Razing Beijing: A Thriller Read Free Page A

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