"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."

"No, he wasn't like that. But a similar mentality. You've seen it. They'll believe anything-at least in that area. They obsess about it, talk to other people who are obsessing, and sort of form an insiders' club. They've broken the code. You know the type."

"Any other officers he hung out with who were on the same page with him on this stuff?"

"Not really. He was pretty much on his own. He used to tell us, though, that our oath was to fight 'all enemies foreign and domestic.' You know, the oath-'I'-state your name-'do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies-' "

"Sure."

"Well, he'd see Ted Kennedy or somebody on the TV, and his jaw would clench. He'd say, 'Foreign and domestic.' Like Ted Kennedy was a domestic enemy."

"Good pilot though."

"Probably the best in the Corps. It wasn't even close really. Total natural. You know, frankly, if I were the president? I'd want Collins flying my helicopter too. He'd get you there."

"Except this time."

"Well, I'd bet it wasn't his fault. I'd bet that French helicopter killed him and the president."

"That's my client."

"Too bad for you."

Then I asked him the critical question. "So, Britt, help me figure out how this happened, how did the president's helicopter go down?"

"How the hell would I know? You're the one doing the investigation, why you asking me?"

"Just wondered if you had any theories. You think of anything in Collins's personality that could contribute to the crash?"

There was a pause. Britt finally asked, "What are you getting at?"

"Nothing specific."

"He could screw it up just like any of us could, I guess. He wasn't Superman. But if I were going to pick the pilot least likely to screw up flying through a storm, it would be him. Do I think that's what happened? No."

"But could he have caused it? Could he have… caused it?"

The light went on. "Are you asking me whether he did it on purpose?"

"You yourself said he could get a conspiracy theory in his head. I've got to consider every angle."

"Shit, Nolan! What are you trying to do? You trying to hang this on a fellow Marine? What the hell kind of shaft job is that? Look, I've got to go. Talk to you later." The line went dead.

Senator Blankenship had accomplished much of what he wanted simply by announcing the hearings. As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he could force hearings, which he did. He set them for the Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building, not coincidentally the site of the Watergate and Iran-contra hearings. He was furious and was determined to make WorldCopter feel his heat.

Within a week after his initial press conference, subpoenas had flown out of the Capitol to all corners of the country and even overseas. The subpoenas were not effective overseas, but ignoring them would be untenable for WorldCopter. So Jean Claude Martin was one of the several "voluntary" foreign witnesses.

Blankenship had imposed his will on Lisa Romaro, the Senate majority leader, to start the hearings three weeks after the accident, before the dust had even settled. He wanted to get people on the record before they had a chance to construct their revisionist history of Marine One.

Blankenship knew the DOJ was pushing WorldCopter hard, gathering documents and tickling the pearl handles of their criminal accusations; but he wanted to get it all in front of the world and the television cameras to see what WorldCopter said in response to hard questions. He didn't really care if the testimony he wanted jeopardized the investigation of the Justice Department. He was doing this for the country.

As the hearings got under way, Blankenship was pleased that the entire country and much of the rest of the world tuned in. The government had been quiet about the crash so far, and this was the first chance for people to hear about what might have killed President Adams. People gathered around televisions wherever they could to hear pieces of testimony.

Blankenship set the witness list carefully. He called witnesses from the government who had selected WorldCopter as the winner of the helicopter competition to build the next Marine One. They testified in somber tones with obvious disappointment how they had carefully laid out all of the requirements for the helicopter that would be used as Marine One, not the least of which was a proven track record, a history of impeccable safety, and assurances that whoever built the next Marine One would have the proper employees and subcontractors who had Yankee White-level clearances. They explained how they had relied on WorldCopter's representation of how quickly they could have the security checks completed and Marine One delivered in time to fulfill the contract.

The senators on the Armed Services Committee had been bipartisan in their attacks on WorldCopter since the crash. Now they were all in the Senate Caucus Room with all the bright lights and energy the journalistic interest could muster. For the first time since any of the committee members could remember, they all felt exactly the same way about what was transpiring in the hearing.

After the procurement witnesses, Pentagon officials marched through the hearing room to describe the process of selecting the competitors for Marine One and then the fly-off, where military test pilots evaluated the competitors. The distinct impression left by all the witnesses, who had been reading from the same government playbook, was that the other helicopter was superior to the WorldCopter helicopter (which called itself an American helicopter) that had been selected for Marine One. Left unsaid but clear was that forces had been at play other than merit that caused someone to choose the WorldCopter offering. This had of course been the drumbeat of the American helicopter company since the decision had been made, and the company used this chance to provide all kinds of back-channel information to senators and witnesses to make WorldCopter look bad.