Marine One

'Why not?'

'Seriously, if I even mention it out loud, it will be known. I don't know how exactly, but I just can't.'

She wasn't satisfied, but said, 'Then at least tell me what else you're going to ask the first lady. Let's discuss the rest tomorrow. Why don't we sit down.'

Everyone else in the room sat down, with Rachel right next to me, Braden next to her, Lynn next to him, and everybody else on the other side of the table closer to the door.

As we sat, Brightman asserted himself. 'Mike, I thought your opening was fine, but you really left it wide-open about what-'

I looked up with surprise and interrupted, 'Is this going to be a critique of my first day of trial? Because I don't really have time for it.'

'Well,' he said slowly, 'you're going to have to take time, because if we don't right this ship while it's under way, it just might roll over completely.'

'Kathryn, is this what you want to do every night after trial? I've got witnesses to prepare for, I've got experts to track down. I've got subpoenas to get out. This isn't a drill.'

Kathryn winced slightly. 'I did ask him to give us a couple of comments if he thought he could help at all.'

'Oh, Lord,' I exclaimed.

He just kept right on. 'So in your opening you mentioned four theories, but only identified three. What is this fourth theory and how are you going to prove it? Because if you can't, you will-'

'Have you not been reading my e-mails? We don't have a fourth theory, we have a theory that may become a fourth theory if things fall into place. But my investigator has been murdered, and my experts are working twenty-four hours a day but aren't there yet. We're developing something, but I can't go into it. And I sure can't tell the jury about-'

'Why?' Brightman demanded. 'Why can't you go into it? These are your clients, Mike. They're the ones who have to sign off on what you do. This isn't just your show!'

He was right, but I still didn't know whom I could trust, or who was on a cell phone talking to someone from Hackett's camp. And I sure didn't want to alert anyone that I suspected someone of duplicity. 'Because it isn't well developed enough to even outline it.'

'So let us help you develop it. We're some fairly smart people here, Mike.'

'I'm sorry. I just can't. Soon.'

Brightman looked at Kathryn, who was perturbed.

She said, 'You're asking a lot, Mike.'

'I know. It may be worth-'

Brightman said, 'Now, when you began your cross-examination of the first lady-'

'Are you seriously gonna sit there and go over everything that happened today?' I turned to Kathryn. 'Look, if you want this guy to try the case, just say the word. I've just had enough of this.'

That seemed to hit him. He said loudly, 'I know a good trial when I see one. We're not there.'

'And a good trial would be what? Admitting that the tip weights caused the accident and that we put the tip weights on, and that the guys that did it didn't have clearances, and we can't prove by documentation what the hell exactly happened in France. Is that a good trial? What would your theory be, Mr. Brightman, whose last airplane trial was ten years ago about a piece-of-shit Piper Cub that ran into a wind sock and you got your ass kicked?'

'Mike…,' Kathryn said unhappily.

Brightman's eyes narrowed and he tried to remain calm. 'You don't need to get personal with this, Mike.'

'Sorry,' I said, not meaning it. 'It's been a stressful day. But I've got to go to my office and get ready for tomorrow.'

Kathryn looked concerned, as if she was afraid I was losing it. 'Mike,' she said calmly, 'I asked him to make his comments. Would it be better if I asked him to e- mail them to you later on this evening?'

'Yeah. Sure.'

She said, 'Mark, why don't you go ahead and type up your notes into an e-mail and send them to Mike so he can consider them for tomorrow. What would be particularly helpful is if you think there are certain directions he should go with the other witnesses that we expect tomorrow. You've read all their depositions, seen all the outlines and notes, you know how this is heading. If you have some thoughts, why don't you give him those in writing rather than us taking up his time right now.'

Brightman closed his expensive leather notebook. 'Whatever you say, Kathryn.'

I stayed in my office for a few minutes, gathered my things, then headed home about seven thirty that night. In front of my house was a car that I immediately recognized: Wayne Bradley. Here we go, I thought. I pulled into the driveway and into the garage, lowered the door, went into the house through the kitchen door, and dropped my briefcase and jacket on the bench by the window. Debbie was in the kitchen doing dishes and came over to me when I walked in. 'Well, how did you think it went?' she asked, kissing me.

'Oh, okay I guess. How's the press?'

'Wall-to-wall coverage. They've talked about nothing but the trial all night.'

'I wouldn't watch it if I were you.'

She smiled. 'Some of them think you've got something up your sleeve.'

I loosened my tie. 'We shall see. Never surrender. Bradley's here. I hope you don't mind.'

'No, that's fine.'

I went to the front door and opened it. Bradley got out of his car, walked to the den, and sprawled out on the couch.

'Dr. Bradley,' I said, following him.

He looked up. 'Sorry. I didn't want to-sorry-you said only at home or on your new cell and you didn't answer-what time is it? I'm really tired.'

'About eight.'

'Oh.' He sat up and took a deep breath. He was then completely awake. 'We've got to talk.'

'What? New developments? Did you find something?'

He nodded.

I went to my car and got my cell phone out of the glove box. I typed in a text message, Come, and sent it. I walked back inside and began making a pot of coffee. This was going to be a long night.

Debbie passed through the kitchen and looked at me quizzically. I said, 'May have a big development.'

'Good or bad?'

'I'm not sure. Rachel's on her way.'

It was normally fifteen minutes from Rachel's place to mine, but she was there in ten. I was in my den with Dr. Bradley trying to get him back to his normal self. He seemed very odd. Almost out of it. Rachel walked right in the front door without knocking and came into the den. She looked like a fireman with an ax ready to cut through a wall. I pulled in another chair from the living room and closed the French doors behind us. We sat in a small triangle with Bradley on the couch.

'Okay. So what do you have?'

Bradley leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. Pushed his thick glasses back up on his nose and ran his fingers through his dirty hair. 'Well, I've given this thing quite a look. SEM, you name it. Compound is correct. Within spec. But it fractured under stress, Mike. Broke.' He held out the semicircle half of the tip weight I had dug out of the tree branch.

I stared at it in his hand. 'This kills us.'

Rachel sat back heavily in her chair and looked at the ceiling. 'We've got to give it to them. We can't not let them have it.'

I said to Bradley, 'So the tip weight was defective and came apart and that caused the vibration leading to the crash of Marine One. Just like the NTSB said. Is that how you see it?'

Dr. Bradley shrugged. 'Well, it sure is unusual for something like this to just fracture. But that's what seems to have happened. It's a fairly clean break. That indicates to me that it wasn't properly manufactured and that it was too brittle. You don't realize what kind of stress those tip weights are under, but they're under endless centrifugal force, and if the flat surface of the other tip weights isn't exactly right, it gives it maybe a thousandth of an inch to maneuver. Over time, it will cause a fracture if something is too brittle.'

'So that's it?'

Bradley adjusted his glasses, wishing he had something else to say, something positive. 'Pretty much. I mean, I can keep studying it. I didn't examine every single molecule in it.'

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and looked up. I thought for a moment, then sat forward. 'Let me see it.'

He handed it to me and I brought it as close to my eye as I could. 'Do you have a magnifying glass?'

'Always.' He pulled a Sherlock Holmes glass out of his pocket and handed it to me.

I maneuvered under the brightest light in the room and examined the tip weight. I could see several numbers that were part of the serial number. 'This serial number-or the part you can see-is in the group of unaccounted-for tip weights that might have been in Marine One?'

'Yep.'

I continued to study it. I couldn't see anything significant, and the odds of me seeing something that Bradley hadn't found were nil anyway. I gave him back his magnifying glass. Then a thought washed over me like a shower with an electrical current running through it. The fourth theory, the one I had saved for the jury, had just occurred to me. If I could only prove it. 'You run any chemical tests on it?'

He frowned. 'No. Why would I?'

I nodded. 'Do them. Do them all. Don't talk to anyone about any of this until you've done those tests.'

He got it. 'I'll do it as soon as I can.'

'Let me know… If it goes bad, maybe tomorrow I can talk to Kathryn and we can start talking settlement with Hackett before we have to give it to him. Maybe we can settle without him ever knowing about this tip weight.' I thought for a moment and knew that would never happen. 'We'd have to give it to the NTSB so they could finalize their report anyway, though. It will come out, but maybe we can settle before, I don't know. I'll have to think through this.'