Marine One

'The one our friend from State told us to lay off of.'

'The same.'

'You're not laying off, I take it.'

Byrd frowned in disgust. 'You want me to?'

'No. But Thompson seemed pretty damned serious and stayed real vague about the consequences.'

'Said he'd tell people. So what?'

'Well, the implication is those other people might try to stop us.'

'They can just kiss my ass. I'm not stopping for anyone.'

I smiled. 'So what did he say?'

'Turns out he was at Camp David that night.'

'You said that. Waiting for President Adams.'

'Yep.'

'And?'

'That's all we know. He won't talk. Our Mr. Thompson has visited him. Told him to shut his mouth. National security.'

'So that's it?'

'I'll keep pushing him. But there's no telling if he's going to come around. Thompson is pulling a lot of strings and talking to a lot of people. We need to watch out for him.' Byrd rubbed his finger on the table. 'I asked him about this mystery document.' Tinny paused. 'I saw it in his eyes, Michael. I think he still has it, or a copy. Whatever it is. I've got a feeling about him. Not only does he know a lot, I think he's dying to tell us. But there are forces out there, Michael, forces.' Tinny looked at his watch. 'I gotta go. Catch you later.' He looked around for any unusual movement and headed toward his car.

14

HACKETT HAD WAITED around a day after the ENE for the required meeting of the attorneys in the case to discuss the case schedule. It is mandatory and must be in person. Somehow the press had received a copy of his letter requesting the meeting at my office. They were waiting for me when I returned from my meeting with Byrd. Microphones and reporters everywhere. I waved them off, pushed through the ranks, and closed the door behind me. Dolores was concerned. Several of the reporters had simply walked into the office, sat in the chairs, and waited for me. At some point Berberian had come out and told them to leave, that if I wanted to invite them in to discuss the case, I would do so, but unless they were clients, it was time for them to go. So they waited on the steps.

Dolores had set up the boardroom for the conference and cleaned out all the materials I had been working on with the experts. I waited, and after arriving fashionably late in a limousine, Hackett and his entourage made their way through the press slowly, answering a few questions over his shoulder. Dolores showed him to the conference room. He came in, greeted us, and sat down. He and his associates took off their coats, made themselves comfortable, and grabbed coffee and muffins. Rachel was there as well as Justin, our disheveled paralegal. I had drafted a proposed scheduling order that I wanted Hackett to look at. I pulled it out of my briefcase and passed it around the table. 'Here's the scheduling order that I would propose. As you know, this court is on the fast-'

Hackett handed the scheduling order back to me. 'I don't think those dates will work.'

'You haven't even looked at them.'

'I have prepared an order that I think is in final form and I would like for you to sign it.'

My face began to turn red as I glanced at Rachel, who was trying to convince me not to say what she knew I wanted to say. I took his order and looked at it. It had the most aggressive discovery schedule I had ever seen. It had all the depositions and document discovery completed within four months. This was faster than even the District Court of Maryland contemplated in its rocket-docket standard scheduling order.

'I don't know,' I said, looking at Hackett. 'This is awfully ambitious. It seems to contemplate that we won't have any discovery disputes and we can get this all done.'

'Oh. We won't have any discovery disputes, I'm sure. I believe in turning over everything, I'm sure you do as well. I think after we take depositions, this case will be ready to go. My experts are ready to testify in trial tomorrow. I see no reason to delay.'

No doubt his experts were ready to testify tomorrow since all they were going to do was recite the NTSB's preliminary opinion. I had to disprove that theory and needed time to do that.

I handed the order back to him. 'Can't do it.'

Hackett sat down and leaned heavily on the table as if he were dealing with a dunce or a child. 'Mr. Nolan. Do you refuse to cooperate in discovery?'

I sat down across from him and leaned on the table directly toward him. 'No. I don't refuse to cooperate. What I refuse to do is capitulate. If you want discovery, then do it. If you want it done fast, then do it fast.'

Hackett shook his head. 'As you wish. Your client's employees are the ones who will be deposed. And I love France.' He reached over in front of his associate and placed his hand on the table, palm up. His associate placed a pile of documents in his hand, which Hackett retrieved. Hackett handed them to me.

'Here you go, Mike,' he said, emphasizing Mike like it was a disease. He took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders dramatically. 'As you know, discovery may commence immediately after the Early Neutral Evaluation conference. We just had that conference.' He pointed to the documents. 'Here are thirty-five deposition notices of the witnesses I want to depose beginning next Thursday in Paris. I will see you there.'

It was exactly what I had expected him to do. It was the biggest grandstanding move available to him. Hackett looked for a reaction from me.

'No problem, Tom.' I looked at the pile of notices quickly. 'This of course exceeds the number of depositions allowed under the rules, but I'll be happy to stipulate that you can do this. I had actually expected to begin the depositions in Paris on Monday, but you don't have them starting until Thursday.' I looked at Rachel. 'We can cancel our hotel reservations for those extra days, once we get done here.' I turned back to Hackett. 'We'll see you there. And by the way'- Rachel handed me our documents-'here is the deposition notice for the first lady and the other widows. I've set them for here, in my office, for the week after we get back from Paris. But if you want to do them in your D.C. office, just let me know. We're happy to accommodate you.'

At ten o'clock that night I sat back, took off my tie, and drank a large bottle of water. I hadn't eaten since ten in the morning and I was about to pass out. I had a jar of Planters peanuts in my drawer that I reached for as Rachel walked into my office.

She sat down heavily and smiled. 'What a day.'

'Remarkable. You ready to go tomorrow? BWI nonstop to Paris. We've got to get our witnesses prepared. I thought he'd give us a couple of weeks. We've got to double track, with me preparing the executives, and you preparing the manufacturing workers.'

Rachel chuckled, slid down in the leather chair, put her head on the back of the chair, and looked at the ceiling. 'Figures.'

'What?' I said as I poured some peanuts into my hand and tossed them into my mouth.

'Do you know what date today is?'

'No, what?'

'It's my birthday. My thirty-fifth freaking birthday.'

'Wow. Sorry. Can't believe I missed that. Happy birthday-want some nuts?' I offered her the jar.

'Very funny. But you know what else?' She sat up.

'What?'

'I told you that I didn't want to get married again. I didn't want to make the same backbreaking mistake I made when I married that asshole-he who shall remain nameless.'

'And?'

'Well, I was lying. I do want to get married again. Or at least become a mother before I'm eighty. And since I think after this it goes thirty-six, thirty-seven, eighty, I'm basically done. My womb is going to shrivel up like a raisin. The only thing I'll ever give birth to is another raisin.'

'Oh, please. Thirty-five isn't that old.'

'Yes, it is. Maybe I don't want to get married, I don't know, maybe I don't even want to be a mother. What I hate is not being in control.' She looked down with an ironic smile on her face. She looked at me. 'This Friday was going to be my first date in a year. And I'm going to miss it.' She didn't sound that disappointed. 'He's probably not worth it anyway. It's just Freddy.'

I frowned. 'Freddy, the dentist?'

'Yes. The dentist. The balding dentist.'

'Jeez, you must be desperate.'

'You're a real encouragement, Mike. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.'

'You can't marry him. You're gorgeous. He's… Freddy.'

Rachel stood up. 'All right, I'll send him an e-mail and tell him our big date is off. I think he wanted to go look at coin shops or something anyway. I think he collects nickels. Buffalo nickels. What an incredibly interesting guy.' She looked at me as she stood by the door. 'Are we going to be up all night? Do we have the materials we need to fly to Paris to begin preparing for these depositions tomorrow? Are we out of our minds? Are you sure you don't want to go before the magistrate and beg for mercy?'

'Nope. Legal jujitsu. Take his energy and throw him over on his back. I expect to be up all night myself. Debbie doesn't even know I'm going yet. This'll go over well. I'll get your ticket. Assume we're leaving on the eight thirty AM flight. We can drive together, but we'll need to leave at about four o'clock. I'll call you at home as soon as I get the info.'

I picked up Rachel, drove to BWI, and we boarded our American Airlines flight to Paris. Rachel had called Justin and had him load the documents we had so far onto CDs, which she had brought with her. We spent the entire flight reviewing the documents on our laptops plugged directly into the seats and prepared questions that we anticipated Hackett asking.