Within the Newsline offices Shenk was known as the Critic, for the harsh way he shot down proposed segments. Walking around the office, Shenk adopted an affable air, playing the grand old man. But all that changed when he listened to a proposal. Then he became dangerous. Dick Shenk was well educated and smart-very smart-and he could be charming when he wanted to. But at bottom he was mean. He had grown meaner with age, cultivating his nasty streak, regarding it as a key to his success.

Now she was going to take a proposal in to him. She knew Shenk would want a story badly. But he would also be angry about Pacino, angry about Marty, and his anger could quickly turn against Jennifer, and her proposed segment.

To avoid his anger, to sell him this segment, she would have to proceed carefully. She would have to fashion the story into a shape that, more than anything else, gave vent to Dick Shenk's hostility and anger, and turned it in a useful direction. She reached for a notepad, and began to sketch the outlines of what she would say.

Casey got into the elevator in Administration, Richman following her. "I don't understand," he said. "Why is everybody so angry with King?"

"Because he's lying," Casey said. "He knows the aircraft didn't come within five hundred feet of the Pacific Ocean. Everybody'd be dead if it did. The incident happened at thirty-seven thousand feet. At most the aircraft dropped three or four thousand feet. That's bad enough."

"So? He's getting attention. Making the case for his client He knows what he's doing."

"Yes, he does."

"Hasn't Norton settled out of court with him in the past?"

"Three times," she said.

Richman shrugged. "If you have a strong case, take him to trial."

"Yes," Casey said. "But trials are very expensive, and the publicity doesn't do us any good. It's cheaper to settle, and just add the cost of his greenmail to the price of our aircraft. The carriers pay that price, and pass it on to the customer. So in the end, every airline passenger pays a few dollars extra for their ticket, in a hidden tax. The litigation tax. The Bradley King tax. That's how it works in the real world."

The doors opened, and they came out on the fourth floor. She hurried down the corridor toward her department.

"Where are we going now?' Richman said. 'To get something important mat I forgot all about." She looked at him. "And you did, too."

Jennifer Malone headed toward Dick Shenk's office. On the way, she passed his Wall of Fame, a tight arrangement of photographs, plaques, and awards. The photographs showed intimate moments with the rich and famous: Shenk riding horses with Reagan; Shenk on a yacht with Cronkite; Shenk in a Southampton softball game with Tisch; Shenk with Clinton; Shenk with Ben Bradlee. And in the far corner, a photograph of an absurdly young Shenk with shoulder-length hair, an Arriflex mounted on his shoulder, filming John Kennedy in the Oval Office.

Dick Shenk had begun his career in the sixties as a scrappy documentary producer, back in the days when the news divisions were prestige loss leaders for the networks- autonomous, handsomely budgeted, and lavishly staffed. Those were the great days of the CBS White Papers and NBC Reports. Back then, when Shenk was a kid running around with an Arri, he was in the world, getting real stuff that mattered. With age and success, Shenk's horizons had narrowed. His world was now limited to his weekend house in Connecticut and his brownstone in New York. If he went anywhere else, it was in a limousine. But despite his privileged upbringing, his Yale education, his beautiful ex-wives, his comfortable existence, and his worldly success, Shenk at sixty was dissatisfied with his life. Riding around in his limousine, he felt unappreciated: not enough recognition, not enough respect for his accomplishments. The questing kid with the camera had aged into a querulous and bitter adult. Feeling he had been denied respect himself, Shenk in turn denied it to others-adopting a pervasive cynicism toward everything around him. And that was why, she felt certain, he would buy her frame on the Norton story.

Jennifer entered the outer office, stopped by Marian's desk. "Going to see Dick?" Marian said. "Is he in?"

She nodded. "You want company?" "Do I need it?" Jennifer said, raising an eyebrow. "Well," Marian said "He's been drinking." "It's okay," Jennifer said. "I can handle him."

Dick Shenk listened to her, eyes closed, fingers pressed together to make a steeple. From time to time, he nodded slightly as she spoke.

She ran through the proposed segment, hitting all the beats: the Miami incident, the JAA certification story, the Trans-Pacific flight, the jeopardized China sale. The former FAA expert who says the plane has a long history of uncorrected design problems. The aviation reporter who says the company is mismanaged, drugs and gang activity on the factory floor, a controversial new president, trying to boost flagging sales. Portrait of a once-proud company in trouble.

The way to frame the piece, she said, was Rot Beneath the Surface. She laid it out: badly run company makes a shoddy product for years. Knowledgeable people complain, but the company never responds. FAA is in bed with the company and won't force the issue. Now, at last, the truth comes out. The Europeans balk at certification; the Chinese have cold feet; the plane continues to kill passengers, just as critics said it would. And there's tape, riveting tape, showing the agonies passengers went through as several died. At the close, it's obvious to all: the N-22 is a deathtrap.

She finished. There was a long moment of silence. Then Shenk opened his eyes.

"Not bad," he said.

She smiled.

"What's the company's response?" he asked, in a lazy voice.

"Stonewall. The plane's safe; the critics are lying."

"Just what you'd expect," Shenk said, shaking his head. "American stuff is so shitty." Dick drove a BMW; his tastes ran to Swiss watches, French wines, English shoes. "Everything this country makes is crap," he said. He slumped back in his chair, as if fatigued by the thought. Then his voice became lazy again, thoughtful: "But what can they offer as proof?"

"Not much," Jennifer said. "The Miami and Transpacific incidents are still under investigation."

"Reports due when?"

"Not for weeks."

"Ah." He nodded slowly. "I like it. I like it very much. It's compelling journalism-and it beats the shit out of 60 Minutes. They did unsafe airplane parts last month. But we're talking about a whole unsafe aircraft! A deathtrap. Perfect! Scare the hell out of everybody."

"I think so, too," she said. She was smiling broadly now. He had bought it!

"And I'd love to stick it to Hewitt," Dick said. Don Hewitt, the legendary producer of 60 Minutes, was Shenk's nemesis. Hewitt consistently got better press than Shenk, which rankled. 'Those jerkoffs," he said. "Remember when they did their hard-hitting segment on off-season golf pros?"

She shook her head. "Actually, no…"

"It was a while back," Dick said. He got fuzzy for a moment, staring into space, and it was clear to her that he had been drinking heavily at lunch. "Never mind. Okay, where are we? You got the FAA guy, you got the reporter, you got tape of Miami. The peg is the home video, we lead with that."

"Right," she said, nodding.

"But CNN is going to run it day and night," he said. "By next week, it'll be ancient history. We have to go with this story Saturday."

"Right," she said.

"You got twelve minutes," he said. He spun in his chair, looked at the colored strips on the wall, representing the segments in production, where the talent was going to be. "And you got uh, Marty. He's doing Bill Gates in Seattle on Thursday; we'll shuttle him to LA Friday. You'll have him six, seven hours."