Razing Beijing: A Thriller (9 page)

Stuart reached to pick up the phone ringing from the
center of the conference table. “He’ll see you now, Mr. Stuart,” he heard the
caller say.

STUART OBSERVED
with
profound pity Jim Cole’s effort to project what simply had to be an
unsustainable air of composure. Until arriving this afternoon to his office, he
had seen the CEO on only three occasions since the accident, one of them Sandy
Cole’s funeral. On none of these occasions had Stuart seen Cole so much as
raise his eyes to look at him.

Stuart managed to wrap up his current assessment of the
crash investigation, having avoided words that might foster the sort of graphic
images painful to a man who had recently lost his only child. Without having
asked a single question, eyelids drooping wearily and fingertips touching a
steeple to his lips, Cole didn’t appear to be listening.

Stuart mentioned his hope that the Mojave video might help
solve the puzzle.

Cole closed his eyes.

Stuart searched rapidly for something to add. “The good
news is that we’ve eliminated a number of components from the list of probable
causes. We’ve released manufacturing to reopen those.”

“That’ll certainly please Hackett.”

Stuart knew Morton Hackett probably topped the list of
those with their knives drawn, seeing as he, the CEO’s former fair-haired boy,
had quite literally driven the program into the ground. After all, Cole had
hired him specifically to shake up the corporate bureaucracy, the equivalent
which Roget’s Thesaurus defined as
Hackett
. It was also probably the
case that either he or Hackett, not both, would still be around come the end of
the investigation. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

Cole actually smiled. “What do you think of the help you’re
getting from the chief engineer’s office?”

Stuart considered the qualitative nature of the question;
he presumed Cole had asked for a specific reason. “Hackett’s good in the role
of process watchdog.”

Cole folded his hands.

“Problem is, he stifles imagination and frustrates the
assertive individuals who tend to be the best problem solvers. He bogs meetings
down with his asinine little book, which I think he uses to track how well
disciplined a decision was reached rather than what it was that we learned, or
how it may advance a theory one way or the other. It’s frustrating to me that he
chooses to subordinate his considerable intellect to the role of bureaucratic
scold.”

“All that helpful, is he?”

“I’d say for a man in his role he reaches conclusions with
an astonishing absence of rigor. He spurns the use of the scientific method. His
latest position is to propose a bogus shopping list of probable causes—three or
four, I think, compiled by some sort of consensus opinion. By shotgunning a
redesign he seems to think we’ll improve the odds that the problem is solved. I
keep reminding him we can’t fix the problem unless we know what broke. For that
matter, we could wind up creating a new set of problems.

“Other than that,” Stuart concluded with a laugh, “I think
the chief engineer’s office is doing a wonderful job.”

Cole parted his lips in a smile, albeit a faint half
smile—he’s not completely lost his sense of humor, Stuart thought. Especially
as Cole was the one who had promoted Hackett to chief engineer.

“There’s a place for a man like Hackett in an organization
like this. So, to summarize where we are…?”

“Right. Bear in mind I’m trying to prevent people from
getting too comfortable with any one failure scenario. That said, this much we
know.” He counted off with his fingers. “We have Federov’s admission to a minor
assembly snafu that probably explains the carbon seal damage. Two, this damage precipitated
an oil leak that unbalanced, and then corn-cobbed, the forward rotor. Three,
the subsequent energy unbalance caused the aft rotor overspeed that burst the
engine, and took down the aircraft.

“However, the fly in the ointment is the fact that we lost
all electronic data transmission
before
the engine oversped—a good two
seconds before.” Time measured in seconds were an eternity in such engine
failure events.

“Some sort of an electrical aberration?” Cole suggested.

“It’s obvious the electrical system malfunction preceded
every other failure. We heard that from Sandy on the aircraft, and confirmed it
in the IDR at Mojave. Otherwise the speed traces and so forth would have run
all the way to engine burst. The traces cut out before anything significant really
happens.”

“You have the black boxes, don’t you?”

“They’re pretty outdated, which is not unusual for an old
experimental bird. We sent ’em to Fairchild to make sure we didn’t do anything
to jeopardize whatever data they did contain. I’m told the flight data recorder
captured the entire event. Unfortunately, the lapse in the electrical system
blanked out all the data being collected for the prototype engine.”

Cole seemed to be absorbing the information.

“There’s something else I’d like to say.” Stuart leaned
forward. “It’s my opinion that the possible presence of an electrical malfunction
makes moot the decisions leading up to the crash, none of which considered any
such malfunction.”

Their eyes met briefly before Cole looked away and said,
“There’s no need for you to adopt an unpopular position, or to otherwise martyr
yourself, on account of me.”

Stuart shrugged. “I’m not inclined to martyr anyone,
especially myself. Neither do I recognize any need to ingratiate myself to you.
I’m only calling it the way I see it.”

“Noted. Thank you. Do we have any idea how much more time
you’re going to need?”

Stuart thought for a moment. “I’d rather answer you
tomorrow afternoon, if that’s okay. We’re reviewing a plan that I believe is
closer to the mark than anything so far.”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” Cole said quietly. “I don’t need to
remind you of the effect this is having. Everything’s been pushed way out. The
problem isn’t just your propfan program. The economy is killing airline growth
projections and profits, such as they are. We haven’t had a single new order
since last quarter—that’s a record.

“Which brings me to the least palatable reason I invited
you here. Last Wednesday night the board approved a reduction-in-force. I’d
like you to have your managers begin compiling their lists. Human resources is
preparing the guidelines to be used. Now, I know what you’re going to say, that
when your program picks back up there’s going to be a lot of work to be done. I
don’t know what to tell you. If our earnings aren’t there then we’ve no means
of paying them anyhow. I know the propfan is important to our future. Unfortunately,
the propfan isn’t generating revenue.”

ONE OF EMILY CHANG’S
few extravagances, a chocolate-point Himalayan who answered to the name of
King-Pu, stopped purring and jumped from her lap at the sound of a knock at the
door of her apartment. The wall of the neighboring apartment had been pulsating
for hours with the rumble of music, and it was a wonder she could hear much of
anything else.

In fact the knock at the door was Debi, her next-door neighbor
and friend with whom Emily liked to share her morning jog. The flight attendant
was young and pretty, one of many living in the complex whose assignment at
their airline’s Midwest hub seemed to be frequently rotated. She politely
declined Debi’s invitation to join her, citing a deadline of work she was
attending to on her computer.

Her hand still pressing the door shut, Emily felt a sense
of regret. She could recall some of the parties she had attended with her
friend, Sandy Cole... Thinking of Sandy was to be reminded of the spinelessness
that had led to her death. Had she not fulfilled her professional
responsibility by having convinced her boss of the risk to the flight test? It
seemed that Stuart had failed rather spectacularly in his.
And to think
there once was much I admired in the man...

Emily slid the deadbolt into place and turned from the
door.

Her two-room efficiency in the working-class neighborhood
of suburban Cleveland was comparable to the living conditions at university. That
it cost only a fraction of her salary had been her principle reason for signing
the lease. Similarly, inside the bedroom were a mattress and box spring on a simple
metal frame. Her clothes she kept in a trunk, which she had hauled home and
scrubbed with disinfectant after discovering it next to the parking lot dumpster.
Even her excuse for being reclusive that evening was on loan to her from Thanatech,
and the small cherry desk beneath the laptop computer had been a birthday gift
from her parents. Frugal by nature, her current penny-pinching was not without
a specific objective. The account balance displayed on the computer screen
totaled a monetary sum, Emily hoped, that soon would allow her to smuggle her
parents to freedom.

Events in her life had convinced Emily to believe in her
fate. Estrangement from her conservative father had grown, ironically, out of
his insistence that she learn to always question—that she use her brain to
think
,
to take nothing for granted. She could recall their discussions as if they had
just taken place; See, my child, how the sun rises higher in the sky during
summer than winter? It is for the same forces of nature that your bicycle is
easy to ride. Why, do you think, does the leaf fall slower than the stone? See
how the bird can fly through the air? What allows ice to float on water? Think,
to where does the ice disappear in the subzero air of the winter? Emily
remembered how pleased he had been when she asked: From where comes the
essence, Father, for a seed to branch into the sky? And years later, to his
silent dismay: Father, is it true that others decide what I read? Finally he
would quietly shake his head and walk from the room: Why do men in Beijing
decide how everyone else is to live? Why, Father, must you be so resilient as a
mountain? They eventually grew to infuriate each other. Emily believed fate had
pre-ordained that their friction would drive them apart, allowing her the
American job she enjoyed and thus the money to free him.

A national merit scholar equipped with a mathematics
degree, Emily had obtained a student visa to attend Stanford University’s
doctoral program in control systems theory. Her father’s prestige ensured that
the Chinese government would pay the expenses. Months into her dissertation and
ecstatic over her promising future, she was informed of Beijing’s decision to
assign her to the Ministry of Defense. Why, she asked, would she not be
permitted to choose her place of employment, as allowed even graduates with
lesser scholastic credentials? They said that she could choose her place of
employment, within the Ministry of Defense.

At age twenty-seven, she made the decision that would
forever alter her life—a decision her father had pleaded against: Emily
renounced her Chinese citizenship. Her first subsequent visit by the State
Security officer was to inform her of the disgrace she had brought upon her
family; the second informed her of the physical risk she was exposing them to. When
she ignored the phony threats, they gave notice that both her scholarship and
stipend were being revoked. Beijing pronounced her a political dissident and
the security apparatus took steps to discourage communication with her family. Finally,
even the money her parents were sending no longer arrived.

Struggling with part-time jobs tutoring math to high school
students, and writing software under university grants, finally she was able to
complete her dissertation. When the United States refused to grant her resident
alien status, she tried but failed to receive political asylum. Three years
later an extended student visa allowed her to earn her second doctoral degree,
this in software engineering. Graduation finally in sight, Emily began her
on-campus interviews. Her highest offer came from an investment banking firm in
New York. America had entered the grip of an energy crisis, and the Midwest
firm Thanatechnology Corporation invited her to participate in the development
of a fuel-efficient family of aircraft engines. The day after receiving their
offer letter a second arrived, amending the first; Thanatech would assume her
tuition debt. Emily was thrilled—they were desperate for somebody like her! The
work sounded important and exciting. It appeared that anything was possible.

Two months into the job, her career assumed an unexpected
urgency. Emily learned through a network of relatives that Chinese doctors had
diagnosed her mother with a rare form of liver cancer. Distraught by the news, Emily
investigated options and determined that Western medicine regularly achieved
the highest efficacy rates for treating this particular disease. She approached
the Chinese embassy in Washington to propose they fly her mother to the States;
they refused to even grant her an audience. Suddenly it seemed her selfish
decision to expatriate had earned her not only dishonor at home but pain and
suffering for her mother. A woman from the U.S. State Department attempted to
intervene, whereupon they were told that the socialist order of China delivered
the finest medical care in the world.

During her undergraduate days at Qinghua University, Emily
dated the son of a mid-level official in the People’s Liberation Army. The
young man liked to boast of his family’s numbered accounts in Switzerland and
the Caribbean islands; profits arising from their Quangdong factories were
deposited offshore in order to evade the whims of the communist government. Armed
with this recollection, Emily learned how to set up her own offshore account,
choosing a reputable international bank branched in Tortola. Soon she was
making sizable deposits from the money she made at Thanatech, mailing postal
money orders via FedEx—a technique she’d found on the Internet. This way, when the
time arrived to pay her parents’ illicit benefactors, there would be no reason
to fear American Homeland Security inquiries into the whereabouts of some
$40,000 of savings.