Chapter 6 - The Man Evelyn Had Misjudged
Mason stared at the telemetry.
"How much fuel?"
Daniel checked.
"Full tanks."
"Flight plan?"
"None."
Evelyn grabbed her jacket.
"I'm going."
Mason stood.
"No."
She glared.
"That word doesn't work well on me."
"It should tonight."
"Victor is stealing a seventy-million-dollar aircraft containing proprietary technology."
"And possibly compromised components."
"Which is why I'm going."
Mason shook his head.
"Which is exactly why you shouldn't."
Daniel interrupted.
"Authorities are twenty minutes out."
Mason looked at the weather radar.
The prototype's engines remained active.
Victor could depart in less than five.
"I know that airfield," Mason said.
Evelyn turned.
"How?"
"I worked there."
"When?"
"Years ago."
"What aren't you telling me?"
He looked at her.
"I helped design part of that prototype's diagnostic architecture."
Silence.
Evelyn blinked.
"You what?"
"Independent engineering contract."
"You told me you were a mechanic."
"I am."
"You designed systems in a seventy-million-dollar aircraft."
"Mechanics can design things."
She exhaled.
"Fair."
Mason continued.
"The prototype includes adaptive engine monitoring based on my father's original concepts."
Evelyn stared.
"Your technology."
"His."
"And Carter Meridian used it again?"
"Legally this time."
"Did you know?"
"Yes."
"Why did you work with us?"
Mason looked toward Caleb's photograph lying beside the laptop.
"Because Daniel found me three years ago."
Daniel nodded.
"I recognized Caleb's research."
"You never told me."
"Richard controlled prototype procurement. I didn't know who I could trust."
Evelyn almost laughed at the absurdity.
Everyone had secrets.
Everyone had reasons.
And her greatest mistake had been assuming the people with polished shoes had fewer secrets than those with dirty hands.
Mason looked back at the telemetry.
"The prototype has a remote diagnostic channel."
"Can you disable it?"
"Not remotely."
"Why?"
"Safety."
"Can Victor fly it?"
"He's a pilot."
Daniel frowned.
"Corporate license, though. Limited hours."
"Enough to get airborne."
Evelyn took her keys.
"I'm driving."
Mason sighed.
"Of course you are."
Forty minutes later they reached the smaller airfield.
Police units were approaching from the south.
The prototype stood at the end of the ramp.
Engines running.
Navigation lights flashing.
Victor Hale stood beside the stairs.
He saw Evelyn.
And smiled.
"You came."
She stepped from the car.
Mason stayed beside her.
Victor noticed him.
"Ah. The mechanic."
Mason said nothing.
Victor laughed.
"You really caused trouble."
"You caused it."
"No."
Victor looked at Evelyn.
"Richard caused it. I just stopped pretending loyalty pays."
"You sabotaged the fleet."
"I coordinated access."
"You would've killed people."
Victor's smile faded.
"The aircraft weren't supposed to fly."
"Then why contaminate them?"
"Leverage."
"Against whom?"
"Richard."
Mason understood.
"You wanted Walter's files."
Victor nodded.
"Smart."
Evelyn stared.
"So Sean?"
"Richard's man."
"Randall?"
"Mine, mostly."
"Mostly?"
Victor shrugged.
"Everyone has a price."
Mason looked at him.
"No."
Victor laughed.
"Everyone."
He turned toward the prototype.
"Richard promised me the CEO position after the acquisition. Then I discovered he planned to blame everything on me."
"So you ran."
"I adapted."
"With my aircraft."
Victor smiled.
"Technically the lender owns most of it."
Even now.
Sarcasm.
Evelyn wondered how she had trusted him.
"Where are you going?"
"Somewhere extradition takes time."
"You won't clear the runway."
"Police won't shoot at an aircraft filled with fuel."
Mason looked toward the prototype.
Something bothered him.
"Victor."
"What?"
"You've been running the engines for twenty minutes."
"So?"
"And you haven't taxied."
Victor's smile weakened.
Mason stepped closer.
"You can't get the warning to clear."
Victor said nothing.
"What warning?" Evelyn asked.
Mason watched Victor's face.
"Adaptive fuel-control fault."
Victor's expression confirmed it.
"You know how to clear it," Victor said.
Mason nodded.
"Maybe."
"Do it."
"No."
Victor reached inside his jacket.
Police shouted from the perimeter.
Mason raised his hands.
Evelyn froze.
Victor pulled out not a gun, but a phone.
A remote command screen glowed.
"If I can't leave, I dump the prototype data."
"To whom?" Evelyn asked.
"Competitors. Press. Anyone."
Evelyn surprised him by shrugging.
"Do it."
Victor blinked.
"What?"
"Release it."
"You'll lose hundreds of millions."
"Maybe."
"Your patents."
"Maybe."
"Your company."
Evelyn looked at Mason.
Then back at Victor.
"I already decided my company isn't worth protecting with lies."
Victor stared at her.
That had not been part of his plan.
Men like Victor understood greed.
Fear.
Blackmail.
They struggled with people willing to lose something.
His leverage disappeared.
Police moved closer.
Victor backed toward the stairs.
Then the prototype engine changed pitch.
Mason's head snapped up.
"No."
Daniel's voice came through Evelyn's phone.
"Mason, telemetry spike!"
Victor looked toward the aircraft.
A warning alarm sounded inside the cockpit.
Mason ran.
Evelyn followed.
"Stay back!"
He climbed into the cockpit.
Fuel pressure fluctuated.
The left engine temperature climbed rapidly.
Victor shouted from below.
"Clear it!"
Mason ignored him.
"Evelyn, fire suppression panel!"
She slid into the copilot seat.
"Which?"
"Red guarded switch."
"This?"
"Don't touch it yet."
Alarm.
Temperature rising.
Mason moved through diagnostic screens.
His hands no longer looked like the hands of a poor mechanic.
They looked like exactly what they had always been.
The hands of a man who understood machines deeply enough to hear danger before computers announced it.
"Victor used the emergency override," Mason said.
"What does that mean?"
"He forced the system past the warning."
"Can we shut down?"
"Trying."
The left engine refused.
Mason swore.
Evelyn looked at him.
First time she'd heard him do it.
That frightened her.
"Fire?"
"Not yet."
Police pulled Victor away below.
Mason opened a maintenance access panel behind the cockpit.
"What are you doing?"
"Manual isolation."
"You can do that from here?"
"I designed it."
Of course he did.
Evelyn almost smiled.
He reached inside.
His scarred fingers found a mechanical release.
The engine shut down.
Silence returned.
Evelyn exhaled.
Then the right engine alarm began.
Mason stared at the screen.
"That's impossible."
"What?"
"The fault moved."
"Can that happen?"
"No."
He checked another screen.
Then another.
His face changed.
"This isn't sabotage."
"What is it?"
He looked toward the fuel gauge.
"Contamination."
"From Northstar?"
"No."
He shook his head.
"Fuel."
Evelyn stared.
"All twelve jets..."
Mason stood.
"The same fueling contractor?"
Her face went white.
"Yes."
Mason grabbed his phone.
"Daniel, test every fuel sample from the main airport."
Daniel answered.
"We already did. Initial test was clean."
"Test for conductive polymer suspension."
A pause.
"That's not standard."
"I know."
"Why?"
"Because someone wasn't trying to destroy engines."
Mason looked toward Victor being placed in a police vehicle.
"They were trying to trigger false electronic faults."
Evelyn understood.
"To ground us."
"Yes."
"But who?"
Mason looked at the prototype.
One company benefited most if Carter Meridian's fleet was grounded long enough.
One company was positioned to acquire it at a collapse price.
The buyer Richard had prepared for the board vote.
Evelyn's phone rang.
Walter.
She answered.
His first words changed everything.
"Evelyn, the acquiring company isn't Northstar."
She gripped the phone.
"Who is it?"
Walter said the name.
Evelyn slowly looked at Mason.
He recognized it too.
The company belonged to someone they had not suspected.
Someone who had been standing beside them since the first engine went silent.
May you like
Back at Carter Meridian, Daniel Cho closed his office door.
Then deleted a file.
