Marine One (9 page)

Morton was appropriately quiet. Blankenship was aching for a fight.

Blankenship returned his angry gaze to Martin. "Now I want to talk about fraud." He turned the page dramatically in his notebook. "You're aware there have been allegations of fraud in the contracting process for Marine One."

Martin wanted to throw it right back at him, but restrained himself. "I have heard people make reckless accusations."

Blankenship didn't even look up. "What was the bid and accepted price for the entire Marine One contract, sir?"

Martin said, "Six point one billion dollars."

"And by the time the first helicopter was delivered, the price for the contract was what, sir?"

"Twelve point five billion."

"And that was in spite of the fact that the navy asked for zero changes. Right?"

"No, sir, the navy tasked us with nineteen hundred additional requirements that weren't in the original contract."

Blankenship held up a document. "I have a sworn statement from the lead navy contracting officer, sir. Let me read to you what she says: 'This idea that the navy gave them nineteen hundred additional requirements is simply not true. It's a myth, and it's becoming a legend.' " Blankenship paused. "Is she lying?"

Martin snapped back, "They asked us for a helicopter, then because of the post-9/11 requirements said it had to be able to jam incoming missiles, be hardened to some nuclear blasts, and have the same videoconferencing and encrypted communications capabilities as Air Force One. That made it very expensive to essentially redesign the entire helicopter, and those requirements were
not in the original contract."

Blankenship smiled ironically. "Funny you should mention Air Force One. Each of those 747s cost less than one of these helicopters. Did you know that?"

"That's not the case, Senator."

"Yes, it is! These helicopters cost the U.S. taxpayers four hundred million dollars apiece! That's more than the 747!"

"Yes, well, the 747s were built many years ago-"

"No, sir! That's in today's dollars! I adjusted the price for inflation." Blankenship paused. "It is hard to believe that a helicopter can cost more than a 747, isn't it? You didn't believe it. You can see why we believe there's fraud. When you pay for an Indy car and get a VW, you look into it. At least this committee is certainly going to."

At that point, I knew one of us was going to have to take a spear for WorldCopter. "Senator, excuse me, I'm Mike Nolan-"

"Who, sir, asked you to speak?"

"Well, Senator, no one asked me to speak, but as an attorney I'm rarely asked to speak."

The audience chuckled. Blankenship didn't see the humor. "Please remain quiet, Mr. Nolan. Mr. Martin is represented here by competent counsel. Perhaps you can't see him. He's sitting on the other side of Mr. Martin."

Nice. "Actually he's being represented here by both of us, I just haven't spoken before this. I'd be happy to be quiet, Senator, but I need to say one thing first. You say this isn't about politics, yet you ask questions that imply dishonesty, fraud, lack of contractual compliance, and malice on the part of WorldCopter. The cost increases you just alluded to were based on changes requested by the government. And the cost increases were approved. This has been in the papers for years. There is nothing new here. And as to the implication that WorldCopter caused this accident, that is remarkable, particularly in light of the fact that no one has any idea what caused this accident. The NTSB hasn't issued its preliminary findings, yet you are ready to lynch WorldCopter when they may have done absolutely
nothing
wrong. You will find out, Senator, that the reason the clearances, for example, were not obtained in a timely fashion was because the FBI failed to do the investigation they promised to do. I-"

Blankenship took his large wooden gavel and was about to slam it down to try to shut me up when one of his aides approached him from behind and handed him a piece of paper. He stopped to read it, then looked at me over his reading glasses. The look on his face told me I didn't want to hear what he was about to say. He said nothing until the room was completely silent. He looked away from me toward Jean Claude. "Sir, I've just been handed what is entitled 'Preliminary Assessment' from the NTSB. I am told this is remarkably quick for that investigative body, but they say it isn't a full 'Preliminary Report.' " He paused, looked at the paper again. "It says some things initially, then goes on to say, 'It is our initial assessment that there was no foul play in the crash of Marine One. We are concentrating on the possibility that there was a design or manufacturing defect that caused the crash.' "

I was still standing. I put up my hands up at my sides, palms out in surrender, and sat down.

Blankenship said to Jean Claude, "Sir, let's back way up and talk about how this helicopter was designed and built. Because I have the same concerns as the NTSB."

MARCEL CALLED ME after the hearing and asked me to meet him the next morning at six thirty at the hangar where the wreckage was being stored. He was concerned about Blankenship's announcement on worldwide television.

As I was leaving for the hangar, my wife, Debbie, asked me if I'd seen the headline of the morning's newspaper.

"What does it say?"

She turned it around and held it up to me and read it: " 'WorldCopter in the Crosshairs.' "

"Perfect."

She glanced at the story that she'd already read, looking for a particular sentence: " 'According to sources inside the government, the lead investigator for the NTSB is focusing on a specific cause that she thinks will explain the crash. The sources were unwilling to disclose the cause, but said the things under consideration all pointed to WorldCopter.' "

I put my coffee down. "That is unbelievably irresponsible. Does anyone think it was a coincidence that the NTSB 'Preliminary Assessment,' whatever that is, was released while the president of WorldCopter was on the hot seat of a Senate inquisition? Somebody at the NTSB owed Blankenship big-time. What total bullshit this is. Who inside the NTSB would talk to him and then the press like that? That
really pisses me off."

I headed for the hangar, which was on an old army air base. I had been there on occasion when it was still actively operating. It had been closed in one of Congress's base realignments. The NTSB was there twenty-four hours a day, but most of the team were there from 6 AM to 10 PM.

The hangars now stood empty, surrounded by weeds. The NTSB had cleaned up one of the hangars and mowed around it. It was easy to pick it out from the others by its appearance and the activity around it.

I turned into the army base, which now had a guard at the gate again. He took my driver's license and turned to check it against his access list. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a car go by a little too slowly to just be driving by on the country road behind me. The car was unremarkable and I couldn't see the driver, but I thought I'd seen the same car earlier, on the way to the army base from my house. I couldn't imagine who it would be. It had to be either a coincidence or my imagination.

I parked at the side of the hangar in what was once a pilots' parking lot and walked through the side door. The concrete floor was spotless, and portable light stands all over the massive space illuminated the charred, mud-covered wreckage from Marine One that had been trucked to the hangar. The investigators had spread the pieces out on the floor to represent the places where the pieces had been in the helicopter when it was intact.

Each subgroup of the NTSB investigation had its own table: engines, blades, airframe, maintenance, pilots, everyone. Participants such as WorldCopter had their own areas and tables. Some had put up signs so everyone would know where they were. WorldCopter's logo hung from a now defunct fire sprinkler high above their table.

I quickly spotted Marcel, who was also one of the first people in the hangar that morning. He had scrounged a desk and was sitting behind it with innumerable photographs and pieces of metal in front of him. He was looking at one with a magnifying glass as I approached. "Morning, Marcel."

He looked up over his reading glasses. "Good morning, Mike. I am glad that you came." He jumped up and turned to face the wall behind him. He turned back to me. "Would you like some coffee? We have brought our own coffee machine out here. The coffee that was being made was not too good. Let me get you some."

"Sure." Marcel took a large bowl-like cup out of a stack, poured coffee into it from an impressive coffeemaker, then reached under the desk and pulled out a quart of milk from a cooler and poured some into the coffee. "Thanks," I said as he smiled widely and handed me the cup. "So what you got, Marcel?"

Marcel ripped off his reading glasses and looked around to make sure nobody was listening. He lowered his voice and spoke to me quietly. "As you know, we are here as part of the investigation. To help the NTSB. I am looking at many things and am not making any conclusions. That's their job. I answer questions. But I think I also notice a few things that we have to deal with in the future.

"Come around here." He indicated for me to walk to his side of the desk. "I want to show you these photographs." He picked up one eight-and-a-half-by-eleven, glossy color print and handed it to me. He put his glasses back on, picked up a pen, and began pointing to a portion of the photo.

I couldn't tell what it was. "What are we looking at?"

"It is the inside threads of the main rotor blade that we found lying on the ground."

"Where it attaches to the rotor hub?"

"Exactly. Look closely."

I looked as closely as I could, but nothing jumped out at me.

"Here." He handed me the magnifying glass.

I glanced around the room feeling like I was about to do something improper and placed the photograph flat on the desk where there was good light. Marcel placed his pen where he wanted me to look. I looked carefully, moving the four-inch magnifying glass in and out until it was perfectly focused on the threads that held the main rotor blade to the rotor hub. The threads looked odd, like they weren't as clean or as precise as you would expect them to be. The threads showed slight bending, some discoloration, and a softness that I couldn't really understand. I placed the magnifying glass down and stood up straight. "What am I looking at here, Marcel?"

He almost whispered, "The threads. The threads are bent."

I shook my head indicating my complete lack of understanding. "And?"

"The threads are bent, you can see the force? The stress?"

"Sure. But I would assume they all have that. When the helicopter hits the ground, the blades flex down, putting a huge amount of force on their attachment to the rotor hub. That
should stress the threads."

"No," he said. "This blade came off in the air. It was not attached when the helicopter hit the ground, remember?"

"Yeah, but we don't know where."

He shook his head as if I didn't understand, which was accurate. He said, "I do not know if this got the right chemical, the right coating. I'm afraid the coating for corrosion did not get put on this blade. If it didn't, and the blade came off in the air because it had corroded, it could explain everything! It landed by the crashed helicopter, yes, true. It would be one of those… 'ironies'?"

"That would be an irony. An unpleasant one. You think that's possible?"

Marcel shrugged and put out his chin. "You see, the blade threads are bent as if it came off going down, away from the helicopter. It probably came off while the helicopter was in the air."

I sat down in the chair Marcel had been sitting in. This case could be over a lot faster than I thought. "You tell the NTSB about this?"

"They haven't focused on the blade yet, they're too busy with other things."

"You gonna tell them?"

"I will answer whatever questions they ask."

"We need to get our own metallurgist to look at this as soon as we can."

"I don't want somebody from WorldCopter," Marcel said.

"I know just the guy. Used to be the head of the NTSB metallurgy lab."

"They will probably like that here," he said, glancing at the NTSB people.

"I don't think so. He thinks the people who work in the NTSB lab now are second-stringers. We'll have to play it very carefully."

"What about the tip weights? Any of them recovered yet?"

"No. This same blade is the one missing its end cap and tip weights. They could have come off in the air, which would cause a terrible vibration. The helicopter would come apart. That could make this blade come off in any direction."

"Well, exactly. If they don't find those tip weights, everyone will think that's exactly what happened."

"Yes, they could." I looked at him. "We have to find those tip weights. We have to show they're intact and they didn't cause the accident."

"If the NTSB didn't find them, it will be hard for us to find them."

"We have to. Otherwise this thing is going to land on our heads." I thought about the assembly of the tip weights. The small washers that balanced the rotating blade. "What about the nut that held the tip weights on? How can we prove there even was a nut?"

"Well, you couldn't rotate that blade for even thirty seconds without the nut holding on the tip weights. It would be out of balance immediately. The bolt at the end, where the tip weights go and the nut holds them on is bent. This blade hit something."

"So the nut and the tip weights could have come off when the blade hit whatever it hit."

"Yes, or the bolt could have been bent after they came off and as it fell. And the NTSB has not found any of these parts. If it was near the crash, they would be on the ground, in the mud. They have looked everywhere. They are not there."

"Oh, yes, they are. And we're going to find them."

I worked at my office late that night reviewing the Senate transcript that Morton had e-mailed me. As I paused for a moment and looked at the ceiling to soothe my burning eyes, the phone rang. I recognized Byrd's number. I put him on the speakerphone. "Hey, Tinny."

"Nolan, you came to the right place. Guess what I've got?"

"What?"

"A fine lady at the Pentagon who just happens to have access to all of Collins's personnel records. Turns out she went to Howard with my son. Used to go to his Omega Psi Phi parties, where he, of course, was the life of the party, just like his old man. She said she owed him. And since he wasn't around right now, his old man would just have to do. You believe that shit?"

"Tinny, you didn't ask her to take any federal documents, did you?"

Tinny responded as if he'd been hurt. "That would be wrong. I couldn't ask her to do that."

"You'd better not."

"Right. Just leave these things to me. You do your lawyer shit. You just don't like the dirty work. You probably let your gunnery sergeant take care of all the shitbirds in your squadron, didn't you?"

"What else you got, Tinny?"

"One other thing. This might be big. Got a contact in the Secret Service. Former Marine. May be our secret weapon."

"Why would someone from the Secret Service have any information?"

"This boy is the head of security at Camp David, my friend. He was waiting for the president on the night of the crash."

I sat up straight. "He could be the key to the entire thing."

"Exactly."

"Think he'll talk to us?"

"Let's just say he's unenthusiastic. Seems others in the government don't want anyone to find out who was at that meeting. Which, of course, makes me push all the harder. But he's not very pushable right now. I'll work it."

"What's his name?"

"No can do. He swore me to secrecy. Says he'll go stone-cold know-nothing and lie through his teeth if I even breathe his name to anyone. Especially you."

"He knows about me?'

"Well, I had to tell him why I was calling, didn't I? It's not like some investigator is going to just wonder about all this for his own good. He recognized you from the Senate hearings. Gotta run."

"Keep me posted."

"Oh, yeah."

As I hung up, the phone rang again. I checked the caller ID and saw area code 212. Only Kathryn would be up this late. "Mike Nolan," I said, answering the phone quickly.

After a pause, a deep, smooth voice said, "Mike, this is Tom Hackett."

He was the last person I expected to call me, but if I'd thought about it or been quick enough, it would have made instant sense. He was one of the most famous lawyers in the country, a plaintiffs' attorney from New York. He called himself, or the legal press called him, Mr. Class, as in class actions, not because he
had
class. He filed massive class-action lawsuits against corporations for any number of reasons and settled them for enormous amounts of money, a nice portion of which went to him. He was one of the wealthiest lawyers in the country.

The reason I didn't instantly know the reason for the call was that I had forgotten that he went to law school with the first lady, Mrs. Adams. "What can I do for you?"

"First of all, we've never met. I am an attorney in New York and deal in major cases-"

"Yes, I know who you are."

"Good. Listen, I wanted to tell you that you did a very nice job at the Senate hearings. Very dramatic. You got Blankenship very angry, which was probably why you were there. Nicely done." He paused. "So I understand that you've been retained for this representation, but not by WorldCopter, by AII, their insurance company. But they would only be involved if there was going to be a civil lawsuit."

"And where'd you hear that?"

Hackett said, "That doesn't really matter. I have ways of learning lots of things. So am I right?"

"Maybe."

"Does that mean that you're unsure?"

I fought back the anger building inside me. I just didn't need that right then. I hung up.

The phone rang again immediately. I saw the same number. I picked it up again. "What?"

"It's very rude to hang up on a caller."

"It's very rude to call someone you don't know and insult them."

"I was not intending to insult you-"

"Yes, you were. If you have anything worthwhile to say, say it. I'm busy."

"No doubt. Here is what I do have to say, so listen carefully. I am representing the first lady, or former first lady. Mrs. Adams. I also have indications that I will be representing all the others who perished on Marine One against WorldCopter in a civil lawsuit. You have of course heard the NTSB's initial statement that there was no foul play. That means, a fortiori, there was a defective helicopter. And that means your client owes my clients compensation. WorldCopter does not need the publicity a civil trial would bring. I don't think WorldCopter wants me to take the depositions of every employee of their factory where this helicopter was made and show how disastrous their entire operation is. I don't think they need me digging into their security procedures and security files to show that their employees never obtained the security clearances required by the United States government, and I don't think they need me proving that they killed the president, whether intentionally or otherwise. But if I can have your assurance of confidentiality-may I have that assurance?"