She drove through acres of parking lots to Gate 7, pausing at the barrier while security checked her badge. As always, she felt a lift driving into the plant, with its three-shift energy, the yellow tugs hauling bins of parts. It wasn't a factory so much as a small city, with its own hospital, newspaper, and police force. Sixty thousand people had worked here when she first came to the company. The recession had trimmed that to thirty thousand, but the plant was still huge, covering sixteen square miles. Here they built the N-20, the narrow-body twinjet; the N-22, the widebody; and the KC-22, the Air Force fuel tanker. She could see the principal assembly buildings, each more than a mile in length.
She headed for the glass Administration building, in the center of the plant. Pulling into her parking space, she left the engine running. She saw a young man, looking collegiate in a sport coat and tie, khaki slacks, and penny loafers. The kid waved diffidently as she got out of the car.
Chapter 2
BLDG 64
6:45 A.M.
"Bob Richman," he said. "I'm your new assistant." His handshake was polite, reserved. She couldn't remember which side of the Norton family he was from, but she recognized the type. Plenty of money, divorced parents, an indifferent record at good schools, and an unshakable sense of entitlement.
"Casey Singleton," she said. "Get in. We're late."
"Late," Richman said, as he climbed into the car. "It's not even seven."
"First shift starts at six," Casey said. "Most of us in QA work the factory schedule. Don't they do that at GM?"
"I wouldn't know," he said. "I was in Legal."
"Spend any time on the floor?"
"As little as possible."
Casey sighed. It was going to be a long six weeks with this guy, she thought. "You've been over in Marketing so far?"
"Yeah, a few months." He shrugged. "But selling isn't really my thing."
She drove south toward Building 64, the huge structure where the widebody was built. Casey said, "By the way, what do you drive?"
"A BMW," Richman said.
"You might want to trade it in," she said, "for an American car."
"Why? It's made here."
"It's assembled here," she said. "It's not made here. The value's added overseas. The mechanics in the plant know the difference; they're all UAW. They don't like to see a Beamer in the parking lot."
Richman stared out the window. "What are you saying, something might happen to it?'
"Guaranteed," she said. "These guys don't screw around."
"I'll think about it," Richman said He suppressed a yawn. "Jesus, it's early. What are we rushing to?"
"The IRT. It's been pushed up to seven," she said.
'The Incident Review Team. Every time something happens to one of our planes, the IRT meets to figure out what happened, and what we should do about it"
"How often do you meet?'
"Roughly every two months."
"That often," the kid said.
You 're going to have to start him from the beginning.
"Actually," Casey said, "two months is pretty infrequent. We have three thousand aircraft in revenue service around the world. With that many birds in the air, things happen. And we're serious about customer support. So every morning we hold a conference call with the service reps around the world. They report everything that caused a dispatch delay the day before. Most of it's minor stuff: a lav door jammed; a cockpit light failed. But we track it in QA, do a trend analysis, and pass that on to Product Support."
"Uh-huh . . ." He sounded bored.
"Then," Casey said, "once in a while, we hit a problem that warrants an IRT. It has to be serious, something that affects flight safety. Apparently we've got one today. If Marder's pushed the meeting up to seven, you can bet it's not a bird strike."
"Marder?"
"John Marder was the program manager for the widebody, before he became chief operating officer. So it's probably an incident involving the N-22."
She pulled over and parked in the shadow of Building 64.
The gray hangar loomed above them, eight stories high and nearly a mile long. The asphalt in front of the building was strewn with disposable earplugs, which the mechanics wore so they wouldn't go deaf from the rivet guns.
They walked through the side doors and entered an interior corridor that ran around the perimeter of the building. The corridor was dotted with food dispensers, in clusters a quarter of a mile apart Richman said, "We got time for a cup of coffee?" She shook her head. "Coffee's not allowed on the floor." "No coffee?" He groaned. "Why not? It's made overseas?" "Coffee's corrosive. Aluminum doesn't like it." Casey led Richman through another door, onto the production floor. "Jesus," Richman said.
The huge, partially assembled widebody jets gleamed under halogen lights. Fifteen aircraft in various stages of construction were arranged in two long rows under the vaulted roof. Directly ahead of them, she saw mechanics installing cargo doors in the fuselage sections. The barrels of the fuselage were surrounded by scaffolding. Beyond the fuselage stood a forest of assembly jigs - immense tools, painted bright blue. Richman walked under one of the jigs and looked up, open-mouthed. It was as wide as a house and six stories tall.
"Amazing," he said. He pointed upward at a broad flat surface. "Is that the wing?"
"The vertical stabilizer," Casey said.
"The what?"
"It's the tail, Bob."
"That's the tail' Richman said.