"I'm not convinced of that," Will said. "If the tip weights failed, or came off, that doesn't mean the blade's going to come completely off. It will just throw the helicopter out of balance and it will come apart. But that doesn't mean necessarily that the blade comes off."

"Well, then why did it?"

"Not sure yet. I think from impact, but we need to go back to the scene, like you said."

I sat on the couch and looked at the stopped animation. "What's your theory, Karl?" I asked. "Why did it go down where it did?"

Will hesitated, then said, "Could be tip weights. I can't rule that out. It fits. But with the pilot's attitude toward the president, and the FDR circuit breaker pulled, could be intentional on the pilot's part too. There's one other possibility."

"What?"

"Maybe the president came up into the cockpit to watch out the front during the storm. Maybe they hit a big pocket or had a bad updraft and the president pitched forward into Collins's lap. He might have pushed the cyclic and the helicopter would have nosed down. Could account for why they were upside down too."

"We don't hear the president on the CVR again though before the crash."

"True, but it might have happened before he even had a chance to say hello. Gets there, they hit big turbulence, and over they go. I don't know."

I nodded and considered. It was possible. "Hard to prove, Karl."

"It's all I've got right now."

"We'll see what happens when we go back out there."

Rachel said to me quietly, "Can I talk to you alone?"

I looked at her face, then said to the others, "Excuse us for a second, will you?"

We walked into my living room and I closed the den door behind me. "What is it?"

"We can't do any real work at the office? How are we supposed to prepare?"

"We do the best we can."

"Mike, we hired our contract attorneys because we need them. We need their help. Braden is the smartest guy I've ever worked with. He does the best work in the office. And Elizabeth is tireless. Are you saying we can't use them? Don't you trust them?"

"We just can't take the chance."

"But that puts us back to where it's just you and me doing all the real work. That's the very thing we were trying to avoid. Maybe whoever did this did it just so we'd all turn on each other. Not trust each other. We should tell them about it and get their help to prepare for trial."

"We can't chance it, Rachel."

"We're not going to get it all done, Mike."

"We'll do the best we can. Trust me on this, Rachel."

I FELT EXPOSED and Hackett felt invulnerable. I was trying desperately to develop a nonexistent case while looking over my shoulder, yet I had to produce my experts for depositions.

At the conclusion of Bradley's deposition, Hackett tried not to gloat. The court reporter and the rest of the attorneys left the conference room; Hackett and I were standing there with Bradley, who was putting his papers back into his lopsided briefcase. Hackett put the cap back on his expensive fountain pen and put the pen in his shirt pocket. He looked at me. "Mike, help me here. You have refused to settle this case, and I had assumed it was because you had something to say in the defense of WorldCopter. But now we're done with the experts." He looked confused. "You don't have anything."

I tried to answer a little more quickly then I would otherwise have so as to look defensive. "They're going to show that the NTSB's conclusions-and your experts-are wrong. They're just speculating."

Hackett shook his head. "Mike. You know if you don't tell the jury a story better than mine, you're going to lose. Mine not only is right, but everybody has heard about it in the newspaper since the NTSB announced it. How in the hell do you expect to win?"

I looked at him somewhat smugly. "Maybe something will break between now and trial. Maybe some witness will come out of the woodwork."

Hackett bit. "A surprise witness? Surely you mean somebody on the witness list then? And we've deposed virtually all of those who have anything to say about anything. Plus, if it was an actual surprise, I don't know how you could anticipate it now." He adjusted his coat. "You're not planning on pulling something, are you, Mike? Because that would be unethical."

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just going to go back to my office."

He said to my back, "I've got your witness list, Mike. I'm going to hold you to it."

Bradley and Will met me at the crash site like we had planned. The FBI agents recognized my car and didn't even ask me to stop. I stopped anyway to tell them who else was coming. I parked and dragged my lawn chair to where the helicopter had hit the ground. I unfolded it and sat in the still morning. A slight chill was in the air as I sipped from my coffee travel mug and looked at the trees. This was just a hunch really, and unlikely to produce much, but I had to know.

I could hear a van approaching over the hill. Wayne Bradley no doubt, with Karl Will.

After a few minutes they appeared at the crest of the ridge and came down to where I was sitting. Bradley was breathing hard. Will said, "I see you took my advice. Brought your chair."

"Of course. Where's yours?"

"Right here." He unfolded his chair and sat next to me.

Bradley said, "We don't have time to sit around in lawn chairs and talk about our grandchildren. This trial is on us. We're already on the record as not knowing anything. If we don't come up with something pretty quick, frankly we're going to look silly."

Karl had stopped listening. "So what are we going to look at, Mike?"

We could hear a truck approaching. Bradley asked, "Expecting someone?"

"Yeah. They'll be here in a minute. What I wanted to take a look at is that limb that was broken during the accident." We looked up. "That one," I said, pointing. They both looked up into the gray sky and could just make out the brown branch that was still attached to the tree. "I think we need to go up and look. You and me, Karl. I've got this feeling that branch is trying to tell us a story, and we need to go up there and listen to it."

Will asked, "What are you thinking?"

I looked at the hill as the truck struggled over it behind us.

Will looked at the truck. "Who is this?"

"My tree trimmers. I asked them to bring their cherry-picker truck out here so we could go up and look at that branch. Bring your camera, Karl. If we find anything interesting up there, I want to document every step we take and exactly where everything was."

The truck parked where I showed it to go, lowered its outriggers for stability, and freed the bucket. Will and I climbed in and started up. I wasn't sure the truck's extension arm would take us high enough, nor was I sure what I would do if it did. We passed quickly by the fattest portion of the tree, and I moved us closer to the brown, broken branches. Only one large branch had broken, but numerous smaller branches were attached. It had broken close to the trunk and in the direction that I had suspected. The helicopter's blade had clearly smacked this branch on the way by, and by the direction of the break the helicopter had to have been upside down.

Will pointed at the location of the break. "I thought we'd see a cut or some other blade impact point. This just looks like it was hit. I don't see anything cut at all."

I inched us closer and we could both see where the blade had hit the branch. It had knocked off several small branches and taken the bark off the three-inch-thick branch where it had broken-not been cut, but broken. Violently. Bark held the branch on and kept it from plunging to the ground like the other branches.

"Hit it pretty hard," Will said.

We looked down to where the others were standing, trying to imagine Marine One passing by in the crashing storm.