James Huston - Marine One

"Taiwanese? What would they have to do with the president?"

"That's your job. I just find out what happened. You're the one who's supposed to make sense of it all."

Taiwan threw me. I couldn't imagine what that would have to do with the crash. "I don't know, Tinny. Adams was always making a big deal about his Chinese policy, although I couldn't really tell you what he meant by that. I thought it was the usual political bullshit, lots of air and posturing. Maybe he had something going on. I'll have to think about that." I turned, then thought to ask again, "The night before the crash? You sure? Is she sure?"

"Yep."

"We'll keep digging."

Tinny frowned. "I don't know, man. There's stuff out there. A lot of anxiety. Something. I don't know who's working this, but there's more out there than just the government."

"So what? I'll subpoena the guest list from the hotel for that night. I've got to get to the bottom of this, Tinny. Our client's neck is in a noose."

"Let me give it another shot my way. Let me try."

"We've got to get something solid, Tinny. Something admissible. We're so close to breaking this open. Call your Secret Service guy again too. Tell him to talk to me."

I HADN'T SPOKENto Marcel in a couple of weeks so I wasn't expecting his call at 6 AM. He sounded far less confident than usual. When we had been in Paris for the depositions of the WorldCopter officers and workers, they had of course checked on and produced the documents that showed when the blade was balanced against the Golden Blade. We already knew the blade that was lying in the wreckage at the crash site had been added to the helicopter after its date of manufacture. The previous one had developed a crack and had been replaced ten days before the accident. It had been balanced against the Golden Blade one week before that. Marcel had gone back into the records to check on exactly what tip weights were used and the origin of those tip weights. Theoretically, a shipment of tip weights might have been defective. We doubted it, but we wanted to run that to ground. He said he had found the records of the tip weights that were added to blades in that time period. They were ordinary, and from the usual supplier. The shipment had arrived the week before being added to the blade, but that was normal. WorldCopter used just-in-time supply, which saved money and lessened the need for warehouses full of parts, as items arrived just as they were needed.

Marcel was concerned because they couldn't find any records of exactly which weights were added to the blade that made it to the president's helicopter. No documents specifically showed it. Maybe if we found tip weights at the scene, we could show they fit in the right time frame, but proving the numbers of the weights that were actually installed was proving impossible.

His voice quivered with anger. I asked him the obvious question, whether a blade might be so perfectly matched to the Golden Blade that it didn't need tip weights. He reminded me that it was designed to have them. It was built two to three ounces light at the tip just so you could adjust it. They didn't try to make a perfect blade. He did admit though that it was possible a blade could match the Golden Blade without any additional weight, but we both knew that was just wishful thinking, trying to explain away missing documents.

I said, "So we know for sure the blade had tip weights, and they're missing, and now we can't find the records of which tip weights were on that blade."

"That is it exactly."

"Well, shit, Marcel."

"Yes. My feelings are the same. Shit."

I walked over to tell Rachel about this wonderful new development and ran into Braden in the hallway. He handed me his updated memo on paying the mystery witness. As I walked in Rachel's office, she was working at her computer typing in her staccato manner and looked up, then returned her gaze to the screen. I sat in the chair across from her desk, and handed her Braden's memo. "You seen this?"

"Yeah. He gave it to me last night."

"What do you think?"

"I didn't check his research, but there aren't many cases dealing with it."

I read over his memo. "Basically says it's probably over the line. You can make an argument, but it's probably a loser. You could get charged with un-ethical conduct and lose your law license." I looked at Rachel, who seemed uninterested. "What do you think?"

"I think the whole thing is crazy. We shouldn't even call the guy back. It's probably a scam anyway."

"Don't we owe it to our client to find out what this is about?"

"If you're going across an ethical line, you're going without me."

"I'm not going across any line. With you or without you. But what if WorldCopter wants to pay him? They're not admitted to practice law in Maryland."

"Doesn't that sound a little too cute?"

"Maybe. Let's at least see if we can find out what the guy knows."

____________________

The next morning as I was shaving I heard my BlackBerry buzzing on my dresser. I checked the incoming number and closed the bathroom door behind me. "Tinny, what the hell are you doing calling me at five thirty in the morning?"

"You gotta come to D.C. this morning. No doubt about it. You've got to come to D.C. right now."

"Why?" I turned the water off in the sink and listened carefully, trying not to speak too loudly and wake Debbie.

"My friend, the one I told you about that I can't tell you about, that works for a certain outfit that you know about, has some documents he wants us to have."

Byrd was being remarkably evasive. It occurred to me for the first time he was afraid that somebody was listening to our conversation. Easy enough to do. "I got all kinds of meetings this morning. People coming from out of town. You sure?"

"Come. I'll leave my cell on." Byrd hung up.

"Dammit," I said as I hung up. I'd have to call Rachel and ask her to meet with Holly alone, at least for a while. Byrd never asked me to come to D.C. I left messages for everybody at the office as I drove toward D.C. As I merged onto the beltway to head into the city and slowed to a crawl, I called Byrd on my cell phone. "Byrd. Where are you? I'm on the beltway. I'll be there in about eight hours at this pace."

"You know that place that we met that one time where you felt really out of place?"

Boy did I. "Yeah."

"Be there at eight o'clock."

He was referring to a cafe in the Northeast section of D.C. called Mercedes' Grill, named after Mercedes Benson, a legendary, larger-than-life woman who owned the grill. It was a popular hangout for D.C. politicians, police, and others in what they liked to call the second society. The first society of course were all the white people who worked on Capitol Hill, at the Supreme Court, and at all the federal agencies, almost all white, who comprised the decision makers in the federal government and who lived in Virginia and Maryland. The real Washington, the second society, were those who lived in and ran the city: the mayor, the city council, the police, the fire department, and local religious and civic leaders. Notably they were all black. It was like two cities. One on top of the other. White on top of black. The white part of the city didn't realize it, the black part of the city did. And those who knew that and understood it hung out at Mercedes' Grill. I had felt out of place the last time I had been there because white people simply didn't go there. Everyone there, from the owners to the workers to the customers, was black. So when I went in, everybody wondered why somebody from the first city had come to the grill of the second city. They fairly quickly realized that I wasn't actually part of the first city. I wasn't a congressman or a staffer or a judge, or anybody in the federal government who longed to be higher in the federal government. I was just the white guy with Tinny Byrd. Pretty soon that was just fine and nobody stared at me. But I still felt awkward. I was going to get another chance this morning. Byrd liked to meet me, or anybody else, there because usually those who wanted to give him any kind of difficulty were white.