Razing Beijing: A Thriller (2 page)

Following Stuart’s gaze, Vickers shook his head.

Stuart raised his hands for the meeting to become orderly. “Ian,
tell us again why we don’t think that the carbon seal might actually be
damaged?”

“Well, as is standard op, we pressure tested the
subassemblies at every level.” Vickers pegged his eyes on Federov. “Isn’t that
right?”

Federov averted his eyes. He stared wordlessly at the
conference table, and then nodded his concurrence.

Vickers bristled with anger. He turned toward Stuart. “I
don’t know what more to tell you. We don’t have anything specifically to point
to that might’ve resulted in a damaged carbon seal.”

Like the onset of a dull headache, Stuart felt a sense of
doubt descend over his decision that morning to proceed with the flight. Vickers
had been among those who convinced him that they understood the oil leak, a
position he accepted only after additional taxi testing indicated that it was
not getting worse.

“Assuming there is damage, what might be the worst case
scenario?”

“These vibration levels fall within limits, Stu.”

“Humor me.”

Vickers breathed a sigh.

“So let’s talk about the limit. Just how did we define the
limit for this particular mode?”

Vickers looked at him and said nothing.

“You did not predict and now you cannot explain why the
vibration has jumped. So now I wonder if we even chose the proper criteria to
establish the limit.”

“I understand what you’re driving at. Look—I’ve got a
proposal. Sandy says the vibration is lower at reduced engine speed. With the
flight test already half over, and seeing how obviously queasy you are about
this, we can instruct the pilots simply to throttle back the test engine. That
way they can at least continue with some portion of the test plan.”

Stuart considered Vickers’s proposal amidst a peppering of
hushed conversation. “How much more time do we have in the flight?”

“Ninety minutes, maybe.”

If indeed he was over-reacting and the problem was benign,
proceeding at reduced power amounted to additional margin. The sticky point was
that they desperately needed the data being generated by the long-awaited
flight—nobody liked the idea of putting themselves in the hot seat by canceling
it, especially without clear justification. As vice-president of development
operations, Stuart’s job was to view inputs through a lens that took this and
the overall corporate picture into account.

At that moment all conversation ceased as Emily Chang
entered the room. The men stepped aside and the tall, slender woman made her way
to the table opposite Stuart.

“I am afraid we have another problem,” Chang announced,
strain evident in her voice. She brushed a long strand of hair behind her ear
and handed a sheet of paper over the table to Stuart.

The section of strip-chart was blank except for a lone,
wavy blue line extending the full length of it. “What are we looking at?” Stuart
slid the paper on the table for the others to study.

“At first we thought it was a measurement error,” Chang
replied. “The trace indicates an oscillation in the aft propeller pitch angle. I
think the spool vibration is causing the entire rotor to wobble, and the
control is responding by altering the propeller pitch.” The engine control to
which she referred was in essence a digital computer, which among other
functions established the many parameters necessary to deliver the level of
thrust commanded by the pilot.

“That’s a serious problem?” Stuart asked.

“It is certainly an unusual problem. And like Ian’s
vibration, given that it’s becoming more pronounced as the flight test proceeds,
it is potentially serious.”

Stuart narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying the computer is trying
to keep engine thrust constant, but the wobble won’t let it?”

“Yes, that is our suspicion. If the whole fan rotor is
wobbling, then the incidence angle of air flowing across the propeller blades
is affected. This alters their lift, their thrust. The control senses this and attempts
to correct it.”

“Then, are you saying the rotor wobble and control
oscillation are
feeding
each other?” It was a question appropriately
addressed to the expertise of several engineers in the room. It was Emily’s
answer that interested Stuart.

Chang riveted her gaze on him; she nodded. “Yes, that is
what I’m saying.”

Stuart raised his eyebrows. There was no mistaking what it
meant: the carbon seal deteriorates, which leaks more oil into the spool, which
increases spool unbalance and rotor wobble, causing the control to vary the
propeller angle, which contributes to the rotor wobble and further deteriorates
the carbon seal and leaks additional oil...

The engine was shaking itself apart.

Stuart turned toward the flight director, Bill Murdoch, who
had stood by observing the exchange from just inside the conference room door. One
ear of his headphone aside and the other in place, Murdoch remained in constant
contact with the pilots over the radio clipped to his belt. Stuart asked,
“Where’s the aircraft now?”

“Fifty miles out, flying a pattern near Nellis,” Murdoch
said, harboring a wad of Copenhagen in his cheek.

Terminating the flight test prematurely was bound to send a
tremor throughout the company, its consortium of partners—and the airlines
desperate to buy the fuel-efficient engine. The evidence indicated that the
longer they flew, the more damage was being inflicted, which undoubtedly meant
more money and time on the ground to repair it. Most disturbing was Stuart’s
realization that the engineers had failed to predict the problem at all.

“Have the pilots shut down the engine. Call them back to
Mojave right away.”

“Yes, sir.” Murdoch nodded approvingly, turned and rushed
from the room.

The disenfranchised and apparently devastated handful of
engineers shuffled toward the door, muttering about the grotesque blemish on
their achievement. Stuart watched Emily Chang silently gather her things and
follow them out—her eyes caught his the instant she stepped through the
doorway.

Vickers remained behind and stared at the table while
Stuart rolled up the blueprint.

“What am I supposed to tell everyone?” Gloria Jackson, Thanatech’s
squat, round-headed public relations spokesman stood in the doorway, her thumb
jabbed over her shoulder. “The California state congressman just arrived. They’re
all expecting to see a fly-by. They’ve got TV cameras and we just canceled it!”

Stuart looked through the smoked glass windows of the
conference room. Fifty or so people milled along a stretch of taxiway that
paralleled the runway. In their midst was a gleaming white panel truck with a
satellite dish angled up at the sky. The CEO of Thanatech was scheduled to join
the congressman for the airport fly-by and talk up the benefit of the program
to the local economy. But Stuart’s boss had phoned to say his flight was going
to be late—that the job had been delegated to him. He’d forgotten all about it.

STUART SHIFTED HIS FOCUS
between the attractive young
woman holding the microphone and the sky above the hills beyond her camera
crew. The tiny cable television operation, WMJV-TV, apparently viewed their
feature of the flight test as today’s biggest headline. Every community’s
ongoing interest in almost any ‘green’ initiative amid the slumbering economy
had made such stories newsworthy. This was especially the case, should it also be
shown as having the potential to strengthen America’s hand against OPEC’s embargo
of crude oil delivery.

Stuart wiped away beads of perspiration forming over his
lip. Aside from quickly ending the interview, his goal was to casually
interject that today’s test flight was proceeding ahead of schedule and would
therefore be completed early, which in his mind he could justify as being
factually correct. Gloria Jackson stressed the importance of doing this
before
the plane caught people off guard by appearing in the pattern to land.

He caught glimpses of the company spokesman beyond the
camera crew, a serenely confident smile plastered to her face, her hands
fidgeting nervously. Murdoch had informed them both before the interview that
the aircraft would be returning from the northwest. Jackson continually scanned
the sky in every direction until even Stuart became nervous. Ten minutes into
the interview, presumably at ease with Stuart’s performance, Jackson had
thankfully disappeared.

He made a show of examining his watch as the television
journalist glanced up from her notes. “Mr. Stuart, we heard unofficially...”

Stuart was aware of movement to the left and behind the
television crew, a stout figure in the doorway to the administration
building—Gloria Jackson frantically waving her arms.

“...noticed only one single passenger boarding with the
pilots today. With all the electronics aboard, one would naturally think the
test of such a big airplane required more than a single passenger.”

“I’m sorry. What is your question?”

“Is there some concern about the safety of this new engine?”

On its merit the question was innocent enough, but
something in the woman’s intonation, or a subtle shift in her posture, alerted
Stuart to an ulterior motive. Anyone who followed Thanatechnology was aware of
the program’s earlier problems, widely publicized in aerospace journals. Several
engines had violently exploded during ground test, such things being par for
the development course. In the hands of competing marketing teams they made for
exploitable fodder.

“Well”—Stuart glanced at the identification tag pinned to
the breast of the woman’s aqua silk blouse—“we’ve had the normal assortment of
development hurdles. Truth is, it’s simply prudent to limit the number of
personnel on early test flights. That way all systems can be checked throughout
the flight envelope with minimal risk. We also use telemetry for that reason. It’s
pretty much standard.”

Candace Greene wrinkled her nose.

As Stuart pondered why the reporter had apparently neither
believed nor understood a word of what he had just said, Gloria Jackson crept
behind the camera crew and was now drawing her open hand back and forth across
her throat in exaggerated strokes, imploring Stuart to immediately cut off the
interview.

Stuart groped for a way to end it—the reporter opened her
mouth to respond—he beat her to the punch. “By the time the FAA certifies this
engine it will have been tested for the equivalent of several decades of
airline service. It will be as safe and reliable as our customers—oh.” Stuart
made an abrupt show of glancing over the young woman’s shoulder. “Seems like
they need me inside.”

“Are we—”

“I’m awfully sorry, Candace. Could we finish this later?”

“That’s fine,” the reporter relented with a nod and the red
light over the camera went out. Stuart apologized again before leaving Greene
to converse with her crew. He resisted the urge to break into a jog toward the
administration building where Gloria Jackson stood waiting with a fractured
smile.

“I reversed your decision,” Cole announced unemotionally. “We
are not going to shut that engine down.”

James Cole, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of Thanatechnology
International had led Stuart into the conference room and shut the door behind
them. The two men stood facing each other alone.

Stuart was struck by the casual audacity with which his
boss had dismissed his opinion, and Cole’s apparent disregard for the risk
associated with doing so. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Cole brushed back a shock of
white hair. “Why do you think so?”

“Because you don’t know what you’re doing, the very same
reason you hired me to make these sorts of decisions.”

Cole sat back on the edge of the table and folded his arms.
The tall, lanky executive took Stuart’s comment in stride. “By the sound of
things, we’ll be months getting back on test. What are we supposed to do in the
mean time? We can’t put our marketing effort on hold. Our competition certainly
won’t. I’m told we didn’t collect enough performance data to solidify our
guaranty positions. Why, we could wind up tens of millions in the red for that
simple reason alone.”

Stuart realized Cole was probably right on that point. Fuel
burn and various other guarantees were regularly demanded by the airlines as
part of each sale. He was about to ask whether Cole had bothered to square the
guarantee liabilities with the $37 million investment cost of the flight test
engine but decided against steering the discussion that way.

“To say nothing of the bad publicity,” Cole added.

“It’s not clear yet how much data we did or didn’t manage
to get,” Stuart said. “There will
never
be enough data.”

“I’ll cede you that, but what about the publicity?”

“We simply say that we called the flight back for an oil
leak. Everybody knows what an oil leak is, don’t they? They find them under
their cars on the driveway. You can announce it with an off-hand chuckle,
‘Nothing to do with production, you know, an isolated nuisance brought on by a
piece of development hardware.’ ”

“I see.” Cole pursed his lips. “An oil leak.”

“What’s so diabolical?”

“Once again, you’re missing the bigger picture.” The pink
rims that bordered Cole’s eyes made the perennial golfer’s face look unusually
pale. “The production program’s
five
months behind schedule. Everyone
already knows
why
and that it has nothing to do with any sort of an oil
leak. Nobody’s in the mood for yet a new type of problem to explain. This test
flight is the one thing we have going our way at the moment. We taxi that
airplane up here with its propeller blades motionless, the competition will
rake our ass over the coals. For Christ’s sake, this is our maiden flight! We
simply cannot afford to cancel that fly-by.”