Skyhook

by John J. Nance

  “I apologize for the hour, but I need to let you know what I am doing.” She outlined the actions she had just filed, the one filed the day before, and the judge’s recommendation regarding the FAA suit.

  The voice from Alexandria was icy. “Oh, wonderful. Did you specifically name the Federal Aviation Administration in that TRO action, Ms. O’Brien?”

  “Call me Gracie, please.”

  “Please answer the question.”

  “Well, yes,” she said, much of her mind distracted by the obvious hostility in his voice. “I didn’t name the FAA as the only party, but I included them as a named arm of government to incorporate the possibility that they might be involved as a volitional party to these acts. Now I need to have you file this new action that is directly against them. I’ve got it all drawn up.”

  “I see. So you retained me as a ranking expert on dealing with the FAA, but now you want to send me your work product and have me just accept your filing papers and find a court up here to file them in, or should I go do what you just did in Seattle and inconvenience a federal judge on a Saturday night so you can fire an ill-timed broadside at a major federal agency and utterly destroy the work in progress?”

  “What work in progress? And what do you mean, ill-timed?”

  “Ill-timed. Ridiculously timed, in fact.”

  “Why? How?” She could feel herself flushing in potential embarrassment at the possibility she could have made a major mistake.

  “Well, let’s see,” he was saying, his voice just short of a sneer. “For starters, I have just begun the delicate dance with the FAA I was retained to conduct, an interaction involving the careful and professional people I work with all the time at FAA headquarters, people whom I can deal with more often than not without litigation. But, if I follow your playbook, these same folks Monday morning would walk into eight hundred Independence Avenue only to discover that something that they thought was still very much in gentlemanly negotiation had turned into a godforsaken war over the weekend. And with my name associated, I’d be in the position of essentially breaking my implied word.”

  “Implied …? Mr. Greene, I think we have more than a few elements of misunderstanding here. First, I was under the impression that I hired you, yet you’re speaking to me as if I’m some misbehaving junior associate.”

  “You retained me for the Rosens. I represent them. I allowed you to tag along as a baby lawyer playing cocounsel, especially after I read your curriculum vitae and discovered you had almost no experience. And here we are screwing up an otherwise lovely Saturday evening with the news that instead of consulting me, you’ve gone off half-cocked and sued the world.”

  Gracie felt the embarrassment metastasizing into anger, her breathing becoming more rapid as the need for caution competed with the desire for counterattack. But she also needed his counsel and his representation, no matter how obnoxious he was. And the captain, in particular, needed him.

  “I take it, Mr. Greene,” she said, “that you don’t check your beeper or your office voice mail on the weekends. In fact, I left messages with your secretary all day yesterday and have been trying to reach you on the beeper since yesterday afternoon.”

  There was silence for a few seconds from Alexandria.

  So, I hear the first hesitation in your smug replies, huh, Teddy? she thought.

  “I … was in a deposition yesterday,” he said, recovering. “I was unaware you were trying to reach me. I will apologize for that.”

  Interesting! Gracie thought. Not, “I do apologize,” but “I will.” And when would that be?

  “Well, sir,” she said, “the fact is, I did everything I could to reach you regarding developing matters of immense urgency on this case. I’m doubly sorry I was unable to get the benefit of your counsel, but I had an obligation to do what appeared to be the right thing given the circumstances.”

  “Ms. O’Brien, I’m not terribly concerned about your en-joining the Coast Guard, but naming the FAA is a huge mistake and a significant problem for me.”

  For you? she thought. It’s Arlie Rosen who’s lost his license.

  “Why,” Gracie asked, “is it a problem to join them on this issue? If they have no culpability, it’s a nonissue.”

  She could hear his derisive chuckle on the other end, a caustic sound that echoed through her psyche into the dark recesses where she’d bottled up so many minor assaults over the years from those who thought the concept of a young, unpedigreed little girl taking on the real world in any way was simply contemptible. There he was, droning on, unconcerned with the plight of his client or the sincerity of her efforts, merely rising to the challenge of puffing out his manly chest and showing her how stupid she really was. And she was expected to instantly accept that conclusion based on his position, his experience, his gender, and the Ivy League law degree that was undoubtedly hanging on his wall.

  “Gentlemanly negotiation,” he’d said.

  “Ms. O’Brien? Are you still there?”

  Gracie shook herself back to the moment. “I’m sorry. I’m in a car.”

  “I was saying that the problem here is that you’ve gone, skipping with unwarranted innocence, into a real-world minefield. You obviously don’t understand the FAA’s hair-trigger sensitivity to being joined in any lawsuit. On top of that, Captain Rosen is extremely vulnerable, but as long as he didn’t hit a ship or anything on the surface, which would prove he was too low, they really don’t have much chance of making the reckless flying charge stick in the long run. The FAA just doesn’t react well to challenge by lawsuit, and when threatened they tend to drop any deals or any reasonable treatment that might be pending and really attack.”

  “Mr. Greene, they could hardly attack more effectively than pulling a 747 captain’s entire pilot’s license, for crying out loud!”

  Another derisive sneer, or was that a snort?

  “You’re whipping this into an artificial emergency, Ms. O’Brien. These things take many months at best. Other than the loss of license and the man’s obvious desire to get it reinstated—which won’t happen rapidly, I can assure you—I don’t understand your panic.”

  “My panic, as you call it, probably was fanned to white-hot status when I discovered this morning that some arm of the United States government has now raised and stolen the wreckage of Captain Rosen’s aircraft, although the condition of that aircraft is a key to his exoneration.”

  “‘Stolen’ is a strong word,” he said.

  Well, DUH! she thought.

  “What do you mean, ‘stolen’?” he added.

  “Under admiralty law, Counselor,” Gracie began, choosing her words carefully and reminding herself over and over that they needed him. “How else should we look at a situation in which the owner has clearly not abandoned the wreck, has hired a salvage firm, has given no permission to anyone else to touch the wreckage, and the government does so anyway?”

  “How did they inform you they were taking the wreckage?”

  “How did they inform us?” She laughed. A short, singular sound of cumulative amazement and disgust carrying a far more complex message than he was willing to receive. “They informed us by creating a restricted area around the crash site and then leaving a few pieces on the ocean floor where the plane had formerly come to rest. That’s how. We have no idea when they took it or where it is. The FAA could be tampering with exculpatory evidence even as we speak. After all, I gave you extensive details of that FAA inspector’s hostility to the captain. They could easily damage the wreckage so that it would be impossible to determine whether a prop blade broke in flight.”

  “Ms. O’Brien, I can assure you the FAA wasn’t responsible for taking that wreckage.”

  “How do you know that, Mr. Greene?”

  More silence.

  Too much and too harsh! she chided herself. I’m going to lose him if I don’t calm down. But she could feel the battle between professional restraint and the supercritical desire to cut him to ribbons taking its toll on
her judgment.

  “Ms. O’Brien, as alien as this community seems to practitioners like yourself on the outside, the reality is that the FAA moves in a different time continuum from the rest of the universe. It would take them months to decide to salvage anything. In fact, they’d have a hard time deciding within a week to leave their building if it was on fire, for fear they might be criticized for doing it incorrectly.”

  “These are the same careful and probative people you work with all the time? The ones you’re now disparaging?”

  “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

  “Well, dignify this, if you please, Mr. Greene. Did you or did you not tell me several days ago that the FAA was conducting a vendetta of sorts and was determined to keep Captain Rosen grounded?”

  “I … believe I said it appeared they were leaning in that direction, given my initial contacts.”

  “You do? You believe you said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you also believe you said these exact words: ‘They’re gunning for him, Gracie’? Because the fact is, you said the FAA tends to get that way with enforcement actions, and that you couldn’t get even the most cursory cooperation from the FAA in Captain Rosen’s case. You said, and I quote: ‘It’s as if they’ve made an agency decision to go for broke and destroy him.’”

  “Well, I may have overstated the case a bit.”

  “Fine. We all do that at times. But would you kindly tell this poor little baby lawyer from the boondocks who doesn’t understand the real world where in those statements a reasonable man or woman can find any rational room for the interpretation that a so-called delicate dance was in progress that might lead to a good solution for Captain Rosen outside of litigation?”

  Now we have the long-suffering, condescending sigh, Gracie thought, listening to him shift the receiver to the other ear as if trying to gather his thoughts on how to explain nuclear physics to the village idiot.

  “You clearly don’t understand the process, Ms. O’Brien. You have to be very careful and diplomatic in dealing with these people. I deal with them all the time. I can’t come racing in every time they take a certificate action and accuse them of malfeasance and evil intent. I’d have no credibility left if I followed your method of draw, shoot, then aim. I’ve developed long-standing relationships with these folks, and what you’ve done imperils all of that. Now I have a lot of repair work to do, just to begin with.”

  “What happened to being your client’s advocate, Mr. Greene?” she asked quietly.

  “I resent that implication, young woman,” he shot back. “This is how we do it in the big city, and I agreed to help your client based on the obviously unwarranted assumption that you understood my value was more than just being an errand boy to file your papers in the Beltway. I get results over time by being careful and solicitous, and not by whacking them with a big stick at every opportunity.”

  There’s no way I can win a battle with this windbag, she thought. Either bare your neck, babe, or fire the bastard.

  Gracie closed her eyes and forced herself to be obsequious. This is for the captain, she reminded herself, letting the thought echo and grow loud enough to drown out her own fury.

  “Look, Mr. Greene, I’m sorry if I’ve made things more difficult, but how can we not sue them? They’re part of the U.S. government, and the government is messing around with the very evidence that can prove the charges they’ve leveled at Captain Rosen are absolutely false. Exculpatory evidence. I don’t see how talking to them further is going to preserve that wreckage.”

  “Well, you know what? I guess that’s just going to have to be your problem, Counselor, because I’m no longer a party to this.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m withdrawing right here, right now. I’ll return your advance Monday.”

  “Now, wait a minute. Please.”

  “Ms. O’Brien, you’re a female bull in a china closet, and it’s my china closet.”

  “I’m hardly a bull.”

  “I wish you well. I wish your clients well. But I predict you’ve already cooked Captain Rosen’s goose with what you’ve done. The moment you named them in that complaint, you guaranteed that the FAA will fight to the death.”

  “Mr. Greene, you accepted this case.”

  “And I am withdrawing. I am not of counsel on any filing by my hand, and I’m out of here.”

  “No! Please, listen to—”

  The sound of a terminated connection rang in her ear and Gracie sat in stunned silence for a few seconds, feeling ill, and momentarily wondering whether to call back.

  Shit!

  She hated the word, but it seemed appropriate, and she decided she was far enough from any other ears to give voice to her feelings of anger and shame.

  “Shit!”

  Gracie sat for several minutes, breathing hard, her head pounding as she tried to push through the thicket of conflicting feelings and find something logical and rational to grab, a life ring in the rising tide of emotions that had overwhelmed her good sense and restraint.

  You can’t punch out the world, kid! The metaphor was sufficiently incongruous to spark a laugh amid the darkness of the moment. She realized there were tears cascading down her face, and that unblinking evidence of lost control added to the burst of self-loathing that seemed to fill the small interior of the Corvette.

  Her ’Vette. Her boat. Her ego. Her expectations. Her position. All of it could collapse in a moment if she was booted out of Janssen and Pruzan. Lawyers were a dime a dozen, her salary was a rarity, and with all her new possessions, she was hanging off the edge now and wholly exposed financially, with almost nothing saved.

  Why am I thinking about me? I’ve just imperiled the only family I’ve ever had.

  She looked at the cell phone in her hand, the need to call April becoming almost irresistible. But April would be on the flight back to Seattle, and what could she say anyway? “Hi, old friend. My lousy judgment and combative personality have just succeeded in losing the only lawyer in D.C. who could have made the FAA change their minds. Thanks to me, your dad is really screwed now.”

  She laid the phone on the passenger seat and looked at the radio, wondering if the salvation of diversion would slake the pain.

  No! Face this now! Figure this out! You’ve just started two federal lawsuits and want to file a third. What next?

  A ragged breath shuddered her trim body, the feeling of fragility scaring her. I’m not supposed to feel like such a failure at twenty-six. Wasn’t it written somewhere that the enthusiasm and exuberance of youth can override anything? Focus, Gracie! Focus!

  She had the strength to survive this and win. Hadn’t she survived? So many nights with her mother passed out on the couch, her father gone, the child the mother to the parent, and she’d said the same things to herself with less assurance. Survival now required self-confidence, and that self-confidence could stand on the shoulders of her past survival.

  All right. So we’ve lost Greene. It may turn out for the best. There are other aviation lawyers in D.C., if I need one. But why do I? Finesse didn’t work with the FAA. The game has changed.

  Before, they had been trying to appease an agency that was angry for no apparent reason. Now they had evidence that could kill off two of the three charges, and the FAA’s claim that the captain had illegally flown in bad weather had been shaky from the start.

  She mentally dammed the tide of fear and ran through the things she would need to do to carry the fight to Washington. And the first step, she realized with a deep and visceral shock, would be to talk to Ben Janssen and secure permission to go. The mere thought of that unavoidable encounter made her feel cold, igniting an unfamiliar buzzing in her head.

  Gracie took a very deep breath and forced her hands back to the wheel and the shift lever. The first step was to return to her office, though she had a sick feeling it might be for the last time.

  FORTY TWO

  SATURDAY EVENING, DAY 6
ANCHORAGE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ALASKA

  Mac MacAdams selected a paperback from the rack in the concourse bookshop and turned to pay for it, noticing a lovely young raven-haired woman finishing a similar transaction next to him. The clerk slid her credit card back across the counter, the name, embossed in gold, suddenly visible.

  April R. Rosen.

  Mac smiled to himself, making it a point to avoid looking surprised.

  He saw her stow the credit card and pull out a first-class Alaska Airlines ticket envelope that bore the same flight number as his.

  Interesting. Just as I figured. She doesn’t give up easily.

  Mac shifted his thoughts to the sudden trip to D.C., and his wife’s puzzled reaction.

  “It’s an unofficial mission,” he’d explained. “That’s why I’m flying commercially and not taking an Air Force plane.”

  “And, you can’t tell me what it’s about, of course.”

  “You’re right. I can’t.”

  The meeting with the Uniwave test-flight manager had been set for an hour before he had to leave for the airport. It had been almost amusing the way Dick Wilcox had sauntered into the Uniwave hangar all prepared to receive the chastened general’s humble apology. A few minutes later, he was leaving in near terror with the mission of calling Uniwave’s chairman to confess that he’d fabricated the whole story about General MacAdams being abusive. It had taken no more than the copies of four credit card statements with circles around charges the man had never dreamed anyone could catch. The whole thing still felt dirty and wrong to Mac, but the last thing he needed was a civilian contractor employee interfering in his chain of command, and that consideration alone justified the little arm-twisting exercise. Certainly pressuring the man with his own misdeeds was far more humane than having him fired.

  Mac settled into the comfortable first-class seat. There would be a stop in Seattle in just under four hours, and then five more hours to D.C.

  He watched April Rosen enter the cabin, her smile warm but subdued as she checked the seat numbers and sat a row ahead of him and across the aisle. He could see fatigue and worry in her eyes in just the brief moment that she’d glanced at him. Ironic, he thought, that she was sharing a cabin with the man who could be considered the cause of her troubles. He felt a fatherly urge to reassure her that it would be all right, and that he would make sure of it.