"Let them try," Ethan said. Victoria almost smiled. "You really aren't afraid of anything, are you? I'm afraid of plenty," Ethan said quietly. "I'm just done letting fear make my decisions for me.
I did that for 3 years. Look where it got me. The confrontation with Richard Voss happened 4 days later and Ethan hadn't planned for it to happen at all. He'd been called to a deposition at a federal building downtown. A preliminary interview with NTSB investigators.
Nothing official yet. Just Ethan walking them through everything he remembered about the tail rotor coupling. And at Colonel Whitfield's gentle prompting, everything he remembered about the accident 17 years ago. It was supposed to be a quiet private session in a conference room with a court reporter and two investigators. Nobody had told him Richard Voss would be in the building.
He saw him in the lobby purely by accident. Both of them heading toward the elevator bank at the same time. Ethan recognized him instantly despite the 17 years older now heavier gray hair where there had once been dark. But the same sharp eyes, the same posture of a man who had spent his career being obeyed without question. Voss recognized him, too.
Ethan watched it happen. Watched the older man's face shift from polite, distracted, unfamiliarity to something that drained the color right out of his skin. Ethan Voss said his voice unsteady. Ethan Cole, Richard. Ethan's own voice came out steadier than he expected, given that his heart was hammering against his ribs hard enough to hurt.
For a moment, neither man moved. The lobby around them continued its ordinary business. People walking past phones ringing at the security desk, none of them aware they were standing 3 ft from a confrontation 17 years in the making. "I saw the video," Voss said finally, his eyes darting away and back again. the eyes of a man calculating an exit that didn't exist. The helicopter.
I didn't know it was you until I mean they didn't say your name at first and then you knew. Ethan said quietly. You knew the coupling failed inspection in 2008. You signed off on shipping it anyway. You knew it was the same part that killed my wife.
Voss's face went the color of ash. Ethan, I don't know what you think. You've I've seen the batch report. Richard. Ethan's voice remained level, but something underneath it had gone hard as steel.
Failed ultrasonic inspection. Your signature on the shipping authorization anyway. Same batch number as the coupling in my wife's aircraft. That report. Voss's voice cracked.