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THE PELICAN BRIEF CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND VOCABULARY

Chapter 1.
The first chapter is about how it all starts, about the man who pays Khamel - the murderer of the two judges - for his job. Khamel's job is to kill two judges. One, Judge Rosenberg, is a liberal. He defends the Indians, the homosexuals, the poor and the blacks, and he is very proud to be a liberal. The second judge, Glenn Jensen, is a homosexual and is killed by Khamel in a homosexual film theatre while watching a film. Both judges refused to have FBI guards at their own homes.

Chapter 2.
In the second chapter the President of the Unites States is informed about the two dead judges by Coal, the Chief of Staff, who had also made a list of possible members of the Supreme Court. Moreover, Darby Shaw, a Law student, receives the news of the two dead judges on television, and she decides to spend some time on investigating that case.

Chapter 3.
In the third chapter Darby Shaw looks for the reasons of the killings at the two dead judges and find a case that explain the two killings. Besides, her teacher and boyfriend, Thomas Callahan, phones Gavin, an old friend of him and a legal adviser from the FBI. Callahan attempts to make Gavin tell him who is on the list of the possible members of the Supreme Court, but Gavin does not tell him and so they just made a meeting for the next Monday.

Chapter 4.
In the fourth chapter Darby Shaw shows Callahan the brief she has typed up about the two murdered judges. Moreover, the chapter is about a meeting betweenEast and Voyles had with Coal and the President of the United States which does not go well. Coal handed Voyles the head of the FBI the list of possible members of the Supreme Court because Coal wants to have a report about each of the people involved. Somehow an elderly black cleaner in the White House gets heard of two names on this list and he decides to tell this Gray Grantham, a reporter for the Washington Post.

Chapter 5.
In Chapter 5 the reader finds out that the connections between Rosenberg and Jensen are not political. Callahan gives Gavin Verheek a copy of the brief written by his girlfriend Darby. It is an interesting theory about the killings. An unknown person called ”Garcia” calls Gray Grantham, who works for the Washington Post and who has written an article recently. "Garcia" tells him that he can give him some interesting informations about the killings of the judges. East, K.O. Lewis and Voyles meet Coal alone, because the President is out of Washington. They have two pieces of informations for him. At First, they tell him that cameras at the airport in Paris have recorded the arrival of the killer, Khamel from Dulles. They think that Khamel has done the killings, but it does not really help them. Later, when the President returns, Coal tells him all about the brief, but if the press get to hear about the investigation, something which could be bad for the President. Nothing before answers the question why someone wants to see these two Supreme Court judges dead

Chapter 6.
In the 6th Chapter of the book “The Pelican Brief” by John Grisham, Darby and Thomas are having a date. By the time they want to go home Thomas wants to drive the car. But he hasdrunken to much, which is the reason why Darby says that she is going to walk. The moment Thomas starts his car a bomb explodes in his car. He is dead immediately. While she is trying to help him, there is a second explosion. Because of this Darby become unconscious. When she wakes up and realises what has happened she knows that the car bomb is intended to kill her. Consequently she plans to hide so that nobody can find her. When she is in the Hotel she phones Thomas( best friend and tells him that he is dead. And she asks Verheek how much people have read the Pelican Brief.

Chapter 7.
Chapter seven is divided into three parts. Part one is about a conversation between the President and Mr. Voyles. The President is worried about the press. He is afraid of being hurt because they do not like him at all. His aim is to make sure that nothing about the Pelican Brief reaches the press and that the investigation is stopped. Mr. Voyles agrees but on the other hand he still wants to continue to throw light on this theory.
The second part is a dialogue between Gavin and Lewis. Gavin can not understand that there is no longer an investigation, even though his best friend Thomas is dead and Darby is running for her life. He doesnot know how to tell her that there will be no more help.
The third part relates how Darby tries to hide herself and get rid of her persecutors by phoning Mrs. Chen from the pay phone at the Sheraton Hotel and getting to know if her pursuers have already been in her apartment. She also phones Gavin to be informed about the conversation between Mr. Voyles and him. He says he wasn(t able to see him. The phone call ends suddenly because Darby sees the face of a man well-known to her not far away. It seems to her as if his eyes are looking for someone. She realizes that she is in danger and must escape, but she quickly tells Gavin that she will call again.

Chapter 8.
Hidden in a car in front of a payphone Croft the photographer waits for Garcia to come. When he arrives and Croft can be sure that he is the right man he takes a lot of pictures of him. Now Grantham knows that Garcia isn(t Spanish and even if he does not get the information from him he listens to his stories, hoping that he will somehow get it. Grantham(s story about Khamel who is suspected of the killings of the judges comes on the front page of the newspaper.
Darby cuts off her long hair and dyes it black but can not (?) find out where to stay for the time being because she uses her cards to pay. She wants to meet Verheek. Darby sends her friend to her apartment to look for her files but they are away and Darby isn't surprised

Chapter 9.
At the beginning, Grantham is called by Darby, who tells him, that a car bomb killed Callahan and that she(s in danger. She says, that she will call him again. In the next scene, Darby is at Thomas(s funeral. There she discovers the thin-faced man again. She observes looking carefully in every direction; finally he leaves. Khamel is given the order to kill Darby by a man calling himself Mr. Sneller. He gets information about her and he(s expected not to fail. At the end of the chapter, Gavin wakes up, because Darby is calling him. She tells him about Thomas(s funeral and the thin-faced man. They decide to meet.

Chapter 10.
In Chapter 10 Darby leaves her hotel room with her new hair colour, blond; she hopes that nobody can recognize her. She notices the short man chasing her, but she loses him in the football crowds.
Sneller says to Khamel that Callahan's best friend, Verheek, is in New Orleans too and Khamel can stay to close him. Sneller(s men will continue trying to find Darby.
Darby calls Gavin in his hotel room and tells him that she will follow today. Gavin is to leave New Orleans the following day and he wants Darby to come with him. Darby agrees and they make a meeting place for tomorrow. Darby does not know what he looks like, so he should wear a black teeshirt and carry a newspaper. Besides, she is to ask how tall he is - about five feet, ten inches- and how much he weighs ( about a hundred kilos. After the call, Gavin is happy and go to the bathroom but when he comes back, the room is dark and he starts to walk over to the light switch. But then the first blow catches him in the throat, he falls to his knees and than the second blow lands on the back of his neck. He is dead. Khamel lifts his body up and puts him on the bed and fires at his head at point blank range. He then puts the gun in his hand and curls the fingers around it, that is only for Khamel to gain time, that he can leave the country the next day.
He takes the little microphone out of the telephone receiver, checks that the cupboard where he has waited is clean and then he leaves the room.
No one has seen or heard him.

Chapter 11.
In Chapter 11 Darby Shaw talks on the phone to Gray Grantham about the situation that Rosenberg(s murderer and Jensen follow Darby in New Orleans. Then he asks her if she knows who has killed Rosenberg and Jensen but she won't answer the question at that time.
Darby wants to meet Gavin at midday in French men's Band.
Darby and Gavin walk to a river boat called the (Bayou Queen(. They intend to go by boat to a car so that they can they leave town. When they are about to go on board a man comes and holds a gun to Gavin's head and fires. Gavin falls down to the ground. He says something to Darby in a language she does not recognize and then he dies. Someone in the crowd says that Gavin is an Egyptian. Darby leaves the Riverbank after dark and buys new clothes. She flags down a taxi to leave the city fast. Thomas talks to her about his friend Gavin and she knows that Gavin is not an Egyptian.

Chapter 12.
First there is a dialogue between Voyles, the chief of FBI, and Lewis, Voyles second-in-command, about the brief, because people keep dying. They want the president to have no chances in the next election. To get rid of him and Fletcher Coal they must find proof of the theory of the (Pelican Brief(. For this they must know where Mattiece is, but to find him they need the CIA. Besides this they talk about Darby, that the CIA lost her and (Lewis says) that she could be dead, because Mattiece`s men are following her as well. The second part of Chapter 12 begins with a call between the reporter Gray Grantham and Darby Shaw. Darby says that she wants to tell Grantham the truth about the murders of Rosenberg and Jensen. They meet immediately in Darby(s hotel room. After they have eaten he swiches on a recorder and she tells him a story about the Louisiana marshes where the Mississippi River meets the sea. Once the countryside was beautiful there, the home of many rare species. Then in 1930 the oil is discovered and the oil companies begin to destroy the marshland. In 1979 an oil company owned by Victor Mattiece finds a very rich oilfield. For the present he has stopped work there and waited a long time till no others were interested in the surrounding land. Now he has bought all this land and created new companies so that no one would know that he was the sole buyer. Now he is ready to begin drilling. A small environmental protection group called Green Rescue persuades the court in Lafayette agrees that all drilling should stop until the case is settled. When the case comes to trial Green Rescue loses because Mattiece has the best and most expensive lawyers. Still the judge forbids him to start drilling because the marshes are the home of the pelican, a protected bird under Louisiana law. Now Green Rescue want to take the case to the Supreme Court. But this takes between three and five years. Mattiece thus has time to (manipulate( the Supreme Court for his own aims. In any case he has to get rid of Judges Rosenberg and Jensen to replace them with two Republican judges to support him. But there is a Democratic President in office at this time.
That is the story of the (Pelican Brief( that Darby Shaw has written and now tells to Grantham. When she finishes Gray begins to talk about a photograph which can prove everything. He explains to Darby that seven years ago, before the President(s election, some clever photographer took a picture of Mattiece shaking hands with the President like old friends and this was in New Orleans when the President was getting money for the Republicans. Fortunately he says that he can easily find a copy of the picture. Then Gray asks whether Mattiece has chosen Rosenberg and Jensen as judges himself. But Darby answers that Mattiece has many lawyers in the whole country and also in Washington to advise him. In Washington he has two firms. Darby wonders why Gray wants to have all this information. Then Gray tells her the story about Garcia and his supposition that Garcia might work in a firm of Mattiece. After this talk both go to bed. Gray sleeps on the sofa, but he is very happy about it because he will do anything to be near Darby.

Chapter 13.
Darby reads lists of the members from the Washington law firms that work for Mattiece, but she can not find a member called Garcia. Also Croft searches for him, but he is also sure that Garcia does not exist. When Darby calls Gray for to tell him this information she recognizes a short man walking down the streets. It is the same man who has been looking for her in New Orleans. He does not discover her, but she decides to leave New York as fast as she can. Matthew Barr and Coal, employees of the White House, have a conversation about the brief. They decide to look for Mattiece and to find out if the brief is true. The next morning Darby calls Gray and asks him for a date. Gray meets his boss, Smith Keen, who orders Gray to find Garcia. After this meeting Gray goes back to his room and hears that someone has been in it, for to look for information about Darby. He knows that he has to find her very quickly.

Chapter 14.
Darby spends the day in the Georgetown law library and tries to find out something about the members of the Washington law firms that Mattiece uses. Darby meets Gray at the Tarbard Inn. She is annoyed with Gray, because he has told smith Keen her room number. Matthew Barr goes to New Orleans, to meet a lawyer who tells him to fly to Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Barr arrives at his hotel room and finds a note in it. The note says that he will receive a phone call. Barr calls Coal and informs him about his experiences. Gray and Darby investigate the news that seven students have worked for White and Blazevich the previous summer. They look for those students and ask them, if one of them knows Garcia. Darby and Gray show them a picture of Garcia and one of the students recognizes him. Garcia`s real name is Curtis D. Morgan. Darby and Gray decide to find Morgan.

Chapter 15
After a boat ride Matthew and Larry flee and a car takes them to a house. In it the floor is full of towels they are not allowed to step on. Mattiece is there and they talk about the brief. After that Matthew is killed by Larry. Darby and Gray go to the White and at Blazevich(s office the secretary gets Mr. Schawe. He says that Mr Morgan is dead. Darby plays a weak young woman and they go. Edwin Seller and his men has wasting their time in New York. So he goes to a client of him. This is the owner of Washington Bank. Edwin gets new information that she has escaped. Gray and Darby drive to Mr. Morgan(s house, but they cannot go in. Then they drive to Darby.

Chapter 16.
In Chapter Sixteen, Beverly Morgan the wife of Curtis D. Morgan, calls Gray Grantham. They talk about Mr. Morgan and discuss the idea that Gray should drive to the locker in the First Columbia Bank, which Morgan orders. Darby and Gray drive to the box and find an envelope and a copy of a note in it. The document has been written by Morgan and describes his life, his connection to Mattiece and the note written by Marty Velmano. He gives the advice that the Louisiana case will be easier, when Rosenberg and Jensen have retired. This is the solution, so Darby and Gray drive to the Washington Post and discuss with the heads of the film (?) that the story is ready to be printed.

Chapter 17.
The Washington Post wants to print the story about the (Pelican Brief(. Gray Grantham calls the people whose names will be in this article and he asks if they have any comments. Denton Voyles, who is working for the FBI, tells Grantham official and unofficial stories, for example that the President wants them to stop the investigation because of the (Pelican Brief(.

Chapter 18.
The four lawyers for White and Blazevich talk about the situation and what they are to do. They are involved in the story about the (Pelican Brief( and have to escape before they are arrested. Velmano, for example, wants to hide in Europe for the rest of his life. But Wakefield cannot do this and does not know how to tell his family about the situation. So he shoots himself. Darby lives on Virgil Island and is followed by Grantham. Darby and Gray fall in love and spend time together on the Island.
VOCABULARY

VOCABULARY
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