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The police else?"
She felt embarrassed; she mumbled thanks, and went back inside
"Make sure you lock that door, ot &039;em parked in front of my house, too," Kenny Burne said "Scared the hell out of Mary What&039;s going on, anyway? Labor negotiations aren&039;t for another two years" "I&039;ll call Marder," she said
"Everybody gets guards," Marder said, on the phone "The union threatens one of our teauards Don&039;t worry about it"
"Did you talk to Brull?" she said
"Yeah, I straightened him out But it&039;ll take a while for the word to filter down to the rank and file Until it does, everybody gets guards"
"Okay," she said
"This is a precaution," Marder said "Nothing more"
"Okay," she said
"Get so up
TUESDAY
GLENDALE
5:45 AM
She awoke uneasily, before the alarm went off She pulled on a bathrobe, walked to the kitchen to turn on the coffee, and looked out the frontThe blue sedan was still parked on the street, theher five-mile run, she needed that exercise to start her day, but decided against it She knew she shouldn&039;t feel inti chances
She poured a cup of coffee, sat in the living roo looked different to her today Yesterday, her little bungalow felt cozy; today, it felt s the ith Jih periods of labor tension in the past; she knew that the threats usually ca But it ise to be cautious One of the first lessons Casey had learned at Norton was that the factory floor was a very tough world - tougher even than the asse places where an unskilled high school graduate could earn 80,000 a year, with overti scarcer The coet those jobs, and to keep the to cost jobs, they could very well act ruthlessly to stop it
She sat with the coffee cup on her lap and realized she dreaded going to the factory But of course she had to go Casey pushed the cup away, and went into the bedroo, she saw a second sedan pull up behind the first As she drove down the street, the first car pulled out, following her
So Marder had ordered two sets of guards One to watch her house, and one to follow her
Things ht
She drove into the plant with an uncharacteristic feeling of unease First shift had already started; the parking lots were full, acres and acres of cars The blue sedan stayed right behind her as Casey pulled up to the security guard at Gate 7 The guard waved her through and, by sonal, allowed the blue sedan to follow directly, without putting the barrier down The sedan stayed behind her until she parked at her spot in Aduards leaned out the"Have a nice day, uard waved The sedan sped off
Casey looked around at the huge gray buildings: Building 64 to the south Building 57 to the east, where the twinjet was built Building 121, the Paint Shed The ars in a row off to the west, lit by the sun rising over the San Fernando Mountains It was a familiar landscape; she&039;d spent five years here But today she was uncomfortably aware of the vast di She sao secretaries walking into the Ad No one else She felt alone
She shrugged her shoulders, shaking off her fears She was being silly, she told herself It was ti, the young prograital Information Systems, turned away froht recorder data - but there&039;s a problehed "Don&039;t tell me"
"Yeah There is"
She was not really surprised to hear it Flight data recorders rarely performed correctly In the press, these failures were explained as the consequence of crash iround at five hundred miles an hour, it see
But within the aerospace industry, the perception was different Everyone knew flight data recorders failed at a very high rate, even when the aircraft didn&039;t crash The reason was that the FAA did not require they be checked before every flight In practice, they were usually function-checked about once a year The consequence was predictable: the flight recorders rarely worked
Everybody knew about the problem: the FAA, the NTSB, the airlines, and the manufacturers Norton had conducted a study a few years back, a random check of DFDRs in active service Casey had been on that study committee They&039;d found that only one recorder in six worked properly
Why the FAA wouldthat they be in working order before each flight, was a frequent subject of late-night discussion in aerospace bars fro Beach The cynical vieas thatFDRs were in everybody&039;s interest In a nation besieged by rabid lawyers and a sensational press, the industry saw little advantage to providing an objective, reliable record of what had gone wrong
"We&039;re doing the best we can, Casey," Rob Wong said "But the flight recorder data is ano what?"
"It looks like the number-three bus blew about twenty hours before the incident, so the frame syncs are out on the subsequent data"
"The frame syncs?"
"Yeah See, the FDR records all the paraet a reading for, say, airspeed, and then you get another reading four blocks later Airspeed readings should be continuous across the frames If they&039;re not, the fraht I&039;ll show you"
He turned to the screen, pressing keys "Norenerate the airplane in&039; tri-axis There&039;s the plane, ready to go"
A wire-frae of the Norton N-22 widebody appeared on the screen As she watched, the wire frame filled in, until it took on the appearance of an actual aircraft in flight
"Okay, noe feed it your flight recorder data"
The airplane seemed to ripple It vanished froain, and when it reappeared the left as separated frorees, while the rest of the airplane rolled to the right Then the tail vanished The entire plane vanished, reappeared again, vanished again
"See, theto draw the aircraft," Rob said, "but it keeps hitting discontinuities The wing data doesn&039;t fit the fuse data which doesn&039;t fit the tail data So it breaks up"
"What do we do?" she said
"Resync the fra? Marder&039;s on my back"
"It could be a while, Casey The data&039;s pretty bad What about the QAR?"
"There isn&039;t one"
"Well, if you&039;re really stuck, I&039;d take this data to Flight Sirams there They may be able to fill in the blanks faster, and tell you what happened"
"But Rob - "
"No promises, Casey," he said "Not with this data Sorry"
BLDG 64
6:50 AM
Casey ether in the early- Rich, weren&039;t you?"
"That&039;s right," Richman said "We sure didn&039;t keep these hours"
"What did you do there?"
"Nota full court press on the China deal Very hush-hush, no outsiders allowed They threw otiation"
"Any travel?"
Richman smirked "Just personal"
"How&039;s that?" she said
"Well, since Marketing had nothing for "
"Sounds like fun Where&039;d you go?" Casey said
"You ski?" Rich outside of Gstaad is Sun Valley That&039;s my favorite You know, if you have to ski in the States"
She realized he hadn&039;t answered her question By then they had walked through the side door, into Building 64 Casey noticed the workers were openly hostile, the atmosphere distinctly chilly
"What&039;s this?" Richot rabies today?"
"Union thinks we&039;re selling the the to Shanghai I asked Marder He says no"
A Klaxon sounded, echoing through the building Directly ahead, the big yellow overhead crane cranked to life, and Casey saw the first of the huge crates containing the wing tooling rise five feet up into the air on thick cables The crate was constructed of reinforced plywood It was as broad as a house, and probably weighed five tons A dozen workers walked alongside the crate like pallbearers, hands up, steadying the load as itflatbed truck
"If Marder says no," Richman said, "then what&039;s the problem?"
"They don&039;t believe hilanced to her left, where other tools were being crated for shipe blue tools were first packed in foa and bracing was essential, she knew Because even though the tools were twenty feet in length, they were calibrated to thousandths of an inch Transporting the on the hoist
All the one
The crate was stilllaterally, ten yards from where they stood
"Uh-oh," she said
"What?" Rich hiht, toward the shelter of the scaffolding that stood beneath a partially assee Richman resisted; he didn&039;t seeoing to break loose!"
He ran Behind her, Casey heard the creak of rending plywood, and a ! as the first of the hoist cables snapped, and the giant crate began to slide froe scaffolding when she heard another twang! and the crate smashed down onto the concrete floor Slivers of plywood exploded in all directions, whistling through the air They were followed by a thunderous whomp! as the crate toppled over on its side The sound reverberated through the building
"Jesus Christ," Rich to look back at her "What was that!"
"That," she said, "is e call a job action"
Men were running forward, hazy for dust There were shouts, and calls for help TheAt the opposite side of the building, she saw Doug Doherty, shaking his head mournfully
Richman looked over his shoulder, and pulled a four-inch splinter of plywood from the back of his jacket "Jeez," he said He took the jacket off, inspected the tear, putting his finger through the hole
"That was a warning," Casey said "And they&039;ve also wrecked the tool Now it&039;ll have to be uncrated and rebuilt This means weeks of delay"
Floor supervisors in white shirts and ties ran forward into the group around the fallen crate "What happens now?" Richman said
"They&039;ll take naood There&039;ll be another incident to?" Richman said He put the jacket back on
&039;To the IRT," she said "A clear signal: Watch your backs, watch your heads We&039;ll see falling wrenches, all sorts of accidents, whenever we&039;re on the floor We&039;ll have to be careful"
Torkroup around the crate, and started walking toward Casey Onejeans and a red-checked work shirt The other was taller, and wore a baseball cap The man in the work shirt held a steel drill-press stanchion in his hand, swinging it at his side like a metal club
"Uh, Casey," Richet rattled by a couple of floor goons
The men walked steadily toward her Suddenly a supervisor appeared in front of thees Theat Casey over his head
"We won&039;t have any trouble with theone" She went back to the scaffolding, picked up her briefcase "Come on," she said to Richman "We&039;re late"
BLDG 64/IRT
7:00 AM
Chairs scraped as everyone pulled up to the Foret started We&039;re having soation Don&039;t let it get to you Keep your eye on the ball First item: weather data"
The secretary passed sheets around the room It was a report from the LA Traffic Control Center on a form marked "Federal Aviation Administration / REPORT OF AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT"
Casey read:
WEATHER DATA
CONDITIONS IN ACCIDENT AREA AT TIME OF ACCIDENT