They turned the corner toward the restaurant, and the morning opened up ahead of them, and none of them said anything for a while, which felt like exactly the right amount to say. The consulting agreement was signed 3 weeks later on a Tuesday afternoon in Sloan's office with Howell present, and a copy sent to Garrett, who had reviewed it line by line and returned it with two suggested amendments that were both reasonable and that Sloan accepted without counter. The terms were fixed, 2 days per week, defined hours, protocol consultation only, full veto on any policy he considered structurally unsound from a safety standpoint. The agreement also contained a clause drafted at Caleb's specific request. That no work performed under this arrangement could be used to compel additional time commitment without a separately negotiated amendment signed by both parties.
It was, Howell said afterward, the most specifically protected consulting arrangement he had ever seen. He knows how these things expand, Sloan said. Clearly, Howell said. Did he write that clause himself? He sent me the language, Sloan said.
I recognized it as accurate and didn't change it. Howell looked at her with the expression of a man who was updating his understanding of multiple things simultaneously. You know, he said carefully, "Some of us who've been here a while, we've been watching what you've been doing, the breakroom visits, the protocol revisions, the policy filings." He paused. People were skeptical at first.
A lot of people. I know, she said. They're less skeptical now. He said, not completely, but less. That's honest, she said.
I'll take it. He stood to leave and then stopped at the door. That morning, he said when he walked in on Tuesday and found the secondary panel in 20 minutes. I've been doing this for 23 years. She waited.
I wouldn't have found it. Howell said. Not without running the thermal load test, and even then I would have gone to the primary panel first. He looked at the floor and then back at her. I just thought you should know that.
I know, she said. I've known that for a while. After he left, she sat at her desk for a moment in the quiet of the late afternoon. The tarmac was visible through the window, the ground crew finishing up the last movements of the day. She could see the main hangar doors from here slightly open, the warm interior light spilling out into the fading afternoon.