Marine One

'Do you remember what you had? It's not important, I was just wondering whether you remembered.'

'Actually I do. I love fish and eat it as often as I can. Jim really doesn't… didn't like fish much, but he read somewhere that eating fish at least once a week made a difference in something or other. So he ate a fish dinner with me at least once a week. And this was that dinner.'

'So the evening he died, he was eating fish at home with you. But then he got up and headed to a meeting.'

'Yes. He said he had to go out to Camp David, just for one night. He was to come back Friday evening.'

'Do you remember the weather?'

'It was a terrible storm. The wind was throwing the rain against the windows to where it made that loud clicking kind of sound, almost like hail, but it's just rain hitting glass hard. I'm sure you've heard it.'

'Have you ever been to Camp David, Mrs. Adams?'

'Of course. Many times.'

'Have you ever driven there from the White House or been driven there from the White House?'

'Yes.'

'How long does it take to get there?'

'It depends. But it's about an hour and a half.'

'Did you know that the president was going to fly to Camp David that night in the presidential helicopter?'

'Yes. He told me that.'

'Didn't you wonder why he needed to fly when he could be there in an hour and a half by driving?'

'I did. I asked him.'

Hackett turned toward the gallery and then back toward Mrs. Adams. 'What did he say?'

'He said he had a meeting. He was meeting people there, that it was very important, and that they had a very short window of time.'

'Who was he meeting there, Mrs. Adams?'

Everyone waited for her answer.

'I don't know.'

'Did you ask?'

'Of course. I wondered who was so important that he had to fly there that night, let alone who was so important or secret he couldn't tell me about it.'

'Had you encountered other times when he had meetings and he wouldn't tell you who was attending?'

'Rarely.'

'What kinds of meetings were they that he couldn't tell you about them?'

I stood. 'Objection. This calls for speculation. How could she know the content of meetings he refused to tell her about?'

The judge nodded. 'Sustained.'

Hackett said, 'Thank you, Your Honor. Let me rephrase. Had you discussed the types of meetings with the president before that he would not allow you to know about?'

'Yes.'

'What types of meetings were they?'

'Usually dealing with secret material or very high-level things I never got to learn about.'

'And you understand that the government has refused to tell us what the nature of the meeting was or who the attendees were. Is that your understanding as well?'

'Yes. I still don't know.'

'But your husband had something important he needed to do on behalf of the government, right?'

'Absolutely. Otherwise he would have stayed home with me.' Hackett said, 'No further questions.'

I stood up quickly and proceeded to the lectern. 'Mrs. Adams, good afternoon.'

'Good afternoon.'

'Mrs. Adams, you have no idea why your husband was going to that meeting at Camp David on the night he was killed, correct?'

'That's true. I know it was because of his duties as president, but not beyond that.'

'And as to why he had to be there within that short period of time, you don't really know that to be true other than that's what he told you, correct?'

'Yes.'

'Do you have some other information that he had to be there that night and that driving would not get him there in time?'

'No, I know that he was a truthful person. And if he told me he had to be there, then he did. So I do know it to be true unless he was lying to me. But that was not his character, Mr. Nolan.'

Ouch. 'So you believe him, that there was some compelling reason that he needed to be there that night, and that driving for one and a half hours to get there instead of flying for thirty minutes would somehow have been detrimental to his objective. Right?'

'That's my understanding.'

'Am I right, Mrs. Adams, that you would love to know why your husband was in such a hurry to get to Camp David that night?'

'Yes. I would like to know that.'

I decided to take some chances. 'And you've asked around the White House, haven't you?'

'Yes, I have.'

'You've asked President Adams's chief of staff why the president went to Camp David that night, haven't you?'

'Yes.'

I gained confidence. 'And you've asked the vice president, who is now the president, haven't you?'

'Yes.'

'And they wouldn't tell you, would they?'

'No.'

I paused and looked at her hard. 'Because they didn't know, did they?'

'That's true. They did said they didn't know.'

'Did you accept their answer, that his chief of staff and vice president didn't know why he was going to Camp David?'

'I don't think it is any more likely that they would lie to me than that my husband would lie to me.'

'So you accept their statement that they do not know why President Adams was going to Camp David the night he was killed, right?'

'That's right.'

'Don't you find that odd, Mrs. Adams?'

'Yes, I do.'

'What do you make of that?'

'I don't know what to make of it.'

'Others went with the president, including his head of the Secret Service detail that protected him, right?'

'Yes, he was one of the ones who was killed.'

'But someone has replaced him as the chief of the president's security detail for the then vice president, now president, Cunningham. That person's name is Larry Hodges. Did you ask him what his predecessor was doing with President Adams going to Camp David that night?'

'I did. He said he didn't know.'

'So as you sit here today, Mrs. Adams, no one from the government has or would tell you why President Adams was going to Camp David the night he was killed, correct?'

'That's right.'

'Isn't it true, Mrs. Adams, that never in the time that President Adams was president was he out of your sight for twenty-four hours when you did not know what he was doing?'

'I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question.'

I nodded. 'You knew where your husband was and what he was doing every day that he was president, right?'

'For the most part. Not all the details. Yes.'

'Except one. The night he was killed.'

'I knew where he was-'

'But not what he was doing.'

'That's true.'

I turned the page in my outline. 'Now, Mrs. Adams, you knew Colonel Collins. Right?'

'I knew who he was. I've ridden in Marine One many times.'

'No. I mean personally. You would talk to him when you had the opportunity, right?'

The First Lady frowned and glanced at Hackett. I always liked it when a witness glanced at his or her attorney, because it meant that I had departed from their expected script. I was asking questions they hadn't anticipated.

'Well, no, not really. You asked me some questions in my deposition about it, but, no, I didn't really talk to him.'

'You conversed with him at several White House gatherings, or parties, did you not? Where he was invited and wore his Marine dress uniform?'

She frowned again. 'I'm sorry, Mr. Nolan, but I don't know what you're talking about.'

I reached over to our counsel table and picked up the brown envelope that was lying next to the notebook at my place. I opened it and pulled out three photographs. I handed one to Hackett and said, 'May I approach the witness and give a copy of this photograph to the clerk?'