Marine One (6 page)

"We didn't steal the Marine One contract! We competed for it against the American companies and won! We were selected by your government. How could anyone say we stole it?"

"They will, I promise."

Martin was deeply troubled about many things. He already knew this accident, or incident, or whatever it turned out to be, could ruin his company. But he had clearly not considered that it could ruin him personally as well. He turned to me. "What of the voice recording? Did you make any conclusions?"

"There were some interesting things. We'll need to study it, both-"

"What did
you
find interesting," he asked, pointing at my chest.

"Marcel would be the one you should-"

"No." Jean Claude paused until I looked him in the eye. "I want your opinion."

I hesitated. "Well… I… a couple of things. The pilot didn't treat the president with much respect. President Adams came to the cockpit and stuck his head in. You can hear the president talk to Collins, but he clearly doesn't respond. Later, right in the middle of a checklist, the copilot tells him that he just can't
ignore
the president. And Collins said, 'I don't really give a shit.' That's a remarkable statement by the pilot of Marine One."

Morton was frowning with his arms folded, but the president was interested. "What do you think-"

"I think it's-"

A young man walked into the room carrying a cell phone. "Excuse me, sir," he said to Jean Claude. "It's Marcel. He needs to speak with you immediately. He told me to interrupt. Sorry." The young man handed his phone to the president.

Jean Claude took the phone and spoke to Marcel, then listened intently. He looked around the room at us, knowing information that he couldn't share, but was anxious to do. He continued to listen, then a look of complete surprise or shock came over his face. He nodded, closed the flip phone, and returned it to its owner.

We all waited, anxious for this report that called for such an interruption. I watched Jean Claude's face carefully. It wasn't horror, and it wasn't pleasure.

Martin said, "He has reviewed the flight data recorder information. It is on our computer. He said everything is normal until very late in the flight. As the helicopter begins one of its descents, then something happened."

"What?" I asked, dying for the answer.

"We don't know. The flight data recorder stops."

We were all puzzled. Flight data recorders didn't just stop. Like the cockpit voice recorder, they ran on a continuous thirty-minute loop; there was no on/off switch.

"Did Marcel say why it stopped?" Morton asked.

"No. He is completely confused."

I couldn't imagine how that could happen. "Has Marcel checked with the NTSB? Did we get bad data-a bad CD?"

The president nodded. "That was his first call. The NTSB said theirs stops in the same place." He looked directly at me. "It now will be even more difficult to find out what happened." He leaned over, anger in his voice. "Get all the experts you need. Get them paid for by the insurance company, or if they won't pay, I will. But you must find out what happened to Marine One. You must solve this
before
the U.S. government does, because
we will tell them
what happened, not wait for them to tell us!"

BY THE TIME Rachel and I got out of the car near Justice, the sky had cleared. I asked Rachel, "What did the radio say about the funeral?"

"The parade, or whatever they call it, will be Friday. He'll lie in state at the Capitol Building. Closed coffin. Then there's a memorial ceremony at the National Cathedral on Sunday. Dignitaries from around the world… I don't remember the rest."

"Here we are." We walked through the sliding glass door, which closed behind us, leaving us locked in a small glass space that allowed the guards to see us. The glass was bulletproof. After about five seconds the other doors opened and we passed into the lobby. We told one of the guards who we were and were led to a conference room on the third floor at the west end of the building. The others were already there. No one was there from Justice yet. I wondered whether they were trying to annoy us by being late.

Morton said, "Let me take the lead on this, Mike."

Fine with me. Arguing with Justice wasn't my favorite sport.

Everybody was standing on the window side of the table except Morton and me. Suddenly the door was thrown open and three people walked in, two men and a woman. The one in the lead was in his late forties. He was clearly in charge and wanted everyone to know it. He was balding but wore his hair in a buzz so you couldn't really tell. He wore thin-wire glasses and had thin, angry lips. He placed the files he was carrying on the table in the middle, and the other two flanked him on either side. The woman was in her late thirties and attractive. The other man was remarkably tall and looked unintelligent. The one in charge looked around the room and said, "I'm Richard Packer. Deputy attorney general in the Criminal Division. I deal mostly with fraud cases." He let that sink in for a moment. "This is Alice Tomlinson, she's the assistant deputy, and this is Ed Wellenger."

We each introduced ourselves and Richard said, "Please, sit down."

He sat at the head of the table and opened a folder in front of him. "First, I'd like to thank you all for coming. I know you've come a long way, and I want to get right to the point. We will have many details to work out, and we have many requests that we would like you to comply with immediately. But first, let me say, that at the direction of the attorney general, who is acting at the direction of President Cunningham-"

It was jarring to hear "President Cunningham."

"-we've opened a criminal fraud investigation into the contract that was entered into between the United States and WorldCopter, relating specifically to the purchase of Marine One." He opened the massive briefcase sitting next to him on the floor and pulled out a document. "I have here a memorandum from the Pentagon which outlines the process by which this helicopter was selected, the representations made by WorldCopter both in the contract and outside of the contract, and concludes with the concerns that have been raised since the crash. I'm glad to see that you are represented by counsel," Packer said to Martin. "This prosecution could result in your personal incarceration as well as that-"

Morton spoke intensely but quietly. "There's no need to try to intimidate our clients. They get it. But they also know something you don't. There has been no fraud. So they're not afraid of an investigation. We'll cooperate, but we will not submit our clients to your browbeating. Clear?"

Packer ignored Morton and adjusted his eyeglasses in that way of officious bureaucratic men whose power is derived from something other than ability. "I have brought with me a list of things that the United States will need immediately." I loved it when they did that, acted as if they were the country and spoke for everyone in it. "We will need documents, e-mails, access to numerous personnel, samples of parts, drawings, blueprints, and access to your offices and manufacturing plant both here and in France. If you are even considering not cooperating and voluntarily producing this information, we will immediately issue the appropriate subpoenas, and then, today, this afternoon, I will call a press conference to announce that we have initiated a fraud investigation and that WorldCopter is not cooperating. How do you want to play this?"

Morton sat in stunned silence sticking his hand out for a copy of the list, which was not forthcoming.

I'd seen this kind of blustering dozens of times. "Would you mind if I asked you something?" I asked suddenly.

Packer looked at me with contempt. "And you are?"

"Mike Nolan, attorney for WorldCopter."

"I thought that Mr. Morton was representing them in this matter."

"We both are. So again, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Has the NTSB formed a conclusion on what caused this accident that I missed? Because if they haven't, how exactly do you find the nerve to begin an 'investigation' of one of the finest companies in the world with zero evidence of what you claim to be investigating? Isn't this because one senator-and really the press-have
demanded
an investigation? All you're doing right now is diverting resources from finding out what actually happened. I suggest you let the NTSB figure out what caused this accident, and
then
if you think WorldCopter needs to go to the woodshed, bring it."

Packer was unmoved. "I already know that WorldCopter failed in its obligations to the United States. The people who worked on Marine One, we now learn, never obtained the appropriate security clearances. They are in
violation
. So NTSB's conclusions, while interesting, will not determine the direction of my investigation."

I leaned forward with my elbows on the table, nearly standing. "And do you know
why
WorldCopter was in violation? Because the FBI didn't do its job.
Your
investigators failed to go to France. They were too
busy
. So they failed to do the job that they refused to entrust to the French government. They're the ones who delayed the security clearances, and yet at the same time, your Pentagon, which has given you that supposed memo about the contract, is almost certainly silent about how dicked-up the process was. They
demanded
that no construction be done until the security clearances were completed and, on the other hand, demanded that the helicopter be delivered on schedule or there would be massive late-performance penalties." I sat back and waited, then said, "I think we should just wait on all this until the NTSB investigation is completed."

Packer stared at me with contempt. He finally said, "No. Your client will produce these materials immediately." He slid the list across the table to me. I picked it up, glanced at it, slid it to Morton, and said, "Look, Dick, I'm here to tell you there's no call for this investigation. I fly that helicopter all the time in the Marine Corps reserves. Do you hear them clamoring for an investigation? No. It's the best helicopter they've ever flown. There has never been a fatal crash in the history of its production. There has never been an accident of any kind since the Marines started flying it three years ago, and there's no reason to believe this accident is because of the design or any manufacturing problem."

Packer ignored me and said to Morton, "So let's go down this list and you can tell me which group of documents will be delivered to this office in ten days, and which ones will take thirty."

By the time Rachel and I got back to the office, Annapolis was quiet, lit only by streetlights and an occasional car. Everyone in the firm knew we were coming back, and several had waited to hear what had happened. We gave them a quick summary, then I went up to my office to drop off some papers before heading home. Rick Berberian followed me upstairs. He closed the door behind him. He never closed my door, so something was bugging him. He made small talk for a while while I packed up, then said, "This is an amazing case, Mike. Biggest thing either of us has ever had, no doubt."

"No doubt." I sat down waiting for him to say whatever was on his mind. We had started the firm together, expecting it to grow to maybe five lawyers, and knew each other well. We had counted pennies together on many late nights in the early days of our partnership.

He sat across from me and said, "So I've been thinking about this." He suddenly stood again and began pacing. "How are we going to do this? If you do the criminal investigation, represent WorldCopter in the international inquiry, it might take three or four lawyers to staff it full-time. And if you keep going on this accident investigation, and some civil case comes out of it, one of the Secret Service widows wakes up and realizes there's a pot of gold waiting if this helicopter truly failed, you'll need five or ten people. We don't have anything close to that. If it's not properly staffed, it could go completely off track, and the case could be lost."

"I'll take care of it."

He sat again and forced himself to fold his hands on his knees to look calm. "If we lose this, it will ruin us. Financially. Our reputation will be shot and we could be sued for malpractice, for not preparing properly. We don't have the experience, or the depth."

I stared at him in disbelief. I'd never seen him crack. He was absolutely unmovable in business negotiations and contracts, which is what he did. Now he was flipping out about what I was doing? I didn't need it. "What have you been smoking, Rick? I can handle this. If we need more people, I'll get more. And if it gets lost one way or another, it won't be because of me, I promise. Relax. And how could it ruin us financially? We're going to get paid whether we win or lose. Our regular hourly rate. Don't worry about it."

"You think if you lose a case this big, they won't look for a scapegoat? They'll sue us for malpractice."

"We have malpractice insurance, Rick."

"Yeah, twenty million dollars. That won't cover a tenth of this case. Remember I wanted to get one hundred million dollars in coverage?"

"Shit, Rick. That cost ten times as much. And if we make somebody lose a hundred mil, we deserve to go bankrupt." He was starting to bother me. "You've got to settle down. What's gotten into you?"

He rubbed his tired, stubbled face. "One of the legal reporters was going on about how outmatched you were going to be, no matter what you ended up doing. He said it was like starting a Single A pitcher in the World Series. He said you were going to get shelled, and you and your whole firm would come down around your head."

"Nice. And who was that?"

"I don't know. I'd never heard of him."

"And rather than shrug it off because you know me, because we started a firm together, starved together, you jump on that bandwagon and start pissing all over me? Damn, Rick!" I tried to control my anger.

He shook his head. "I don't know, Mike. It's just such a huge deal. Big firms in New York or Washington handle huge cases like this, not a small shop in Annapolis with two partners. It's a lot of weight to carry, that's all."

"No, it's an opportunity."

He stared out the dark window without saying anything for an awkwardly long time. He put his hands in his back pockets and turned again toward me. His face was lined with stress. "You ever do any reading into the Kennedy assassination?"

"Not much. Seemed like a UFO kind of thing to me."

"Some of it. I take it that you don't think the helicopter failed."

"Not sure, really. But I find it hard to believe it did."

"Well, then, where does that lead?"

"Meaning?"

"Presidents don't die that often, Mike."

"And?" I said, concerned with the look that was forming on his face.

"And you're saying it wasn't from a mechanical thing."

"I said I don't know, but I doubt it."

"Then that means somebody wanted him dead. Right? Am I missing something? If it wasn't an accident, somebody was trying to kill him."

"I didn't say that. Could have been the weather."

"You don't believe that."

"No, I don't, but it's possible."

He waved his arm. "I'm talking about what
you
think. You say I should trust you? Well, I do. And I think that what you think is that someone wanted the president dead."

"I'm not ready to jump to
any
conclusion. Can't do that at the start of an investigation. Colors your thinking."

"But if you're right that it wasn't the helicopter's fault, then somebody else did it. That means somebody else killed him. As in
on purpose."

"Is that what this is all about?"

"I'm just trying to think this stuff through, Mike. Is my thinking wrong?"

"It's pretty far-fetched. I'm not convinced of that at all."

"If somebody killed him, and you're out there trying to prove it wasn't WorldCopter, then your only way out will be to find out who it was. Am I right?"

"Sort of."

"You ever think about that maybe they won't
want
you to find them? And that they probably already know who you are?"

"What, you think somebody's going to come after us?"

"I've read enough history to know that when the emperor dies, you don't want to be anywhere near it."

"There will be a rational explanation of this accident, Rick."

He wasn't satisfied. "What I'm saying is, I want you to-how do you always put it? Keep your head on a swivel." He jerked on the handle of my office door and walked out.

He was right about one thing. If someone killed the president, the last thing they would want was for me to find out what really happened. Fair enough to tell me to keep that in mind. We didn't know what was behind the curtain.

____________________

I headed to the WorldCopter offices in Maryland outside D.C. the next morning before the sun was up. I told Rachel to stay at the office and do some quick research on federal security clearances for foreign corporations, and background research on the WorldCopter helicopter involved in this accident. I needed to know every other incident it had been involved in, the cause of every accident, and the helicopter's reputation. Now that I had stuck my neck out at Justice on how there had never been a fatal accident in this helicopter, something I was pretty sure about, I needed to know about every incident Justice might cite back to me.