"How do you want to handle the wrap?" he said.
"You've got to cover it both ways, Marty."
"I mean do we win, or what?"
"Cover it both ways to be sure."
Reardon looked down at his feet again. "As the aircraft lands, the team is jubilant. Happy faces all around. The flight is successful. Norton has made its point. At least for now." He took a breath. "As the aircraft lands, the team is muted. Norton is devastated. The deadly controversy over the N-22 continues to rage." He looked up. "Enough?"
She said, "You better give me an on-camera about the controversy continues to rage. We can close with that."
"Good idea."
Marty always thought it was a good idea for him to appear on camera. He stood erect, set his jaw, and faced the camera.
"Here, in this building where the N-22 is built, no ... Behind me is the building where ... no. Hold on." He shook his head, faced the camera again.
"And yet, the bitter controversy over the N-22 will not die. Here, in this building where the aircraft is made, workers are confident that it is a safe, reliable aircraft. But critics of the N-22 remain unconvinced. Will there be another harvest of death in the skies? Only time will tell. This is Martin Reardon, for Newsline, Burbank, California."
He blinked.
'Too corny? Too much on the money?"
"Great, Marty."
He was already unclipping his mike, removing the radio pack from his belt. He pecked Jennifer on the cheek. "I'm out of here," he said, and sprinted to the waiting car.
Jennifer turned to her crew. "Pack up, guys," she said. "We're going to Arizona."
SATURDAY
NORTON TEST FACILITY YUMA, ARIZONA
4:45 A.M.
A thin streak of red was starting to appear behind the flat range of the Gila Mountains to the east. The sky overhead was deep indigo, a few stars still visible. The air was very cold; Casey could see her breath. She zipped up her windbreaker and stamped her feet, trying to stay warm.
On the runway, lights shone up at the Transpacific wide-body, as the FT team finished installing the video cameras. There were men on the wings, around the engines, by the landing gear.
The Newsline crew was already out, filming the preparations. Malone stood alongside Casey, watching them. "Jesus it's cold," she said.
Casey went into the Right Test Station, a low Spanish-style bungalow beside the tower. Inside, the room was filled with monitors, each displaying the feed from a single camera. Most of the cameras were focused on specific parts - she found the camera on the right locking pin - and so the room had a technical, industrial feeling. It was not very exciting.
"This isn't what I expected," Malone said.
Casey pointed around the room. "There's the cockpit. High mount down. Cockpit, facing back at the pilot. You see Rawley there, in the chair. The interior cabin, looking aft Interior cabin, looking forward. Looking out on right wing. The left wing, Those are your main interiors. And we'll also have the chase plane."
"Chase plane?"
"An F-14 fighter follows the widebody all through the flight, so we'll have those cameras, too."
Malone frowned. "I don't know," she said, in a disappointed voice. "I thought it would be more, you know, glitzy."
"We're still on the ground."
Malone was frowning, unhappy. "These angles on the cabin," she said. "Who will be in there, during the flight?"
"Nobody."
"You mean the seats will be empty?"
"Right. It's a test flight."
"That isn't going to look very good," Malone said.
"But that's how it is on a test flight," Casey said. "This is how it's done."
"But it doesn't look good," Malone said. "This isn't compelling. There should be people in the seats. At least, in some of them. Can't we put some people on board? Can't I go on board?"
Casey shook her head. "It's a dangerous flight," she said. "The airframe was badly stressed by the accident. We don't know what will happen."
Malone snorted. "Oh, come on. There aren't any lawyers here. How about it?"
Casey just looked at her. She was a foolish kid who knew nothing about the world, who was just interested in a look, who lived for appearances, who skimmed over surfaces. She knew she should refuse.
Instead, she heard herself say, "You won't like it."
"You're telling me it's not safe?"
"I'm telling you that you won't like it."
"I'm going on," Malone said. She looked at Casey, her expression an open challenge. "So: How about you?'
In her mind, Casey could hear Marty Reardon's voice, as he said, Despite her repeated insistence that the N-22 was safe, Norton's own spokesperson, Casey Singleton, refused to board the plane for the flight test. She said that the reason she wouldn't fly on it was...
What?
Casey didn't have an answer, at least not an answer that would work for television. Not an answer that would play. And suddenly the days of strain, the effort to try and solve the incident, the effort to contrive an appearance for television, the effort to make sure she didn't say a single sentence that could be taken out of context, the distortion of everything in her life for this unwarranted intrusion of television, made her furious. She knew exactly what was coming. Malone had seen the videos, but she didn't understand they were real.
"Okay," Casey said. "Let's go."
They went out to the plane.
ABOARD TPA 545
5:05 A.M.
Jennifer shivered: it was cold inside the airplane, and under fluorescent lights, the rows of empty seats, the long aisles, made it seem even colder. She was faintly shocked when she recognized, in places, the damage that she had seen on the videotape. This was where it happened, she thought. This was the plane. There were still bloody footprints on the ceiling. Broken luggage bins. Dented fiberglass panels. And a lingering odor. Even worse, in some places the plastic panels had been pulled off around the windows, so that she could see the naked silver padding, the bundles of wires. It was suddenly all too clear that she was in a big metal machine. She wondered if she had made a mistake, but by then Singleton was gesturing for her to take a seat, right in the front of the center cabin, facing a locked-down video camera.