“RAGS was conceived after 9/11. The TSA put out a call for technology companies to develop systems to safeguard the skies. Most of the responses were ideas to reinforce cockpit doors or onboard scanners to detect metal that made it through airport screening. You know, responding to the attack that already happened, not protecting against the next thing. But an outfit called Patriotech developed a program that could tap into the autopilot system in the event of a hijacking. Basically, it would allow an air marshal to control the plane remotely, from the cabin. He could thwart the hijackers without being detected, avoiding a dangerous mid-air confrontation that could risk the lives of passengers.”
Sasha shrugged, “Sounds like that’s not a bad idea.”
“Oh, it’s not. And, early on there was a lot of excitement about it. The Air Marshals were considering it. They approached Vivian about participating in a pilot program, and you know Viv.” Metz looked meaningfully at Peterson and then at Sasha.
Sasha actually didn’t know Viv, but she knew of her.
Vivian Coulter was a legend around the office. She’d been one of the first women in the firm to make partner, which was quite an achievement during a time when female attorneys were routinely asked how many words per minute they could type. But, Viv’s achievement was sullied by the fact that she’d made partner by backstabbing, undercutting, and sabotaging her peers and sleeping with her superiors.
After her elevation to partner, her already-unpleasant demeanor took a turn toward vile. She became a screamer; she was a terror to work for and impossible to please. She tore through associates at nearly the same rate she ran through husbands. “Viv” became a verb at Prescott & Talbott. As in, “I got vived hard yesterday” or “If you turn that memo in without proofreading it, the partner is going to viv your ass.”
Finally, after her secretary had a full-blown nervous breakdown, complete with hospital stay, Prescott & Talbott managed to foist Viv off on its long-time client, carefully praising her work product while never mentioning her personality. And so, Viv Coulter became the Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs for Hemisphere Air. She was Metz’s boss on the organizational chart, but she rarely involved herself in the day-to-day operations of the legal department.
Sasha, who joined the firm after Viv’s long-awaited and heavily celebrated departure, had heard the in-house gig had mellowed Viv. Judging from Metz’s expression, not by enough.
Peterson nodded. “I see.”
“So, Vivian wanted to sign on for the RAGS pilot?” Sasha asked.
“Oh yeah. She thought it would be great publicity—Hemisphere Air doing its part to fight terrorism.”
“But we advised you not to install RAGS?”
“Right. When we told Boeing about it, so we could get the exact specs for the autopilot program, their people said absolutely not to do it. RAGS hadn’t even been tested in flight simulators at that point. They said there was no guarantee it might not malfunction and, well, cause a crash.”
“But, Vivian wanted to do it anyway?”
Metz picked his story back up. “Right. So, we asked Patriotech to draft an agreement indemnifying us if RAGS did cause a problem with our systems. They didn’t have any in-house lawyers and didn’t want to spend the money on an outside firm, so I think their CEO drafted it. It was worthless. I sent it over to your contracts review folks to take a look, and they confirmed it offered us no real protection.”
“Viv couldn’t be reasoned with, so you signed it anyway,” Peterson said.
“Worse. She said not to even bother with the indemnification agreement. She went ahead and had the RAGS link installed with no protection for Hemisphere of any kind.”
Sasha and Peterson were quiet for a minute, thinking about that.
“On how many planes?” Sasha asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How many other airlines signed up for the pilot program?”
“I don’t know. Everything was trade secret confidential. Patriotech didn’t tell us much.”
“Are you sure the system was installed on the plane that went down?”
“Yes, Viv told me. You can’t tell her I told you. She didn’t even tell the TSA and NTSB. They didn’t mention it to her, so we assume they don’t know about it.”
“How can that be? Weren’t the Air Marshals part of the pilot program?”
Metz laughed sourly. “Yeah, funny thing. Right before the links were installed, Homeland Security backed out. They pulled the plug on the program. The official statement was they had concerns about the application falling into the wrong hands. Privately, they told us they didn’t really trust their own people with it.”
Sasha nodded. “I remember hearing about problems in the Air Marshal Service. After 9/11, they hired a ton of new air marshals, but they pushed through applicants with criminal records, psychiatric disorders, financial problems, that sort of thing. There was a lot of fallout.”
“Right,” Metz said. “Viv went ahead and had the links installed anyway. She figured she could lobby some senator she used to date or something to revive the program.”
Metz cradled his head in his hands. He pulled his fingers through his hair and looked up. “So, you see where this leaves us? We modified the plane to install a completely worthless communications link. Now Boeing will claim the RAGS link caused the equipment failure.”
Sasha caught Peterson’s eye. He gave her a slight nod, as he said, “Actually, Bob have you considered the other possibility?”
Even off his game, Peterson could finesse this discussion so as not to drive the defeated man beside him even further into despair.
“What other possibility?”
Peterson spoke softly. “That the Air Marshals’ scenario happened. Someone got a hold of this RAGS application and used it to bring down the plane deliberately.”
Sasha and Peterson waited for it to sink in. When it did, they watched every bit of color drain from Metz’s tired face. Then his hands started to shake.
* * * * * * * * * *
Sasha and Peterson sent Metz home to try to rest. Then, by unspoken agreement, they got their jackets and headed to the bar at the Renaissance Hotel. It was close enough to walk to, but far enough from the office that they weren’t likely to run into anyone. Not that many of Prescott & Talbott’s lawyers would be found at a bar in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.
They walked the four blocks in silence. The only sound was the clacking of Sasha’s heels against the pavement as they hurried through the brisk air. When they entered Braddock’s, they were met by a blast of warm air and a smile from Marcus, who was tending an empty bar.
“Counselors,” he greeted them from behind the gleaming bar, already reaching for the bottle of McCallan 18 to pour Peterson his usual.
“Marcus,” Peterson said in return as he took a seat away from the door and the television set to CNN. As he situated himself on the stool, he reached into his pants pocket and fished out his key ring, then tossed his keys on the bar so they wouldn’t rip his suit pants when he sat. He’d learned the hard way that keys and Hickey Freeman suit pants did not mix well.
The sparkling ruby plane on his key chain charm caught Sasha’s eye as it did every time. Hemisphere Air had given Noah a custom-made crystal globe of the earth, encrusted with the small ruby plane, in appreciation of a defense verdict he’d won while Sasha was still in law school. It had been a true bet-the-company case, with several billion dollars at stake. Noah treated the expensive trinket like it had come from a gumball machine, but he never missed the chance to tell the story of his victory.
The bartender muted the television’s sound and put a dish of peanuts and the glass of neat scotch in front of Peterson.
Sasha perched on the stool next to Peterson, her feet dangling several inches above the brass footrest that ran the length of the bar.
“Sapphire & tonic for you, Sasha?” Marcus asked, placing two bowls—one with cashews and one with blue-cheese stuffed olives—on the bar in front of her.
“Please.” She smiled at the bartender and plucked an olive from the dish.
He returned quickly with a generous pour and leaned over the bar. “Are we celebrating a court victory this afternoon?” he asked, calculating his potential tip in his head.
“I’m afraid not today, Marcus,” Peterson said. “In fact, we need to discuss some strategy.”
“Got it,” the bartender said, unoffended, and retreated to the far end of the bar, where he resumed drying glasses. He’d tended bar long enough to know when to make himself scarce. He wouldn’t interrupt them again unless they called him over.
Sasha stirred the ice cubes around in her gin and tonic, thinking. After they’d gotten Metz to understand the possibility that the crash had not been an accident, they’d probed him gently to see if he knew anything else about Patriotech or RAGS, but they got nothing else out of him.
He had asked if he should tell the NTSB about the RAGS link. Peterson told him they needed to analyze the situation and determine the best way to self-report if it turned out to be the right thing to do.
Sasha figured both men knew they’d have to tell the government. They were just trying to buy time to see if the TSA or NTSB would find out on their own, so they wouldn’t have to incur Viv’s wrath. It would be a hell of a battle to convince Viv to disclose what would look like a mistake on her part. Sasha was glad that would be Peterson’s job, not hers.
She took another olive from the dish on the bar.
“Noah, we have to find out if any other planes have the RAGS link installed.”
Peterson nodded and took a long drink of scotch. “I agree. And tomorrow, once Bob has calmed down, we’ll ask him to poke around discreetly and see if he can find out.”
Sasha opened her mouth but Peterson cut her off. “Mac, I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t take this to Vivian until we know more. You don’t know her like I do.” He took another swallow.
Sasha bit back a response. It was true, she didn’t know the woman, but surely Metz or Peterson could make her see the urgency. The trouble was Metz was terrified of her, and Peterson would only go to her when he was good and ready.
She sipped her drink and tried to think of another approach. It was hard to think because she had this cloudy feeling she was overlooking something. It had started during the morning’s meeting and had grown stronger all day.
She closed her eyes to concentrate. What was she missing? She tried to remember when the feeling hit. Calvaruso. It was when Naya announced Calvaruso wasn’t the class representative. How did the retired city laborer play into this?
She opened her eyes in time to see Peterson drain his glass and signal for another. Unable to decode what her brain was trying to tell her, she let it go for the moment.
“Um, Noah? Is everything okay? I mean, aside from the crash. You seem sort of distracted.” Sasha chose her words carefully. Peterson was her mentor and she considered him a friend, but they rarely discussed their personal lives.
He looked at her, his cool blue eyes as sad as she’d ever seen them. “It’s Laura, Mac. I think she’s going to leave me.” His gaze dropped to the bar and his shoulders fell.
“Leave you? Why would Laura leave you?”
Sasha had been to dinner at the Petersons’ home several times and had spoken to Laura Peterson at dozens of Prescott & Talbott events. She seemed to dote on her husband. She spent her days decorating her house, gardening, and swimming. She was always talking about her book club and the charitable organizations she belonged to. Laura was the model Prescott & Talbott wife.
“I don’t know. She just doesn’t seem to care anymore if I’m around or not. Take last night. I had to come in to the office and she didn’t say a word. Just went back to reading her book. Then, when I got home, she was sound asleep in the middle of the bed, as if she didn’t expect me to return.”
Sasha looked at him, at the pain etched on his face. “Noah, maybe she was just tired.”
He raised his eyes to hers. “You don’t get it, Mac. Or maybe you do and that’s why you’re single. The firm comes first, has always come first. When we were newlyweds, I was just starting out. I told Laura work had to come first for a couple years, until I’d proved myself. Then, it was until I made partner. Then, until I had a solid book of business. Then, until I was on the Management Committee. And every time I promised the balance would switch after I’d cleared the next hurdle, I meant it. But look at me. I’m sixty. I work constantly. I have no children, no grandkids, and a smart, gorgeous wife who has wasted her life sitting in an empty house waiting for me to be her partner.”