James Huston - Marine One

"Go on."

"I find the fact that the flight data recorder stopped before the crash suspicious. I find the fact that he maybe had a hydraulic light suspicious. I find the conversation between the pilot and the president suspicious. I find the meeting the president was going to that we know nothing about really suspicious."

Karl nodded and finished his coffee. He tossed the cup into an open backpack. "And what about here? What do you see here?"

"I don't know. I don't understand this scene. It just doesn't make sense to me at all." I kicked at the ashes at my feet. "It does feel strange sitting here, where a helicopter crashed killing seven people. Feels like we're desecrating it, sitting here and drinking coffee." Karl didn't respond. I got up and walked around the wreckage site while Karl watched me move uneasily through the silence. I looked down at a pile of ash that had been raked into an area to clear it from something else. The pile was simply charred burned matter, which looked like burned foliage. Something caught my eye. "Check this out," I said. He came over from his stool and peered down. It was American currency. Bills folded in half, charred on the top so it just looked like a random piece of charred paper. But you could just make out a corner of the paper and tell that it was a bill. I picked them up. I turned them over, and on the bottom were four clean $100 bills, which were underneath the charred bill on top of it. "How about that?" I said, and handed Karl the charred bills. I glanced down to the now clean spot on the ground where the bills had been lying and noticed something metal. I bent down and picked up a heavy brass key. It was one of those brass hotel keys that were more common before most hotels went to electronic access. But it was different. It was flat on the top and flat on the bottom with three groves that would be inserted into the door. It looked to me as if the key was brass but electronic as well. I wasn't really sure, but I did notice the name of the hotel. I handed it to Karl. "The Virginian." He took it, examined it, turned it over, and pondered.

I asked, "Why didn't the NTSB find this?"

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."

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."