Marine One (7 page)

Tripp was waiting for me in the lobby of the sprawling WorldCopter building. It looked like a factory but was really more of an assembly plant. WorldCopter made everything in France and shipped it to the United States for assembly. This allowed them to claim that it was an American helicopter. It was all about appearances. Everyone knew it was a French helicopter, or rather a helicopter made in France by a European consortium known as WorldCopter.

Tripp gave me a badge and hustled me through security. "They've got it set up in the computer room."

"You watch it?"

"Not yet. Here we are," he said, opening a heavy steel door.

I was surprised at the number of people in the room. This was to be the first playing of the combined animation of the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder that anyone other than a technician would actually see. Even Marcel hadn't seen the entire thing; he'd just sampled it to make sure it looked right. Several technicians and engineers were standing around the computer console where the FDR had been loaded up. Others, including Tripp, stood against the wall trying to stay out of the way.

Marcel nodded his head to one of the technicians standing at the door, who dimmed the lights. Another one turned up the speakers connected to the computer. Everyone focused on the large, flatscreen monitor that had been connected to the computer and hung on the wall. I was anxious to see what movements of the helicopter coincided with the various noises I'd heard on the cockpit voice recorder. The background was dark blue for the sky and green for the land. There was no attempt by the computer to put any terrain into the images. The flight data recorder had no terrain information.

The colors were simply background to help discern the horizon. The voices could be heard exactly where in the flight they were talking. Marcel had had the CVR transcribed too, so the subtitles went across the bottom of the screen as quickly as they were spoken.

Collins's voice was now familiar as the helicopter approached its landing at the White House. We stood silently and listened again to Collins's conversations with his copilot and the head of the Secret Service detail as they prepared to take off, then President Adams's approach to Collins and his shocking comments. None of that was on the FDR-it showed a motionless helicopter sitting on the lawn with the rotor blades turning.

Marine One took off and flew through what we knew to be the night. The turbulence was obvious in the bouncing helicopter in spite of Collins's attempts to keep it straight and level. He fought the storm and the turbulence the entire way, shifting altitudes in a vain attempt to avoid the worst. As he approached the final minute of flight, the room became deathly quiet. We looked at every movement and listened to every sound now correlated to movement as Collins searched for clear air. We heard his exclamations and watched him fighting the helicopter, cursing, then the flight data recorder information stopped. So did the helicopter in the animation, but the voices continued as we listened through to the end of the tape.

As the voices stopped, the screen went blank. Nobody said anything. We all had new thoughts, some things that confirmed what we had thought, others that conflicted. But not only was the puzzle not solved, the animation raised more questions than it answered.

The question foremost on my mind, though, was why the flight data recorder had stopped. I looked at Marcel. "You find the circuit-breaker panels?"

"Yes. But they're burned."

"Can you tell what circuit breakers are out?"

"Maybe. They have the pieces of plastic, and they're going to have to reconstruct the board. Some of the circuit breakers are still there intact, but most have been burned off."

I thought about where the circuit-breaker panels were near the pilot and what circuit breakers were on them. "Is there a circuit breaker for the flight data recorder?"

Everybody turned to me at once. The implications of the question were self-evident.

Marcel answered, "Yes."

"I know where the hydraulic-boost-pump circuit breaker is," I said. It was down to the right, just below the pilot's knee, and back a little bit on the right side. "Is the flight data recorder circuit breaker near that?"

Marcel stared at me. He nodded his head slowly. "Right below it. Unmarked. It looks like a dummy. Do you think he tried to pull the hydraulic breaker and got the FDR?"

I stood without answering for a minute. Everybody was looking at me, expecting me to say something, but it just didn't make any sense. Finally I said, "If you had a boost pump failure and had a circuit breaker pop out from the boost pump, he'd figure that out pretty quick and try to reset it. So he'd reach down, feel it, and push it in. The only thing I can imagine that would involve the flight data recorder circuit breaker would be if he decided to pull it out before he pushed it in and grabbed the wrong one. Seems unlikely."

Marcel threw his hands up. "Then why else would the flight data recorder circuit breaker have popped?"

"We don't know that it did. But maybe there was something wrong with the flight data recorder." Or he pulled it on purpose, I said to myself. "Did you load this flight data recorder info into the simulator?"

"Of course. It has been ready all night."

We headed toward the simulator room down a long hallway. I said to Marcel, "Does it have an FDR circuit breaker?"

"No, it's a standard helicopter, not Marine One."

"I want to fly it and feel what Collins felt."

Marcel held the door for me and the others who wanted to watch the flight from the control room of the simulator. The simulator room itself was enormous. It held three fully operational helicopter simulators on hydraulic stands. The cockpits were complete and identical to those operational helicopters. Each was surrounded by a dome that could project any image from mountains to bad weather to images of other aircraft.

We climbed up to the simulator that had been prepared, and I strapped into the right seat, the pilot-in-command seat, where Collins was sitting on the night of the accident. I put on the headset and Marcel took the left seat. An accomplished helicopter pilot, he had spent ten years flying attack helicopters with the French army. The cockpit was fairly dark, but the internal lights made the preflight routine feel like a normal night launch. I went through all the checklists from memory, and Marcel was right there with me turning on some of the systems to get us going. We could just have told the computer "go," and they would have put the simulator immediately in the air approaching the White House as Collins was at the beginning of the CVR. But I wanted to fly it from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House just as Collins had. I wanted to leave there with the same fuel Collins had and fly to the position he had gone to when we first encountered him. Then if things changed, if the computer put switches and settings different from where I had them, it would mean either Collins had done things differently from me, or he'd missed something.

Marcel and I took off from Andrews and headed for the White House. WorldCopter had actually flown the route from Andrews to the White House numerous times to film the route and get good video to put into the simulator to train the Marine One pilots.

I had asked them to plug in the actual visibility and ceiling that existed at the White House when Collins made his approach; so we weren't seeing much on the way into Washington, just an occasional light from a monument. The synthetic aperture radar, though, made the terrain look like a moving picture. We could recognize the White House on the radar before we saw it.

I began my descent, nearing the point where the FDR and CVR would take over. I was right on track when Collins's voice came over my headset. I released the controls and looked for changes. A couple of things were set differently, different preferences for a couple of displays, but nothing significant.

The cyclic in my right hand-the stick, as nonhelicopter people might call it-and the collective in my left hand, which controlled the engine and the pitch of the rotor blades, moved as if possessed. Knowing it was duplicating the exact movements of a dead man made it even more spooky than it would have been anyway. I listened carefully again to Collins's conversations with President Adams and the others, then prepared for the moment when Collins lifted the helicopter off on its last flight. I placed my hands on the controls lightly, so I could feel everything he had done. My feet were equally light on the pedals that controlled the tail rotor.

Then Collins and I, together, lifted off from the South Lawn. He flew the helicopter with a confidence and fluidity I had never seen before. It was like driving in a car with a professional instead of just another driver. I tried to anticipate how he would handle the helicopter, thinking how I would get it to go where I knew he wanted it to go; but every time he would do it just a little differently from what I anticipated, and I would know immediately that his way was better. More efficient, smoother. Brilliant.

The White House faded in the mist and rain below us as we climbed aggressively to the northwest, away from the ground, where things were always the most dangerous. If you get tossed around at five thousand feet, it's just annoying. If you get tossed around at fifteen feet, it can be fatal. All those spinning blades and so many things to hit.

The flight was well-known to us by now, and we watched carefully as Collins took us through it. There weren't any new surprises en route. The simulator tried to indicate rough weather and turbulence, but was admittedly imperfect in doing so. Still, we could tell it was one hell of a bad night.

As we approached the last minute of the flight, Marcel and I looked at each other, wondering what we'd notice from here that we hadn't seen anywhere else. The cyclic was moving much more than it had before. I could tell Collins was fighting what was happening. No doubt much of it was due to the gusting winds, which made me wonder if he was moving the cyclic or if it was simply being left behind in numerous involuntary jerks of the helicopter, like hitting the curb with your tire and feeling the wheel turn in your hands.

The final movements of the controls in the cockpit
were
like hitting a curb in a car. Abrupt changes, but in a short throw. Fighting something, back and forth, movement not obvious from watching the animation from any angle. Then one last thing before the simulator stopped moving-the nose of the helicopter pitched up dramatically. Again, watching on a screen didn't give you the full appreciation for the fifteen-degree nose-up attitude. You could certainly see it, but seeing it from the cockpit was much more dramatic. Something bad had happened right there. Before the FDR cut out. What it led to after that was impossible to say, but I knew something had happened. Not a gust of wind or turbulence. Something else.

The flight data recorder stopped and the simulator froze in its place. We checked the altitude, the heading, and the attitude-how the helicopter was situated in the air-and all the instruments. We looked at each other with the same puzzlement and ended the flight. The hydraulic platform hissed slightly as it returned to its resting place. We waited until it settled and stepped out.

We stood around the simulator on the smooth concrete floor and discussed what we had seen. There must have been ten of us. Lots of theories, lots of questions for Marcel and me. We told them what we could and suggested that they all go through the entire flight just as we had.

As we were walking back to the computer room to talk it out, I said to Marcel, "You feel that pitch up at the end? Right before the FDR went dead?"

"Yes."

"Any ideas?"

"No. I will give it much thought. I am sure you will too."

When we regathered in the computer room, there were many long faces. Everyone knew there was no conclusive proof about anything. We all had thought when we put everything together in the animation and the simulator, the answer would lie in front of us. I knew that was unlikely when I'd heard the FDR had stopped, but I was hopeful. Now I was as confused as any of them.

I said my good-byes and walked to my car. The movement of the controls had made me wonder about a lot of things. I still wasn't sure I could trust Collins. Great pilot, sure, but not a great guy. I had to know everything there was to know about him, and I had to keep it to myself. I couldn't exactly be telling people I had a vague suspicion that the pilot of Marine One crashed on purpose. Saying I suspected Collins was too strong. I simply allowed it to exist as a theoretical possibility. I was probably the only person in the world who did. The FDR showed someone fighting a storm. Or at least that's how it was supposed to look. Collins was smart, though, and knew the helicopter had a CVR and an FDR. If he had set this all up, he'd know we'd be listening. He could make it look however he wanted.

I had to find out more about him to put that crazy idea to rest, or to sound the alarm. I headed for my office to call Jason Britt, a Marine pilot I'd known for years and who was one of the pilots in my reserve squadron. He had flown with Collins in his last active-duty squadron before going to fly for the president. I had to talk to him before the NTSB did.

I
NEEDED TO
call Britt right away, but first things first. I asked Rachel and Justin, my unique, disheveled paralegal, to come to my office. We sat in a small conference room just down the hall from my office, between Rachel's office and Justin's carrel in the library. I said, "We need to get all the records we can on Collins. Justin, put together a Freedom of Information Act request to DOD. I want everything. Personnel files, fitness reports, test scores, discipline, go back to the Naval Academy-grades, infractions, demerits, everything. And get on the Internet. Look at everything that's out there since the crash. I'm sure they're already doing a Lee Harvey on him and accusing him of being somebody's pawn. I just want to know what's being said. Look at everything."

"Will do," Justin said as he wrote. He looked up at me. "You think the government will give all that to us?"

"No. We'll have to fight them over documents. Probably have to file a lawsuit to enforce it. But the sooner we get on it, the sooner we can force the issue."

Rachel asked, "Know anybody at the Pentagon who works in personnel?"

"Yeah, but I can't do that." I pondered for a moment. "We've also got to find out things about him that the government wouldn't even know. His personal life, his family life, everything. All the things he's lied about in his physical exams, or his background." I had an idea. I looked at their faces to see if they had thought of the same thing at the same time. "You know what we need to do?"

They shook their heads.

"Call Tinny."

Rachel said, "Well, if you want information and don't care too much about how you get it, he's the guy."

I said to Justin, "Dial it."

He reached over to the credenza, grabbed the phone, and pulled it onto the conference room table. He knew Tinny's number by heart. We used Tinny on nearly every criminal case we handled. Tinny gave me an advantage the prosecutors always underestimated. When they knew he was working on a case, they paid more attention, but I tended not to tell them until trial was imminent.

Justin dialed the number, and we heard Tinny's cell phone ring. He answered it in his recognizable voice with the one word he always said when he answered his cell phone; "Byrd."

I spoke loudly into the speakerphone, "Tinny, Mike Nolan."

"Hey, big shot. What's up?"

He knew what I needed him for. It was always the same thing. He found things, or found things out. He knew how to dig and to find information no one else could find. After a ten-year stint in the Marine Corps as an enlisted man, he got his private investigator's license. He did that for a couple of years, then worked as an investigator for the Baltimore District Attorney's Office. He ultimately moved up to chief investigator for that office. He'd somehow gotten sideways with them, just short of his retirement, which made his departure all the more puzzling. He never talked about it. He implied it had to do with race. He was black and the new DA was a white woman who apparently hated him. He did rub some people the wrong way and had a general distrust of authority, but mostly for those who had authority and didn't deserve it.

After his falling-out, he had moved to Washington, D.C., to set up his own private investigation firm. He now worked almost exclusively investigating criminal cases on the defense side and loved making life difficult for district attorneys, U.S. attorneys, and other arrogant government-employed assholes.

"Tinny, I need your help."

"Hold on. Let me get in my car." We could hear him disarming the alarm in his car-his prized black Corvette-opening the door, closing it behind him, then being enveloped in silence. "All right. I'm in a big damn hurry so talk fast."

"The government's already threatening criminal charges against WorldCopter, one of the families will probably hire an attorney who will sue them for infinity dollars, and I got all kinds of questions that need answering. I want you to help me answer them. There's nobody better. I want you to help me dig into everything, starting with the pilot."

"The pilot?"

"The pilot. Collins. You've heard some people on the news talking about what a fabulous pilot he was; war hero. But I've got suspicions I need help with."

"You're going to hang this on the pilot? In the middle of the biggest thunderstorm in the history of Maryland?"

"I'm not trying to hang it on anybody. I'm trying to keep from getting hung on. I'm chasing every fact down every rabbit hole, but I need people who can navigate down rabbit holes that I can't fit in. That's you."

"I'm bigger than you, Nolan, not smaller."

"Yeah. The metaphor broke down. You get the point though."

"What do you want me to check out on this pilot?"

"Everything you can-medical records, fitness reports, his citations, everything. We've got to get them from the Pentagon, from family, wherever we can."

"One Marine to another, Nolan, I can get those records out of the Pentagon. You know I can."

I looked at Justin and Rachel, who were staring at me. I put up my hands. "I don't want you doing anything illegal; this all has to be aboveboard."

"Right. What else?"

"We should probably get together and talk about all the other things. I've got a to-do list that's taken on a life of its own. You've got to help me get some sleep, Tinny."

"All right, Mike, let's do this. But there's one other thing. I don't think I told you about my new rate sheet."

I just rolled my eyes. I saw this coming. "A new rate sheet? You're killing me."

"No. I wouldn't do that. And the new rates are effective today. I'll fax you a copy of the sheet this afternoon."

"What are your new rates?"

"As of right now, they only apply to complex cases. I'll work the other cases into the new rates as the new cases come in, but unfortunately they're twice what I've charged up until just yesterday."

"Come on, Tinny. Give me a break."

"I'm giving you a break by getting involved in this. This thing has stink all over; you just can't smell it yet. You're too excited about being involved. I'm telling you, this thing's going to be ugly. When you're talking about the president being killed, his family, his wife, an American hero pilot, and a French helicopter company, the currents are going to be so deep and so swift, you'll get drowned in about a millisecond. And I'll be there to pull you out. I may have to triple my rates."

"Just send me the rate sheet. I'll be in touch."

"I'll send you that rate sheet right away. By the way, this pilot, Collins, what's his first name? What's his address?"

"You jumping right on this, Tinny?"

"If you think this guy's got something to do with the accident, somebody else is going to think that too. I'm sure the feds are already digging, but I'll beat them to it. I promise I'll get to something before they do. Something they might not even look for."

"His name is Chuck Collins. His address is in Woodbridge, Virginia."

"Charles? Okay. What's his wife's name?"

"Melissa. What difference does this make? You leave her out of this."

"Not a chance, friend, not a chance. See ya." And with that, his cell phone went dead.

I looked at Rachel and Justin, who were both still staring at the speakerphone. "I hope that was the right decision."

Rachel said, "He's never failed us before. It's just sometimes his methods are a little sketchy."

"I've got to make a call," I said. They got the hint and left for their own offices. I dialed Britt's number at his office in Arlington, Virginia.

Britt was a Beltway bandit. His company lived off government contracts, mostly military. He worked for Bachman Aerospace, which was developing a series of light-helicopter UAVs-unmanned aerial vehicles. Drones. His division had developed a helicopter the size of a coffee table that had eight rotor blades, four rotating in one direction, and another four on top of the first four rotating in the opposite direction. Counterrotating blades. No tail rotor necessary. It ran on a small jet engine the size of my forearm and could fly 120 miles per hour after vertical takeoff. It carried all the sensors the Marine Corps wanted: video, infrared, and the newest radar system. Even weapons. The Marine Corps was hot to purchase this amazing little helicopter. Britt was in the middle of the contract proposal and had no time, but when he heard that the call was from me, he immediately picked up the phone. "Nolan! What are you doing?"

"Thanks for taking my call, Jason, I know you're busy."

"Never too busy for a fellow Marine."

I wasn't sure how to approach him. I needed to gather everything I could on Collins, but I didn't want to make Britt think I was taking advantage of our friendship. "How about Marine One?" I said casually.

Britt sighed. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Can't believe they took off in that storm. You got any ideas?"

"Yeah, I got lots of ideas, but I should tell you what I'm doing."

"What?"

"You remember I practice law in Annapolis?"

"Sure. From Marine pilot to parasite on the great American economy, keeping the world safe for felons and child molesters."

"I'll remember that when you get arrested. Because I'm sure you wouldn't want to be represented by some
parasite attorney."

"True. I'd rather rot in prison than pay a cent to a lawyer. So what are you talking about?"

"I do civil cases too, not just criminal."

"And?"

"I've been hired to represent WorldCopter in the crash of Marine One."

"Are you shitting me? Talk about getting thrown into it."

"Yeah, it's a pretty crazy time. So far it's just a bunch of investigations, but I'm sure the other shoe will drop at some point. It's the kind of case that you always want, until you're in it, then you wonder what happened to your life. Look, I need to ask you about something, but if you don't want to talk to me about it, that's okay. But I have to find some stuff out. Can you help me out?"

"What?"

"Collins."

There was a pregnant pause as Britt suddenly got the point of my call. "I wondered when somebody was going to start asking me about him. I didn't think it'd be you."

"Anybody else asked you about him? Since the accident?"

"No."

"Listen, if you don't want to talk to me, that's cool. A lot of this is going to get real official real fast, but I need to do some quick checking on Collins. What do you think?"

His voice warmed only slightly. "I'm gonna be answering a lot of questions about him anyway."

I picked up my pen and prepared to take silent notes. Witnesses clam up when they hear a keyboard. "So, let's go back to the beginning."

Once Britt got over the idea of talking about Collins, he began gushing information. He spent an hour talking with me. They had been in the same squadron more than once. He had observed Collins up close both as a peer and as a superior officer. Several things he said stuck with me. After telling me about a near accident Collins had been involved in, which wasn't his fault, he mentioned in passing that Collins read a lot.

I knew a lot of Marines who liked to read, contrary to their general reputation. Some of it was from the "Marine officer reading list," which was started by General Alfred M. Gray when he was the commandant of the Marine Corps. But this sounded different. "Where did he read?"

"What do you mean?"

"How would you know he read a lot?"

"Because I saw him."

"Where?"

"Ready room. Kept books in his chair in the ready room."

"That's odd."

"It was. Lots of guys were interested in politics, what was going on, Rush Limbaugh sort of books. You know."

"But he was different?"

"Yeah. Very."

"What did he read?"

"It was more serious stuff. Hard-core economics books, for one. Some guy from Austria-can't remember his name-and books nobody else had ever heard of that always claimed to have the Secret. I guess I'd say he seemed fascinated by conspiracy theories."

"You mean black helicopters and world-domination conspiracies?"

"Sort of. I don't know. He didn't really talk about them much. He was sort of a loner."

"Did you get a flavor at all? Anything you can remember?"

"It's hard to describe. Most Marines support the government generally. Except for taxes of course"-he laughed-"which they think are mostly just pissed away and should be used to buy more airplanes and ammo. But some people, like Collins, have a deep distrust of the government. I forget what the political party is called, or what that theory is. They don't think there should be any government."

"Anarchists?"

"No, these guys think there should be some police, and military. What-"

"Libertarians?"

"Yeah, that's it. I'm not sure if he was a sort of radical libertarian, but he thought the government was corrupt. Really corrupt. At the highest levels, and would read book after book about it. He'd get smug and sarcastic about it. When something would go wrong, like we had to deploy early-which was most of the time, by the way-"

"Tell me about it."

"Well, he'd say, 'What do you expect?' and have this snotty smile. Always thought there was a wizard somewhere pulling the levers."

I was writing furiously. "Anything else?"

"Not really. Great pilot. Great guy, usually."

"Was he in any organizations or anything?"

"I don't know, not that-"

"Did the FBI interview you when he got the job as CO of HMX-1?"

"Yeah. What a joke."

"You tell them all this?"

"Hell no. Of course not."

"Why not?"

"They didn't ask about what he read. They asked stupid questions: was he a member of an organization whose intention was to overthrow the government of the United States? What a dumb-ass question. I'm sure they get a lot of yes answers to that brilliant question. I wouldn't have been real talkative anyway. I didn't want to kill his chance to get his dream job."

"Well, was he in any weird organizations?"

"I don't think so. He got a lot of magazines and stuff too."

"You're making him sound like a UFO nut."