Carter," he said, sitting down across from her. "I'll be direct. My office has completed its preliminary review of the safety complaint filed against Falcon Dynamics. Evelyn's stomach tightened. This was it.
This was the thing that could still end everything, flight or no flight. "And And the complaint was entirely valid," Harmon said. "Your aircraft had a serious resonance defect that your engineering department failed to identify. Under normal circumstances, that finding would trigger a full investigation, significant penalties, and a very hard look at whether this company should be trusted with a government contract. " Evelyn said nothing. She waited for the axe.
"However," Harmon continued, and something in his tone shifted. "The complaint was not filed by an outside party trying to damage you. It was filed by your own structural engineer who identified the flaw, verified it, and reported it through proper channels when his warnings were ignored internally. And the flaw was ultimately caught and safely managed by a pilot who had been trying to warn this company about it for weeks. " He paused. "Ms.
Carter, from where I sit, this looks less like a company that hid a defect and more like a company that had two people who did everything right and a leadership team that took too long to listen to them. " Evelyn felt the breath she'd been holding for two days finally start to release. "The distinction matters," Harmon said. "A company that hides defects we shut out. A company that has honest people who catch defects and a leadership willing eventually to listen to them. He almost smiled.
That's the kind of company we want building aircraft that our people are going to fly. So, here's where we are. The contract is not dead, but it comes with conditions. Name them. One, the engineer who filed the complaint, Mr.
Okafor, is protected fully. No retaliation, formal or informal. In fact, I'd strongly suggest you find a way to reward the kind of integrity he showed because that integrity is the only reason you still have a company this morning. Already done, Evelyn said. I gave my word yesterday.
Two, Marcus Bennett. Harmon leaned forward. I don't know what you're planning to do with that man, and frankly a great deal of his history is above my clearance, but I can tell you that the government's interest in this aircraft just increased substantially now that we know who's willing to fly it. If Falcon Dynamics is smart, it will find a way to keep Marcus Bennett very, very close, whatever it takes. Evelyn looked at the government liaison, and she thought about the man in the cockpit, and she thought about the fact that 24 hours before all this, she'd called him the cleaning staff, and she felt the shame of it all over again.
I intend to, she said quietly. If he'll let me. That, Harmon said, closing his briefcase, is the question, isn't it? A man like that doesn't do anything he doesn't choose to do. I'd imagine you learned that yesterday.