Journey

“I'm fine. I'm working on the plane that went down. We got a tip that there was a warning about the bomb in a general way, but the flight went out anyway. They all did. I guess no one knew which flight the bomb might be on.” She explained to him quickly, but he didn't seem too upset or particularly startled.

“It happens that way sometimes, Mad. There's not a hell of a lot anyone could have done. The warning sounds pretty vague, and could have been unfounded.”

“We can tell the truth about it now, at least if there's a story here. Did you hear anything last night?” She was looking at him intently. Something in his eyes told her it was not an unfamiliar story to him.

“Not really,” he said vaguely.

“That's not a real answer, Jack, this is important. If they were warned, they should have stopped the flights. Who made the decision?”

“I'm not telling you I know anything about it. But if they were warned, in a general way, what do you think they could have done? Stop all outbound flights out of Kennedy for three days? Christ, they might as well have shut down all U.S. aviation. They couldn't do that.”

“How did you know it was all ‘outbound’ flights, and that the threat covered a three-day span? You knew, didn't you?” And then she suddenly wondered if that was why he had been called to the White House on such short notice, to advise them of what to say to the American public, if anything, or maybe even what to do, or not do about it. And how to cover their asses if a plane did go down at some point. But even if the decision hadn't been his, which it couldn't have been, he might well have been an important voice in the ultimate decision about whether or not to warn the public.

“Maddy, you can't shut down all outbound flights out of Kennedy for three days. Do you know what that means? At that rate, you'd have to shut down all incoming too, in case the blast hit them. This country would have gone haywire, and our economy with it.”

“I don't believe this,” she said, suddenly in a white fury. “You and God knows who else decided to just go ahead with business as usual and not warn anyone, because our economy would be affected? And you'd disrupt flight schedules? Tell me this didn't happen the way I think it did. Tell me four hundred and twelve people didn't die to spare our aviation industry a disruption. Is that what you're telling me? It was a business decision? Who the hell decided that one?”

“Our President, you fool. What do you think? That I make decisions like that? It was a major issue, but the threat just wasn't specific enough. They couldn't do a goddamn thing about it, except check every plane with a fine-tooth comb before it went out. And if you quote me, Mad, I'll fucking kill you.”

“I don't give a damn what you do. This is about people and lives and babies and children, and innocent people who got on an airplane with a bomb on it because no one had the balls to shut down Kennedy for three days. But goddammit, Jack, they should have!”

“You don't know what you're talking about. You don't shut down a major international airport for three days for a bomb threat, not and stay in business.”

“They shut it down for snow, for chrissake, and the economy stays afloat. Why not for a bomb threat?”

“Because they'd have looked like fools and everyone would have panicked.”

“Oh, okay, I guess four hundred lives is a small price to pay in order to avoid a panic. My God, I can't believe what I'm hearing. I can't believe you knew and you didn't do a fucking thing about it.”

“What did you expect me to do? Go to JFK and hand out leaflets?”

“No, you asshole, you own the network. You could have blown the whistle on this, anonymously if you wanted to, and forced them to shut down the airport.”

“And the door to the White House would have been slammed in my face forever. You think they wouldn't have known who leaked something like that? Don't be ridiculous, and don't,” he said, grabbing her arm and yanking her hard with it, “ever call me an asshole. I knew what I was doing.”

“You and the boys you were playing with last night killed four hundred and twelve people at noon today,” she almost spat the words at him and her voice was shaking. She couldn't believe he had been a party to it. “Why don't you just buy a gun, and start shooting people? It's cleaner, and a lot more honest. Do you know what this means? It means that business is more important than people. It means that every time some woman gets on an airplane with her kids, she doesn't know if someone has been warned that there's a bomb on it, but for the sake of big business, she and her kids are a walking sacrifice, because no one thinks they're important enough to warrant a ‘disruption.’”