Skyhook

FORTY ONE SATURDAY, DAY 6 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

The drive from downtown Seattle to the well-heeled neighborhoods of Mercer Island took less than fifteen minutes, and Gracie found the judge’s waterfront home with ease. She left her Corvette in the upper driveway of the multistoried home, momentarily concerned what the judge might think.

There were few windows on the rear of the home, however, and his wife answered the door, showing her into a den with a sweeping view of Lake Washington.

“This is beautiful!” Gracie exclaimed, taking in the buildings of downtown Seattle rising above the ridge in the distance across the deep blue of the lake.

“Are you a native Washingtonian, dear?” Mrs. Chasen asked.

Gracie turned and smiled at her as a cascade of cautions clicked into place.

“I was born in Idaho, but… I’ve lived here all my life.”

“I believe we knew an O’Brien family in Bellevue with a parcel of beautiful daughters like you. Would that be your family?”

“No, afraid not. But thank you for the compliment.” She left it at that, as she usually did. There was no one who really needed to hear of the ravages an alcoholic mother could visit on the concept of family.

“Counselor?” a masculine voice asked from behind her, and she turned to find the second most senior federal district judge in Seattle standing with his hand outstretched. She smiled and took it.

“Your Honor. Again, I apologize for the intrusion.”

“It does go with the job at times. Would you care to come into the dining room, where we can spread out the papers if necessary?”

She followed him in, expecting pleasantries in the wake of his wife’s hospitality, but the judge sat down heavily at the head of the table and nodded to her.

“I’ve reviewed the brief from yesterday’s filing. Why are we here today?”

“Your Honor, I offer the court two additional petitions. The first is a petition for a new temporary restraining order that combines an order to show cause and an order for production. The defendant is, in a broad stroke, the United States government, due to our inability to discover at this point which agency of the government — military or civil — has committed the act complained of, which specifically is the unauthorized tortious interference with the non-abandoned wreckage of Grumman Albatross November Thirty-four Delta Delta.” She narrated the inability of the owner to find anything but a debris field where the wreckage had been forty-eight hours before. “We are seeking your order to force whichever agency has removed that wreckage to first and foremost safeguard it, to report to the court its location, and to make it available for our inspection and removal to the plaintiff’s physical possession and control. We also petition the court for a show-cause hearing why the applicable agency should not be held in contempt for having removed the wreckage despite your order of Friday.”

“That order, Ms. O’Brien, was against the Coast Guard.”

“Yes sir, but I had also expanded the caption to include the entirety of the United States government.”

He nodded. “Very well. I missed that.”

“Your Honor, the problem here is that some agency of the government is attempting to cover up what may be perfectly legitimate military or civilian governmental tests of certain aircraft in the area, and they have apparently decided that the wreckage of my client’s aircraft may somehow lead to exposure of whatever they’re doing. In their pursuit of secrecy, they are causing great harm to the career, the reputation, the financial health, and the mental health of Captain Rosen, and if their actions have not already damaged or destroyed physical evidence that would vindicate him of the career-ending FAA charges against him, the actions they are about to take almost surely will. Specifically, I’m referring to the broken propeller and evidence that Captain Rosen had a monstrous mechanical problem that caused the crash, rather than the crash resulting from negligent operation. This is why I’m also filing a complaint against the FAA—”

“Hold it, Ms. O’Brien. Don’t hand that to me yet.”

“Sir?”

“I’ll accept the first filing, and I’ll issue the restraining order just as you’ve drawn it. But I don’t think you want to file against the FAA here in Seattle.”

The rarity of dealing with a federal judge without an opposing lawyer present was strange enough, but to get legal advice from such a man was all but scary. Gracie felt herself wobble off-center, as though a spinning gyro had suddenly become unbalanced. She fought herself back to center and cocked her head.

“Your Honor, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. This action necessitates a TRO as well against the FAA for essentially collusive activity with other federal agencies in attempting to suppress, secrete, or destroy exculpatory evidence that would clear Captain Rosen immediately, thus preventing massive continuing harm.”

“Oh, I expected you were going to do that.”

“Yes, sir—”

“But who in the FAA are you planning to serve these papers on, if I accept them?”

“Well, the FAA has a large presence here, sir, especially in Renton.”

He nodded. “I know. The Northwestern Mountain Region.” He sighed. “Let me suggest to you that a better forum would be Washington, D.C. All the major players are there, including the FAA administrator. Chasing the proper officials all over the local region can lead to heartfelt pleas to the court from government attorneys for schedule relief and reset hearings and other delays your client obviously does not need.”

“So… I should, perhaps, go to a federal district court for the District of Columbia?”

“Doesn’t that sound more reasonable? You’ve got the basic TRO, show-cause, and order for protection and production. I’ll sign those, postpone the show-cause hearing set for Monday, and stand by to transfer it all to D.C. Now, I will accept your suit against the FAA if you insist, but if you elect to file that in D.C. and request consolidation with a D.C. court, the cases could be transferred immediately.”

“Yes, sir. I see what you mean. I had not considered that. Okay, I’ll hang onto the FAA action.”

The judge began signing the various orders Gracie had prepared, checking the verbiage as he went and separating the small pile. She took back the pleadings against the FAA as he handed over the signed copies. “These will be stamped with the case number Monday morning,” he said, getting to his feet and nodding toward the door. She thanked him and took her leave, slipping behind the wheel of her Corvette in a minor daze, the logistics of moving the fight to the nation’s capital running roughshod over the need to reexamine the best way to proceed.

I really need to get Ted Greene on the phone!

Her irritation had built to the threshold of anger that the Beltway lawyer who was supposed to be so helpful had failed to return her calls for two days.

She reached in her purse for her PDA and found Ted Greene’s home number in Alexandria, Virginia. She’d given up leaving messages on his beeper and voice mails on his office phone. Maybe, she thought, she’d catch him at home on a weekend.

Gracie entered the number but held off punching the send button, remembering she was still in the judge’s driveway. She backed out and maneuvered a half block down the street before pulling to the side.

Greene answered on the third ring.

“Ted? Gracie O’Brien. Thank heavens.”

“Yes.”

“In Seattle? Remember, the Rosen case?”

“Yes, Ms. O’Brien. What can I do for you so… late on a Saturday evening?”

She caught the unfriendly edge in his voice and glanced at her watch, realizing it was past nine P.M. in Alexandria and she hadn’t considered the time zones.

“I apologize for the hour, but I need to let you know what I am doing.” She outlined the actions she had just filed, the one filed the day before, and the judge’s recommendation regarding the FAA suit.

The voice from Alexandria was icy. “Oh, wonderful. Did you specifically name the Federal Aviation Administration in that TRO action, Ms. O’Brien?”

“Call me Gracie, please.”

“Please answer the question.”

“Well, yes,” she said, much of her mind distracted by the obvious hostility in his voice. “I didn’t name the FAA as the only party, but I included them as a named arm of government to incorporate the possibility that they might be involved as a volitional party to these acts. Now I need to have you file this new action that is directly against them. I’ve got it all drawn up.”

“I see. So you retained me as a ranking expert on dealing with the FAA, but now you want to send me your work product and have me just accept your filing papers and find a court up here to file them in, or should I go do what you just did in Seattle and inconvenience a federal judge on a Saturday night so you can fire an ill-timed broadside at a major federal agency and utterly destroy the work in progress?”

“What work in progress? And what do you mean, ill-timed?”

“Ill-timed. Ridiculously timed, in fact.”

“Why? How?” She could feel herself flushing in potential embarrassment at the possibility she could have made a major mistake.

“Well, let’s see,” he was saying, his voice just short of a sneer. “For starters, I have just begun the delicate dance with the FAA I was retained to conduct, an interaction involving the careful and professional people I work with all the time at FAA headquarters, people whom I can deal with more often than not without litigation. But, if I follow your playbook, these same folks Monday morning would walk into eight hundred Independence Avenue only to discover that something that they thought was still very much in gentlemanly negotiation had turned into a godforsaken war over the weekend. And with my name associated, I’d be in the position of essentially breaking my implied word.”

“Implied…? Mr. Greene, I think we have more than a few elements of misunderstanding here. First, I was under the impression that I hired you, yet you’re speaking to me as if I’m some misbehaving junior associate.”

“You retained me for the Rosens. I represent them. I allowed you to tag along as a baby lawyer playing cocounsel, especially after I read your curriculum vitae and discovered you had almost no experience. And here we are screwing up an otherwise lovely Saturday evening with the news that instead of consulting me, you’ve gone off half-cocked and sued the world.”

Gracie felt the embarrassment metastasizing into anger, her breathing becoming more rapid as the need for caution competed with the desire for counterattack. But she also needed his counsel and his representation, no matter how obnoxious he was. And the captain, in particular, needed him.

“I take it, Mr. Greene,” she said, “that you don’t check your beeper or your office voice mail on the weekends. In fact, I left messages with your secretary all day yesterday and have been trying to reach you on the beeper since yesterday afternoon.”

There was silence for a few seconds from Alexandria.

So, I hear the first hesitation in your smug replies, huh, Teddy? she thought.

“I… was in a deposition yesterday,” he said, recovering. “I was unaware you were trying to reach me. I will apologize for that.”

Interesting! Gracie thought. Not, “I do apologize,” but “I will.” And when would that be?

“Well, sir,” she said, “the fact is, I did everything I could to reach you regarding developing matters of immense urgency on this case. I’m doubly sorry I was unable to get the benefit of your counsel, but I had an obligation to do what appeared to be the right thing given the circumstances.”

“Ms. O’Brien, I’m not terribly concerned about your en-joining the Coast Guard, but naming the FAA is a huge mistake and a significant problem for me.”

For you? she thought. It’s Arlie Rosen who’s lost his license.

“Why,” Gracie asked, “is it a problem to join them on this issue? If they have no culpability, it’s a nonissue.”

She could hear his derisive chuckle on the other end, a caustic sound that echoed through her psyche into the dark recesses where she’d bottled up so many minor assaults over the years from those who thought the concept of a young, unpedigreed little girl taking on the real world in any way was simply contemptible. There he was, droning on, unconcerned with the plight of his client or the sincerity of her efforts, merely rising to the challenge of puffing out his manly chest and showing her how stupid she really was. And she was expected to instantly accept that conclusion based on his position, his experience, his gender, and the Ivy League law degree that was undoubtedly hanging on his wall.

“Gentlemanly negotiation,” he’d said.

“Ms. O’Brien? Are you still there?”

Gracie shook herself back to the moment. “I’m sorry. I’m in a car.”

“I was saying that the problem here is that you’ve gone, skipping with unwarranted innocence, into a real-world minefield. You obviously don’t understand the FAA’s hair-trigger sensitivity to being joined in any lawsuit. On top of that, Captain Rosen is extremely vulnerable, but as long as he didn’t hit a ship or anything on the surface, which would prove he was too low, they really don’t have much chance of making the reckless flying charge stick in the long run. The FAA just doesn’t react well to challenge by lawsuit, and when threatened they tend to drop any deals or any reasonable treatment that might be pending and really attack.”

“Mr. Greene, they could hardly attack more effectively than pulling a 747 captain’s entire pilot’s license, for crying out loud!”

Another derisive sneer, or was that a snort?

“You’re whipping this into an artificial emergency, Ms. O’Brien. These things take many months at best. Other than the loss of license and the man’s obvious desire to get it reinstated — which won’t happen rapidly, I can assure you — I don’t understand your panic.”

“My panic, as you call it, probably was fanned to white-hot status when I discovered this morning that some arm of the United States government has now raised and stolen the wreckage of Captain Rosen’s aircraft, although the condition of that aircraft is a key to his exoneration.”

“‘Stolen’ is a strong word,” he said.

Well, DUH! she thought.

“What do you mean, ‘stolen’?” he added.

“Under admiralty law, Counselor,” Gracie began, choosing her words carefully and reminding herself over and over that they needed him. “How else should we look at a situation in which the owner has clearly not abandoned the wreck, has hired a salvage firm, has given no permission to anyone else to touch the wreckage, and the government does so anyway?”

“How did they inform you they were taking the wreckage?”

“How did they inform us?” She laughed. A short, singular sound of cumulative amazement and disgust carrying a far more complex message than he was willing to receive. “They informed us by creating a restricted area around the crash site and then leaving a few pieces on the ocean floor where the plane had formerly come to rest. That’s how. We have no idea when they took it or where it is. The FAA could be tampering with exculpatory evidence even as we speak. After all, I gave you extensive details of that FAA inspector’s hostility to the captain. They could easily damage the wreckage so that it would be impossible to determine whether a prop blade broke in flight.”

“Ms. O’Brien, I can assure you the FAA wasn’t responsible for taking that wreckage.”

“How do you know that, Mr. Greene?”

More silence.

Too much and too harsh! she chided herself. I’m going to lose him if I don’t calm down. But she could feel the battle between professional restraint and the supercritical desire to cut him to ribbons taking its toll on her judgment.

“Ms. O’Brien, as alien as this community seems to practitioners like yourself on the outside, the reality is that the FAA moves in a different time continuum from the rest of the universe. It would take them months to decide to salvage anything. In fact, they’d have a hard time deciding within a week to leave their building if it was on fire, for fear they might be criticized for doing it incorrectly.”

“These are the same careful and probative people you work with all the time? The ones you’re now disparaging?”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

“Well, dignify this, if you please, Mr. Greene. Did you or did you not tell me several days ago that the FAA was conducting a vendetta of sorts and was determined to keep Captain Rosen grounded?”

“I… believe I said it appeared they were leaning in that direction, given my initial contacts.”

“You do? You believe you said that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you also believe you said these exact words: ‘They’re gunning for him, Gracie’? Because the fact is, you said the FAA tends to get that way with enforcement actions, and that you couldn’t get even the most cursory cooperation from the FAA in Captain Rosen’s case. You said, and I quote: ‘It’s as if they’ve made an agency decision to go for broke and destroy him.’”

“Well, I may have overstated the case a bit.”

“Fine. We all do that at times. But would you kindly tell this poor little baby lawyer from the boondocks who doesn’t understand the real world where in those statements a reasonable man or woman can find any rational room for the interpretation that a so-called delicate dance was in progress that might lead to a good solution for Captain Rosen outside of litigation?”

Now we have the long-suffering, condescending sigh, Gracie thought, listening to him shift the receiver to the other ear as if trying to gather his thoughts on how to explain nuclear physics to the village idiot.

“You clearly don’t understand the process, Ms. O’Brien. You have to be very careful and diplomatic in dealing with these people. I deal with them all the time. I can’t come racing in every time they take a certificate action and accuse them of malfeasance and evil intent. I’d have no credibility left if I followed your method of draw, shoot, then aim. I’ve developed long-standing relationships with these folks, and what you’ve done imperils all of that. Now I have a lot of repair work to do, just to begin with.”

“What happened to being your client’s advocate, Mr. Greene?” she asked quietly.

“I resent that implication, young woman,” he shot back. “This is how we do it in the big city, and I agreed to help your client based on the obviously unwarranted assumption that you understood my value was more than just being an errand boy to file your papers in the Beltway. I get results over time by being careful and solicitous, and not by whacking them with a big stick at every opportunity.”

There’s no way I can win a battle with this windbag, she thought. Either bare your neck, babe, or fire the bastard.

Gracie closed her eyes and forced herself to be obsequious. This is for the captain, she reminded herself, letting the thought echo and grow loud enough to drown out her own fury.

“Look, Mr. Greene, I’m sorry if I’ve made things more difficult, but how can we not sue them? They’re part of the U.S. government, and the government is messing around with the very evidence that can prove the charges they’ve leveled at Captain Rosen are absolutely false. Exculpatory evidence. I don’t see how talking to them further is going to preserve that wreckage.”

“Well, you know what? I guess that’s just going to have to be your problem, Counselor, because I’m no longer a party to this.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m withdrawing right here, right now. I’ll return your advance Monday.”

“Now, wait a minute. Please.”

“Ms. O’Brien, you’re a female bull in a china closet, and it’s my china closet.”

“I’m hardly a bull.”

“I wish you well. I wish your clients well. But I predict you’ve already cooked Captain Rosen’s goose with what you’ve done. The moment you named them in that complaint, you guaranteed that the FAA will fight to the death.”

“Mr. Greene, you accepted this case.”

“And I am withdrawing. I am not of counsel on any filing by my hand, and I’m out of here.”

“No! Please, listen to—”

The sound of a terminated connection rang in her ear and Gracie sat in stunned silence for a few seconds, feeling ill, and momentarily wondering whether to call back.

Shit!

She hated the word, but it seemed appropriate, and she decided she was far enough from any other ears to give voice to her feelings of anger and shame.

“Shit!”

Gracie sat for several minutes, breathing hard, her head pounding as she tried to push through the thicket of conflicting feelings and find something logical and rational to grab, a life ring in the rising tide of emotions that had overwhelmed her good sense and restraint.

You can’t punch out the world, kid! The metaphor was sufficiently incongruous to spark a laugh amid the darkness of the moment. She realized there were tears cascading down her face, and that unblinking evidence of lost control added to the burst of self-loathing that seemed to fill the small interior of the Corvette.

Her ’Vette. Her boat. Her ego. Her expectations. Her position. All of it could collapse in a moment if she was booted out of Janssen and Pruzan. Lawyers were a dime a dozen, her salary was a rarity, and with all her new possessions, she was hanging off the edge now and wholly exposed financially, with almost nothing saved.

Why am I thinking about me? I’ve just imperiled the only family I’ve ever had.

She looked at the cell phone in her hand, the need to call April becoming almost irresistible. But April would be on the flight back to Seattle, and what could she say anyway? “Hi, old friend. My lousy judgment and combative personality have just succeeded in losing the only lawyer in D.C. who could have made the FAA change their minds. Thanks to me, your dad is really screwed now.”

She laid the phone on the passenger seat and looked at the radio, wondering if the salvation of diversion would slake the pain.

No! Face this now! Figure this out! You’ve just started two federal lawsuits and want to file a third. What next?

A ragged breath shuddered her trim body, the feeling of fragility scaring her. I’m not supposed to feel like such a failure at twenty-six. Wasn’t it written somewhere that the enthusiasm and exuberance of youth can override anything? Focus, Gracie! Focus!

She had the strength to survive this and win. Hadn’t she survived? So many nights with her mother passed out on the couch, her father gone, the child the mother to the parent, and she’d said the same things to herself with less assurance. Survival now required self-confidence, and that self-confidence could stand on the shoulders of her past survival.

All right. So we’ve lost Greene. It may turn out for the best. There are other aviation lawyers in D.C., if I need one. But why do I? Finesse didn’t work with the FAA. The game has changed.

Before, they had been trying to appease an agency that was angry for no apparent reason. Now they had evidence that could kill off two of the three charges, and the FAA’s claim that the captain had illegally flown in bad weather had been shaky from the start.

She mentally dammed the tide of fear and ran through the things she would need to do to carry the fight to Washington. And the first step, she realized with a deep and visceral shock, would be to talk to Ben Janssen and secure permission to go. The mere thought of that unavoidable encounter made her feel cold, igniting an unfamiliar buzzing in her head.

Gracie took a very deep breath and forced her hands back to the wheel and the shift lever. The first step was to return to her office, though she had a sick feeling it might be for the last time.