“Yes, sir, it is.”
The President stood up. “Obviously, Ben, you can tell no one else in this life. Not those two determined young women, not your coworkers, not any future wife or lover. No one. Only a handful of people other than us will ever know the truth.”
Ben stood and took the President’s hand. “You have my word, sir.”
For April and Gracie, the ride back to the appeals court was taken in stunned silence. Three times April started to pull her cell phone from her purse and call home, but each time the presence of the agents in the front seat intimidated the effort.
Only Jim Riggs was in the courtroom representing the government when Gracie returned to the counsel table. She glanced at him and read in his pleasant expression the phone call he must have received from the White House. There would be things he did not know, of course, but what she was about to present would be no surprise.
They stood as Judge Williamson entered by himself.
“We’re back in session, and I understand, Miss O’Brien, that you have another unique motion to present?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Gracie said, mentally toying with the words she had never expected to use. “I doubt Mr. Riggs will object to this, since it’s a motion to dismiss. The petitioner hereby withdraws the petition and requests an order of dismissal.”
“With prejudice?” Williamson asked, smiling at the deer-in-the-headlights look on Gracie’s face.
“With, sir. We won’t be refiling.”
“Very well,” the judge continued. “Case dismissed.”
Jim Riggs was at Gracie’s side when the judge departed, his hand outstretched and a smile on his face.
“Very nice job, Gracie, on everything you did. You’re an impressive opponent with a great future.”
“Thank you,” she replied, still feeling as if she were seeing him and the courtroom through several feet of water.
April hugged Gracie tightly as she left the counsel table, neither of them noticing that Ben had just returned to the court. “I wonder if I could buy the two of you dinner this evening?” Ben asked.
Gracie shrugged. “I don’t see why not. When do you have to go back to Anchorage?”
He smiled. “Now that I’ve got reason to believe I won’t be arrested, I can catch a flight anytime I wish. And you? When do you go back to Seattle?”
Gracie had found a bench in the hallway. “Scarlett O’Hara’s words come to mind: I’ll think about that tomorrow.” She sat and looked over at Ben Cole. “It may take a lifetime for me to grapple with what’s happened in the past two hours.”
“One hour and twenty minutes,” Ben corrected.
She laughed. “Yeah, I forgot. You’re an engineer.”
“But I’m recovering,” he chuckled, wondering how becoming a high-power executive would feel.
“By the way, Ben, why did you come?”
“I guess I just couldn’t picture myself living with the consequences of not doing something for April’s father and… for my project. Too much was wrong. Too many strange things were happening. I didn’t know whom to trust.”
“Well, that’s one problem solved, right?”
He grinned. “I’d say so.”
Gracie looked around at April, who was on her cell phone, then back to Ben as she put a finger to her lips. Ben nodded as April folded her cell phone and came over to sit beside them.
“I can’t reach them on the satellite phone or the cell, and I’m out of ideas.”
“Well, I’m not,” Gracie said, pulling out her cell phone.
“What are you doing?” April asked.
Gracie finished a string of numbers and punched the transmit button before looking up with a smile. “Sending him a message. You’ve forgotten he never goes anywhere without his beeper.”
FORTY NINE
WEDNESDAY, DAY 10 WASHINGTON, D.C. NOON
At first, Bernie Ashad’s voice failed to register. Gracie pushed her cell phone closer to her ear as she followed April and Ben out of the federal courthouse into the roar of Washington midday traffic.
“Excuse me, who is this again?” she asked, hunching over. April noticed and caught Ben’s elbow, and both of them turned to wait for her.
“This is your client, Ms. O’Brien,” the voice said. “Bernie Ashad. Remember me? The guy with the ships.” There was a chuckle in the voice she could hear over the background noise.
Gracie snapped to full alert. She could see the scowling face of Ben Janssen in her mind as she raced to think of an appropriate — and safe — response.
“Mr. Ashad, I believe the firm has handed your… affairs off to one of the partners.”
There was laughter on the other end. “Yes, I’m well aware that Ben is telling wild stories about my defiling all of the women at Janssen and Pruzan, and I can tell you it’s all nonsense. But, if I in any way made you feel uncomfortable, Miss O’Brien, when I proposed a dinner, I humbly apologize.”
“None required, sir.”
“Your senior partner thinks he’s a guardian uncle and monk rolled into one.”
“Well, it was gracious of you to call—”
“Wait, Ms. O’Brien. We do have some unfinished personal business.”
Oh no! He’s going to proposition me anyway. Gracie felt the adrenaline pumping into her bloodstream.
“Your friend’s airplane that crashed in Alaska. You wanted me to try to get one of my ships involved.”
Relief chased the adrenaline. “Oh, yes! Of course. I really appreciate your considering that, Mr. Ashad, and I apologize to you for making an inappropriate request of a client.”
“Nonsense. But now that we’ve been successful, we need an address.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I must apologize for being slow to call you. Actually, I called several days ago to talk to Ben Janssen about another matter and he handed me my head over the idea that I had carnal designs on my female lawyer. So, I put the whole thing out of my mind and forgot to check with my captain about it, and I didn’t realize until this morning that he’d been successful.”
“Successful? I don’t understand.”
“We recovered the wreckage of your friend’s airplane, Miss O’Brien, and I need to know where to send it after my captain puts it on a barge, or ashore.”
“You recovered it?”
“Yes. Isn’t that what you requested?”
Gracie straightened up in confusion and glanced at April with wide eyes, gesturing silently to the phone.
“Yes… yes, it is. I had no idea that was going to be possible.”
“It was very little trouble. Our ship loitered for about an hour, I think, to grapple it aboard, then sailed right on as scheduled. Not a problem. But now he’s in port in Tacoma and needs to get it off the deck.”
“May I have your number and call you back in ten minutes?”
He recited the same number clearly displayed on Gracie’s phone, and she thanked him and disconnected.
She leaned against the wall of the adjacent building to catch her breath. April moved toward her in alarm.
“What? What is it?”
“They were telling the truth, April.”
“Who?”
“The government. Our government. I hauled them halfway to the Supreme Court and they were innocent all along.”
“What are you talking about, Gracie?” April asked, holding her forearms.
“It was one of Bernie Ashad’s ships that fished your dad’s Albatross out of the Gulf of Alaska.”