Marine One

7

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.

Tripp was waiting for me in the lobby of the sprawling WorldCopter building. It looked like a factory but was really more of an assembly plant. WorldCopter made everything in France and shipped it to the United States for assembly. This allowed them to claim that it was an American helicopter. It was all about appearances. Everyone knew it was a French helicopter, or rather a helicopter made in France by a European consortium known as WorldCopter.

Tripp gave me a badge and hustled me through security. "They've got it set up in the computer room."

"You watch it?"

"Not yet. Here we are," he said, opening a heavy steel door.

I was surprised at the number of people in the room. This was to be the first playing of the combined animation of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder that anyone other than a technician would actually see. Even Marcel hadn't seen the entire thing; he'd just sampled it to make sure it looked right. Several technicians and engineers were standing around the computer console where the FDR had been loaded up. Others, including Tripp, stood against the wall trying to stay out of the way.

Marcel nodded his head to one of the technicians standing at the door, who dimmed the lights. Another one turned up the speakers connected to the computer. Everyone focused on the large, flatscreen monitor that had been connected to the computer and hung on the wall. I was anxious to see what movements of the helicopter coincided with the various noises I'd heard on the cockpit voice recorder. The background was dark blue for the sky and green for the land. There was no attempt by the computer to put any terrain into the images. The flight data recorder had no terrain information.

The colors were simply background to help discern the horizon. The voices could be heard exactly where in the flight they were talking. Marcel had had the CVR transcribed too, so the subtitles went across the bottom of the screen as quickly as they were spoken.

Collins's voice was now familiar as the helicopter approached its landing at the White House. We stood silently and listened again to Collins's conversations with his copilot and the head of the Secret Service detail as they prepared to take off, then President Adams's approach to Collins and his shocking comments. None of that was on the FDR-it showed a motionless helicopter sitting on the lawn with the rotor blades turning.

Marine One took off and flew through what we knew to be the night. The turbulence was obvious in the bouncing helicopter in spite of Collins's attempts to keep it straight and level. He fought the storm and the turbulence the entire way, shifting altitudes in a vain attempt to avoid the worst. As he approached the final minute of flight, the room became deathly quiet. We looked at every movement and listened to every sound now correlated to movement as Collins searched for clear air. We heard his exclamations and watched him fighting the helicopter, cursing, then the flight data recorder information stopped. So did the helicopter in the animation, but the voices continued as we listened through to the end of the tape.

As the voices stopped, the screen went blank. Nobody said anything. We all had new thoughts, some things that confirmed what we had thought, others that conflicted. But not only was the puzzle not solved, the animation raised more questions than it answered.

The question foremost on my mind, though, was why the flight data recorder had stopped. I looked at Marcel. "You find the circuit-breaker panels?"

"Yes. But they're burned."

"Can you tell what circuit breakers are out?"

"Maybe. They have the pieces of plastic, and they're going to have to reconstruct the board. Some of the circuit breakers are still there intact, but most have been burned off."

I thought about where the circuit-breaker panels were near the pilot and what circuit breakers were on them. "Is there a circuit breaker for the flight data recorder?"

Everybody turned to me at once. The implications of the question were self-evident.

Marcel answered, "Yes."

"I know where the hydraulic-boost-pump circuit breaker is," I said. It was down to the right, just below the pilot's knee, and back a little bit on the right side. "Is the flight data recorder circuit breaker near that?"

Marcel stared at me. He nodded his head slowly. "Right below it. Unmarked. It looks like a dummy. Do you think he tried to pull the hydraulic breaker and got the FDR?"

I stood without answering for a minute. Everybody was looking at me, expecting me to say something, but it just didn't make any sense. Finally I said, "If you had a boost pump failure and had a circuit breaker pop out from the boost pump, he'd figure that out pretty quick and try to reset it. So he'd reach down, feel it, and push it in. The only thing I can imagine that would involve the flight data recorder circuit breaker would be if he decided to pull it out before he pushed it in and grabbed the wrong one. Seems unlikely."

Marcel threw his hands up. "Then why else would the flight data recorder circuit breaker have popped?"

"We don't know that it did. But maybe there was something wrong with the flight data recorder." Or he pulled it on purpose, I said to myself. "Did you load this flight data recorder info into the simulator?"

"Of course. It has been ready all night."

We headed toward the simulator room down a long hallway. I said to Marcel, "Does it have an FDR circuit breaker?"

"No, it's a standard helicopter, not Marine One."

"I want to fly it and feel what Collins felt."

Marcel held the door for me and the others who wanted to watch the flight from the control room of the simulator. The simulator room itself was enormous. It held three fully operational helicopter simulators on hydraulic stands. The cockpits were complete and identical to those operational helicopters. Each was surrounded by a dome that could project any image from mountains to bad weather to images of other aircraft.

We climbed up to the simulator that had been prepared, and I strapped into the right seat, the pilot-in-command seat, where Collins was sitting on the night of the accident. I put on the headset and Marcel took the left seat. An accomplished helicopter pilot, he had spent ten years flying attack helicopters with the French army. The cockpit was fairly dark, but the internal lights made the preflight routine feel like a normal night launch. I went through all the checklists from memory, and Marcel was right there with me turning on some of the systems to get us going. We could just have told the computer "go," and they would have put the simulator immediately in the air approaching the White House as Collins was at the beginning of the CVR. But I wanted to fly it from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House just as Collins had. I wanted to leave there with the same fuel Collins had and fly to the position he had gone to when we first encountered him. Then if things changed, if the computer put switches and settings different from where I had them, it would mean either Collins had done things differently from me, or he'd missed something.

Marcel and I took off from Andrews and headed for the White House. WorldCopter had actually flown the route from Andrews to the White House numerous times to film the route and get good video to put into the simulator to train the Marine One pilots.

I had asked them to plug in the actual visibility and ceiling that existed at the White House when Collins made his approach; so we weren't seeing much on the way into Washington, just an occasional light from a monument. The synthetic aperture radar, though, made the terrain look like a moving picture. We could recognize the White House on the radar before we saw it.

I began my descent, nearing the point where the FDR and CVR would take over. I was right on track when Collins's voice came over my headset. I released the controls and looked for changes. A couple of things were set differently, different preferences for a couple of displays, but nothing significant.

The cyclic in my right hand-the stick, as nonhelicopter people might call it-and the collective in my left hand, which controlled the engine and the pitch of the rotor blades, moved as if possessed. Knowing it was duplicating the exact movements of a dead man made it even more spooky than it would have been anyway. I listened carefully again to Collins's conversations with President Adams and the others, then prepared for the moment when Collins lifted the helicopter off on its last flight. I placed my hands on the controls lightly, so I could feel everything he had done. My feet were equally light on the pedals that controlled the tail rotor.

Then Collins and I, together, lifted off from the South Lawn. He flew the helicopter with a confidence and fluidity I had never seen before. It was like driving in a car with a professional instead of just another driver. I tried to anticipate how he would handle the helicopter, thinking how I would get it to go where I knew he wanted it to go; but every time he would do it just a little differently from what I anticipated, and I would know immediately that his way was better. More efficient, smoother. Brilliant.

The White House faded in the mist and rain below us as we climbed aggressively to the northwest, away from the ground, where things were always the most dangerous. If you get tossed around at five thousand feet, it's just annoying. If you get tossed around at fifteen feet, it can be fatal. All those spinning blades and so many things to hit.

The flight was well-known to us by now, and we watched carefully as Collins took us through it. There weren't any new surprises en route. The simulator tried to indicate rough weather and turbulence, but was admittedly imperfect in doing so. Still, we could tell it was one hell of a bad night.

As we approached the last minute of the flight, Marcel and I looked at each other, wondering what we'd notice from here that we hadn't seen anywhere else. The cyclic was moving much more than it had before. I could tell Collins was fighting what was happening. No doubt much of it was due to the gusting winds, which made me wonder if he was moving the cyclic or if it was simply being left behind in numerous involuntary jerks of the helicopter, like hitting the curb with your tire and feeling the wheel turn in your hands.

The final movements of the controls in the cockpit were like hitting a curb in a car. Abrupt changes, but in a short throw. Fighting something, back and forth, movement not obvious from watching the animation from any angle. Then one last thing before the simulator stopped moving-the nose of the helicopter pitched up dramatically. Again, watching on a screen didn't give you the full appreciation for the fifteen-degree nose-up attitude. You could certainly see it, but seeing it from the cockpit was much more dramatic. Something bad had happened right there. Before the FDR cut out. What it led to after that was impossible to say, but I knew something had happened. Not a gust of wind or turbulence. Something else.

The flight data recorder stopped and the simulator froze in its place. We checked the altitude, the heading, and the attitude-how the helicopter was situated in the air-and all the instruments. We looked at each other with the same puzzlement and ended the flight. The hydraulic platform hissed slightly as it returned to its resting place. We waited until it settled and stepped out.

We stood around the simulator on the smooth concrete floor and discussed what we had seen. There must have been ten of us. Lots of theories, lots of questions for Marcel and me. We told them what we could and suggested that they all go through the entire flight just as we had.

As we were walking back to the computer room to talk it out, I said to Marcel, "You feel that pitch up at the end? Right before the FDR went dead?"

"Yes."

"Any ideas?"

"No. I will give it much thought. I am sure you will too."

When we regathered in the computer room, there were many long faces. Everyone knew there was no conclusive proof about anything. We all had thought when we put everything together in the animation and the simulator, the answer would lie in front of us. I knew that was unlikely when I'd heard the FDR had stopped, but I was hopeful. Now I was as confused as any of them.

I said my good-byes and walked to my car. The movement of the controls had made me wonder about a lot of things. I still wasn't sure I could trust Collins. Great pilot, sure, but not a great guy. I had to know everything there was to know about him, and I had to keep it to myself. I couldn't exactly be telling people I had a vague suspicion that the pilot of Marine One crashed on purpose. Saying I suspected Collins was too strong. I simply allowed it to exist as a theoretical possibility. I was probably the only person in the world who did. The FDR showed someone fighting a storm. Or at least that's how it was supposed to look. Collins was smart, though, and knew the helicopter had a CVR and an FDR. If he had set this all up, he'd know we'd be listening. He could make it look however he wanted.

I had to find out more about him to put that crazy idea to rest, or to sound the alarm. I headed for my office to call Jason Britt, a Marine pilot I'd known for years and who was one of the pilots in my reserve squadron. He had flown with Collins in his last active-duty squadron before going to fly for the president. I had to talk to him before the NTSB did.