on the final approach as the singular cause, if not as a cause?”

  “Tentatively,” Andy confirmed.

  “Of course. Tentatively. At least that’s one down,” Joe said.

  “Two down. The engines were running,” Walt said.

  “We never doubted that, though.”

  “We didn’t, but remember the witness who swore the engines were on fire before impact.” Walt raised his hand and closed his eyes. “I know, I know, there’s a witness like him in every accident.”

  “But Joe,” Andy said, “the evidence of a massive windshear on the first approach is in these figures too. They could have crashed there as well. I don’t think we can ignore the poorly handled weather aspect of this just because they pulled it out on the first approach. Hell, it could’ve been that their adrenaline levels after that first approach led them to do something stupid and crash on the second approach.”

  Joe bit his lower lip and looked at Andy. “You’re right, and we won’t ignore it. But why did they pitch down? Now that we can see they did, why? That’s the question. The captain said the airplane wasn’t following his commands.”

  Walt Rogers tapped a finger on the table. “Any chance of talking to the first officer?”

  Andy shook his head. “Still in a coma, in critical condition.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Walt asked.

  Joe got up and wandered toward the back of the room, hands stuck in his pants pockets, deep in thought. The other two watched him for a moment. Joe was given to wandering like that in the middle of a conversation, but the thoughtful statements which usually resulted were worth waiting for. He turned suddenly and sighed. “All we know is the plane pitched down and the only pilot who can talk says he didn’t do it, which leaves a control failure of some sort or electronic interference, which means this airplane may well be in deep trouble.”

  “Don’t forget sabotage, electronic or mechanical,” Andy added.

  “And if we can’t find the exact cause?” Walt asked, watching Joe’s perplexed expression deepen.

  “Then we’re all in trouble,” Joe replied at last. “The pressure will be unbelievable.”

  9

  Monday, October 15 Washington, D.C.

  The White House loomed in the distance, framed by an urban forest of trees and fully noticed by Senator Kell Martinson as he stood on the north side of Lafayette Square and adjusted his topcoat.

  Where was she? Kell looked the park over carefully, the rustling rainbow of fallen leaves carpeting the ground beneath the grand old deciduous trees that filled a living picture postcard, a scene almo
st too perfect to exist. The brisk autumn wind rumbled in his ear, blowing his hair and whipping the lower flaps of his coat as the senator turned to look again at his license plate.

  This time it was a different plate on a different car that met his vision. The Riviera was safely parked back in Wichita, where he usually kept it. His “Beltway bomb” was a three-year-old Ford Taurus, a balance between conservative and flashy, the increasingly ubiquitous cellular antenna visible on the back window. But it was the Riviera’s Kansas license plate that kept haunting him. The press, the NTSB, and perhaps the FBI were hunting that plate, that car, and though they didn’t know it yet, hunting him. There was a very tough decision ahead, Kell knew. Should he go to the authorities and try to explain it? Or hunker down and hope no one had copied it? If he chose wrong, his career could go up in smoke, rendering any thoughts about future occupancy of the white building on Pennsylvania Avenue a moot exercise in fantasy.

  A stylish young woman with flowing blond hair and a brisk stride caught his eye to the left, but it was not Cindy. Kell checked his watch and read 10:04 A.M. She had called less than an hour ago, knowing instinctively that he would be in his Senate office early. He did not tell her the couch had been home for yet another night—she and the staff always worried about his sleeping in the office. That was okay for a slightly bohemian congressman, they felt, but not for a senator. Ten A.M., she had said, but not at her home. It was too soon, and that would be too much pressure.

  “Where, then, Cindy?” He had felt a great letdown at that, even a tinge of panic, as if the neutral ground of the park she suggested was to be a point of departure, a “safe” location from which she could relegate him to her past and move on. But that couldn’t be what she had in mind! It made no sense. Yet the possibility had unhinged his concentration.

  Part of his mind also kept chewing over the early-morning call from Senator Lew Whitney, his favorite deep South Democrat from Georgia, who was obviously madder than hell the moment he roused Kell from the couch at 7:30 with the incessant ringing of his private line.

  “Kell, you snake! You got us to hold off testing our key components, and now your people are sneaking around getting ready to test yours. Aside from treaty violations, Senator, you’ve broken our agreement. Does the allegedly honorable gentleman have anything to say?”

  “Yeah, Lew,” he had replied, rubbing his eyes. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  “Star Wars, Kell, SDI. Remember? Our agreement? The one you promised to enforce when we were at each others’ throats two years ago and you begged and pleaded with us to trust your side not to trash our approach. I remember the junior senator from Kansas telling me that both the correct program—my program—and your K mart concept, “Brilliant Pebbles,” could coexist if we trusted each other not to go off and secretly test. Well, bub, I’ve got a rumor here that your side’s been doing exactly that.”

  “Not as far as I know, Lew. What are you hearing?” He had come wide awake with that news.

  “Some scientist saw a tracking test module outside the factory over the weekend gettin’ ready to be hauled away somewhere. It shouldn’t even be outside the factory, Kell, let alone be moved somewhere. That can mean only one thing: testing. And, of course, if it’s outside, the Soviets will have already photographed the hell out of it from space.”

  “I’ll get on it, Lew. But I need to know a few more details, like where it was seen, what, exactly, it looked like, et cetera.”

  “I’ll have one of my people call you, the man who got the call in the first place.”

  Cindy had called at that point and his concentration had jumped the track, but a quick and angry trip to the Pentagon would be a necessity within the next few hours. He wanted to think only of her, but duty called as well.

  The 50-degree temperatures were low enough to be bracing, but sufficiently warm to be pleasant. Kell wished he could enjoy it, but foreboding stood in the way. He had never handled suspense very well. He wanted answers and solutions as fast as possible, and dangling human relationships were the worst trial of all—especially involving someone he loved. Political life demanded a tough facade and a tough-minded interior, and he could meet that challenge on most things. But in matters of the heart, Kell Martinson was vulnerable and he knew it.

  Her form caught his eye first, walking with a familiar, energetic gait from the east end of the park, her hands thrust deeply into the pockets of her contoured, full-length leather coat, her beautiful hair tousled by the breeze. He watched her carefully as she approached, as if he might spot the telltale evidence of what was bothering her and what might be imperiling their relationship. But when she looked up at him, the smile that broadened her mouth was anything but a threat, and instinctively he moved toward her. Her smoky blue eyes looked directly at him, boring in for endless seconds before she spoke.

  “Why were you in Salina?”

  For a moment Kell didn’t comprehend the unexpected question.

  “What?”

  “Salina. You called me from Salina. Why were you there?”

  “That’s … where else would I go?”

  Cindy gently pulled her hands away and turned. They began walking, slowly, as she continued. “Kell, you thought I was dead … killed in the crash. The crash was in Kansas City. Why did you go to Salina?”

  He shrugged and held out his hands, palms up, nonplussed by her intensity. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. I …”

  She stopped and turned toward him, a flash visible in her eyes.

  “My body, or what would have been left of it, would have been in Kansas City. My parents are north of there in St. Jo. There would have been arrangements to make, people to notify, remains to identify. You say you love me, and I want to believe the type of love you’re talking about is what I want and need, but why did you leave? Politics?”

  Kell realized the question had frozen him in place, his subconscious plan to suppress the reality of what had driven him from the horror of the Kansas City flight line now in shambles. He looked away and found himself examining the cracks in the sidewalk, unable to meet her eyes.

  “You’ve always had amazing insight, Cindy. I ran. Plain and simple. What I saw scared me to death, and like a whimpering coward, I jumped on my horse and rode. I sped through that gate and drove straight west, and I couldn’t get myself to stop for an hour.”

  She was silent for the longest time, then nodded slightly and began to walk again, Kell instantly falling into step beside her.

  “Then what?”

  “I stopped at a roadside park, a rest area, and got on the phone. I must have called every hospital in Kansas City, hoping you might still be alive. When I saw it crash, I didn’t think anyone survived in your airplane. But then there was this radio report about survivors from the flight. That’s why I called … I would have gone back in a second if there had been any hope. I just figured …”

  “You just figured,” she continued for him, “that your cookie was dead, and yes, you did love her, but now she was gone, and getting caught in Kansas City would be a career threat. That was more important.”

  Kell didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. The lie that had formed in his mind could not be spoken. She knew him, it seemed, far too well.

  “I ran at first because it frightened me. As I ran, as I left, the thought kept crossing my mind, hell, it kept inundating my mind, that if you were gone, it would do me no good to ruin my career too. I didn’t know whether it could hurt my career, but it didn’t seem a reasonable risk. I told myself you would have wanted me to go.”

  She was silent, head down, watching the sidewalk as they moved along, turning slowly at each corner of the park to stay within its borders.

  “And there’s more, Cindy. Something I’m … well.” Kell stopped and gently reached for her, gingerly swiveling her around to face him lest she resist, which she did not. Her lips were lightly brushed by a pale lipstick and firmly closed, and a wisp of hair was dancing back and
forth across her eyes, which were boring into him again. The story tumbled out, the approach, the collision, the tumbling wreckage flashing past, and his inability to move from the car. He decided not to mention the fact that his car had been seen. At least not yet.

  They were in public, in the open, within view of the street and the White House guard stations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building to the north, yet she came to him suddenly, her head on his chest, his arms instantly around her. She said nothing as he held her, feeling her breathing, wanting her physically and emotionally to the exclusion of caution. And when she pulled away, her eyes met his again, accompanied by a warmer smile than he had expected.

  “I thought I knew what was bothering me, and now I’m sure of it. I want … I need to be sure, before we take this any further, who comes first. Lady politics or me. I can be happy with such a ménage à trois, as long as I know, really know, that if one of us has to vanish from your life, it will not be me.”

  He began to answer, a hundred well-phrased arguments rushing forward at once, but she raised her hand and gently put a finger on his mouth.

  “No, don’t. Not words. It’s something I have to see, and decide. This is not something you can lobby. I need time.”

  “I’ve changed, Cindy. Friday night’s reaction was not me to begin with, but if my priorities were screwed up, they aren’t now. Not after that—after this weekend, after a taste of what losing you would mean.”

  “Those are pretty words, Kell, and you’re good with pretty words. I need to watch you for a while …”

  “And I need to marry you.”

  “Which is a strange way to ask a girl.” She glanced at him, half-amused.

  “Okay. Will you marry me?” he corrected.

  “I probably will, when marrying you will not result in charges of bigamy.”

  “Cindy, the marriage is over. You know that! Julie and I don’t even talk anymore.”

  “She came by last month. To the office, to see you. It broke my heart, she looked so miserable.”