Marine One (22 page)

"Very well," the judge said. "The motion is denied. The tentative is confirmed. I must add for the record that this was not a close question. There is sufficient evidence based on the information developed so far in this case to allow punitive damages to continue and be presented to the jury at trial. Of course if there is insufficient evidence to support that charge in trial, I will reconsider my ruling. But for now, punitive damages stay in the case and the motion is denied. Mr. Hackett, will you prepare the order?"

"Happy to, Your Honor."

The judge gaveled the hearing to a close and walked off the bench. The journalists began asking questions. The Secret Service hustled them out and made an aisle clear for Mrs. Adams to pass through to her limousine, which waited to whisk her back to Washington.

I tried not to show what I was thinking. I looked at Rachel, who immediately became defensive. She said in a low, intense voice, "It said granted. The tentative was to grant."

"No, it didn't. She just confirmed her tentative, and it was to
deny
. I didn't even get a chance to
argue
." I looked at the back of the courtroom and saw Bass, Hackett's hatchet man. "Let's go look."

We exited at the end of the audience and stopped to look at the list of tentatives. I found our motion. "Tentative-Denied." I pointed to it to Rachel.

"I'm telling you, it said granted."

I looked around, then put down my briefcase. I removed the thumbtack and took down the entire sheet. I examined it. It all looked correct, but I noticed two holes in the document where the thumbtack had gone through. The paper had been taken down and put back up. "That son of a bitch."

I turned back into the courtroom and found Bass. "Hey, Bass."

He turned and walked back to me, surprised I was still there, and happy to see me angry. "Yes, Mike?"

"You play some little game with the tentative this morning?"

He feigned confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Like substituting a page in the ruling list changing the tentative for our hearing?"

"Wow," Bass said. "Mr. Hackett said you could be paranoid, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Guess I can't do that anymore." He turned and walked back to the front of the courtroom to Hackett, who stood by the table where he had been sitting.

We left the courtroom and walked down the front steps. Rachel said, "It wouldn't have made any difference. She said it wasn't a close question."

"Probably not. But I would have liked to try. They're showing their colors a little too obviously. Imagine what they're doing that we can't see if they're willing to change an official court document hanging on the wall of the courtroom. These are bad people, Rachel."

"No doubt about it. Maybe we need to be a little paranoid."

"Especially now that someone's reading our mail."

"What?"

We got into my car. "Do you have a home e-mail account?"

"Yeah, Gmail."

"Make another one. With only numbers as your address. Random numbers. I'll continue sending you regular stuff at work and you the same. But anything that's really critical? Send it from your home computer on that numbered Gmail account. I'll set up a new account. I'll give you a number on a piece of paper which will be the Gmail address. Send whatever matters to that account.

"Get a new cell phone too. Different provider, new number, and keep it in the bottom of your purse. Never let anybody else even see it. You will only call me on it, and when I want to talk to you, I'm going to call you on it. So keep it on even when you're at home. I will still call you on your other cell phone and home number and office number, but when I really want to talk to you, I'll call you on your new cell. I'm going to get one myself. Two people are going to have the number. You and Tinny. Maybe Debbie too."

"I'll get one on the way back to the office."

"Try to use text messages. No names, no numbers to call, nothing like that."

She looked concerned. "Do you think somebody's tapping our phones? And listening to cell phones?"

"I don't know. We've got to think defensively."

Rachel went silent as her mind raced.

I dropped her off at her place so she could pick up her car. On the way back to the office I stopped by a kiosk at the local mall to buy a new cell phone. I felt as if I were buying drugs. I kept looking around to make sure nobody could see me doing it. The idea of somebody breaking into our e-mail server and stealing every e-mail sent to me was chilling. Based on what Thompson said I assumed it was Hackett, or one of his bagmen-not that I could really believe Thompson. It was probably Bass. He was an aggressive lawyer and had a reputation for leaning over the ethical lines, but this was criminal.

I got in my car and called Byrd. I again got his voice mail, this time immediately, as if his phone was off. I left a message.

THE NEXT DAY Rachel hurried into my office, her face dark. She pointed to my computer. "Turn on the D.C. news channel."

I went to their Web site and called up the streaming video. The image of the female newscaster quickly filled the screen. Over her shoulder, superimposed on the screen, was a picture of Tinny Byrd. The reporter said, "Repeating our breaking story, the body has been found of the missing private investigator, Tinny Byrd. He had been reported missing by his wife late yesterday. His cell phone had been found in the possession of a homeless man near Union Station. His body has now been found, or I should say his remains. This is a grisly find by the Washington police and was unexpected. They had reports of unusual activity at a warehouse down by the Navy Yard, and when they investigated it, they found human remains in the corner of the dirt lot by the warehouse. The warehouse was guarded by two Doberman pinschers that had displaced some of the remains. The remains had been ground up in a meat grinder and tossed over the fence into the warehouse lot. It is thought that it was the intention of whoever murdered Mr. Byrd that the dogs would consume the remains, leaving no evidence. The dogs were not interested though, and when the owner came to the warehouse early this morning, he called the police. DNA evidence has confirmed that the remains are those of Mr. Byrd. It is unknown if his murder is linked to the work he was doing on one of his cases. He was working on several cases according to his wife, including a couple that involved notorious drug dealers in Washington, and also the investigation of Marine One for the attorney representing WorldCopter, the European manufacturer of the helicopter. The investigation into this brutal murder is ongoing." The reporter went on to another story and I turned off the television. I looked at Rachel, who looked ashen. She turned and ran out of the room.

I felt as sick to my stomach as she looked. Poor damned Tinny. My palms began to sweat as I tried to imagine what had happened. I knew there was no point. I'd never be able to know, and all it did was fill my head with unbearable images and thoughts. I wanted to go get one of my shotguns and find whoever had done this to him. He was my friend.

I sat down heavily in my chair, loosened my tie, put my head back, and closed my eyes.

I started getting paranoid. I worked on the case outside of the office when I had to do anything that really mattered. While at work, I did what everyone thought I should do, and after work I did the really critical things that I left at home.

Late one afternoon, I told Dolores I was running over to Starbucks to get a Frappuccino. While there, I called Wayne Bradley, Karl Will, and Rachel on my new cell. I told them I wanted them to come over to my house that night, and not to send me anything to my work e-mail account. All were puzzled, but agreed.

They arrived together just as Debbie and I were finishing dinner. We went into my den, which was built into what was the music room in the old house when we'd bought it. It was nearly as big as our family room.

Bradley looked uncomfortable. "What's with the new cell number?"

"I'm starting to see shadows. You guys heard about Byrd?"

They nodded. Will asked, "You think that has anything to do with this case?"

"Don't know. I'm sure going to assume so though. Which makes me crazy, just so you know. And I've had a couple of visits from the INR, State Department security."

"Huh?" Bradley asked, confused. "What would they have to do with Byrd?"

"Probably nothing. But they went to his house and then came to my office to meet with us. And basically threatened us. Lay off the Secret Service witness."

"What do they have to do with the Secret Service?"

"Yeah, good question. Don't know. Must have been some international thing. Other countries involved, diplomacy, something. And they
really
don't want it to come out. And there was some document that the guy had that he was thinking of giving to Byrd. The security guys have it now, whatever it was."

Will was considering the implications. "You're not saying
they
had anything to do with Byrd…"

"I really doubt it."

"I mean the news said he was investigating all kinds of cases. Drug cases, bad stuff…"

"He was. I don't know who did it. Maybe somebody else knew he was getting close to something."

"Like Hackett," Rachel said.

Bradley nearly choked. "You're not saying he'd do that, are you?"

"No. I'm not."

Rachel continued to let her imagination go. "Maybe the first lady called the State Department. I mean, who knows?"

"I don't trust anyone. And I mean no one. You've all got to be incredibly careful. Don't let anyone get close to you that you don't know. Check you car for bombs-"

"Are you serious? How are we supposed to do that?"

"I don't really know. I shouldn't have said that. I'm not really checking… just use caution."

"That's why we're meeting here?" Bradley said, looking around the den.

"Yes, and somebody's reading my mail. My e-mail."

"What?" he said, leaning back on the leather couch. "Seriously?"

"Somebody has set up a tunnel through my server so all my e-mails are forwarded. Very sophisticated."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"Me neither. So whatever you get from me at work, phone, e-mail, whatever, won't mean shit. Only when we're here, or on my new cell."

Will breathed deeply without saying anything. He started looking around the room. "If they're smart enough to tap your e-mail, what makes you think they haven't bugged your house?"

"I had it scanned."

"What about your office?"

"I don't want to tip anyone off. Maybe when we get close to trial. When I figure out how to use it all to my advantage."

Will said quietly, "Shit, Mike. Somebody really doesn't want you to win this case."

"They may not care about the case. But they may really care if they get exposed. And they see the two as linked, because they are. Problem is they know what happened and we don't."

"So what did you want to talk about?"

I was glad to get to the facts. I could deal with that. Build a case, gather evidence, and get ready for trial. "I want you two to go back out to the site with me. I've been thinking about my last time out there. I've got an idea."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Why later?"

"After your deposition. I want Hackett to hear your opinions and think they're unremarkable."

Bradley said, "That shouldn't be too hard right now."

"If what I'm thinking about has any merit to it, I don't want them to know about it until it's too late."

"Is that kosher?"

"Right now it's just a thought in my head."

"All right. We'll just criticize the report and not give them much of a theory of our defense."

"Exactly. Did you get your animation done, Karl?"

"It's on my computer if you want to see it."

"Absolutely."

Karl had a large Apple laptop. He opened it up and put it on the coffee table in front of Bradley. He called up the file. He said, "I took the animation from WorldCopter based on the flight data recorder and CVR and filled in the blanks. I had a surveyor get us the heights of all the significant trees and got the terrain-contour information from the USGS charts of the area." He started the animation. "If you watch here, I've gotten the bugs out of some of the data." He pointed. "See, right there, the helicopter starts down. We can't tell why from any of the data. So I just had it tumble to the ground and had the blade come off as it broke through the trees-"

"Stop it," I said as the helicopter plunged down through the trees in a frighteningly lifelike animation. "Why there? If the NTSB's theory is right, the blade came off much earlier and just landed there coincidentally."

"I'm not convinced of that," Will said. "If the tip weights failed, or came off, that doesn't mean the blade's going to come completely off. It will just throw the helicopter out of balance and it will come apart. But that doesn't mean necessarily that the blade comes off."

"Well, then why did it?"

"Not sure yet. I think from impact, but we need to go back to the scene, like you said."

I sat on the couch and looked at the stopped animation. "What's your theory, Karl?" I asked. "Why did it go down where it did?"

Will hesitated, then said, "Could be tip weights. I can't rule that out. It fits. But with the pilot's attitude toward the president, and the FDR circuit breaker pulled, could be intentional on the pilot's part too. There's one other possibility."

"What?"

"Maybe the president came up into the cockpit to watch out the front during the storm. Maybe they hit a big pocket or had a bad updraft and the president pitched forward into Collins's lap. He might have pushed the cyclic and the helicopter would have nosed down. Could account for why they were upside down too."

"We don't hear the president on the CVR again though before the crash."

"True, but it might have happened before he even had a chance to say hello. Gets there, they hit big turbulence, and over they go. I don't know."

I nodded and considered. It was possible. "Hard to prove, Karl."

"It's all I've got right now."

"We'll see what happens when we go back out there."

Rachel said to me quietly, "Can I talk to you alone?"

I looked at her face, then said to the others, "Excuse us for a second, will you?"

We walked into my living room and I closed the den door behind me. "What is it?"

"We can't do any real work at the office? How are we supposed to prepare?"

"We do the best we can."

"Mike, we hired our contract attorneys because we need them. We need their help. Braden is the smartest guy I've ever worked with. He does the best work in the office. And Elizabeth is tireless. Are you saying we can't use them? Don't you trust them?"

"We just can't take the chance."

"But that puts us back to where it's just you and me doing all the real work. That's the very thing we were trying to avoid. Maybe whoever did this did it just so we'd all turn on each other. Not trust each other. We should tell them about it and get their help to prepare for trial."

"We can't chance it, Rachel."

"We're not going to get it all done, Mike."

"We'll do the best we can. Trust me on this, Rachel."