"Ladies and gentlemen," he said quietly, letting his voice draw them in, "we have picked a tough business in which to make our livings, you and I. Don't you agree?"

No one moved. Everyone agreed.

"I look at some of these other hotshots who run businesses, and I think to myself every day, they've got it made compared to us. Think about the software business. Those guys in Silicon Valley, they've got a high-margin business, markets that are growing exponentially, new markets opening up every day, and they get to come to work in shorts and sandals." His smile let us all in on the gentle teasing. "Who couldn't make money doing that? Or take the money guys on Wall Street, investment bankers and fund managers. In a market as robust as the one we have today, they don't even have to come to work to turn a profit." He was gliding around the small space, making it look bigger than it was, stopping now and then to pick someone out of the crowd and focus his entire being on them. "But you and me, we don't have it that easy. We have this massive, complicated machine"-he opened his arms wide, as if holding the entire contraption in his own two hands-"with more moving parts than any human and most computers can comprehend. We've got weather issues, we've got scheduling issues-airplanes, pilots, and flight attendants who all have to be scheduled according to their specific labor contracts. We've got regulatory requirements, environmental requirements, and constraints of air-traffic control. And we deal with machines, so we have the ever unpredictable maintenance variable."

Heads around the room bobbed in solemn agreement.

"You're on the front lines here," he said. "You know better than anyone how every day we have to mesh it all together in a way that works best for the customers, the employees, and the shareholders. We go home every night, and every morning we have to get up and do it all over again from scratch, because we have no inventory. Am I right?"

Of course he was right. He was tapping into the mother lode of truth for these people-for any people-telling them how difficult their jobs were, how hard they worked, and how no one understood them better than he did. He could communicate with anyone on any level about anything. And he could make you agree with him. He could make you want to agree with him. That was his gift. He had the ability to find a way to lead you wherever he wanted you to go. I tried to remember that there were good reasons why we weren't together anymore. Watching him work, it was hard to think of exactly what they were.

"We don't make money in this business unless we grind it out every day, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. We do this at Majestic with more success than our competitors. How is that?"

"We're better than they are," someone yelled from the back, one of the rampers who had been unconscious for my segment.

"Are we?" Bill picked him out with his eyes and challenged him for giving the easy answer, but obviously the one he had expected. "Our planes look just like their planes, our cabins are just as crowded, and our leg room equally deficient. We don't fly any faster than they do. Why are we better?"

No one dared risk another response that didn't work. A brief pause stretched to a long one, and still no one spoke up, and still he didn't say anything. He waited until the moment when the silence was unbearable, then answered his own question.

"The way we make money, the only way anyone makes money running an airline, is by running it better," he waited a beat, "…and faster," another beat, "…and cheaper than the next guy, by demonstrating a deeper commitment to our customers, and by being nothing less than relentless when it comes to keeping our costs down. Relentless, ladies and gentlemen."

He had ended up next to the flip chart and stood there now, scanning the audience, seeing everyone and everything, letting no one off the hook. When he stopped, he was staring at me. "I'm not going to speculate on the identity of the person or persons who set off a bomb in my operation the other night," he said. "That would be a waste of time-yours and mine."

It was as if he had set off his own bomb in the crowded room. No one was moving; they might have all stopped breathing. He swept the room again with eyes that seemed darker. "And I would never accuse anyone of doing something like that deliberately. You have a fine management staff here in Boston and capable union representation, and I'm confident they will work this situation out. When I came in, your manager was talking to you about how incidents like this can affect people's jobs, people who had nothing to do with what happened. That doesn't seem right, does it?"

Every muscle in my body stiffened, down to the arches in my feet. I'd seen him too many times not to know that something was coming. I watched him walk the perimeter of his stage, moving slowly enough that everyone could see him as he passed. "I'm going to go one better." When he stopped, he was staring at Big Pete, holding eye contact as if he had his hand on the back of his scruffy neck. "If I ever find out that someone who works for me planted that bomb, that they put themselves, their fellow employees, our passengers, and our equipment at risk, I'll shut this operation down."

People turned to look at each other, to see if they'd heard what they thought they'd heard. As they began to absorb what he was saying, Bill waited, milking the moment for every bit of drama. "I'll take every last job out of this city and move them to Philadelphia or Providence or Wilmington, Delaware. I don't care."

He spotted the spring water dispenser, and we all watched as he went over, plucked off a paper cup, and filled it. "And if you don't think I'll do it, my friends, try it again." He knocked back the water, turned, and searched the crowd.

"Any questions?"

"Nice of you to show up for work, Leonard." Bill eyed Lenny as the three of us stood around the table in a small conference room in the Peak Club, our haven for first-class passengers and very frequent fliers. Lenny looked as if he'd been dragged out of bed early, which is apparently what had happened.

"Bill, we had no idea you were coming"-he shot me a suspicious look-"did we?"

"No one knew," Bill snapped, "which is exactly what I wanted. My meeting in New York canceled this morning, so I decided to come up here and shake these people up. How was that?" he asked me. "Will that help you out?"

"Tremendously," I said evenly, playing my role in the charade. "Thank you. Do you want to meet with anyone else, maybe the next-"

"You won't need any more meetings. The message has been delivered."

I nodded. Here was a man keenly aware of his own impact.

He reached into his briefcase for a single, wrinkled piece of paper and put it on the table in front of us. It was a copy of the awful drawing that had been delivered to me on my first evening in the station, the one of the hangman's noose with Ellen at the end of it. "I want to know about this."

"Bill, you know what that is. It's just the guys downstairs blowing off steam-"

"No, it's not, Lenny. What this is, Lenny, is bad for business. People who have time to draw pictures and send them to me have too much time on their hands. People who are spreading rumors are not working."

Lenny stuck his hands in his pockets and decided not to pursue the point.

Bill turned back to me. "Now, what about this bomb? What have you learned?"

"The fire department is investigating," I said, feeling more confident. This was a subject I knew something about. "They don't expect to find anything. We have Corporate Security and Aircraft Safety on site. We're almost certain a ramper planted the bomb-"

"There's no evidence of that, Bill. We have to be careful about making accusations."