Then Rachel walked in from the doorway and sat down in the chair Delgato had just vacated. She put her elbows on her knees and looked at the desk where the binder had been sitting. 19 Years, she said. Yeah. And it took a woman refusing to pay your invoice to start a federal investigation.
Malcolm looked at her. She didn't start it. He said, "Delgato said it's been running for 22 months. She just he stopped. She gave you a reason to document everything." Rachel said.
He was quiet for a moment. Yeah. Yeah, he said. She did. His phone buzzed.
Maya. He looked at the screen. Dad. Mrs. Patterson said, "You can bring a model airplane to career day." He stared at that for a second.
Then he typed, "Tell her, I'll bring something better." The three dots. Then, "What's better than a model airplane?" He put the phone back down. He looked at the empty space on his desk where the binder had been sitting for the past 3 days, where the documentation he'd built page by careful page in between supplier calls and lease threats, and a daughter asking whether they were going to lose the hanger,. Where all of that had just walked out the door in a federal investigator's hands. He felt lighter than he expected to feel.
Not relieved, not victorious, just lighter, like something he'd been carrying had been accepted by someone whose job it was to carry it. He picked up his phone and called Daniel Mercer back. The captain answered on the first ring. He came. He came, Malcolm said.
He took the documentation. Good. He told me something, Malcolm said. He said Victoria called the FAA's Dallas field office before she called her own board. A pause.
Did you know she was going to do that? Silence on the line. Captain Malcolm said, I may have suggested, Daniel said carefully, that the appropriate sequence of calls when you discover a potential federal aviation safety violation is to notify the regulatory authority before you notify your lawyers. Because lawyers protect the company. The FAA protects the aircraft.
Malcolm thought about that. You told her that. I mentioned it. Daniel said this morning before you met with her. You were setting the table.
Malcolm said I was being helpful. Daniel said in the way that people who have seen these situations before can be helpful. A pause. I've been flying for 31 years. Malcolm.