Marine One

We checked into our hotel on the Left Bank, got a bad night's sleep, and went to WorldCopter headquarters the next morning by taxi. We spent the next five days preparing each witness for the questions that might come up. Each day we had lunch in the WorldCopter conference room where we were preparing the witnesses. The food was outstanding, and each night we would have dinner with one of the WorldCopter officers. Marcel was still in the United States investigating the accident, as were most of the investigation team. But most of those who were actually involved in building Marine One were still in Paris.

One night we were free and Rachel insisted on eating at a fancy restaurant, called George. I agreed as I was happy to eat somewhere other than the restaurant we had eaten at each night with the WorldCopter officers.

The restaurant sat atop the Georges Pompidou Center, a combination museum, display area, multicultural center, and concert center. Rachel had reserved an outdoor table for us overlooking Notre Dame. European techno pop music pounded in the background.

Rachel took a sip from her wine and asked, 'How do you think the preparation is going?'

'I think we're on track. Hackett's going to be surprised. I think they'll stand up pretty tall.'

She pushed her hair back. 'Don't you feel like our time would be better spent out in the woods looking for tip weights? We're just playing defense here.'

'Our entire expert team's going to be out at the scene all week. They'll be tearing it apart while Hackett is here listening to himself talk.'

'Won't his experts be doing the same thing?'

'I doubt it. The fewer new facts they have, the better. They want to just roll into court, say, 'Tip weights,' and wait while Hackett rings us up for a few hundred million. Plus, I've asked our new guy, Brandon- '

'Braden.'

'… to start preparing a summary judgment motion to dismiss punitive damages while we're gone. We'll get the rough transcripts electronically, incorporate the testimony into our motion, and serve it on Hackett the day he flies home. He'll say it's too early in the case, but let's put him on his heels a little bit. He's the one who's in a big hurry.'

'I called the dentist before we left our hotel.'

'Tonight? Really? What for?'

Rachel smiled and shook her head. 'I just wanted to give him the details of why I missed our date. He said it figures. It's par for the course for him to be drilling the teeth of angry patients while I run off to Paris. Then he said he always figured I was out of his league anyway. He never thought he had much of a shot. He knew I'd come up with some reason not to go out with him.'

I frowned. 'That doesn't even make sense. He thinks you made this whole thing up so you wouldn't have to go out with him? So what, you persuaded Hackett to notice a bunch of depositions just so you could avoid a date with him?'

'I don't think he's quite that linear in his thinking, more like he knew events would conspire to make sure that I didn't go out with him.'

'So when you said yes that was just a cruel joke of fate.'

'Something like that. I don't think he's really my type.'

'Don't worry, it'll happen. The right guy's out there.'

Rachel looked up at me with a sharp glance. 'I don't think so.'

'Well, what are you looking for? What kind of guy is the right one?'

Our waitress brought our food and set the hot plates down in front of us. 'Enjoy,' she said as she turned away.

'There are good men out there. All my friends are married to them. They've been married for ten years. They have kids. They're happy. They're working or not working. It doesn't matter. They're happy.'

We finished our meal in relative quiet, listening to the pounding, now annoying, music through the ultra-high-quality speakers hidden somewhere. I paid the shockingly large bill and stood. 'We'd better get back to the hotel. You know who we meet with tomorrow.'

'Jean Claude Martin. El presidente.'

'Wouldn't it be la president?'

'Le.'

'All I know is he's really not very happy. After that debacle at the Senate hearings, all he wants is to answer more questions from some American attorney. You sure we did the right thing by letting Hackett go at him this early in the case?'

'Hackett won't have our documents until the deposition. He'll do way less damage now than in six months when he's a lot smarter about WorldCopter. We've got to let him do this, and then start turning this case back on him.'

15

JEAN CLAUDE MARTIN gave us all the time we wanted. But first he had to 'express himself.' He simply could not understand how in the American judicial system it was possible for Hackett to hand me several pieces of paper and show up the following week with a court reporter and videographer to take his deposition. None of this was allowed in France. It was clearly intended to harass him and WorldCopter.

I agreed. I told him that was exactly the purpose of the depositions. And the harder we fought and more we made of it, the more we were playing into Hackett's publicity-seeking hands. The more annoyed we got, the happier he was going to be. I told President Martin that since Hackett gave us virtually no notice, and we hadn't much time to prepare, Hackett would have to be satisfied with the answers he got. He only got to do this once.

From the top down, WorldCopter had zero faith in the American justice system. They all reminded me that the reading of the Michael Jackson verdict was on live television throughout France. Not because they expected great justice, but because it was like watching a circus. And there was absolutely no doubt in their minds, and I mean no doubt, that Michael Jackson would get off.

I think American juries get it right 90-plus percent of the time. I had no such confidence in other judicial systems, especially those that let judges decide everything, like the French system. I had seen enough tyrannical American judges to doubt whether tyrannical French judges or tyrannical British judges would somehow be remarkably fair and come up with the right result. I trusted juries. Sure, they could get it wrong, so could I, so could WorldCopter, so could a French judge. We all can get it wrong. But in federal court, where we were in this case, you had to get a unanimous jury. In my experience, a unanimous jury rarely got things just flat wrong.

Once we calmed Jean Claude down, the preparation went well. Toward the end of the discussion, after reviewing the corporate structure and the government contract for the building of Marine One, President Martin sat back and looked at the ceiling, then down at me. 'Will I be required to testify at trial?'

'Probably. Hackett will try to use this videotaped deposition against you, but if you're there in person, with nothing to hide, it's much to our strength. I would like you to testify about the contract and WorldCopter's entry into the American military market by a bid for Marine One. I definitely plan on calling you.'

The next day President Martin was the first witness. Even though Martin spoke English as well as I did, we asked for an interpreter. He needed his own language to express himself properly. It also makes for a record, through the videotape, of exactly what was said in French. Also present at the deposition were Kathryn; the WorldCopter America general counsel, Tripp; Rachel; Hackett, and two people from his office; plus the court reporter; the videographer; and the translator; as well as a second translator hired by WorldCopter to check on the translator hired by Hackett.

Jean Claude did brilliantly. Hackett pressed him about the contract, the security, all the things he had been banging his drum to the press about, even the dramatic completion of the three Marine One helicopters ahead of time and under budget. Hackett tried to find weaknesses or create them, but he couldn't touch Jean Claude. Watching Hackett during the deposition was interesting. He clearly had not expected us to produce the president at all, let alone the week he was noticed, let alone the first day. Hackett seemed slightly dazed. He had brought Bass and the paralegal with him overnight in his private Gulfstream jet, and they all looked bleary-eyed.

We let Hackett go all day. We let him ask wide-ranging questions on multiple topics. He didn't advance his case at all. He learned some unpleasant facts, and that WorldCopter was not going to roll over and write him a huge check.

As the week progressed, the rest of the WorldCopter witnesses did almost as well. They were ready in spite of the short preparation time. They knew the accident, knew the helicopter, they knew how it had been built, they knew the documents, and they knew the contract. Hackett didn't really know any of it. He was just there to beat up on WorldCopter witnesses and intimidate them, and failed, not that he would agree with that assessment. He was unburdened by self-doubt.

At the conclusion of each deposition, as we sat in various restaurants on the outskirts of Paris with the WorldCopter officers, their confidence grew. They realized that Hackett was swinging wildly and missing. They realized that he was not much of a threat at this stage because he didn't know as much as he thought he did. The conclusion began to form that his early aggressive stance had been a huge miscalculation.

I reminded them that the NTSB still believed it was WorldCopter's fault, his experts would so testify, and a jury was likely to believe Hackett. All we had done was to blunt his first attack. To win the case we had to find the real cause, or WorldCopter was going down just like Marine One.

Kathryn shared our cab to de Gaulle airport. She was invigorated. She wanted a meeting as soon as possible with all our experts, all the attorneys, criminal and civil, and WorldCopter's employees involved in the investigation. Kathryn wanted to walk through the case soup to nuts and come up with a global to-do list. I called Marcel on my BlackBerry from the cab; he thought we should have the meeting at WorldCopter headquarters outside Washington, in the hangar where the Marine One helicopters were assembled.

We flew back to the States overnight and met the next morning after we had cleaned up. The hangar was deathly quiet. WorldCopter had been forbidden from touching any of the Marine One helicopters until the Justice Department's investigation was concluded. I walked around the assembly and inspection area with Marcel, Kathryn, and Rachel looking at the spotless facility. We were acutely aware that in ordinary circumstances we could never be there. No one was allowed near the helicopters, let alone the assembly and repair facility, without the required Yankee White security clearance. But the day after Marine One crashed, all those at WorldCopter had had their clearances canceled, and every helicopter was immediately suspect.

We walked by one of the undelivered Marine One helicopters, which sat in the middle of the hangar in perfect condition surrounded by a Plexiglas security wall. It had completed its assembly and inspection and was due to be delivered the day Marine One crashed. It sat untouched behind the Plexiglas wall ever since. I wondered if we could learn anything from that helicopter, but nothing occurred to me. Since the accident, all maintenance had been transferred to the Marine Corps at Quantico, Virginia, and Andrews Air Force Base. And it wasn't coming back to WorldCopter until, according to the Pentagon, they were 'cleared' by the Justice Department.

That wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. After Justice demanded documents and unlimited access, and after I'd thrown a little tantrum, WorldCopter had