James Huston - Marine One

"Yes, we do! That is my whole point! Our helicopters don't fail like this! I am telling you that, and I will tell the U.S. government that."

"That's fine," I said, glancing at the others at the table, not at all sure how to handle his intensity. "There's just a lot we don't know yet, and if we say that now, it will just sound like a denial, not a conclusion. And you're right about one thing: we can't just rely on the NTSB. They're good, but we cannot assume they'll get this right. You've already got your own in-house team on it, but you need to retain an outside accident reconstructionist and others. Metallurgists, aerodynamicists, lots. I'm sure the insurance carrier will help with that."

He waved his hand and nodded. "Yes, of course. Whatever you need. But the reason we're here right now is because of the meeting at your Justice Department this afternoon. This is where they start preparing the noose for me and my company."

Morton spoke before I had a chance even to prepare a thought. "Yes, sir, we will take care of you. I'm sure they will press on two things primarily: contract fraud-in other words, you delivered a helicopter that was not what they bought, i.e., defective-and breach of national security. The first one is simply going to be determined by what the investigation finds. The second one though is pretty scary. It's my understanding that…"

Morton said exactly what everybody needed to hear, that even though the lack of security clearances was probably caused by a lack of diligence on the part of the FBI, it left open the possibility that WorldCopter had an employee who was out to get the president and had placed something into the helicopter or otherwise sabotaged it so that at just the wrong moment, the helicopter would come apart.

"But what do we do now ?" Dan Lake, the American president of WorldCopter U.S. asked. "What do we need to know going into this ambush?"

I answered while glancing at Morton. "Everything you say will be twisted. Every step you take will be scrutinized. They already think you're a criminal. They would love nothing more than to find an employee of WorldCopter who is responsible for this accident and put him, and you by the way, in prison and WorldCopter out of business. But they're a little torn. They have to consider an actual assassination, or terrorism, so they can't focus on you exclusively. They'll have a team of lawyers looking at you, and others looking elsewhere. I don't want to overstate it, but this could go very badly in a lot of directions."

Jean Claude nearly came out of his chair. "Prison? What do you mean?"

Morton jumped in. "The CEO of a company can be criminally liable for criminal acts of the company."

"Criminally liable?"

"You can go to jail. Literally. Just like a murderer."

"I can go to jail if the Justice Department decides? Me personally?" Jean Claude asked, furious.

"Yes, it's possible. Look, they'd have to issue an indictment, and if they couldn't get you to plea, they'd have to go to a trial. We're a long way from that, but Mike is right to let you know. Justice doesn't want to meet with you as your friend. They want to burn down your village. They can do real damage. They can ruin your reputation as a company, they can force you into bankruptcy, and they can put you in prison. And there are hundreds of young, ambitious attorneys at Justice who would like nothing better than to bring you down and hang this whole thing on a foreign corporation that stole business from an American-"

"We didn't steal the Marine One contract! We competed for it against the American companies and won! We were selected by your government. How could anyone say we stole it?"

"They will, I promise."

Martin was deeply troubled about many things. He already knew this accident, or incident, or whatever it turned out to be, could ruin his company. But he had clearly not considered that it could ruin him personally as well. He turned to me. "What of the voice recording? Did you make any conclusions?"

"There were some interesting things. We'll need to study it, both-"

"What did you find interesting," he asked, pointing at my chest.

"Marcel would be the one you should-"

"No." Jean Claude paused until I looked him in the eye. "I want your opinion."

I hesitated. "Well… I… a couple of things. The pilot didn't treat the president with much respect. President Adams came to the cockpit and stuck his head in. You can hear the president talk to Collins, but he clearly doesn't respond. Later, right in the middle of a checklist, the copilot tells him that he just can't ignore the president. And Collins said, 'I don't really give a shit.' That's a remarkable statement by the pilot of Marine One."

Morton was frowning with his arms folded, but the president was interested. "What do you think-"

"I think it's-"

A young man walked into the room carrying a cell phone. "Excuse me, sir," he said to Jean Claude. "It's Marcel. He needs to speak with you immediately. He told me to interrupt. Sorry." The young man handed his phone to the president.

Jean Claude took the phone and spoke to Marcel, then listened intently. He looked around the room at us, knowing information that he couldn't share, but was anxious to do. He continued to listen, then a look of complete surprise or shock came over his face. He nodded, closed the flip phone, and returned it to its owner.

We all waited, anxious for this report that called for such an interruption. I watched Jean Claude's face carefully. It wasn't horror, and it wasn't pleasure.

Martin said, "He has reviewed the flight data recorder information. It is on our computer. He said everything is normal until very late in the flight. As the helicopter begins one of its descents, then something happened."

"What?" I asked, dying for the answer.

"We don't know. The flight data recorder stops."

We were all puzzled. Flight data recorders didn't just stop. Like the cockpit voice recorder, they ran on a continuous thirty-minute loop; there was no on/off switch.

"Did Marcel say why it stopped?" Morton asked.

"No. He is completely confused."

I couldn't imagine how that could happen. "Has Marcel checked with the NTSB? Did we get bad data-a bad CD?"

The president nodded. "That was his first call. The NTSB said theirs stops in the same place." He looked directly at me. "It now will be even more difficult to find out what happened." He leaned over, anger in his voice. "Get all the experts you need. Get them paid for by the insurance company, or if they won't pay, I will. But you must find out what happened to Marine One. You must solve this before the U.S. government does, because we will tell them what happened, not wait for them to tell us!"

BY THE TIME Rachel and I got out of the car near Justice, the sky had cleared. I asked Rachel, "What did the radio say about the funeral?"

"The parade, or whatever they call it, will be Friday. He'll lie in state at the Capitol Building. Closed coffin. Then there's a memorial ceremony at the National Cathedral on Sunday. Dignitaries from around the world… I don't remember the rest."

"Here we are." We walked through the sliding glass door, which closed behind us, leaving us locked in a small glass space that allowed the guards to see us. The glass was bulletproof. After about five seconds the other doors opened and we passed into the lobby. We told one of the guards who we were and were led to a conference room on the third floor at the west end of the building. The others were already there. No one was there from Justice yet. I wondered whether they were trying to annoy us by being late.

Morton said, "Let me take the lead on this, Mike."

Fine with me. Arguing with Justice wasn't my favorite sport.