Marine One

He glanced at me. 'You ever been to a wreckage site where you didn't find something they missed?'

'No. But I've never been to the crash site of a president's helicopter either.'

'That just makes it less likely they'd miss something. Doesn't guarantee it. Just looked like ashes. Think the investigators missed anything in the Kennedy investigation in Dallas?' Karl looked at it one last time and handed it to me. 'We'd better give it to them.'

'I don't work for the NTSB. I'm here to protect my client. The NTSB has already issued a preliminary finding that hammers my client. Why should I help them?'

'Because this is their accident.'

'They've released the scene.'

'Mike, do you really think that if somebody comes here and finds something relevant, they don't need to turn it over to the NTSB?'

'I don't know. I guess I just don't want to give this to them. It's not a piece of the helicopter.'

I slipped the key into my pocket. 'I'll give it to them after a friend checks it out. Who on this helicopter had a key to the ritziest hotel in Washington, D.C.? A five-star hotel. They all lived in Washington. Why would they need a hotel room?'

I thought about who was on the helicopter. Three crew, Adams, two Secret Service agents, and the White House director of operations. Would Collins have a key like this? Was he seeing someone? Having an affair? Who else? Tinny would find out.

Will wasn't that interested in the human side. He wanted to know about the helicopter. 'Well, let's do some other looking while we're out here. I didn't come out here to find a hotel key. Maybe we'll find something else just as interesting that I won't want to give to the NTSB.'

He wandered toward the hill as I stood in the middle of the impact point. I looked like a bird-watcher looking up in the trees. It was completely quiet but there was a notable absence of birds. I couldn't hear anything except the occasional breeze that passed through the treetops. I watched one particularly beautiful oak sway far above the ground. It had to be seventy-five feet tall. As I watched it move, I noticed a divot out of the top. I focused my binoculars and could see that several large branches in the top of the tree were hanging, clearly broken. I didn't have quite the right angle and took a few steps closer. I looked at the impact spot and then those trees around it. I called to Karl. 'Hey.' He turned. 'Take a look at this.'

He wandered over, stepping around a few still muddy spots. 'What?'

I handed him the binoculars and pointed to the top of the oak tree. 'Look at the branches up there. Those are fairly substantial. They've been knocked to the side.'

He took the binoculars and studied the branches. 'Any other branches like this around here?'

'Not that I've seen.'

'Could it be something else?'

'Don't think so.'

'Could a piece of the helicopter fall and hit that branch? Like the blade that might have come off?'

'I don't think so. That would have broken it downward. This is broken to the side.'

'So you think that's it? The first point of impact with anything touching the ground?'

'I think so. But look at the direction of the break.'

He focused the binoculars and leaned forward as if the extra couple of inches would make the difference.

I said, 'They're broken left to right. See that?'

'Yes.'

'WorldCopters are different. When you're sitting in the cockpit of the helicopter and look up at the blades, they're coming around clockwise. Over your head, as you look up, from left to right. American helicopters go the other way. If you're an American investigator who hasn't looked at French helicopters much before-or Russian for that matter, they go the same way as the French-you might forget that. So if you look at those branches, they are broken in the direction you'd expect from an American helicopter. But for a French helicopter crashing down through the trees, it's all wrong.'

He continued to look up, considering what it meant. 'So this is the opposite of what you'd expect if you knew the direction of rotation of Marine One's rotors.'

'Right.'

'Meaning…'

I took the binoculars and put them in the case. 'Meaning Marine One was upside down when it came through the trees.'

'Holy shit. Then it sure wasn't an autorotation that hit too hard. They were out of control long before they came close to the ground.'

17

THE PHONE RANG twice and he picked it up and answered with a tired voice, 'Frank Flannery.'

'Mike Nolan.'

'I've been expecting your call.'

'So I guess I need to hear what this guy has to say.'

Flannery replied, 'Not that easy. He refuses to meet with anyone.'

'So what do we do? How am I supposed to talk to him?'

Flannery paused. 'He's concerned about his safety. He thinks if he talks to you, his life will be in danger.'

'Yeah, he told me that. But I don't get it. How would his life be in danger?'

'He says has evidence that will break this case wide-open. And he thinks you need to talk to him. If someone else, the wrong person, learns this information, it could have serious consequences.'

'I'm not following this at all. But I am ready to talk to him.'

'Like I said, it's not that easy.'

'Look, at least give me a category of what he's talking about.'

'No. He wants to be compensated for his time, and to be relocated.'

That surprised me. 'Relocated? Some kind of civil witness-protection program?'

'I think that's exactly what he has in mind. But obviously he's not working with the government, so it won't apply.'

'It might if he is talking about activity that's criminal.'

'I don't really know about that. He won't talk to the government.'

'Why? If his information is so important, he could tell anybody.'

'He thinks you would be particularly interested in it because it would be to the benefit of your client.'

'How so?'

'I'm not at liberty to say.'

'Shit, Frank, this is ridiculous.' I thought for a second. 'What does he mean compensated for his time?'

'He says this will cause him to lose his job. He'll have to move out of the area. He wants to be compensated for that loss.'

'For a lost job? How much we talking about here?'

'All he's told me is that it will be significant.'

'Whatever that means. How do I know he knows anything at all? How do I know this isn't some random guy pitching a scam?'

'He said you'd ask that. He said you can't know now, but you will once you hear his information.'

'I'm going to have to think about it. You looked into the ethics of this?'

'I'm just representing him to protect his identity. I have not been retained to look into the ethical implications for you.'

'I'll get back to you.'

I hung up and called Braden to my office. I glanced at the clock and again reminded myself to go home. Just one more thing. Braden arrived and sat on the couch with a pad of paper ready for whatever new assignment I was about to give him. 'I talked to the attorney representing that witness.'

'Who?'

'The guy who called. The message you took.'

'Right. What did he say?'

'The guy wants money. He wants to be compensated for his 'lost income' because he has to move. Wants us to relocate him. He says his life will be in danger once he tells us his information.'

Braden stared at me. 'Life in danger? How?'

'Who knows. Take a look at the ethical rules of compensating witnesses other than just witness fees and travel expenses. I don't think you can, but the feds do it all the time. In a criminal case the government pays a guy, gives him witness protection, relocates him to Des Moines, and pays him forever. They probably set them up with new wives for all I know. Why can't you compensate a witness in a civil trial? I don't know. Take a look and let me know.'

'Will do.'

____________________

That Friday, Tinny Byrd showed up at my office uninvited. He didn't need an invitation, but he didn't usually just drop by. But he also didn't really trust any form of communication. He eavesdropped on people's cell phones all the time, even though it was illegal. I always told him never to do it in my cases because we couldn't collect evidence illegally. He assured me he would never do it in one of my cases. He also didn't trust e-mail. He pretty much believed that anything that was converted into zeros and ones and transmitted where somebody else could catch it or duplicate it was a really bad idea. He was an old-school investigator who liked to stop by and hand you a manila envelope with a grin on his face. He loved seeing your face when he handed you something new, something that might be exciting. He almost