She laughed and shook her head. “You are joking, right? It will take three or four days at best to get all the details assembled on this. I’ll call you when I’ve gathered enough information to make a decision.”
Mac stepped into the elevator, oblivious to the four other men and women already aboard. His focus was almost total. The danger was too real to make the foolish assumption that April Rosen wouldn’t find a way through the carefully woven veil of secrecy around Skyhook, exposing things that must never come to light.
There was one ace in the hole, he knew, and if the FAA refused to cooperate, he would have no choice but to play it as a last resort. But if that moment came, he would need to be right here in Washington.
The planned afternoon return to Anchorage evaporated before his eyes, and he made a mental note to cancel the flight reservation as soon as he returned to his hotel.
Gracie checked her watch for the third time since she’d watched the clerk stamp and accept her filing of the new action against the FAA and disappear into the warrens of the court to answer her impertinent request that one of the judges hear the emergency petition within the next few hours.
She heard footsteps and saw the conservatively attired woman returning, closing a side door behind her as she approached the counter, smiling thinly. Her demeanor carried an air of resentment.
“This is a highly unusual and irregular request, you understand, Counselor.”
“Yes, I do. But the situation is equally unprecedented.”
“I’ve spoken with the appropriate parties, including Judge Walton, and I am instructed to tell you the following. First, serve the Federal Aviation Administration personally and provide return certification of that service. You may call me by phone and confirm you have it, and the judge will hear your petition then at one P.M. sharp.”
“I, ah, suppose it would be impermissible to ask whether the judge is favorably inclined to such petitions?”
The smile vanished. “Ms. Rosen, Judge Walton is seldom favorably inclined to much of anything before lunch. You’re lucky this is set for one o’clock.”
The smile returned with a small wink as the woman turned away.
The cab ride to the FAA’s headquarters was an irritating series of stops and starts through endless traffic signals flashing occasional green lights at a river of gridlocked cars. Forty-five minutes of anxiety had passed with agonizing slowness by the time Gracie escaped from the taxi and dashed into the FAA building in search of the general counsel’s office. The reception was cool, quick, and seemingly unruffled, and she stuffed the signed receipt in her briefcase and rode the elevator to the ground floor to look for another cab as she dialed April on her cell phone to report their progress.
“That felt very strange,” Gracie told her. “I’ve filed lawsuits before, but I’ve never had to walk into a federal agency and essentially slap them with a subpoena.”
“What was the reaction?” April asked.
“Like it happens every hour.”
“Gracie, I just picked up another message from Dad, directing me to stop everything.”
There was a pause and Gracie cleared her throat. “Yeah, I did, too.”
“So what do we do?”
“We listen to Rachel. She called just afterwards, Sunday night, and told me she holds his general power of attorney, and she’s ordering me to continue full bore.”
“Can you do that ethically?”
“Unless my client calls and contravenes those orders, yes.”
“Thank God. I do not understand what Dad’s afraid of.”
“April, let me swing by the hotel and pick you up, then we go to the court and wait until one o’clock, when I get to argue my heart out for the injunction and ask for a show-cause hearing for tomorrow, if at all possible.”
“We can make them move that fast?”
“It always depends on the discretion of the judges, but I’ve made a strong argument for imminent harm. We should get what we’re after. With any luck, we’ll get the show-cause hearing and some government attorney will have to come tell the court who has the wreckage and what’s being done with it. In the meantime, April, I’m praying I can put enough pressure on the FAA to get them to drop the whole thing and reinstate the captain’s license.”
“Could it really be that easy?”
Gracie paused a few seconds too long, and knew April would interpret it badly. “Could be, but… I doubt it. Frankly, I’m going to have to play this by ear, April. We’re in uncharted waters, and I’m a minnow challenging sharks.”
FORTY FOUR
MONDAY AFTERNOON, DAY 8 FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WASHINGTON, D.C.
“Miss O’Brien?”
Federal District Judge Jacqueline Walton had entered her courtroom moments before, nodding to her clerk and court recorder before sitting heavily in her chair.
“Very well,” the judge began. “We have before us the emergency matter of Rosen versus the United States, and I see counsel for Mr. Rosen is present.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Gracie said, getting to her feet and standing uneasily behind the table normally used by prosecutors in criminal cases and plaintiffs in civil matters. She saw the judge staring directly at her from the other side of the elevated bench and met her gaze eye to eye, working hard to give no hint of how badly her insides were squirming in the heat of that judicial spotlight. The isolation was a splendid agony — a rare opportunity for a young lawyer to argue a case unchallenged by the professional wrath and constant interference of an opposing lawyer. But the advantage was all but neutralized by the intense isolation of being the sole lawyer in the courtroom. She’d been successful in fighting her way to this point, but the knowledge that the judge could bat the case away like a bothersome gnat with a flick of her gavel was a worrisome undercurrent, an unacknowledged elephant sitting on her chest.
The rows of seats in the gallery behind Gracie had no occupants, with the sole exception of April.
Gracie simulated a relaxed smile and cleared her throat.
“May it please the court, I am Gracie O’Brien, counsel for the petitioner, Captain Arlie Rosen. We are herewith presenting an emergency petition for injunctive relief in the form of a temporary restraining order, a show-cause order, and a request for an emergency show-cause hearing, all filed against the United States government, and specifically the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, and any other department or entity of the government having knowledge of, or involvement in, the purposeful and illicit salvage and removal of aircraft wreckage belonging to the petitioner.”
The judge was nodding, her eyes on the paperwork before her.
“Miss O’Brien, is this an admiralty case, then?”
“In part, Your Honor, yes, but mostly it is a case in equity. Admiralty law only applies at threshold to the unauthorized nature of anyone disturbing the aircraft wreckage wherein there has been no abandonment, as was the case here.”
“You’ve alleged that it’s admiralty jurisdiction and equity jurisdiction concurrently, and the two cases you want to combine appear to both be in an equally confusing status.”
“Your Honor, the first case against the Coast Guard—”
The judge waved a hand at her in dismissal. “I can read the pleadings, Counselor, such as they are.” She removed her reading glasses and leaned forward, her face stern. “You come before this court with an armful of scattergun filings to force the government to do your will on the premise that great harm will occur if I do not immediately grant the requested relief. That’s quite a frontal assault, and it carries with it a requirement for very convincing allegation of facts, not to mention at least some coloration of law. Having said that, first we need to get to the matter of whether you are even admitted to practice before this court.”