Chapter 1
Somewhere in the air over Blacksburg,
Virginia
The old man checked his new gold watch, given in appreciation for his fifty years of service to the City of Pittsburgh. He lifted the window screen and pressed his head against the oval window in the side of the plane. The glass was cold against his papery skin. Somewhere, out in the darkness, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia rose up from the land. He looked hard but couldn’t see them.
He pulled the screen back down, more sharply than he’d intended, and glanced over at his seatmates. They didn’t react to the noise. Next to him, sat a thin, college-aged girl who had squeezed herself into the middle seat, jammed her earbuds into her ears, and closed her eyes, lost in her music; beside her, a businessman, mid-level management, no higher, judging by the wrinkled suit and battered briefcase. Like a good business traveler, he used the flight to catch up on his sleep. His head lolled back on the headrest and his leg dangled into the aisle.
The man coughed into his fist and remembered the last time he had flown. It had been almost ten years. His youngest daughter and her husband, the struggling actor, had flown him and his wife out to Los Angeles to be there for the birth of their first child—his fourth grandchild, but the first girl. Maya had entered the world squealing, and, at least based on the weekly phone calls he had with her mother, it seemed she hadn’t ever stopped. He chuckled to himself at the thought and immediately felt his eyes well up. He blinked and twisted the thin gold band on his ring finger. His mind turned to his Rosa. Fifty-two years together.
He hacked again and dug a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his mouth. After folding the white cloth back into a careful square, he checked his watch again, fumbled with the smartphone on his lap, squinted at it to confirm the coordinates were correct, and hit SEND. Then Angelo Calvaruso sat back, closed his eyes, and relaxed—completely relaxed—for the first time in weeks.
Two minutes later, Hemisphere Air Flight No. 1667, a Boeing 737 en route from Washington National to Dallas-Fort Worth International, slammed into the side of a mountain at full speed and exploded in a fiery wave of metal and burning flesh.
* * *
The offices of Prescott & Talbott
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sasha McCandless blew the eyeshadow residue off the tiny mirror of the makeup palette she kept in the top left drawer of her desk and checked her reflection. The drawer was her home away from home. It held a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, a tin of mints, an unopened box of condoms, makeup, a spare pair of contact lenses, a pair of glasses, and a brush. She smiled at herself and opened the drawer again, tore open the box, and popped a condom into her beaded handbag.
She shrugged out of the gray cashmere cardigan she’d worn over her black sheath dress all day and kicked off her pumps. She dug around in the credenza behind her desk until she found her fun shoes under a pile of discarded draft briefs, destined for the shredder. She pushed the papers aside and pulled out her shoes. She was wrestling with the tiny red strap on her left stiletto when she heard the ping of an e-mail hitting her in-box.
“No, no, no,” she moaned, as she slowly straightened. She had not had a proper date in weeks. She hoped against hope that the e-mail would reveal no emergency motions, no ranting clients, no last-minute calls to substitute for a deposition in Omaha, or Detroit, or New Orleans.
She needed a steak, a bottle of overpriced red wine, and candlelight. She did not need another night of lukewarm Chinese takeout at her desk.
Almost afraid to look, she clicked on the envelope icon and breathed out, smiling. It was just a Google news alert about a client. She had set up news alerts for all the clients she worked for. It always impressed the partners when she knew what was going on with their clients before they did. Scared them a little, too.
Hemisphere Air was Peterson’s biggest client. She opened the e-mail to see why it was in the news. Maybe a merger? It was one of the healthier airlines and had been looking to pick off a smaller competitor, especially after Sasha and Peterson had gotten it out of that little antitrust mess.
Sasha’s green eyes widened and then fell as she scanned the e-mail. Flight 1667, three-quarters full, en route from D.C. to Dallas, had just crashed in Virginia, killing all 156 people onboard.
She wriggled out of the party shoes and picked up the phone to ruin her date’s night. Then she dialed Peterson’s mobile number to ruin his.
* * *
Noah Peterson’s home phone rang at almost the same moment his cell phone began to blare out some unrecognizable piece of classical music in the public domain. Both sat on his bedside table. Noah didn’t lift his head from his magazine.
Laura waited a minute to see if he would move. He didn’t, so she sighed deeply, placed a bookmark in her novel, and reached over to shake his arm. Noah had developed a habit of dozing off while reading in bed. Laura had no idea how he found that position comfortable enough for sleeping, and she didn’t understand why he was so tired all the time lately. He’d always kept long hours at the office, but the pace seemed to be getting to him more these days.
“Noah, phone. Phones, actually.” She shook his forearm harder.
Noah started and pushed his reading glasses, which had slid down his nose, back up to the bridge. He grabbed his cell phone and passed the house phone to Laura to deal with. Squinting at the display, he recognized Sasha McCandless’ office number.
“Mac, slow down,” he said over the torrent of words pouring out of his senior associate. Then he sat, silent, listening, his shoulders sagging under the weight of what Sasha was saying.
Laura tugged on his sleeve, covering the mouthpiece with her hand, and stage whispered, “It’s Bob Metz.”
Noah nodded. Metz was the general counsel of Hemisphere Air.
“Mac, Metz is on my home line. Stay put. Make some coffee. I’ll see you soon.” He flipped the phone shut.
Laura handed him the house phone and he headed into his closet to dress while he placated the troubled man on the other end of the line.
Soft warm light puddled down from the brass-armed sconces that bracketed each side of the headboard, bathing Laura in a romantic glow. She’d paid a princely sum for that attractive lighting, but it was rarely used for its intended purpose. In hindsight, reading light would have been more useful. She scooted over to claim the center of the king bed with its high-thread count sheets and cashmere blankets; it sounded like she would have the luxury all to herself tonight. Again. She opened her book to the marked spot to resume her reading.
Chapter 2
Bethesda, Maryland
Jerry Irwin sat in his dark office, the only light the glow of his computer monitor. He tapped out a quick message: Demo completed successfully, as we are sure you’ve heard. Second display to occur on Friday. Interested parties to submit confidential bids by midnight Friday.
Irwin read it over twice to make sure it struck the right tone: succinct and confident, but not brash or boastful. Satisfied, he ran the concealment program and sent it out to a select list.
He powered off the computer and rose from his ergonomic desk chair, whistling tunelessly. It wouldn’t be appropriate to celebrate until the bids were in and the winner had paid, but he thought a glass of good scotch was in order.
Chapter 3
The offices of Prescott & Talbott
11:50 p.m.
By the time Peterson had driven in from his center hall Colonial in Sewickley, Sasha had brewed a pot of strong coffee; assembled a crew of exhausted junior associates, pulled from various late-night document reviews; and passed out copies of the barebones media reports on the crash and a one-pager about Hemisphere Air’s corporate culture and litigation philosophy.
The gathered associates were tired but excited. The promise of action energized them. They had spent long weeks, if not months, of twelve- to fifteen-hour days reviewing thousands upon thousands of electronic documents for privilege and responsiveness for use in cases they would never come any closer to. Each sat at the gleaming conference room table praying this horrible plane crash would be his or her ticket out of document review hell.
Peterson swept into the room. Despite—or maybe because of—the fact that it was almost midnight and his biggest client was in crisis, Peterson looked fresh and unperturbed. He wore creaseless khakis and a pink golf shirt.
Sasha handed him a mug of coffee and a set of the handouts.
He leaned in and said, “These are real Prescott folks, right?”
She nodded. Prescott & Talbott had dealt with the trying economic times by creating a caste system of lawyers. Contract attorneys—deemed unfit for true employment on the basis of academic achievement or social standing—were brought in to staff the largest of the document reviews and paid an insulting hourly rate for their efforts. Not only would they miss out on the prestige of partnership, but the salaries they earned wouldn’t make a dent in the tens (or, more likely, hundreds) of thousands of dollars of law school loans they’d accumulated.
The contract workers were supervised by staff attorneys—deemed fit to receive a pay check and benefits directly from Prescott & Talbott, but still not good enough to be real Prescott attorneys. The staff attorneys did scut work and were forbidden from signing documents bearing the firm letterhead; they were branded as “staff attorneys” on the firm’s website and business cards and were under no illusions about the dead end nature of their position.
The staff attorneys, in turn, were supervised by junior associates—the bright-eyed men and women who watched Peterson from their seats around the table. They had been at the tops of their law school classes; editors of journals; the spawn of the old money families who golfed, swam, or prayed with the Prescott & Talbott partners; or some combination of the three.
Assuming they didn’t get chewed up and spit out by the firm, these junior associates would one day reach Sasha’s level. As an eighth-year associate she worked directly with clients, stood up in court and argued, and had primary responsibility for writing briefs and running small cases. On a big case, like the crash would be, she’d handle the day-to-day supervision of the case team and work with Peterson on strategy.
And, provided Sasha didn’t burn out, she would soon reach the level of income partner. In the spring, Prescott & Talbott’s equity partners would hold a vote and almost certainly would offer her income partnership. Which would mean she had reached the top of a very tall greased pole. Only a handful of the dozens of eager young attorneys who began work each September at Prescott would make it that far. That was the good news. The bad news was all her achievement would land her right at the bottom of a taller, greasier pole: the one standing between her and equity partnership.
Peterson gave her a nod, letting her know he appreciated her judgment. Sasha felt a small thrill of satisfaction at having pleased him and then an equally small pang of disgust at caring about pleasing him. She shrugged off both emotions and poured herself another cup of coffee.
Peterson pulled out the chair that had been left empty at the head of the table and looked around the table. He met each set of eyes and held his gaze for a moment to let the seriousness of the evening’s events sink in.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Noah Peterson, the managing partner of the complex litigation department here. For those of you who don’t know Hemisphere Air, it is one of Prescott’s oldest clients and, each year, one of our biggest clients in terms of hours billed and revenues collected. Hemisphere Air is a proud Pittsburgh institution and will be looking to us to help it weather this terrible tragedy.”
Sasha glanced up from her notepad to make sure everyone was nodding in all the right places. They were.
She turned back to drawing up a master task list and making tentative assignments. The immediate issue was to find the best available legal assistant and get him or her put on the case. An excellent legal assistant was more valuable than all the expensive, untested talent sitting around the table.
She looked up again when she heard her name.
“Sasha McCandless will run the team. Sasha is well acquainted with this client and its needs. If you have questions or concerns, you will direct them to Sasha.” And not to me, you peons, was left unsaid but not unclear.
Eight sets of eyes shifted from Peterson to Sasha. She put down her pen.
“We’ll meet right at 8:30 every morning for a quick status update and to hand out the day’s priority assignments. Beginning now, you work exclusively for Hemisphere Air. If you need me to run interference with anyone to get you off other matters, tell me now; otherwise, I expect you’ll clear your plates entirely of other work by the end of the day tomorrow.”
Sasha waited a beat to see if anyone had a problem with that. No one did. At this point in their careers, they would chew their arms off to get out of the document review trap.
They could hardly have imagined that, as shiny new lawyers, they would spend their days, nights, and weekends staring at computer screens, reading one inane e-mail after another—sifting through the forwarded jokes, spam advertisements for Viagra, and mundane details of a client’s new transportation benefit in an effort to find evidence of insider trading, an antitrust conspiracy, or legal advice regarding some action of the company. Sasha felt sorry for them. At least when she was cutting her teeth on document reviews, she got to travel to exotic locations like Duluth and paw through boxes of yellowing paper in unheated warehouses instead of being subjected to some stranger’s collection of Internet porn.
She continued, “We’re going to have to hit the ground running. Our working assumption is the first group of plaintiffs will file tomorrow. Whoever files first has a good shot at being named class counsel and, if this ends up with a bunch of consolidated cases, MDL coordinating counsel.”
She met with a few blank stares.
“MDL—multidistrict litigation?” she prompted them.
It was criminal, the way firms like Prescott demanded the brightest legal minds and then prevented them from actually practicing law for the first several years of their careers.
Once they started nodding again, she went on, “We’ll need someone to do a conflict of laws analysis, on the off chance the first case is filed in Virginia—the site of the accident—but it’s safe to assume we’ll be in federal court here, in the Western District of Pennsylvania.”
Joe Donaldson had a question. “How can you be so sure? Just because Hemisphere Air is headquartered here? Why would plaintiffs take on Hemisphere Air where it has home court advantage?”
“That’s a valid point, Joe. Look out that window behind you.”
Joe and the four other attorneys on his side of the table swiveled their chairs to look where she pointed. The three people seated across the table from them half-rose from their chairs and craned their necks, so they could see, too. Only Peterson didn’t move. He just smiled.
“See the Frick Building?” It was a squat stone building, lost in a sea of glass high-rises. “The entire building is dark, right? Except for a row of five windows, four floors up.”
The junior attorneys’ heads were bobbing in agreement. They turned back to face her.
“Those are Mickey Collins’ offices. Mickey’s one of the most successful plaintiff’s attorneys in town. The Aston Martin parked right under the security light in the lot next door is his. I’ve been working here eight years and I can count the number of times I’ve seen it in the lot after six p.m. He’s in there, working the phones, trying to find the widow of someone on that flight so he can head into court first thing in the morning and file with a named class representative. You can count on it.”
Joe looked down, sheepish.
“Hey, it was a good question, Joe.” Sasha valued someone who would speak up in a group. “Why don’t you work on putting together background information on whichever Western District judges are the most likely candidates to be assigned the next MDL case filed here?”
“Will do.” Joe sat up straighter.
“Good. Anyone want to volunteer for the conflict of laws analysis?”
Kaitlyn Hart raised her pen. “I’ll do it.”
“Great.” Sasha turned to Peterson. “Are you meeting with Metz tomorrow, Noah?”
“Yes. He’s coming here for a lunch meeting. We’ll do it in the office. The press will be all over their offices tomorrow.”
“Okay. That means I’ll need both memos by mid-morning, so I can review them before Noah and I meet with in-house counsel.”
Joe and Kaitlyn both nodded, as they scribbled notes on their legal pads.
“The rest of you will get your assignments at the morning meeting.”
Sasha felt a smidgeon of guilt that the others had been pulled off their late-night document review tasks only to hurry up and wait, but that was just a fact of big firm life. It could be maddeningly inefficient.
“Any other questions?”
No one spoke. A few people shook their heads.
It was nearly one in the morning. Time to cut people loose.
“Then we’re done. See you in the morning.”
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