"Defer," she read aloud. "Revenue priority." She looked up. "Harold, this is your handwriting."
"I approve a hundred documents a week," Sterling said. "I cannot be expected to read every note."
"You wrote this one," Margaret said. "You wrote it three times."
A low murmur rolled through the room. The banker at the back got to his feet. A younger man in a dark suit, one of the junior directors, pushed his chair away from the table and stared at Sterling as though seeing him for the first time.
"There is more," Daniel said. His voice was steadier now. "There are four other aircraft with similar deferrals. There is a pattern. There is also a memo that instructs the maintenance department to reclassify certain faults as cosmetic in order to avoid grounding. I have copies of those too. They are in a safe place."
"Where?" Sterling demanded, and the naked fear in the question was worse than any answer.
"With someone who will read them carefully," Daniel said.
He did not say who. He reached instead into his jacket once more, and drew out something small and white, held between two fingers. It was a card, the kind that people exchange at conferences, printed on heavy cream stock with a thin blue border. He held it out across the table, not to Sterling, but into the open air between them all, a gesture that said: here, take it, see for yourself.
Margaret Ellison took it. She read it. Her eyebrows rose.
"Daniel Hale," she read, "Senior Counsel, Office of Aviation Safety Enforcement." She looked at him sharply. "You are not Harold's associate."
"I was," Daniel said. "For two years. I was assigned to him by the Office after the first anonymous complaint reached us. I was supposed to watch, and wait, and document. I did not expect to like the work, and I did not expect to feel ashamed of it. But tonight, when the Captain walked through that door, I realized that waiting was no longer something I could do."
CHAPTER 9: THE CARD
The card passed from hand to hand around the center table. It seemed to grow heavier with each person who touched it.
Reginald Voss read it and set it down as though it were hot. The woman in pearls read it and covered her mouth. The young director who had pushed back his chair read it twice, then looked at Sterling with an expression that was half horror, half dawning relief.
Sterling alone did not reach for it. He stood very still, his large hands hanging at his sides, and for the first time that evening he looked his age. The silver hair that had seemed so commanding now seemed merely old. The pale eyes were wide and wet and unfocused, the eyes of a man who has just been told that the floor beneath his house was never solid.
"You," he said, to Daniel. "You were an informant."
"I was an investigator," Daniel said. "I would have preferred to be a better one. I would have preferred to stop this before it came to a dinner."
"Two years," Sterling whispered. "I gave you a position. I introduced you to people. I treated you like a son."
"You treated me like a tool," Daniel said, not unkindly. "I understand why. I was useful. But a tool has no conscience, and I discovered that I had one."
Sterling turned slowly toward Imani. In the lamplight, his face was gray. "And you," he said. "You knew."
"No," Imani said. "Not until a few minutes ago. I did not know who Mr. Hale was. I only knew that he was the one person in this room who seemed to be listening." She gave a small, almost rueful smile. "I will be honest. I was prepared to do this alone. I did not expect help. I expected to be removed from the room, and I expected the recording to be my only witness."
"It was a good plan," Daniel said.
"It was a desperate one," Imani corrected. "Good plans have more exits."
A murmur of soft laughter passed through the room, the first genuine warmth anyone had felt all evening.