I have watched three corporate aviation programs come apart from the inside because someone decided the legal exposure was more important than the safety exposure. It never ends well and it always ends worse than it would have if they'd just done the right thing on day one. She did the right thing. Malcolm said late but she did it. People usually do.
Daniel said when they finally understand what the wrong thing would actually cost them. Not in money in the other currency. A pause. The one you can't get back. Malcolm understood what he meant.
He didn't need it. Elaborated. They talked for another few minutes about the technical side, about what the independent inspection team would need, about whether Malcolm would be the right person to lead the evaluation of the primary aircraft or whether an independent third party should take it entirely about the sequence of. Events. Once the FAA formally opened their investigation, when they hung up, it was past 5 in the afternoon.
Rachel had gone home. The shop was quiet and clean, the way it always was at end of day. Every tool in its place. Every surface wiped down the habits of a disciplined operation maintained even through the weeks when everything had been tilting. Malcolm turned off the shop lights one by one.
He stood in the doorway for a moment in the near dark, looking at Hayes Arrowworks from the inside out. It was still there. That still meant something. He locked up and drove home. Maya was at the kitchen table when he walked in.
Homework spread across the surface. A halfeaten bowl of cereal pushed to the side. Her reading glasses on, even though she insisted she didn't need them for anything except very small print. He stood in the doorway and looked at her for a moment. She looked up.
You look different, she said. Do I? Less tired. He sat down across from her. He didn't explain the afternoon.
He didn't tell her about Delgato or the binder or the four copies or the 22-month investigation that now had a thread. She was 11. There would be time for the full story later when the full story had an ending. The invoice was paid, he said. She pushed her glasses up.
All of it. All of it. Plus the advances plus interest. She looked at him steadily. And the hanger lease is paid, he said.
Eight days early, she nodded once with the particular dignity of a child who has been carrying adult worry and is now being told carefully that she can put it down. Good, she said. She went back to her homework. He sat there for a while. Then he got up and made dinner.