Marine One

34

I DROPPED OFF Cherie at her house and told her I would have her car sent to her later that day. I headed back to Annapolis way faster than I should have, trying hard not to kill myself.

I had left my new cell phone out on the seat next to me as I was driving and picked it up immediately when it rang. I recognized Rachel's new number. "How's it going?"

"If you like a mediocre attorney questioning a dull expert, you'd feel right at home."

"Good. I want everybody lulled to sleep because this whole trial is about to blow up."

"Blow up in a good or bad way?"

"I hope a good way, but all I know is that I've got the explosives. Let's see if I can control it."

I could hear the excitement in her voice. "When does it start?"

"Right after lunch. I've got to get Kathryn to let me take over."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get two subpoenas ready. One I want you to serve tonight is on J. Mark Grosvenor."

"Who's he?"

"The Secret Service agent at Camp David. Tinny's source."

"Holy shit. How did you get that information?"

"Tinny's wife showed up on my doorstep this morning. I can't go into it right now, just know that you need to get ahold of Justin and have him prepare a subpoena for Grosvenor. He lives in Maryland so he's under the court's jurisdiction. I want you to drive over and serve him at his house tonight."

"Okay. You heading back?"

"Yeah."

"Who's the other subpoena for?"

"You'll see. You won't have to go very-Shit! An accident!" I exclaimed. I dropped the phone as I slammed on the brakes and tried to keep from hitting the car in front of me, which was skidding to a stop. I could feel the pulsing antilock brakes, then I realized it wasn't an accident at all. The Dodge Caravan right in front of me had just slammed on his brakes. I could see the driver's face in his side mirror watching me. We were in the fast lane, and a concrete barrier was to my left with no shoulder. I looked right to see if I could go around, but a car was stopping at the same rate I was stopping. The driver was wearing a ski mask. Shit. I could see a sedan behind me closing quickly. I was about to be trapped between three cars on the freeway.

They wanted what I had just gotten. They had waited until they were sure I had it and were going to get it, whatever the cost. Because they knew, and I knew they knew, that if I got these documents to court, they'd be exposed. I had scanned the documents onto a flash drive on my key chain; maybe if I gave them the hard copies, they'd let me go… no, they wouldn't. Not if they were ready to risk this kind of open attack.

I suddenly became my other self. My Marine, kill-or-be-killed self. Adrenaline flooded my system; everything I was seeing rushed into my mind all at once. I had to decide what to do in a half second-in only a few feet I would hit the minivan in front of me. The nose of the car stopping to my right was just slightly behind the front of my Volvo. He was stopping faster than I was, assuming I'd stop and not hit the car in front of me. I braked harder and he did too. I suddenly took my foot off the brake and slammed the accelerator to the floor while I threw the steering wheel to the right to miss the minivan. My passenger door caught the car to my right on his front left fender and pushed him to his right. He started to lose control and began spinning clockwise. I turned back to the left and stayed in the lane next to the fast lane. I shot by the minivan, which was still braking hard.

I kept the accelerator on the floor and tried to avoid the cars that I was closing on at an increasing rate. I glanced at the speedometer as it passed through fifty, sixty, and seventy. I kept it floored. The minivan was coming after me, and the white sedan was right behind him. The car that had been to my right had spun completely around. I watched as he stopped, but only to be hit head-on by a Lincoln Navigator that couldn't go around him. I couldn't hear the impact, but I could see the glass flying. Good. I hoped the son of a bitch swallowed his mask and choked to death.

I looked back down and saw I was passing through a hundred miles per hour. I saw an exit approaching and knew exactly where I was. I had fished every creek wider than eighteen inches in Maryland. I knew the countryside like the back of my hand. I wasn't sure I'd be safer off the freeway, but I thought I knew just the place-and just the bridge-to lose whoever was following me. I wished I had put one of my handguns under the seat the way I had thought about hundreds of times, especially after Tinny had been killed. But of course that would have been illegal. And I had convinced myself I was being paranoid.

I looked to my right and turned sharply across the other two lanes and exited the freeway on the fly. I continued to accelerate recklessly down the off-ramp. As I got to the bottom, I slammed on the brakes and turned west onto a two-lane highway. I saw the other two cars racing down the off-ramp behind me as I pulled away from them. I checked the engine temperature, which was increasing.

After a mile I saw the road rising in front of me. The bridge. The small, arched bridge made of brick allowed a railroad track to pass underneath the road. It was an active track, but I didn't see trains on it often. I glanced down the track in both directions and didn't see any trains.

As I got to the front of the bridge, I slammed on the brakes. I started a turn to the right off the road as I crested the bridge and headed down the other side. I knew I was betting on my soccer-mom Volvo, which I had never wanted in the first place. The reviews I had read before buying it were screaming at me-made for driving to the woods, not through them. The four-wheel drive did exactly what I had hoped though as I turned sharply and dangerously off the road, down through the grass, and up steeply to the railroad tracks. I didn't know the width of the tracks or whether it was even possible to drive on the rails. I didn't even try. I forced the right wheels across the first rail and toward the right, but not all the way to it the other side. I straddled the left rail and accelerated, shocked by the jarring from the railroad ties. I suddenly saw dirt kick up in front of me.

I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the sedan stopped on the bridge with two men firing at me. I was at least three hundred yards away. They had no real chance of hitting me, even with a rifle. But they might get lucky. I slouched down a little and pressed harder on the accelerator. The minivan tried the same turn I had tried. He started into the grass but the top-heavy Caravan just kept rolling. It rolled onto its side and slid down the hill into a mushy shoulder below. The two men in the sedan climbed back in and learned from what they had seen. They took the descending turn gently and slowly and successfully climbed up onto the tracks. Damn it.

I accelerated to seventy, straining the limits of my suspension, which was clattering and protesting. I watched for the water I knew was ahead as the sedan fell farther behind me. As I saw the first indication of water, I waited for the clearing I knew would be nearby. I saw it coming and slowed slightly. As I approached the dirt road that led away from the tracks, I turned hard left, jumped off the tracks, and flew down the embankment onto the dirt road into the woods.

Still intact, I tore through the woods on the rutted dirt road looking ahead for the right turn that would take me to a place I had once fished. It was memorable because it was the worst place I'd ever fished. Brackish water, no fish, and impossible to get to. But I had remembered it. And I had remembered that at this time of the year the water would be low and you could even drive across it in an emergency.

Just as I got to the other dirt road, I saw the sedan come down from the tracks and onto the dirt road. I had almost a mile on them now. I drove down to the end of the road, came to the T intersection, and turned hard right. Five hundred yards later I came out of the trees and onto a beachlike area of sand and loose gravel. I could feel the wheels bite and distribute the pull needed to keep me going. The water was lower than I had expected. No more than fifteen feet across and maybe eight inches deep. Fast or slow into the water? I had no idea. I just kept going, probably twenty miles an hour by then. The wheels sunk slightly as I approached the creek. I didn't even hesitate. This was my gamble. If I got stuck, it was going to be ugly. No one was around, probably wouldn't be for weeks.

The Volvo hit the creek and arches of water rose up on either side of the hood. The car made a sickening move to the side that told me I had just hydroplaned on the top of the water. The wheels settled into the water, straining to find something to grab, and hit the mucky creek bottom. One wheel would find a rock or solid piece of ground and push me forward, then another. Momentum alone was almost enough to carry me across, which made me think the sedan behind me might even make it.

I kept going and came out of the creek on the other side. I climbed up the shallow bank and away from the creek. The road on the other side was mushy, unused, and overgrown with tall grass, which didn't slow me down much. It would sure make it easy to figure out which way I had gone though. The Military Highway, as it was known, was less than a half mile ahead at the end of the dirt road and would take me straight to Annapolis.

I made the half mile in a half minute and climbed up onto the highway. No cars in sight in either direction. I stopped and got out as steam surrounded the car from the water on the hot engine and transmission. I strained to see the creek behind me and thought I could see the top of the sedan where the creek would be. It didn't seem to be moving.

I turned toward Annapolis and wondered if more of them were waiting there for me.

I went to my office, got out of my car carefully, looked around, and headed in. The Volvo had a huge dent in the passenger door, with mud and grass stains all around. The car looked as if it had been picked up in a tornado and thrown back down.

I waited to see anything out of the ordinary, but saw nothing. I went inside and Dolores directed me to the conference room, where everyone had gathered for lunch.

"Hi, everyone, sorry I'm late. I got sidetracked." I tossed the envelope to Justin. "Make five copies of each of the documents in there."

He was surprised by the look on my face and hurried out of the room, saying nothing.

I said, "Well, Wayne Bradley is ready to testify. He'll basically say what he said in his deposition."

They all returned to their sandwiches and outlines. "I've got to make a quick phone call. I'll be right back."

I stepped out of the conference room and into my office and sent a text message to Kathryn, who was sitting in the conference room. I told her to come to my office, to say she was going to the bathroom, and to invite no one else, under any circumstances. I waited. About three minutes later Kathryn walked into my office and closed the door.

"What is this about?"

"Hi, Kathryn," I said slowly. "How are you?" I looked at her like I was out of my mind and pointed at the ceiling and all around as if there could be a listening device somewhere.

She frowned and shook her head but didn't say anything.

I tightened my tie and tucked in my shirt as I put materials into my briefcase. "Kathryn, I need to put on Wayne Bradley next." I was nodding vigorously as my tone was passive.

She sat on the couch in my office rather heavily and put her arms back on the cushions. "Brightman's doing all the experts."

"I was hoping that since we're going to lose anyway"-I shook my head, indicating I didn't really believe that anymore-"you'd let me just put on a couple of witnesses." I wrote on a pad of paper and handed it to her.

She responded, "Maybe."

Then she read the paper, which said Bradley could explain the tip weight. Her eyes grew and she looked up at me quickly. I nodded and held my finger to my lips. She looked at the paper again and mouthed to me, "Seriously?"

I nodded. "So what do you think? I've had Braden prepare the outline, so we're ready to go."

"You know we're getting creamed, don't you?"

"Yeah. I know. We'll just wait for the judgment, and then we'll take it up on appeal and try and settle for some reasonable amount."

"That's pretty much what I was thinking too," she said, trying not to be too hopeful.

We returned to the conference room and Kathryn now had color in her face. Rachel looked at us suspiciously and I gave her a dirty look. She continued preparing some notes. Kathryn said to Brightman, "Mark, I told Mike that he could put on Wayne Bradley next."

Brightman sat back in his chair, looking offended. "I thought I was doing all the experts."

"That was the plan, but what difference does it really make at this point? He's prepared Bradley all morning, and Braden has done the outline."

She glanced at Braden, who looked up and smiled.

Brightman replied, "Do I have any say in this? I think consistency of trial counsel at this point would be-"

"I've decided. I want him to put on Wayne Bradley this afternoon."

"Well, I'm on the record then as opposing this idea. Do you want me to be in the courtroom?"

"Sure, you can sit next to him, between him and Rachel."

"Well, I disagree with this, but I'll do whatever you say, Kathryn-as long as WorldCopter agrees with this."

Tripp nodded, although he was confused at Kathryn's motivations. He had given up.

I wolfed down half a turkey sandwich. As I finished, I said to Braden, "You've been working pretty hard. You should come to court and see Bradley testify."

"Wouldn't miss it," he agreed.

"I'm going to go get set up. I'll see you over there." I headed for court and called Debbie. "Can you take Bradley to the courtroom now? Walk him all the way in. Don't let anybody come near him."

"Will do. So that's my new job. Personal escort service."

"That sounds wrong somehow."

"Yes, it does. How about personal security detail?"

"There you go, see you there."

I dialed Marcel's number and he picked up immediately. "Marcel, you got that info for me on the tip weights?"

"Yes."

"What's the answer?"

"Just as you thought."

"Can you prove it?"

"Yes, I can."

"Any doubt?"

"No. None."

"Bring it."

"I will be there in a few minutes."

I got to court before all the other attorneys, including Hackett and his minions. Court was to reconvene at one thirty, and I arrived just after one. People were beginning to tire of the routine, only coming in at the last minute instead of being there eagerly awaiting the next event. Brightman must really have put them to sleep. Some of the journalists sitting outside writing on notepads and typing on computers were surprised to see me.

I sat at the lead counsel position at the table, and a few minutes later Rachel joined me. I asked Rachel quietly without looking at her, "Did you bring it?"

"Yes."

"You gonna serve it?"

"With pleasure."

"Should be an interesting afternoon."

"To say the least. I can't wait to see what you've got."

"Well, if this ends up somehow with me in jail for contempt of court, just claim that you didn't know anything about any of this."

"It would be true."

"Keep it that way. Enjoy the show."

The door creaked open behind us and Hackett came in. "Speaking of the literal devil," I said to Rachel under my breath.

"You think he sees it coming?"

"Not a chance."

She smiled and reached into her briefcase to pull out a manila envelope. She put it next to her at the counsel table.

Hackett sat down, glanced at me with some surprise on his face, and said nothing. His other associates returned, as did the gallery. The courtroom filled, and just as the clerk was ready to bring the judge in, Debbie walked in with Wayne Bradley. She looked beautiful and triumphant. She had never helped me in any case or at any trial before, and I think was surprised that I had asked her to watch over the most important witness in the case; the most important witness in my life. She was wearing a navy blue business suit that I didn't even remember she owned, with a V-neck, cream-colored blouse. She walked right up to me, opened the gate, and held it open as Bradley walked through. Brightman came in and sat with us at the table.

Others filed in and filled the courtroom in anticipation of the afternoon session. The clerk retrieved the jury from the hallway. The jurors retook their seats and the judge took the bench. She looked at Bradley, then looked at Debbie, sitting in a chair behind me. "Your next witness, Mr. Nolan."

I looked over at Hackett, who looked bored and smug. "Your Honor, the defense calls Mr. Wayne Bradley."

I turned the pages in my notebook to the outline that Braden had prepared for me, turned past it, and looked at the outline I'd spent almost all night preparing.

Bradley made his way to the witness stand, took the oath, and sat with his battered briefcase on his lap. He looked his usual disheveled self, but had at least put on a wrinkled navy blue sport coat out of respect for the court. I walked him through his qualifications, his prior experience as a testifying expert in metallurgy or materials science, the number of aircraft accidents he'd been involved in investigating, and spent a good deal of time on his prior job as a chairman of the NTSB metallurgical lab.

I watched the jury as he went through his qualifications. They had already decided this case, but they were interested in what someone of his qualifications had to say about the accident and certainly wanted to hear what, if anything, WorldCopter had to say about the accident. If we had another story to tell, it had better begin now or we would lose them forever. I led Bradley through the initial part of his testimony as if the last ten days had never happened. He talked about Hackett's experts, how they had jumped to conclusions based on insufficient evidence, how assigning blame to the tip weights was convenient, but unsupportable. It was impossible to know whether the absence of tip weights on the blade that had been found by the wreckage was the cause of the accident or a result of the accident. When blades start slamming into the side of a broken helicopter in the air, the blades can come apart, they can shred, and they can certainly knock the end cap off and jettison tip weights. So it was premature to form a conclusion that the tip weights caused the crash without finding the tip weights. And, he noted, the plaintiffs' experts had never found nor seen the tip weights from the blade of Marine One. I glanced down at the yellow notepad in front of Hackett. He was doodling, drawing a bunny or an odd dog. I asked Bradley, "The testimony you've just given to the jury, is that the same testimony that you gave at your deposition that Mr. Hackett here took?"

"Yes, he asked me basically the same questions and I gave him the same answers."

"When you filed your expert report and gave your deposition at Mr. Hackett's request, were your opinions final at that time?"

"Yes."

I turned the page. "Has anything occurred since you gave your deposition to cause you to reconsider your opinions?"

"Yes."

Hackett's head snapped up and his pen dropped to the pad.

I asked Bradley, "What has happened?"

"I just couldn't accept that the federal government couldn't find the tip weights. I worked for the NTSB for many years. Head of their metallurgy lab. You would think they'd find everything. Every single blade of grass that matters. Well, in my experience, since we're human, that isn't possible. They miss things. Sometimes important things. So I asked if we could go back out there again in the hope of finding something. We all-all the experts working with you on this-were in agreement we should never stop looking."

"Hadn't the NTSB already exhausted the hunt for tip weights?"

"Well, they had put a lot of manpower and time into it, but we had no knowledge of whether they have found any of them because they've closed their investigation to outsiders, even to the members of the investigation, like WorldCopter."

"Did you find anything?"

"Yes. We did."

Hackett shot to his feet. He had a choice. He now knew that I had something he didn't know about. He had to make a choice, to rush up to the court for a sidebar conference so that the jury would not hear any of the discussion, or to go for the fatal blow, and shut the witness down right in front of the jury. Hackett said, "Your Honor, this witness is about to testify about information that was not in his report or part of his deposition. He may not do so. He's only allowed to testify about his final opinions as they were prepared and exchanged with the other side. Anything else he 'found' is irrelevant."

I replied, "Your Honor, what he found is not only relevant, it is critical to know what happened to Marine One. Mr. Hackett has based his entire case on the idea that the tip weights came off the helicopter. I don't know why he would be concerned about what, if anything, has been recently found at the accident site."

The judge responded, "I don't see any harm in learning what he has found. You may continue."

"Dr. Bradley, what have you found?"

"While at the scene recently, Karl Will and you went up in a cherry picker-one of those trucks tree trimmers use-to get a close look at a broken branch high up in one of the trees. Well, he found a tip weight embedded in the broken branch and an indentation in the trunk where another tip weight had been but was no longer. I have examined it and I believe it is one of the tip weights from Marine One."

The courtroom sucked in its breath. Hackett started turning an odd reddish color. He jumped up again, "Your Honor, this is out of order. He is not allowed to do any further testing or prepare any testimony after his deposition. I'm being blindsided here, Your Honor."

The judge now wanted to hear what the evidence was. "Your objection is noted. Continue, Mr. Nolan."

"Dr. Bradley, how do you know it was the tip weight from Marine One?"

"Well, first, because it was found in a tree at the accident site of Marine One. It is unlikely to find a helicopter tip weight in any given tree, I think. But most significantly, because two-thirds of the serial number are on the piece that I found. It matches one of the numbers in the gap of weights that can't be accounted for. In other words, all the other tip weights are accounted for within the company, but these that would have been on Marine One are not accounted for by documents, and this matches one of those missing numbers."

"What kind of shape was the tip weight in?"

Bradley leaned back and extended his legs as he slipped his hand into his pocket. "I have it right here."

Almost as one, the jury leaned forward in their box to see what he was going to pull out. Bradley had the leather pouch, opened the drawstring, and dumped the tip weight out in his hand. "Here is the tip weight from Marine One. It's about an inch and a half across, at least in its full size, but we have only about three-quarters of an inch of it. About half of the tip weight."

Hackett wasn't sure whether to challenge him or to rejoice. A broken tip weight, a fractured tip weight, could prove his entire case.

I continued, "Dr. Bradley, what did you conclude from this fractured tip weight?"

"After I examined it preliminarily, I concluded that this tip weight fractured in flight, came off of the blade from Marine One, and caused the blade to go out of balance. And while I'm not an accident reconstructionist, it is virtually certain that out-of-balance condition on that blade caused the helicopter to go into massive vibrations, which resulted in its throwing the blade off of the helicopter and the helicopter ultimately rolling over and crashing."

Hackett smiled and shook his head. I had proved his case.

"Since your preliminary conclusions after finding this tip weight, have you had an opportunity to conduct further examination?"

Hackett didn't like where this was going. He stood. "Your Honor, I was under the impression that Dr. Bradley had just found this tip weight. We're now led to understand that he's had time to conduct additional investigation and examination? Mr. Nolan informed me of none of this. This is critical evidence to the case which he has kept in his possession, examined and tested with his expert, and told me nothing about it. This is unethical. I request the opportunity to take this witness on voir dire to determine exactly how long he's had this tip weight, what kind of tests he's done, and what his new opinions are before they're disclosed to the jury." Hackett raised his voice, "This is an ambush, Your Honor."

The jury was attentive. Some thought this was great sport, others seemed confused that although the evidence I had presented seemed to confirm Hackett's theory, he was outraged.

The judge looked at me over her reading glasses. "Why have you not informed Mr. Hackett of these developments prior to your calling of this witness, Mr. Nolan? You're aware of the ongoing obligations under the federal rules."

I looked over at Rachel, who opened the manila envelope lying in front of her and pulled out a document and kept it facedown on the table. "I am very aware of my obligations, Your Honor. But I couldn't possibly notify even those in my own firm of this development."

The judge frowned. "I'd like to know the answer to this question, but perhaps it would be more prudent to dismiss the jury for this-"

Hackett was hot. "No, Your Honor, let's hear it now. I want to hear Mr. Nolan explain how he's collecting evidence after the closing of discovery to bring it in here and try and hijack this trial. He's obviously violated his ethical and legal obligations, so let's hear why." He looked at me smugly.

I looked at the judge, waiting to see if she wanted to do this outside the presence of the jury, but she seemed to want to get it over with. I said, "Your Honor, every significant step I've taken for the last few months I've had to take in secrecy. Mr. Hackett planted a spy in my office and that person forwarded every e-mail and document of significance directly to him."

The judge deeply regretted not dismissing the jury when she thought it was prudent to do so, but it was too late now. "Mr. Nolan. Surely you are speaking hyperbolically."

The jury stared at me, stunned.

I shook my head. "I am not, Your Honor. Mine is a small law firm. But we were hired to do this case. I needed some additional help and hired several contract attorneys, one of whom turns out to be a plant from Mr. Hackett." I nodded at Rachel, who pushed her seat back quickly, grabbed the piece of paper in front of her, turned around, walked back to the barrier between the counsel table and the gallery, and slapped Braden in the chest with the subpoena that had his name on it. I turned and pointed at him. "Braden Randall, or Jonathan Dercks, which is his real name, is a former employee of Mr. Hackett, who he encouraged to come work for me. He is responsible for hacking into my computer system, sending all my e-mails to Hackett, sending research memos and litigation plans, and setting me up for all these supposed ethical allegations Mr. Hackett keeps stumbling on.

"The document that Ms. Long just gave to Braden is a subpoena to testify at this trial. Your Honor, I request at this point that we excuse Dr. Bradley for a moment and call to the stand Braden Randall to confirm to the court everything that I've just said, and to show the court, and Mr. Hackett, why I didn't inform him of Dr. Bradley's discovery in a more timely manner, and that I was completely justified in handling it exactly as I have."

The journalists were scribbling furiously on their pads, and the artists turned their sketch sheets toward Braden, who sat frozen in the first row between Kathryn and Tripp.

The judge had seen enough. "We're going to recess this trial right now. The jury is dismissed. Everybody else stay where you are." The clerk stood and pointed to the jurors, who knew it was time for them to file out of the courtroom, which they did with regret. They wanted to stay and see the fireworks.

When the clerk closed the door and nodded to the judge, she said, "The Court is in recess. Everyone is free to go, but I need to talk to counsel during this break." No one moved. Braden looked at the subpoena that had dropped to the floor after Rachel had slammed it into his chest. He was beet red and sweating. He hadn't said a word, nor had he looked at anyone.

The judge took off her reading glasses and tossed them aside. "Mr. Nolan-"

The court reporter looked up. "Is this on the record, Your Honor?"

"It most certainly is." Then the judge turned to me. "Mr. Nolan. What are you doing subpoenaing your own associate to testify in a trial? What is going on here?"

"Your Honor, there has been subterfuge and fraud by Mr. Braden Randall on behalf of Mr. Hackett. I suggest that we put Mr. Randall on the stand and ask him about it. Hence the subpoena."

"Mr. Hackett?" the judge asked, looking at him.

Hackett had regained his composure. "Your Honor, Mr. Nolan is obviously delusional. His case is lost. This is a desperate attempt to take the jury's attention off the facts. I would ask that the court ignore this side show. Let's complete Dr. Bradley's testimony and submit this case to the jury to let them decide what happened. Frankly, all we've determined so far today is that Mr. Nolan's own expert has confirmed my theory, that a tip weight that was improperly mounted fractured and caused this helicopter to crash. I'm surprised that Mr. Nolan hasn't just stipulated to a judgment at this point. Why we need to inquire into Mr. Randall's secret motives, I can only imagine. But I can tell you that it's not relevant to this case."

Damn he was good. "Your Honor, I simply ask that you allow me to examine Mr. Randall for fifteen minutes, then you determine whether this is relevant to the conduct of this case or not. Mr. Hackett has objected to Dr. Bradley's testimony. You asked why I hadn't disclosed certain information to counsel prior to now, and this is why."

The judge was unhappy the case had taken this turn, but she knew she had to sort it out. "Take the stand, Mr. Randall."

Braden stood up and inched down the row, trying not to step on the others. His face was white. He walked slowly to the stand, turned, and faced the gallery as the journalists in the front row quickly and confidently drew their new favorite. After taking the oath, he sat in the witness stand and adjusted the microphone. Rachel handed me the exhibits for his examination.

The clerk said to him, "Please state your full name and spell your last name for the record."

He did.

I said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Randall."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Nolan."

"You just took the oath before this court, which carries with it the penalties of perjury for making a knowing misstatement, do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yet when the clerk asked you to state your name, after you took the oath, what you told her was false. Correct?"

"That's my name."

"That's the name that you go by. But that's not the name on your birth certificate. Is it?"

"No, sir."

There was a hum behind me as I continued, "Your actual name is Jonathan Dercks, correct?"

He looked surprised. "Yes, sir, that's my given name."

"Yet when you applied to me for a job, you lied to me and told me your name was what you just told the clerk, correct?"

"Yes, I've had some problems with my old girlfriend, who has been stalking me. I have gone by-"

"What's her name?"

"I'd really rather not say."

"You now have testified under oath that the reason that you lied to me was because you'd been stalked by a female. What is her name?"

"Ah, I don't remember."

"You don't remember? How is that possible, that you don't remember the name of a former girlfriend who is stalking you?"

"There is… I am just sort of flustered right now."

"You have never obtained a restraining order against this female in any court in this country, have you?"

"No."

"Never applied for one, have you?"

"No."

"Your Honor, I'd like to mark as the exhibit next in order the resume that was submitted to me by Mr. Dercks when he applied for a position with my firm."

I walked to the front and handed him a copy of the resume. "It says here you graduated from Columbia Law School. That's correct, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"But your name on your diploma is Dercks, not Randall, right?"

"Yes."

"And you list here all the places that you have been previously employed in the practice of law, right?"

"Yes."

"They're accurate?"

"Yes."

"It's accurate but it's incomplete, right?"

Braden glanced down again at the paper. "I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"Well, you failed to list Mr. Hackett's law firm as your place of employment for over two years. And therefore the resume that you gave me when you asked me for a job is incomplete, right?"

"Would you ask that again?"

I shook my head. "Did you or did you not work for Mr. Hackett's law firm for over two years?"

"Yes."

Several people behind me gasped audibly. "Why did you leave that information off your resume, Mr. Randall?"

"I don't really know. I certainly didn't intend to. It was prepared by a professional headhunter that I had used before. They must have forgotten to put that on. I don't know."

I stared at him in disbelief. "So the fact that you worked for my opponent on the very case you were applying to me about, it's your claim that was left off your resume by a headhunter?"

"Yes, I think so."

"That's a remarkable coincidence. Don't you agree?"

"It's unfortunate."

"Sir, you are the one who handed me your resume. I did not receive it from a headhunter."

"I don't recall if I did or not."

"You knew I wouldn't hire you to work for me if I'd known you worked for my opponent for two years, right?"

"I don't really know what you would have done."

I approached Braden, handed him a document, and handed a copy of it to Hackett. "Let me show you what's been marked as our next exhibit in order. It's an article about a case that Mr. Hackett's law firm won three years after you had left his employ. Do you see this?"

"Yes."

"Coincidentally, you worked at the law firm on the other side of Mr. Hackett in that case too. You did work there then, didn't you? It's on your resume."

"Yes, I did."

"And you were helping Mr. Hackett at that time and in fact you sent him confidential and privileged information about the case, didn't you?"

Braden swallowed. "No," he said quietly.

"Well, surely when at that law firm you told them of your prior employment with Mr. Hackett's firm, right? Because that's the place where you went to work immediately after leaving Mr. Hackett's employ."

"I'm sure I did."

"Well, that's very interesting. Because I called the chairman of recruiting of that firm on the way over here this afternoon and asked him about you-under your old name of course-and he remembered you very well. He was sad to see you go. When I asked him whether you had been-"

Hackett stood up. "This is hearsay and we are running very far afield, Your Honor. This is a complete waste of the court's time. I move that we suspend this interrogation and continue with something more fruitful. This case is not about resume peccadilloes." Hackett sat back down.

The judge wasn't having any of it. "Mr. Hackett, do you not understand the implications of this inquiry? Let me cut to the chase. Did this young man work for your law firm?"

"It's possible, Your Honor. But frankly I don't remember. I'm sorry to say I go through a lot of associates, some of whom I remember and some of whom I don't. Obviously he didn't stick, and where he went after that, I have no idea."

"Overruled. You may continue."

"So, Mr. Dercks, I have a copy of the resume that you submitted to that firm. Please let me show it to you." I advanced and gave him a copy of the faxed resume, as well as a copy to Hackett. I turned again to Braden.

"Do you see it?"

"Yes, I do."

"Is this the resume you submitted to their firm?"

"I'm not sure."

"Well, I'll represent to you that it's the one that's in their file that they claim you submitted to them, and I'll bring them down here to say so if it's important."

"It's probably mine."

"Do you note how Mr. Hackett's firm is absent from this resume?"

"Yes, I see that."

"Headhunter?"

"I'm not sure. I quit referring to it at some point. It must have been because it was a plaintiff's firm."

"So now it's because you were afraid they might not hire you if they knew you had worked for Mr. Hackett's firm, is that right?"

"Right."

"Well, I will also represent to you, sir, that I checked when that case was filed. The one that came down with that big judgment for Mr. Hackett's client when you were working for the other side. It was filed two months before you went to work for them. Are you aware of that?"

"No. I wasn't aware of that."

"So that's a surprise to you? You're learning here for the first time that the biggest case that firm had ever lost was the one against the firm you used to work for? That's your testimony?"

"Yes."

"Well, sir, I decided to check on the next firm that you worked at. And I got a copy of your resume from them. And once again, you didn't tell them that you'd worked for Mr. Hackett's firm. Does that surprise you?"

"I guess not."

"And surprisingly again, that firm lost a big case to Mr. Hackett's law firm, and sure enough, they appeared in that lawsuit three months before you went to work there. Were you aware of that?"

"No."

"Sir, do you understand you're under oath? And that if you knowingly make a false statement you can be punished under the penalties of perjury and put in prison?"

"Yes, sir."

I lowered my voice and slowed down. "Sir, isn't it true that after you left Mr. Hackett's employ you got hired by the firms representing Hackett's opponents, and they all lost their cases to Mr. Hackett?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"He gave you a cut of those cases, didn't he? You got part of the money."

'No."

"Do you deny helping Mr. Hackett win those cases against those firms that you worked for?"

"I do."

I turned toward Rachel, who was carefully watching, and I nodded to her. She knew what I wanted her to do and typed an e-mail message onto her BlackBerry and hit send. If things had gone according to plan, Ralph was standing out in the hallway with Justin, who would receive that e-mail message on his BlackBerry. I turned to Braden again and paused. "You're quite good with computers, aren't you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Nothing special."

"Even though your resume that you sent to me says you majored in history, isn't it true, sir, that your undergraduate major was actually computer science?"

Braden stared, without answering. I continued, "Because I have your transcript. An official copy. You see an employer is entitled to get that. So I got it. Actually Mr. Byrd got it for me and left it for me. You know him. You met him. My investigator who was murdered. Well, he didn't like you. He was suspicious and checked you out. Your transcript says that your major was computer science. Do you deny it?"

"No, I don't."

"Yet on the resume that you submitted to me, it says you majored in history and it makes no mention of computer science. Right?"

"I don't like computers anymore, and I didn't want to get pigeonholed into doing intellectual-property litigation. When firms would see that I was a computer-science major, they would want me to do technical cases."

"So that's why you lied to me about that, because of my flourishing intellectual-property practice. Is that your testimony?"

He smiled, appreciating the irony even in his desperate condition. "No."

"No, because I don't have an intellectual-property practice, and you know that. Right?"

"Yes, it was just habit by then."

I heard the door open behind me and I saw Braden's face. I could tell by the look on his face that it was Ralph, my IT expert, and he was carrying Braden's laptop. I continued, "Sir, in fact you're so good at computers that you know how to create a tunnel through a server, correct?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You know how to prepare a tunnel which takes all incoming and outgoing e-mail traffic, Web access, and even internal e-mail traffic within a firm like mine and copies it and transmits those copies to a destination e-mail address. You know how to do that, don't you?"

"No, I don't."

"Sir, are you familiar with the federal wiretap laws?"

"Vaguely."

"Are you aware that it's a felony to put an illegal bugging device in someone's office?"

He shrugged but was beginning to perspire slightly. "I would assume so."

I turned to Ralph and nodded to him. He tossed me a small device, which I caught, then I turned back to Braden. "Sir, this is a bug that was found underneath the desk in my office. You put it there, didn't you?"

"No. I didn't."

"I asked Ralph to bring in your laptop, sir. He is the one who discovered the tunnel through our server that was copying every e-mail sent to or from my law firm and forwarding it to an e-mail address which appears to be a random number. And he's prepared to open up your laptop right here and show us how you did it. Isn't it true, Mr. Dercks, that you are the one who put the bug in my office and sent all my e-mails, memos, even voice mails which are captured by our e-mail system, to your real boss, Tom Hackett?"

Braden looked at Hackett, which was a dead giveaway. Everyone in the courtroom saw it. He hesitated, then said to everyone's surprise. "I would like to invoke my Fifth Amendment privileges at this point."

I looked surprised. "Fifth Amendment privilege? Are you saying that you're afraid that testimony that you might now give here could be used against you in court in a criminal action where you would be the defendant?"

"I really think it would be best for me not to answer any more questions. I would like to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege."

I nodded and looked at the judge. "Your Honor, I don't have any further questions."

She looked at Hackett. "Any questions, Mr. Hackett?"

He stood up, having renewed his self-confidence. "I don't have any questions of this young man, Your Honor. I have no idea what this is about. He's asserting things that are patently untrue. I have never received anything from him regarding Mr. Nolan's trial preparation or trial strategy. If he is sending e-mails and bugging people's offices, he certainly isn't sending it to me. I don't know how this is even relevant to this case." His voice was confident as was his demeanor, but something in his tone, something in his voice, betrayed fear.

The judge responded, "Mr. Hackett, if you don't see the relevance, you're not tracking what's going on here. Mr. Nolan, you may recall Dr. Bradley and continue with your examination of him. We will evaluate whether there is need for a mistrial, or a deposition of Dr. Bradley after his testimony once it is concluded. As for now, we're going to keep right on going. We're going to take a five-minute break and then return with Dr. Bradley's testimony."