IT HAD BEEN a long day. Too much going on. I was the only one left at the firm, except of course Rachel and Braden, who were always there. My eyes felt like sandpaper, and I found myself taking deep breaths for no particular reason. As I got up to leave and shut down my computer, my phone rang. It was a D.C. area code, but it wasn't Tinny. I answered it.
"Evening, Mike. You're working late."
"Who is this?"
"Thompson."
"My good friend from State. What do you want?"
"I'm just outside. Why don't you come down and talk to me here."
"Why should I?"
"Because I'm a suspicious type, and sometimes I don't like places that are fixed, like offices. Sometimes I like to be outside."
"You can be outside by yourself. You don't need me."
"I need to talk to you. Actually… you need to talk to me. I'm in the gray sedan." He hung up.
Well, shit. That's all I needed. I grabbed my suit coat, closed my briefcase, turned out my office lights, and headed downstairs. I checked my watch. Ten thirty pm. What did this asshole want? He was nothing but trouble. He was probably the one who had screwed with my computer system.
I closed the front door of my office building behind me and looked for a gray, government sedan. I didn't see one. It suddenly hit me that I had been lured out of my building at a predictable time with no one else around. I stepped off the porch and walked to my car. I unlocked it and put my briefcase on the floor behind my seat. I closed the door and looked again. I saw a car parked on the side street down the block. The headlights flashed briefly. So I was supposed to walk over to him in the dark. Not a chance. I leaned against the driver's door of my car and shook my head. I motioned for him to come to me. Nothing happened. I waited. Still nothing. Fine. I opened my driver's door to get in and was about to leave when the door of the sedan opened. Thompson got out. I could see he wasn't alone. Probably the same guy who came with him before.
Thompson passed under a streetlight as he approached me. He was wearing dark clothes and a leather bomber jacket. He had his hands in his pockets. I waited. He walked around to my side of the car. "Don't trust me?"
"No. I don't trust anybody, and that would include you."
"I'm here for your own benefit."
"Just like last time?"
"Yes. Just like last time. You may not agree, but if you had done what I suggested, you wouldn't be stirring up the things you are stirring up."
"What exactly am I stirring up?"
He glanced around. "You have a recording device?"
"No. You?"
"No."
"So what do you want?"
"You have done what I told you not to do. Your investigator continued to talk to my acquaintance in the Secret Service. I warned you."
"I have to protect my client's interests. I have to defend the case."
"No, you don't. If you were smart, you would have listened to me." He turned toward me. "And stayed the hell away from the Secret Service, and your digging about Camp David. All you've done is stir up a hornet's nest, and you can't even see the hornets. They're all around you. And now you can't get them back into the nest."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I told you I'd have to tell the people involved that you were digging. I told them. They didn't appreciate it. That's all I know. And then you kept digging, and I told them that. Now they really don't appreciate it, and frankly, there's nothing I can do about it."
"So you set them on me?"
"I didn't do anything. I told you how to avoid this problem, and you ignored me. I told you I would tell them, and I did. When you put a stick in the eye of some people, they don't say thank-you, they put a stick in your eye. Simple as that. Especially when it has nothing to do with the accident. If you had just done your job, if you had left Camp David out of this, you'd still be the big attorney with the biggest case in the country. But no. You had to keep going. You had to send Byrd back."
"We follow the truth-"
"Save it. I don't care about what you think you were doing. I'm just here to tell you that you've put a noose around your own neck and it's tightening. I can't do anything about it. And the closer you get to trial, to putting on any evidence, the tighter that noose is going to be."
I shook my head. "This is unbelievable. My government comes to tell me that things are out of its control and I need to watch out?"
"Basically, yes. Your government is telling you that you dicked it up, Mike. You were forewarned and laughed it off. That was your choice."
"Who's so concerned? That's the least you can tell me."
"No, I can't. That's the whole point. I can't even hint at it."
"You talking about violence? You think they'd come after me?"
"No idea. All I know is that the people I told you would be upset, are."
"I've got to find out what happened. The public deserves to know. So does my client."
"You just don't get it, do you? Camp David had nothing to do with it! You're banging on the wrong door, and the people behind that door are sick of it! You can tell the public anything you want! But you should have stayed away from this, like I told you. Now I don't know what will happen." He stepped toward his car. "You probably won't hear from me again. I've got nothing else to say. I tried to stop all this, but now I can't. You're on your own." He walked away.
I called to him. "Let me ask you something."
He stopped and turned. "You working with Hackett?"
Thompson smiled and walked back toward me. "At least you're thinking. He would benefit the most, wouldn't he?"
I nodded.
"But no. I've never spoken to him and don't plan to. He is formidable, I have to admit, but he's the least of your worries at this point."
"One other thing."
"What?"
"You tapping my e-mail?"
Thompson frowned. "That would be illegal."
"Are you?"
"No." He walked away and said over his shoulder, "You do have problems, don't you?" He got back to his car, climbed in, started it, and drove away slowly.
I opened my car door and climbed in. I locked my door and dialed Tinny. I got his voice mail. I hung up.
Two days later we had a hearing in front of Judge Betancourt. It had been on calendar for eight weeks. It was my motion to dismiss Hackett's claims for punitive damages. Making a settlement demand was one thing. Demanding punitive damages to punish the defendant made things much more difficult and risky for a defendant. This case had punitive damages written all over it. Everybody in the country was mad at WorldCopter for "killing" the president. The Justice Department was investigating "fraud" in how WorldCopter had obtained the contract.
I felt like we had effectively deflected those claims in our court filings. Hackett's assertions didn't seem to have the heat they initially had when Senator Blankenship went on television the day of the accident and started throwing around accusations. The truth is usually less dramatic.
We did have one lingering problem, and it might allow the plaintiffs to get through my motion to dismiss punitive damages. It came down to the tip weights. Hackett was zeroed in on that issue. I would be too if I were him. The NTSB hadn't given any indication that there was any other cause. The entire country had become obsessed with the washerlike pieces of metal, and it was an easy theory to explain. Hackett would get an expert to say that was the cause, and that was good enough.
Our problem was the documentation about the tip weights was sketchy. For cases throughout the country, companies had got hammered by juries or judges for destroying documents. Such as a case from a computer-memory company that supposedly had held a "shred" day for damaging documents, to others who failed to set documents aside that were relevant to a lawsuit. The juries had awarded punitive damages. And here we were with a dead president, a foreign helicopter, and documents that could not trace specific tip weights to the specific blade on Marine One. You could have the same kind of problem with the chain of custody of a critical piece of criminal evidence. If you can't prove where that piece of evidence had been from the time it was collected at the scene of the crime until the trial, you would be accused of manipulating the evidence.
For the tip weights, we had the purchase order from a Taiwanese company that manufactured them according to the specifications created by WorldCopter. We had the delivery receipt, and the storage records. The tip weights were individually numbered, and when one was placed on a blade, the entry went into the manufacturing logs, and into the documents that went with the blade as it got shipped. The shipping documents showed which numbers had been on the blade that was found by Marine One, but somehow, no records at WorldCopter headquarters confirmed that those were the tip weights that had been placed on the blade when it was balanced. That made it possible for Hackett to say we didn't know which weights were on which blade.
The tip weight bin was protected and in a secure location. The weights were placed on the blade for balancing by authorized personnel. WorldCopter had no doubt that the integrity of the tip weight system was intact, but what they couldn't prove was that somebody hadn't put a couple of extra tip weights in the bin that were not built to specification or had the quality-assurance check at the same level as every other piece of equipment that went on Marine One. The engineering tolerances allowed for materials on Marine One were substantially less than for a general WorldCopter helicopter.
But we couldn't prove that the tip weights on this blade satisfied this specification. We could argue by implication, but we sure couldn't prove it. And Hackett said it was a hole big enough for him to drive his punitive-damages truck through. I think the truck he had in mind was a Brink's truck, but it was his analogy. Hence my motion to get rid of the threat of punitive damages. At the very least, we would find out what he had up his sleeve.
The hearing before Judge Betancourt was set for 9 AM. As usual, the journalists and television crews beat us there by hours. We hadn't had a hearing or been in front of the judge for over eight weeks, so the press was happy to have another reason to reconvene the circus.
I walked into the courthouse and into the courtroom on the first floor on the right. It was the largest courtroom of the new courthouse and was perfect, as Judge Betancourt saw it, for this "important" trial.
Hackett and his minions were already there. He had set up his papers at the appropriate table, the one closest to the jury box, and was seated with his legs crossed, turned toward the door, watching me come in. For reasons that I couldn't understand, we were the only ones in the courtroom.
Hackett looked smug and said, "Morning, Rachel."
"Morning," she said.
I walked up through the bar, let the gate swing behind me, and placed my briefcase on the table opposite him. He turned in his chair and followed me with his eyes. I said quietly to Rachel, "Go check the tentative."
She nodded and walked back to the entryway of the courtroom and examined the document pinned to the corkboard. It listed all the motions being heard that day by the judge, and her tentative ruling on each one. Rachel returned, looking surprised. She leaned over and said in a whisper, "Tentative is to grant."
I was as surprised as she was. I never thought Betancourt would have the nerve to dismiss the punitive-damages claim. Hackett seemed unusually sanguine for that tentative. And he didn't seem prepared for the hearing.
The court clerk entered the courtroom followed by the court reporter and the bailiff. They took their positions, and the bailiff suddenly said, "All rise."
We stood as I continued to look around in wonderment as the journalists were not swarming into the courtroom. The bailiff announced the judge, who took her seat, and asked the clerk to call the calendar.
"Number one on calendar, Adams et al. v. WorldCopter, case number C334232."
The judge looked at us with her reading glasses on her nose and began, "Mr. Nolan-"
She was immediately interrupted by the doors being opened from the back and the two men guarding the doors walking into the courtroom. They were followed by other men in dark suits, then ultimately by the first lady, Mrs. Adams. She walked down the aisle with grace and an insistent presence. No one said a word. I immediately knew that the Secret Service had been there since two hours before the hearing. They had checked out the entire courtroom, every seat, every piece of equipment, and had kept the courtroom cleared except for the attorneys and the court personnel until the first lady entered. They had been waiting outside where she would arrive in a place that was unobtrusive. They had others watching the door to make sure that people didn't enter the courtroom and had spoken with all the journalists, who knew not to go inside.
She walked toward the small gate that kept the audience separate from the attorneys and the clients, pushed the gate aside, and walked over and sat down next to Hackett. He nodded at her and she smiled back at him. The Secret Service sat beside her, behind her, and in the corners of the courtroom. Then, and only then, did the journalists and other members of the public file in and fill the courtroom as the judge looked on.
Judge Betancourt continued, "Mr. Nolan, it's your motion. Do you have anything to add?"
I stood. "No, Your Honor. We will submit on the tentative."
She looked up from the papers over her reading glasses, surprised. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
She turned from me. "Mr. Hackett? Do you have anything to add?"
Hackett stood slowly, dramatically. "I think the Court fully understands the implications of eliminating punitive damages in this case when WorldCopter has defrauded the government, lied about its clearances, hid documents about what caused this helicopter to crash, and put parts on the helicopter contrary to the contract, which calls for a verified numbering and precise record of every part. They have violated the direct orders of the United States government and have now killed the head of that same government. With respect, Your Honor, if any case ever called for punitive damages, it is this one." Hackett sat. The former first lady sat quietly.
"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.