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.