Slight of Hand

The following is a work of fiction.

©2000 Elizabeth Gibson All rights reserved.

“It’s a slight of hand. All done by magic.” The investigator hunched over his soda like it was his last, late night beer.

The reporter eyed him from the other side of the booth in the back of the small diner. “Look you got me to come here to give me some ‘vital information’ as you put it. I want facts not some mumbled hocus-pocus.”

“That’s your first fact. Look for the magician’s slight of hand. You know how they work don’t you? A magician beguiles you, gets you watching one thing, and makes a change to something else that you aren’t paying attention to. The trick is to make the distraction so interesting that no one will notice what has really happened.”

“So what did they really do?”

“Secured 25 votes.”

“That’s not a secret. It was in the headlines for weeks.”

“Not those 25. The lawyers, the courts, the recounts, all the protests - that’s the distraction. It’s a good distraction, a real circus. It’s so interesting that no one is paying attention to the real trick.”

“So what’s the real trick?”

“A certain not-so-accidental crash that killed 3 men, good men. It was only one they wanted. The other two died because they were there. It makes it seem more like a tragic accident.”

“But why?”

“This is America. Assassinations draw too much attention. So you make it look like an accident. The result is the same. Take the man out and there’s no race left. The other side wins.”

“But its just one man. How do you know he had that much influence?”

“Charisma - he had it. He’d lead the state back from the brink. The people loved him. His whole slate was leading until the plane crash. If he’d been there he could have swayed the voters to support the whole ticket. Those 25 votes would have changed the election.”

“Didn’t they elect him anyway?”

“Yeah, that was a stroke of genius by his widow. She managed to save the seat and get the chamber in a 50/50 split. It’s the only thing that prevented the other side from getting a clean take over of the government. There is power in a sympathy vote, but she couldn’t pull the whole ticket like he would have.”

“Interesting theory, but that’s all it is - theory. There’s nothing to show that it all wasn’t just a tragic accident. The NTSB report didn’t show any foul play.”

“The NTSB published the preliminary findings as the final report. They got the basic cause right, instrument failure during bad weather. But the cause of the instrument failure was left undetermined. Everyone has accepted it as complete, but it doesn’t report all the facts. No one is asking any more questions.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just a small private plane crash. It’s not a major airliner. There is no public pressure to investigate the minute details. It’s the details that hold the truth.”

“The NTSB reports on every crash. What makes you so sure they won’t report the details?”

“Because the new administration doesn’t want them reported. The new agency head made sure the budget funding didn’t last that long. There’s no overt pressure. Nothing that will call attention to the crash. Just make the resources run thin and the preliminary findings have to become the final report.”

“If that’s true how can you claim it’s not just an accident.”

“Because some of us are dedicated to getting all the facts. There’s no political motive here. It’s a safety issue for us. If we sift through enough wreckage maybe we can stop the next crash. We pick up the bodies of some to save others. It’s what we do. Funding or no, we kept looking for the underlying cause. That’s how I found out about the circuit board.” The investigator pushed a photograph across the table.

“What about it?”

“It was the control card for the instrument panel. It was the wrong rev level.”

“Rev level?”

“Revision level. The manufacturer designs a circuit board and then updates it with corrections or enhancements. They number the revisions so they know which design it is.”

“And the plane had the wrong board?”

“It was the right type board, but the rev level was newer than the rest of the plane. It wasn’t original equipment”

“So the board was a replacement.”

“The maintenance records never note a replacement, never indicate any problem with the instruments.”

“Maybe they forgot to mention it.”

“Not likely. The pilot was meticulous. He noted every time the plane was touched. He had receipts for everything.”

“But what does that prove?”

“That something might be different with that board. I got the detailed specs from the manufacturer then put it under the microscope to compare the specs to the board.”

“And you found?”

“Two tiny blobs of solder with a tiny bit of filament in the center. The remains of a temporary jumper on the board. The rest of the filament and the switch would have been destroyed in the crash. We rigged another board the same way with just a filament and tried it. The jumper is a short circuit that causes a cascade failure of the instruments.”

“That doesn’t guarantee a crash.”

“If you put the board in the plane on the night of a big storm, a night when you know he is making a bunch of public appearances and will need to get around the state quickly. It would have taken a miracle to land safely in that kind of weather with no instruments.”

“You mentioned a switch.”

“We didn't find the actual switch. It could have been a simple timer, a switch activated by a radio signal, or a transistor that would overheat. Any of a dozen switches could do it with materials so small they would be obliterated by the crash or never found in the debris.”

“What about airport security?”

“What about it? He wasn’t running for president. There’s no secret service protection. No one would notice one mechanic working on a private plane. There hadn’t been any threats. There was no reason to be concerned.”

“So why don’t you just write up an amendment to the report?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? I wrote the full findings and submitted them straight to the department head. This is a hot potato that I don’t want to be holding alone.”

“So what happened?”

“The department head took it to an agency meeting the same afternoon. She died on her way home that night. Got hit head-on by a cement mixer.”

“An accident?”

“I investigate plane crashes not auto accidents. It might be a coincidence, but it made me nervous. And that wasn’t the end of it. I got called in by the section head. I figured it was to discuss the findings in my report. Instead I got reprimanded for using agency resources without authorization. The section head told me the case was closed. They wouldn’t accept any additional information. Essentially I was told to stick to my job or I wouldn’t have one any more.”

“Have you tried calling your congressman?”

“I thought about it, until the department secretary told me the boss had called a somebody on Capitol Hill before she left that last afternoon. So I decided to call the media and make it public instead.”

“Why don’t you just put it up on the Web?”

“I’m no techno-wiz. I can’t set it up to prevent someone from altering it. This is a real government report. I don’t want to risk it’s credibility. It’s important. I need a credible source to break it.”

“And you called me?”

“Eventually, you’re the 4th person I’ve told this story to.”

“Where are the others?”

“They didn’t want to take the report. They’re afraid of a sudden meeting with a cement mixer. The documentation is in the folder by your hand. All you have to do is pick it up.”

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