Free Impact by Stephen Greenleaf

points. Follow-up will be provided.
    Personnel on the scene suggested that the crash may have been the result of a midair collision between the Hastings H-11 and a general aviation aircraft, possibly a Cessna 160. Markings on the upper portion of the H-11 vertical stabilizer may prove to be rubber residues from the nose wheel of the smaller aircraft. This has yet to be confirmed.
    (Two additional possibilities were suggested to me, off the record , by Ralph Hutchins. On two previous occasions, aircraft approaching SFO on this flight path have been shot at and hit by unknown gunmen. One round penetrated the fuselage of a 737 and lodged in the baggage compartment; the other punctured the aileron of a DC-9. Both aircraft landed without further incident. Also, approximately one month ago, a 727 on approach to SFO received instructions from an ersatz traffic controller, instructions that would have placed the aircraft at risk had the pilot not recognized them as bogus. The cockpit voice recorder will presumably reveal whether this transpired on flight 617.)
    In subsequent reports I will inform as to the disposition of the wreckage (current price of scrap—$650 per ton; initial cost of the H-11—$25,000,000), the personal effects of the passengers, and the preliminary findings of the NTSB Red Team. Because of inadequate lighting and constant interference from police personnel, videotapes made by me are of limited utility. Editing and picture augmentation may improve quality, and such steps will be undertaken at your request.
    F. Raymond Livingood
    Chief Investigator
    Aviation Investigations, Inc.

THREE
    It is one of the ironies of his life that in order to make his living proving that airlines are often negligent and aircraft frequently defective, Alec Hawthorne must spend fifty days a year using the instrument of travel whose inadequacies he knows best. Although the dilemma is old hat by now, he can’t suppress his expertise. The glistening wide-body that carries him across the Atlantic is a miracle of engineering, but it is heir to a legacy of jumbo failures that pecks persistently at his mind—tires blowing, lavatories burning, doors exploding, engines failing, landing gear collapsing, bulkheads buckling, flaps retracting—to say nothing of the more mundane foul-ups that plague aircraft of any size.
    Hawthorne stuffs a deposition transcript back in his bulging briefcase, reclines in his seat, and closes his eyes. Washington is less than an hour away. Dulles, the long ride into the city, suite at the Mayflower, dinner with Lame-duck Langston at the Cosmos Club. A busy schedule, but time in between for—what? Surely somewhere within the federal bureaucracy there is someone … yes. The woman from the San Diego case. The staff attorney with the FAA.
    Willing, she’d made no secret of that. And able, he would wager. They were always able these days. What was her name? … Something incongruous. Christian. That was it. Molly Christian. GS-18 and rising. He’d call her the minute he got in. From the limo. They were always impressed when he called them from the limo. His sex life thrived on the cellular phone.
    It would be nice to be with someone more enthusiastic than Martha for a change. Bedding Martha was like tying your tie—nice, but no big deal. Not that Martha would mind if he dallied with someone else: He had done it often, with her knowledge; occasionally, at her urging. Martha would no doubt relish the night off.
    He flies through a cloud of eroticism until his anticipation fades. Molly Christian would almost certainly have left the FAA—San Diego was ten years ago. By now she’d be with a legal factory that peddled influence instead of law and legislation, and took full advantage of Molly’s experience while advising its clients how to reduce to nil their contributions to the government that had trained her. To track her down would consume his evening, and for what?
    At