Kessler nodded. "Brown was a problem drinker though it didn't seem to
interfere with his work. The two drinks are all he had that day so far
as we can determine. He showed up for lunch at a girl friend's
apartment with a black eye. Made some joke about walking into a door
and wouldn't tell her anything else about it. She gave him the drinks
at his request, and a big lunch, and put a little makeup on his eye
because he'd been pulled from a flight a few months before when he
showed up looking as though he'd been in a scrap."
"How did he really get the black eye?"
"There you've got me. Maybe he was telling his girl friend the truth.
He had an estranged wife, incidentally, but she hadn't seen him for
years. Good riddance, she said."
Senator Brogan picked up the propeller again and rolled it
reflectively between his palms. He looked intently at Kessler.
"Nothing seems really conclusive, does it? You know some of the wild
rumors that have been going around about this crash?" Kessler nodded
and started to speak. Brogan held up his hand. "Let me finish. You
know and I know--or at least we think we do--that there's nothing to
most of these rumors. And I'm not even talking about the wilder ones,
like the little people from outer space who are knocking our airplanes
down without leaving a trace. You get three or four of these
unexplainable accidents and somebody is sure to come up with a really
crackpot idea. The general public will not be convinced that this sort
of thing can happen with no discoverable reason. Usually we have no
way of reconstructing what happened before the accident. Just a couple
of unintelligible remarks on the radio, as there were here, and then
everyone is dead, the plane is totally demolished, and witnesses on
the ground come up with ten different hysterical accounts--if there
are any witnesses at all!"
"But this was a little different, after all, senator," Kessler
interjected.
Brogan held up his hand again. "Just let me have my say. You know we
folks down here in Washington always have a lot to say and we hate
being interrupted." He smiled briefly. "This sort of thing has been
going on in aviation history for the last fifty years--these
unexplained accidents--and there's nothing especially new about this
last one. You're shaking your head, but let me continue. One of the
reasons they are now getting so much attention is that with the big
jets the loss of life is apt to be pretty appalling when an accident
does happen, but the actual number of accidents per flight--as you
well know--is far fewer than it used to be and has been going down
steadily over the years."
Kessler, slumped deep in his chair, fingers arced together before him,
stared morosely but said nothing. "Secondly," Brogan went on, "it is
not true that these accidents are happening more to American planes
than foreign ones. Again it is chiefly that we are scheduling more and
more flights. On the law of averages we are doing very well. You know
how many crashes the foreign carriers have chalked up in the last
year. And just about the same proportion are these so-called
unexplainable crashes. It's not that they are unexplainable! It's
simply that we don't have the information that would explain them! The
very circumstances preclude that. Am I making any sense?"
Kessler nodded. "Yes, senator, I suppose you are, but it doesn't make
me any happier. I want to find out why and stop them."
"So do I, I assure you. But let me finish briefly. Among the other
wild rumors are suggestions that we are being sabotaged by foreign
agents or by their tools. Well now, I'd be the last one in the
world--you know my record--to deny the possibility of some folks doing
this if they thought they could get away with it. If I thought for one
moment--or if I thought that you thought for one moment--that there
was some international sabotage going on here, I'd say go on with your
investigation till you get the answer!"
Brogan flung himself back dramatically in his big chair, throwing out
his arms. "Meanwhile, what are you accomplishing? You've spent--and I
happen to know this for a fact--almost a million dollars on this
investigation. By your own account you have personally talked to two
thousand people about it! You have kept this accident in the public
eye and given it far greater importance than it deserves--through no
malicious fault of your own, to be sure! But what have you got?
Nothing. Exactly what I came up with. Nothing. Tell me, for example,
where you got with the political possibilities of this thing. I know
you didn't overlook it!"
Kessler smiled wearily. "Just about everything you say is true,
George. Only, you see, I would probably never have ended up running
this investigation if I were the sort of person that comes up with a
question mark for an answer. I said 'human error' in my report, but
that doesn't satisfy me. I want to know what human error. I don't
think anything happens without a reason. Somehow I feel that it's all
there, the answer, in those couple of million details we've pieced
together about the plane and the crew and the passengers and it's
staring me in the face if I could only see it."
"I agree with you." Brogan raised his hand again in his imperious
gesture then dropped it to the desk. "No. I asked to have my say. Now
you have yours." He sat patiently.
* * * * *
Kessler grinned. "Thanks, senator. As for the political sabotage
possibilities, you've undoubtedly seen a copy of my confidential
report. Three of the passengers had definite subversive connections in
the past. I know, I'm not trying to make much of this. Their
associations all date back to the 1930s and one of them was just a
girl flirting with a Communist fellow student, but we didn't want to
overlook any possibilities. Pearlow, on the other hand, was Russian
born. He's the one who barely survived another airline crash three
years ago."
"Pearlow was perfectly loyal. Just an ironic coincidence, that's all.
I know the papers tried to make something out of it but I find it hard
to believe that you took it seriously. As for Stepowski, he testified
openly about his past here in Washington five years ago."
"I know. I even know that Stepowski's favorite television program was
'I Led Three Lives.' I tell you there's very little I don't know about
anybody who was aboard, with one possible exception."