He had signed. Pete sat through all of it. When Reed finished, Pete said, "How long have you been carrying this?" Reed didn't answer that. "The NDA prohibits me from speaking to media or legal counsel for the opposing party," he said.
"It doesn't prohibit me from entering Ashcroft's facility as a credentialed vendor under an active supply contract." He paused. "Which we still have. So, what are you going to do?" "Walk in the front door."
Reed said. What neither man knew was that Wren had come downstairs partway through the conversation, heard enough to understand that her mother had not simply died in an accident, and gone back upstairs without either of them seeing her. She lay in her bed with her hands flat on the blanket and looked at the ceiling for a long time. Reed arrived at the Ashcroft Group at 8:15 the following morning. He carried a folder and a handwritten technical analysis on four sheets of graph paper.
Security called upstairs. He waited. After 12 minutes, Vivian's assistant came down and told him Miss Ashcroft was unavailable. Reed sat in one of the lobby chairs and said he would wait. He'd been sitting for 8 minutes when Dana Chou came through the main entrance, badge clipped to her collar, there for her scheduled interview with Vivian.
She stopped in the middle of the lobby. She looked at Reed. She said his name, Reed Callahan, not a question. The tone of a person confirming something they have spent days trying to verify. Vivian Ashcroft appeared at the lobby elevator 90 seconds later.
She had come down herself when her assistant reported that Dana Chou was in the lobby, and someone she had apparently recognized by name was also there. Vivian looked at Reed. She looked at Dana. Then to Reed, "Conference Room Two. Five minutes."
The room had a glass wall facing the internal corridor. Grant Holloway was already inside with two senior engineers and Vivian's legal counsel. Reed walked in, set the folder on the table, and remained standing. Grant said, "This man has no standing here." Reed did not look at Grant.
He opened the folder and set the first document on the table. The thermal analysis, four pages of handwritten calculations, with the failure threshold circled at the bottom of the third page. Beside it, the printout of the anonymous email, timestamp visible in the header. 72 hours before Marco Vega's crash, one of the senior engineers picked up the analysis and began to read. His expression changed the way a person's expression changes when they are reading something that is restructuring their understanding of a situation they thought they understood.
"Third loop," Reed said, "Thermal load at 143° C. Emergency torque cut initiates. Car loses stability at any speed above 90 mph." The engineer looked up. "That's exactly what happened."