Airframe (30 page)

“The slats deployed.”

“Sure sounds like it. It’s a fairly unique signature.”

“Why?” The aircraft was in cruise flight. Why would they deploy? Was it uncommanded, or had the pilot done it? Casey wished again for the flight data recorder. All these questions could be answered in a few minutes, if they just had the data from the FDR. But it was going very slowly.

“Did you look at the rest of the tape?”

“Well, the next point of interest is the cockpit alarms,” Ziegler said. “Once the camera jams in the door, I can listen to the audio, and assemble a sequence of what the aircraft was telling the pilot. But that’ll take me another day.”

“Stay with it,” she said. “I want everything you can give me.”

Then her beeper went off. She pulled it off her belt, looked at it.

John Marder wanted to see her. In his office. Now.

John Marder was in his calm mood—the dangerous one.

“Just a short interview,” he said. “Ten, fifteen minutes at most. You won’t have time to go into specifics. But as the head of the IRT, you’re in the perfect position to explain the company’s commitment to safety. How carefully we review accidents. Our commitment to product support. Then you can explain that our preliminary report shows the accident was caused by a counterfeit thruster cowl, installed at a foreign repair station, so it could not have been a slats event. And blow Barker out of the water. Blow
Newsline
out of the water.”

“John,” she said. “I just came from Audio. There’s no question—the slats deployed.”

“Well, audio’s circumstantial at best,” Marder said. “Ziegler’s a nut. We have to wait for the flight data recorder to know precisely what happened. Meanwhile, the IRT has made a preliminary finding which excludes slats.”

As if hearing her own voice from a distance, she said, “John, I’m uncomfortable with this.”

“We’re talking about the future, Casey.”

“I understand, but—”

“The China sale will save the company. Cash flow, stretch development, new aircraft, bright future. That’s what we’re talking about here, Casey. Thousands of jobs.”

“I understand, John, but—”

“Let me ask you something, Casey. Do
you
think there’s anything wrong with the N-22?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You think it’s a deathtrap?”

“No.”

“What about the company? Think it’s a good company?”

“Of course.”

He stared at her, shaking his head. Finally he said, “There’s someone I want you to talk to.”

Edward Fuller was the head of Norton Legal. He was a thin, ungainly man of forty. He sat uneasily in the chair in Marder’s office.

“Edward,” Marder said, “we have a problem.
Newsline
is going to run a story on the N-22 this weekend on prime-time television, and it is going to be highly unfavorable.”

“How unfavorable?”

“They’re calling the N-22 a deathtrap.”

“Oh dear,” Fuller said. “That’s very unfortunate.”

“Yes, it is,” Marder said. “I brought you in because I want to know what I can do about it.”

“Do about it?” Fuller said, frowning.

“Yes,” Marder said. “We feel
Newsline
is being crudely sensationalistic. We regard their story as uninformed, and prejudicial to our product. We believe they are deliberately and recklessly defaming us.”

“I see.”

“So,” Marder said. “What can we do? Can we prevent them from running the story?”

“No.”

“Can we get a court injunction barring them?”

“No. That’s prior restraint. And from a publicity standpoint, it’s ill advised.”

“You mean it’d look bad.”

“An attempt to muzzle the press? Violate the First Amendment? That would suggest you have something to hide.”

“In other words,” Marder said, “they can run the story, and we are powerless to stop them.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. But I think
Newsline
’s information is inaccurate and biased. Can we demand they give equal time to our evidence?”

“No,” Fuller said. “The fairness doctrine, which included the equal-time provision, was scrapped under Reagan. Television news programs are under no obligation to present all sides of an issue.”

“So they can say anything they want? No matter how unbalanced?”

“That’s right.”

“That doesn’t seem proper.”

“It’s the law,” Fuller said, with a shrug.

“Okay,” Marder said. “Now, this program is going to air at a very sensitive moment for our company. Adverse publicity may very well cost us the China sale.”

“Yes, it might.”

“Suppose we lost business as a result of their show. If we can demonstrate that
Newsline
presented an erroneous view—and we told them it was erroneous—can we sue them for damages?”

“As a practical matter, no. We would probably have to show they proceeded with ‘reckless disregard’ for the facts known to them. Historically, that has been extremely difficult to prove.”

“So
Newsline
is not liable for damages?”

“No.”

“They can say whatever they want, and if they put us out of business, it’s our tough luck?”

“That’s correct.”

“Is there any restraint
at all
on what they say?”

“Well.” Fuller shifted in the chair. “If they falsely portrayed the company, they might be liable. But in this instance, we have a lawsuit brought by an attorney for a passenger on 545.
So
Newsline
is able to say they’re just reporting the facts: that an attorney has made the following accusations about us.”

“I understand,” Marder said. “But a claim filed in a court has limited publicity.
Newsline
is going to present these crazy claims to forty million viewers. And at the same time, they’ll automatically validate the claims, simply by repeating them on television. The damage to us comes from their exposure, not from the original claims.”

“I take your point,” Fuller said. “But the law doesn’t see it that way.
Newsline
has the right to report a lawsuit.”

“
Newsline
has no responsibility to independently assess the legal claims being made, no matter how outrageous? If the lawyer said, for example, that we employed child molesters,
Newsline
could still report that, with no liability to themselves?”

“Correct.”

“Let’s say we go to trial and win. It’s clear that
Newsline
presented an erroneous view of our product, based on the attorney’s allegations, which have been thrown out of court. Is
Newsline
obligated to retract the statements they made to forty million viewers?”

“No. They have no such obligation.”

“Why not?”

“
Newsline
can decide what’s newsworthy. If they think the outcome of the trial is not newsworthy, they don’t have to report it. It’s their call.”

“And meanwhile, the company is bankrupt,” Marder said. “Thirty thousand employees lose their jobs, houses, health benefits, and start new careers at Burger King. And another fifty thousand lose their jobs, when our suppliers go belly up in Georgia, Ohio, Texas, and Connecticut. All those fine people who’ve devoted their lives working to design, build, and support the best airframe in the business get a firm handshake and a swift kick in the butt. Is that how it works?”

Fuller shrugged. “That’s how the system works. Yes.”

“I’d say the system sucks.”

“The system is the system,” Fuller said.

Marder glanced at Casey, then turned back to Fuller. “Now Ed,” he said. “This situation sounds very lopsided. We make a superb product, and all the objective measures of its performance demonstrate that it’s safe and reliable. We’ve spent years developing and testing it. We’ve got an irrefutable track record. But you’re saying a television crew can come in, hang around a day or two, and trash our product on national TV. And when they do, they have no responsibility for their acts, and we have no way to recover damages.”

Fuller nodded.

“Pretty lopsided,” Marder said.

Fuller cleared his throat. “Well, it wasn’t always that way. But for the last thirty years, since Sullivan in 1964, the First Amendment has been invoked in defamation cases. Now the press has a lot more breathing room.”

“Including room for abuse,” Marder said.

Fuller shrugged. “Press abuse is an old complaint,” he said. “Just a few years after the First Amendment was passed, Thomas Jefferson complained about how inaccurate the press was, how unfair—”

“But Ed,” Marder said. “We’re not talking about two hundred years ago. And we’re not talking about a few nasty editorials in colonial newspapers. We’re talking about a television show with compelling images that goes instantaneously to forty, fifty million people—a sizable percentage of the whole country—and
murders
our reputation. Murders it. Unjustifiably. That’s the situation we’re talking about here. So,” Marder said, “what do you advise us to do, Ed?”

“Well.” Fuller cleared his throat again. “I always advise my clients to tell the truth.”

“That’s fine, Ed. That’s sound counsel. But what do we
do
?”

“It would be best,” he said, “if you were prepared to explain what occurred on Flight 545.”

“It happened four days ago. We don’t have a finding yet.” Fuller said, “It would be best if you did.”

After Fuller had left, Marder turned to Casey. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her.

Casey stood there for a moment. She understood what Marder and the lawyer were doing. It had been a very effective performance. But the lawyer was also right, she thought. It would be best if they could tell the truth, and explain the flight. As she listened to him, she had begun to think that somehow she might find a way to tell the truth—or enough of the truth—to make this work. There were enough loose ends, enough uncertainties, that she might pull them together to form a coherent story.

“All right, John,” she said. “I’ll do the interview.”

“Excellent,” Marder said, smiling and rubbing his hands together. “I knew you’d do the right thing, Casey.
Newsline
has scheduled a slot at four
P.M.
tomorrow. Meantime I want you to work briefly with a media consultant, someone from outside the company—”

“John,” she said. “I’ll do it my way.”

“She’s a very nice woman, and—”

“I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I don’t have time.”

“She can help you, Casey. Give you a few pointers.”

“John,” she said. “I have work to do.”

And she left the room.

She had not promised to say what Marder wanted her to say; she had only promised to do the interview. She had less than twenty-four hours to make significant progress in the investigation. She was not so foolish as to imagine she could determine what had happened in that time. But she could find something to tell the reporter.

There were still many dangling leads: the possible problem with the locking pin. The possible problem with the proximity sensor. The possible interview with the first officer in Vancouver. The videotape at Video Imaging. The translation Ellen Fong was doing. The fact that the slats had deployed, but had been stowed immediately afterward—what exactly did that mean?

Still so much to check.

“I know you need the data,” Rob Wong said, spinning in his chair. “I know, believe me.” He was in the Digital Display Room, in front of the screens filled with data. “But what do you expect me to do?”

“Rob,” Casey said. “The slats deployed. I have to know why—and what else happened on the flight. I can’t figure it out without the flight recorder data.”

“In that case,” Wong said, “you better face the facts. We’ve been recalibrating all the one hundred and twenty hours of data. The first ninety-seven hours are okay. The last twenty-three hours are anomalous.”

“I’m only interested in the last three hours.”

“I understand,” Wong said. “But to recalibrate those three hours, we have to go back to where the bus blew, and work forward. We have to calibrate twenty-three hours of data. And it’s taking us about two minutes a frame to recalibrate.”

She frowned. “What are you telling me?” But she was already calculating it in her head.

“Two minutes a frame means it’ll take us sixty-five weeks.”

“That’s more than a year!”

“Working twenty-four hours a day. Real world, it’d take us three years to generate the data.”

“Rob, we need this
now
.”

“It just can’t be done, Casey. You’re going to have to work this without the FDR. I’m sorry, Casey. That’s the way it is.”

She called Accounting. “Is Ellen Fong there?”

“She didn’t come in today. She said she was working at home.”

“Do you have her number?”

“Sure,” the woman said. “But she won’t be there. She had to go to a formal dinner. Some charity thing with her husband.”

“Tell her I called,” Casey said.

She called Video Imaging in Glendale, the company that was working on the videotape for her. She asked for Scott Harmon. “Scott’s gone for the day. He’ll be in at nine tomorrow morning.”