The associated equipment package was a maintenance sub-grouping of related parts that had to be checked whenever a faulty part was detected. For example, if seals on the right fuel lines were found to be worn, it was standard practice to check’ seals on the left side as well, since they were part of the associated equipment package.
Changing the slats locking pin had triggered a maintenance check of associated equipment.
But which equipment?
She knew the associated equipment packages were specified by Norton. But she couldn’t pull up the list on her office computer. To do that, she would have to go back to the terminal on the floor.
She pushed away from her desk.
BLD6 64
2:40 p.m.
Building 64 was nearly deserted, the widebody line seemingly abandoned between shifts. There was a one-hour delay between first and second shifts, because it took that long for the parking lots to clear. First shift ended at 2:30 p.m. Second shift started at 3:30.
This was the time that Jerry Jenkins had said she should examine the records because there wouldn’t be an audience. She had to admit he was right. There was nobody around now.
Casey went directly to the parts cage, looking for Jenkins, but he wasn’t there. She saw the QA section manager, and asked where Jerry Jenkins was.
“Jerry? He went home,” the manager said.
“Why?”
“Said he wasn’t feeling good.”
Casey frowned. Jenkins shouldn’t have left until after five. She went to the terminal to bring up the information herself.
Typing at the keyboard, she soon had called up the database of associated maintenance packages. She keyed in RT SLATS LK PIN and got the answer she was looking for.
RT SLATS ERV TRK (22 / RW / 2-5455 / SLS)
RT SLATS LVR (22 / RW / 2-5769 / SLS)
RT SLATS HVD ACT (22 / RW / 2-7334 / SLS)
RT SLATS PSTN (22 / RW / 2-3444 / SLS)
RT SLATS FD CPLNG (22 / RW / 2-3445 / SLC)
RT PRX SNSR (22 / RW / 4-0212 / PRC)
RT PRX SNSR CPLNG (22 / RW / 4-0445 / PRC)
RT PRX SNSR PLT (22 / RW / 4-0343 / PRC)
RT PRX SNSR WC (22 / RW / 4-0102 / PRW)
It made sense. The associated parts package consisted of the other five elements of the slats drive track: the track, the lever, the hydraulic actuator, the piston, the forward coupling.
In addition, the list instructed mechanics to check the nearby proximity sensor, its coupling, cover plate, and wiring.
She knew Doherty had already inspected the drive track. If Amos was right, they ought to look very carefully at that proximity sensor. She didn’t think anybody had done that yet.
The proximity sensor. It was located deep in the wing. Difficult to get to. Difficult to inspect.
Could that have caused a problem?
Yes, she thought, it was possible.
She shut down the terminal and crossed the plant floor, heading back to her office. She needed to call Ron Smith, to tell him to check the sensor. She walked beneath deserted aircraft toward the open doors at the north end of the building.
As she neared the doors, she saw two men enter the hangar. They were silhouetted against the midday sunlight, but she could see that one wore a red checked shirt. And the other had on a baseball cap.
Casey turned to ask the QA floor manager to call Security. But he was gone; the wire cage stood empty. Casey looked around, and suddenly realized the floor was deserted. She saw no one except an elderly black woman at the far end of the building, pushing a broom. The woman was half a mile away.
Casey looked at her watch. It would be another fifteen minutes before people started showing up.
The two men were walking toward her.
Casey turned and started to walk away from them, heading back the way she had come. She could handle this, she thought.
Calmly, she opened her purse, pulled out her cell phone to call Security.
But the phone didn’t work. She didn’t get a signal. She realized she was in the center of the building, which was hung with copper mesh along the ceiling to block extraneous radio transmissions while the aircraft systems were being tested.
She wouldn’t be able to use her cell phone until she reached the other side of the building.
Half a mile away.
She walked faster. Her shoes clicked on the concrete. The sound seemed to echo through the building. Could she really be alone here? Of course not. There were several hundred people in the building with her, right now. It was just that she couldn’t see them. They were inside the airplanes, or standing behind the big tools around the planes. Hundreds of people, all around her. Any minute, she’d see some of them.
She glanced over her shoulder.
The men were gaining on her.
She picked up her pace, almost starting to jog, unsteady in her low heels. And she suddenly thought, This is ridiculous. I’m an executive of Norton Aircraft and I am running through this plant in the middle of the day.
She slowed to a normal walk.
She took a deep breath.
She glanced back: the men were closer now.
Should she confront them? No, she thought. Not unless other people were around.
She walked faster.
To her left was a parts staging area. Ordinarily, there would be dozens of men inside there, fetching parts kits, working the bins. But now the cage was empty. .
Deserted.
She looked over her shoulder. The men were fifty yards behind, and closing.
She knew that if she started to scream, a dozen mechanics would suddenly appear. The goons would slip away, vanishing behind tools and scaffolding, and she’d look like a fool. She’d never live it down. The girl who lost it that day on the floor.
She wouldn’t scream.
No.
Where the hell were the fire alarms? The medic alert alarms? The hazardous materials alarms? She knew they were scattered all over the building. She’d spent years working in this building. She ought to be able to remember where they were located.
She could hit one and say it was an accident…
But she saw no alarms.
The men were now thirty yards behind. If they broke into a run, they’d reach her in a few seconds. But they were being cautious—apparently they, too, expected to see people at any moment.
But she saw nobody.
On her right, she saw a forest of blue beams—the big industrial jigs that held the fuselage barrels in place, while they were riveted together. The last place she might hide.
I’m an executive of Norton Aircraft. And it’s—
The hell with it.
She turned right, ducking among the beams, scrambling through them. She passed staircases and hanging lamps. She heard the men behind her shout in surprise, and start to follow. But by then she was moving in near darkness through the girders. Moving fast.
Casey knew her way around here. She moved quickly, with assurance, always glancing up, hoping to see someone above. Usually there were twenty or thirty men at each position on the scaffolding overhead, joining the barrels in a glare of fluorescent light. Now she saw nobody.
Behind her, she heard the men grunt, heard them bang into the crossbeams, swearing.
She started to run, dodging low-hanging beams, jumping over cables and boxes, and then suddenly she came out into a clearing. Station fourteen: a plane stood on its landing gear, high above the floor. And higher still, all around the tail, she saw the hanging gardens, rising sixty feet into the air.
She looked up at the widebody, and she saw the silhouette of someone inside. Someone in the window.
Someone inside the plane.
Finally! Casey climbed the stairs to the plane, her feet clanging on the steel steps. She went two stones up, then paused to look. High above her, in the hanging gardens, she saw three burly mechanics in hard hats. They were only ten feet below the ceiling, working on the topmost hinge of the rudder; she heard the quick, sputtering buzz of power tools.
She looked down and saw the two men following her on the floor below. They broke clear of the forest of blue jigs, looked up, saw her, and started after her.
She continued up.
She reached the aft door of the plane, and ran inside. The unfinished widebody was huge and empty, a succession of dully gleaming curved arcs, like the belly of a metal whale. Halfway down, she saw a solitary Asian woman, attaching silver insulation blankets to the walls. The woman looked at Casey timidly.
“Is anybody else working here?” she said.
The woman shook her head, No. She looked frightened, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
Casey turned, ran back out the door.
Down below, she saw the men just one level beneath her.