Marine One

'Go ahead, Mr. Grosvenor,' the judge said.

Grosvenor looked satisfied. There was no way to stop him. 'He said you were flying Huey gunships in Iraq. He said you were on a mission and did a hard left turn to avoid fire and cut too close behind another Huey and your main rotor cut the tail off the other helicopter. Both the other Marine pilots died. You went back to the base and blamed some corporal for misaligning the flight-control linkages. You said you hadn't commanded a full left turn at all and the helicopter did it on its own. Then you came unhinged on the corporal. Took him behind the mess tent and beat him senseless.'

The jury and the gallery stared at me.

'Then I'm sure he told you what the investigation's findings-'

'Sure. He told me what the investigation concluded. It was a mechanical problem, not pilot error. But he also told me that they did a psych eval on you and they determined you had an anger problem. Can't remember the diagnosis, but it doesn't matter. Your squadron commander covered it all up. He thought you were his best pilot, so that psych eval never saw the light of day. In fact, Mr. Thompson told me if the Maryland bar knew the entire story, you'd never be able to practice law. He said-'

'I am not the one on trial here, Mr. Grosvenor. If the Maryland bar or anyone else wants to know more, they can ask me at the appropriate time. Believe me, there is much more to tell. But the real point here is that Mr. Thompson used that information to keep me from digging into this question, right? The question of why the president was going to Camp David. And you're the one who can answer it. So answer it,' I said angrily, trying to control my temper, which wanted very badly to come into play.

Grosvenor said nothing.

I picked up the four copies of the document, handed one to Hackett, handed another to Packer, handed one to the clerk for the judge, and handed one to the witness. The fifth copy was in my notebook. 'Your Honor, I'd like marked as court's next exhibit in order the document I just handed to the witness.

'Mr. Grosvenor, have you seen this document before?'

He looked at the document, saw what it was, went white, and turned it over on the desk in front of him. He said nothing.

'Have you seen it before?'

He wouldn't respond.

I continued, 'Mr. Grosvenor, this is a copy of a draft treaty that was at Camp David the night the president was killed, correct?'

'I can't answer that based on what I've been told by the Justice Department attorney.'

'Sir, this treaty proposes to give Taiwan back to the People's Republic of China and states that neither the United States nor Japan will intervene or oppose it, correct?'

'I can't-'

Packer pulled out a brief. 'Your Honor, I must insist that this trial be suspended immediately. I would also ask for the immediate return of the copy of the document that Mr. Nolan claims to have.'

She looked at me.

'Your Honor, I didn't make this document up. I didn't print it. This document was in Mr. Byrd's safe-deposit box.' I glanced back. 'In spite of the efforts of Mr. Thompson, Mr. Byrd got it from Mr. Grosvenor. And in case he was unable to give it to me himself or convince Mr. Grosvenor to, he put it in a safe-deposit box, gave his wife the key, and she gave it to me. I retrieved it yesterday morning for the first time. Mr. Grosvenor, this is the treaty that you showed my investigator, Mr. Byrd, correct? You allowed him to have a copy in case anything happened to you. Correct?'

'I have no comment.'

'In fact, you kept a copy even though you told Mr. Thompson here that you had given him your only copy. Right?'

'I have nothing to say.'

'This treaty states that the United States, China, Japan, and the president of Taiwan agree to return Taiwan to China, in exchange for unfettered access to the Chinese markets…'

Packer began talking loudly, trying to stop me. I raised my voice. 'With China agreeing to pay a huge tariff on everything exported from China to Japan and the United States for twenty years, correct?'

Packer demanded the court's attention. 'Your Honor, this is completely improper. There is no evidence of any of this, it is just an attorney talking. None of this is admissible! You must put a stop-'

I raised my voice even more. 'And it was Mr. Thompson's boss, the secretary of state, who was driving this entire thing, right? It was his idea. His chance to make a huge impact on the world stage, to set himself up to succeed President Adams. Right?'

'Your Honor!' Packer protested.

Judge Betancourt banged her gavel and demanded quiet. Everyone sat in stunned amazement. 'Mr. Packer, if what you're wanting to protect are the things that Mr. Nolan already has stated, then you're motion is pointless; it is already in the public arena-'

I said, 'Your Honor, I met with a reporter from the Baltimore Sun this morning and gave her a complete copy of this treaty. They will have a special edition at noon today that recites the entire text. It is completely unjust for the government to come in here and try to prevent the truth from coming out, to prevent the people from knowing what really happened to their president and why.'

Hackett was beside himself. 'Your Honor, this is outrageous. We've had no chance to discover any of this. All he has proved is that WorldCopter has killed the president through these defective tip weights, and the supposed political intrigue that surrounds it is irrelevant and unprovable.'

'It is not irrelevant, Your Honor; it's the whole point. Marcel testified these tip weights were made in Taiwan. Someone in Taiwan discovered their president was about to betray them. I will prove that the owner of the company that makes these tip weights is the cousin of the chief of Taiwan 's security agency. Your Honor, it seems almost certain that somebody from Taiwan was in Washington and transmitted the triggering signal when Marine One flew overhead. They found out this treaty was about to be signed and stopped it. The tip weights were there to be used whenever they needed to. If the treaty didn't go forward, no one would ever know, and the weights would never be discovered. It was the perfect murder weapon.

'So not only should this not be stopped, I request the court to enter a verdict in my clients' favor. No jury could possibly come to any other conclusion than that my client did nothing wrong. The president was assassinated by Taiwanese interested in preventing their country from being sold down the river. Plain and simple.'

The judge put up her hands. She finally grabbed her gavel and hit it loudly. 'Everybody be quiet and everybody sit down.'

She took off her reading glasses, put her hands to the sides of her head, and remained quiet. The room continued to buzz as she looked around, demanding silence by her glare. Finally, she turned her gaze to Hackett. 'Mr. Hackett,' she said calmly. 'If what Mr. Nolan asserts is true-'

Hackett rose with all the presence he could muster. 'Your Honor, he hasn't proven anything. He has not authenticated this supposed treaty. He has not obtained testimony from this witness, who actually was attending the meeting that night-'

The judge put up her hand and stopped him. 'Mr. Hackett, he has certainly raised enough of an issue in my mind that we will have to find out the answers to these questions. We have a witness who can answer them, but who is refusing to do so, on the instructions of the Justice Department.' She looked at Packer, and not with favor. 'We will need, at the very least, to suspend this trial and deal with the government's concerns.' She sat back. After a minute she said, 'Mr. Hackett, what I propose is a motion from you to dismiss your case-without prejudice-in exchange for a waiver of any statute of limitations, so that we can all give the federal government an opportunity to determine whether Mr. Nolan's assertions are true. If it turns out he's wrong, you may refile. If it turns out he's right, you would be foolish to do so. Are you in agreement?'

Hackett sat down and stared in front of him. Finally he turned to the first lady and had a private conversation. She was visibly distraught and was responding to him slowly. He glanced back at his other clients, all of whom were subtly nodding to him. He stood and buttoned his suit coat. He took a deep breath. 'We agree, Your Honor.'

The judge looked at me.

I stood. 'We agree as well, Your Honor.'

She said, 'Based on that agreement, this case is dismissed without prejudice.' She then addressed Hackett: 'Regardless of what you do, Mr. Hackett, now that the case is dismissed, I'm going to request that you be subject to an investigation by the Maryland and New York bar associations into the question of whether you participated in Mr. Braden Randall's, or Jonathan Dercks's, defrauding of Mr. Nolan's law firm and used it as an advantage in this litigation. I will also ask the district attorney to begin an investigation to determine whether you have committed criminal fraud or any wiretap violations. You may not leave the jurisdiction until further notice.'

Hackett looked stunned. 'Your Honor, there is no evidence I had anything-'

'Save it for the DBA, Mr. Hackett. I've heard enough.' She turned to the jury. 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your service. You are now dismissed and you may return to the jury room.' They closed their notebooks, completely amazed at the turn of events. The judge looked over the rest of the people in the room. 'This case is dismissed without prejudice.' She banged her gavel down and stood. Everyone else in the room stood at the same time and the room erupted. Several of the journalists hurried for the door, others stood there absorbing what had happened and wondering if anything else would.

Hackett glared at me. 'None of this will ever stick. You can't prove anything.'

'Too bad you didn't accept two hundred and fifty million dollars a few nights ago,' I replied.

Grosvenor stepped down from the witness box and crossed to me. He grabbed the podium directly across from me as I closed my notebook. Kathryn, Marcel, and Brightman approached me from behind with smiles on their faces. Jean Claude patted me on the back, waiting for me to turn around. But Grosvenor was furious.

He said angrily, 'You have no idea what you've done.'

I shook my head. 'The Senate never would have ratified-'

'That's the whole point,' Grosvenor said menacingly. Journalists were starting to listen and take notes. 'The heads of state had agreed, and now the whole world knows. When Taiwan realizes their president turned on them, it won't matter what the damned U.S. Senate might have done! China will take Taiwan now. And who's going to stop them? Us? No way. Not when our president agreed to the treaty you've just told the world about.'

'Maybe if it had gone through, but now-'

'No! China had made concessions, to the U.S., to Japan, to Taiwan, in writing. Free access to their markets for twenty years and tariffs coming into our market, everything in the treaty. Now they'll get Taiwan for nothing. There is no treaty now. All