"Then we go around her. " Marcus said. "What? " The pilot. "Cortez. " He doesn't know what he's flying into tomorrow. He thinks the aircraft's clean because the reports say it's clean. But the reports are wrong.
And if we can't reach the CEO, then we reach the man in the seat. A pilot deserves to know what's under him. Every pilot deserves that. "You want me to walk up to a test pilot the day before the biggest flight of his career and tell him the aircraft's going to fail based on a notebook written by the cleaning staff. " "No. " Marcus said. "I want you to tell him based on load calculations you verified yourself three times in your own lab with your own name on them.
Where the numbers came from doesn't matter, Daniel. Whether they're right is the only thing that matters. It's the only thing that's ever mattered. " Daniel stared at him. "You keep saying that. " Daniel said slowly. "Whether it's right.
Like it's the most important thing in the world. Who taught you to think like that? Because I've been in aerospace since I was 22. And I've met maybe two people who talk about being right the way you do. And both of them had 30 years in the cockpit. " Marcus didn't answer.
He picked up his bucket and moved to the next section of floor. And the conversation was over. And Daniel Okafor stood there watching a man in a gray uniform mop the ground beneath a $50 million aircraft, and felt the first real crack open in everything he thought he understood about the world. At 10:00 that morning, Cortez arrived. He was everything Marcus was not.
Loud, tanned, 34 years old, gold watch, a swagger that took up the whole hangar. He wore a flight jacket with a dozen patches, and he talked about himself in the third person. And he shook hands with the executives like a man collecting worshipers. Marcus watched him from across the floor, and felt something he was ashamed to feel, which was fear. Not for himself.
For the loud man in the flight jacket who had no idea he was scheduled to die tomorrow. Daniel tried. Marcus watched him try. Watched the young engineer approach Cortez during a break. Watched him gesture.
Watched him pull out a tablet with the analysis on it. And Marcus watched Cortez laugh. Clap Daniel on the shoulder, and say something that made two of the executives nearby chuckle, and then walk away without a backward glance. Daniel came back to Marcus with his jaw tight. He said, "Daniel reported, and I'm quoting, 'Kid, I've flown aircraft that were literally falling apart around me.