Equal Time Point Page 18

  “What was it about?”

  “I don’t remember. Something totally unrelated. I’ve got it here in my notes somewhere.”

  Phil looked through his notes in reverse chronological order and didn’t see it until he got to the first notes he had taken at the general briefing. He read what he had written under maintenance history and almost choked.

  “Oh no, Colt!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh man, I am so dumb. I should have seen this right away. The verbal was on the center access compartment door. It wasn’t closed properly and was showing a light in the cockpit.”

  “That seems insignificant, Phil.”

  “No, it’s not. The FBI guy asked me where the dump valves could be sabotaged and I told him the center access compartment. Someone was in there, Colt, and didn’t close the door properly. How did I not put this together? I’ve got to call this guy right now.”

  Phil dug a card out of his briefcase, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed.

  “Mr. White, this is Phil James in Tech Ops. We talked yesterday about the dump valves. I think I might have something interesting.”

  Phil listened and then answered, “Yes sir, I’m in the same room right now.”

  He punched the phone off and said, “He’s downstairs. He’ll be here in two minutes. You better stay for this, Colt.”

  Phil dialed Jake Smith, the vice president of Technical Operations, and told him what he had discovered.

  “Jake is on his way too.”

  Ed White, Gene Clark, and Jake Smith arrived at the same time. Phil introduced Colt and then explained what they had found.

  “When we talked yesterday about where the dump system could be compromised, I said the center access compartment would be the place. Colt and I were just going over notes and remembered that the crew made a verbal request to close the access door. Someone was in there between the time the previous flight arrived and the time Flight Eleven departed. There were no scheduled maintenance functions that would require entry to the compartment.”

  Ed White said, “Now we’re getting somewhere. Jake, how can we find out who it was in there?”

  “Well, there was only one mechanic that worked on the airplane, and he just did a routine service check. There would be no reason for him to go in there, but he might have seen someone else around the airplane while he was doing the check.”

  “Are there any surveillance cameras in that area?”

  “The only ones are on top of the terminal. I don’t think they would show anything, but we’ll pull the tapes and see.”

  Ed said, “Okay, we may have to interview everyone that worked that concourse on Wednesday.”

  “Actually, the airplane came in on day shift and left on afternoon shift,” Jake said, “It could have been anyone on either shift.”

  “Right. There might be a simple explanation, but we need to find out. I guess the easy place to start is with the mechanic who worked on the airplane.”

  “Well, day shift is working now. Do you want me to get him over here, or do you want to go there?”

  “I think it would be best to do it here. I’d like to get him out of his comfort zone and see how he reacts. I’m going to need to talk to all the mechanics on day shift, so you might bring a group over together.”

  “How about five at a time so we can stay in business?”

  “That’s fine, but bring the guy who signed the logbook in the first group. I’ll need personnel files on all of them.”

  “All right, I’ll get you an interview room and the files you need. The first group should be here in half an hour.”

  Ed said, “Gentlemen, we can not have one word of this leave this room. If I find out someone is running his mouth, you’ll answer to interfering with a federal investigation.”

  Colt smiled. “Thanks for inviting me over, Phil.”

  The line maintenance foreman called five mechanics into the office, including Ray Slackman.

  “Men, you have been invited over to headquarters to tell the powers that be what you know about ship 826. Don’t feel special. Everybody on day shift and afternoon shift is going over, five at a time. When you’re finished, get back over here. I don’t want to have flight delays because you guys are lounging around headquarters. There’s a security van outside waiting to give you a ride.”

  Ray became tense for a moment, then relaxed when he knew everyone was being interviewed. He had made it through yesterday and spent several hours in the Cavu last night thinking things through. There was absolutely no way they could tie him to anything. The airplane was at the bottom of the ocean, and so was all the evidence. All he had to do was stay cool and tell a consistent story.

  The security van was cleared across the runway and went straight to the headquarters building without having to leave the property, making the ride a short one. The mechanics joked about spending as much time as possible doing the interviews because there was a nasty brake job scheduled this morning, and they wanted nothing to do with it. Ray thought to himself that he would gladly do the brake job if he could get this over with quickly.

  Ed White and Jake Smith waited in the interview room and thought about how the interviews should be handled. Ed said, “I don’t want you to think that I have a suspect, because I don’t, but this Slackman guy has an interesting file. I don’t want him in here first. Let’s place him third in line and give him a chance to relax.”

  “You’re the boss, Ed. Why do you think he has an interesting file?”

  “Several things. He transferred here from Dallas but not voluntarily. He is divorced, possibly because of the transfer. I did some checking and found that his ex-wife had to obtain a restraining order against him because of threats he made toward her. He has elected not to stay at Tri Con as an Aero Mech employee, which means that now he and Tri Con are divorcing too, possibly generating the same animosity he felt for his ex-wife. None of these facts implicate him at all, but I see interesting parallels that I want to probe.”

  “Ed, half the employees at Tri Con are divorced, some of them more than once. And a lot of mechanics are not going with Aero Mech. I can’t really blame them.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just always like to look at people who have no investment to lose, and this guy fits that profile. Humor me.”

  “Okay, I’ll get the first guy in here for you. Good luck.”

  Ray waited with the other mechanics while the first one was interviewed. They were all anxious to question him when he came out. He told them that the guy asking questions was an FBI agent, but the questions were just routine stuff.

  “He seems nice enough. They just want to know if we saw anything or heard anything, that’s all.”

  Ray didn’t like the FBI connection, but he could easily say he didn’t see or hear anything. This should be easy. When the second mechanic came out, he reported the same thing. Then Ray was called into the interview room.

  “Good morning, Mr. Slackman. My name is Ed White. I’m a special agent with the FBI, and I won’t take much of your time today. We’re just doing a routine follow-up on the accident.”

  Ray shook his hand. “No problem. I’m glad to help.”

  Ed watched as Ray sat down and crossed his arms on his chest. His posture, along with the thick beard and long hair seemed to make the statement, “I’m not a big guy, but I can hang with anybody.”

  Ed decided to enhance that attitude for him.

  “You know, talking to you guys this morning makes me realize just how technical and important your work is. I can’t imagine most people having the knowledge and skill to meet the requirements, not to mention the responsibility.”

  Ray uncrossed his arms and visibly relaxed. He puffed his chest up a little bit and said, “I’ve been doing it a long time, and if you know what you’re doing, the responsibility is not a big burden.”

  “Even so, I admire what you do. Have you been in Atlanta your entire career?”

  “No, I’m originally from Dal
las. I’ve been here almost two years.”

  “Man, it’s a pain to move, isn’t it? I’ve had to do it twice with the FBI. I wish they’d leave me alone and let me stay in one place. My old lady threatens to cut me loose every time they transfer me.”

  “I hear that. My wife stayed in Dallas when I transferred, and we eventually divorced.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it worked out for you. I guess being a single guy in Atlanta is not the worst social circumstance to have to endure, especially with an important position like yours.”

  Ray smiled.

  “I enjoy my time off.”

  “Most guys would envy you. Well, I guess I should earn my pay from your tax dollars, sir, and I know you need to get back to your duties. Were you working on Wednesday?”

  “Sure. I did a full day shift.”

  “Did you see ship 826 at all?”

  “Absolutely. I did a complete service check on it.”

  “No kidding? That’s great. What’s a service check?”

  Ed had a copy of the service check in his briefcase, and it had Ray’s initials all over it, but he let him ramble on and on about how important the service check was and why everything had to be perfect before Ray would sign his name in the logbook.

  “Wow. That must take all day to check that many things on an airplane. Did you have any help?”

  “Nah, I do service checks by myself all the time. The boss knows I’m good at it.”

  “Man, it must be tough crawling in and out of all those compartments and wheel wells, checking everything out, especially on a big airplane like that. How do you get up there to see all those things on the outside?”

  “Oh, it’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing. Most of it is done in the cockpit, and if there are no problems, you just walk around the outside and do a visual inspection. If you do have to check something out, we have tall wooden stepladders that reach the belly of the plane and give access to the accessory compartments.”

  “What in the world is an accessory compartment?”

  Ray laughed.

  “You have to go in through a door in the belly and inside is where all the black boxes are installed. We do a lot of our troubleshooting in there if a system has problems.”

  “Well, I certainly hope you didn’t have to do anything like that all by yourself on ship 826.”

  “Nah, I didn’t find any problems at all on the service check. I did a thorough walk-around inspection and everything looked perfectly normal. No need to open anything up.”

  “Sure sounds like they had the right guy on the job, Mr. Slackman. If there was a problem, I’m sure you would have found it. You know, I don’t understand all this technical stuff about airplanes like you do. They just sent me over here to fill squares, but with experts like yourself taking care of the airplanes, it seems impossible for an accident like this to happen.”

  Ray said, “Well, safety is always my first priority, but you can only do so much. Then it’s up to the pilots, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I guess everybody has to do their job for things to work out right. You know, I’ve never talked to a pilot. What’s it like working with those guys?”

  “Some are better than others. I’ve never really understood why they pay them so much. When the airplane has a problem, they have no clue how to fix it, but they always expect us to repair it in five minutes.”

  “I guess it puts you under a lot of pressure sometimes, since everybody wants to leave on schedule. One of the other guys told me that some of the management folks don’t understand what mechanics go through either.”

  “That’s for sure. Most of them just look at the bottom line and judge everything by that. They don’t understand how much we affect profit or loss.”

  “Speaking of that, I guess I should let you get back to work. I wish we had more time to talk, because I enjoy learning new things from people who know their stuff.”

  Ed stood up and they shook hands. “Thank you for coming over, Mr. Slackman. You’ve been a big help.”

  “No problem, just part of my job.”

  “Oh, one other thing. Did you see anybody else around the airplane on Wednesday?”

  “Sure, there were a lot of people around all day.”

  “Did you see anybody that shouldn’t have been there, or anybody doing anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No, everything seemed normal to me.”

  “Okay. Thanks again.”

  Ray joined the other mechanics outside the interview room and thought to himself how much fun it would be to explain to them how he had outsmarted the FBI, as well as Tri Con. When they asked him how it went, he restrained himself, assumed a confident posture, and said, “No big deal.”

  Jake Smith walked back into the interview room and asked, “What do you think?”

  Ed answered, “I think Mr. Slackman has some issues with feelings of inadequacy and resentment. I’m sure you’ve heard of the ‘Little man complex.’” He had plenty of opportunity, he has the knowledge and possibly the motivation to do the deed. I may want to revisit him later.”

  The interviews continued with the other two mechanics in the group. In addition to the routine discussion, Ed slipped a few subtle questions in about their co-workers in general and Ray in particular.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tom Hanes, the vice president of flight operations, walked into the family room and all conversation ceased. The normal briefing had occurred just fifteen minutes before, and everyone knew there must be new information if he was back so soon. Colt had returned to be with the relatives, as he promised, and was talking with them individually and answering questions. Tom stopped at the front of the room, and everyone listened expectantly. Some were afraid of what he might have to say.

  “Folks, I have some news, and I hope for once I may report this before the news media. The USS Karuk, the navy ship we have been waiting so patiently for, has finally arrived on station. The ship began a search pattern and within hours discovered items in the water that have been positively identified as being from our Flight Eleven. In my estimation, this is good news, because we know now that the search is being concentrated in the proper location. I wish I had more to tell you, but I’m afraid that’s all I know for now.”

  Colt spoke up.

  “For God’s sake, Tom, don’t you think we’d like to know what they found?”

  “Oh, of course, I’m sorry. They recovered a meal carrier that still had meals in it and a passenger’s suitcase. The carrier had Tri Con’s name on it, and the bag had a Tri Con tag attached. Hopefully they will find more soon, and I’ll come straight back as soon as I hear more.”

  Tom’s cell phone chirped, and he answered it and walked out of the room.

  Mr. Fowler said, “That was cryptic, wasn’t it? Tell us what it means, Captain Adams.”

  The room’s attention focused on Colt. He had become their source of hope and inspiration.

  “I personally think this is good news, and it gives us reason for optimism. The fact that the suitcase, and especially the meal carrier, was found intact leads me to believe that the airplane made a controlled landing. They made no mention of charring, which means there’s no evidence of fire. The food carriers are normally stored in the galleys, and the fact that it was found floating intact tells me that there is a good chance someone opened a galley door. That hopefully means a raft was launched, and we will find survivors. I freely admit that everything I’m telling you is speculation, but I certainly don’t see bad news in any of this.”

  Mr. Fowler said, “I agree with Captain Adams, and I for one am glad to at least see progress being made.”

  Someone turned the TV volume up as the breaking news icon was shown. The anchorwoman was just beginning to speak

  .

  “We have just received new information from our sources at the Department of Defense. The US Navy has recovered wreckage from the Tri Con crash in the Atlantic. We can’t confirm exact
ly what has been recovered, and our source will not confirm or deny that the floating bodies reported earlier have been picked up. The bodies were spotted by reconnaissance aircraft earlier, and the number of fatalities has not been released. Eyewitnesses saw the Tri Con jumbo jet burning as it crashed into the sea more than twenty-four hours ago. There has been no evidence of survivors among the two hundred and eight passengers and crew aboard the doomed jetliner. We talked to a Tri Con official earlier today, who wishes to remain anonymous, and his comment was quote, ‘It doesn’t look good.’ Now let’s go to our reporter at the Tri Con terminal.”

  “We’re here with the families of the crash victims aboard Tri Con Flight Eleven. We’re talking to Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlin, whose ten-year-old daughter, Amanda, was a passenger on the flight. Thank you for talking to us Mrs. Chamberlin. What news have you heard from Tri Con this morning?”

  “Tri Con has been very nice to us, but we have not been provided any information about Amanda. We appreciate the airline providing rooms for us at the Hilton, but we want to know when our Mandy will come home. We ask that everyone pray for our daughter’s safe return.”

  “Well, folks as you can see, there is a somber mood here among the victims’ families. We send you back to the studio now.”

  The camera scene shifted back to the anchor desk, and the anchorwoman pointing to someone off-camera and shouting, “Yes, the Airport Hilton. Get a crew over there right now.” She saw the red light on the camera and smiled sweetly. “In other developments, we have learned that the FBI is interviewing a number of people in connection with the crash. We will bring you more information on their investigation as we get it. Stay tuned for late breaking news on this and other stories as the day goes on.”

  Colt said, “Here’s where they make money on tragedy: the higher the ratings, the higher the advertising dollars. You might be interested to know there will be no Tri Con ads for a couple of weeks. All airlines pull their ads for a while after a crash. I suppose it’s counterproductive to tell people how great you are with all the networks making you look as negligent as possible. Now we can look forward to the news crews harassing the families at the Hilton tonight. I hope someone sues them, and I hope all of you now realize the vagueness of their official reports. I promise you the Tri Con official they interviewed was a bag smasher.”