Junction that had been accessed and resealed with sealant that didn't match the manufacturer specified compound. Malcolm looked at it for a long time. It's a tracker, he said. That's what our avionics lead thinks. Susan said, not a navigation aid, a position tracker transmitting.
We're not sure yet. We haven't powered it up. were waiting for the FAA's technical team. Malcolm looked at the wiring at the junction at the sealant that somebody had applied in a hurry or without the right materials or both. He thought about what kind of person installed an unauthorized tracking device in a private corporate aircraft and what they would want with the positional data of a CEO's flight schedule. This wasn't Apex Vector, he said.
No, Susan said this is something different. How long has this aircraft been in service? Since the last major inspection? 14 Months. 14 Months of position data.
Every flight this aircraft took, every route, every destination, every arrival and departure time, transmitted to wherever the receiver was sending it. Who else has had access to this aircraft? Malcolm said, "We've pulled the access logs." Susan said the hanger records show routine access for pre-flight and post-flight. Nothing unusual. She paused except for one entry 7 months ago.
A maintenance visit logged under Curtis Hayward's authorization code. The name landed like a stone. Curtis Hayward already in federal custody for the Apex Vector procurement fraud. And now his authorization code on the access log for an aircraft with an unauthorized tracking device inside it. Malcolm straightened up.
Delgato. He said, I've already called him. Susan said his team is 20 minutes out. Malcolm stood in the hangar and let the geometry of it settle. Curtis Hayward hadn't just been selling out Sterling Crown's maintenance program to a supplier with junk certification history.
He'd been transmitting Sterling Crown's flight schedule, Victoria Sterling's flight schedule to someone, someone who wanted to know where she was, when she'd be, where, how to predict her movements. "Do you know which routes this aircraft runs?" Malcolm asked. primarily Dallas to New York, Susan said. Sometimes Chicago, occasionally to the Gulf Coast properties. Dallas to New York. The flight Victoria had been trying to take the morning the pilots refused.
The flight she'd needed so badly, she'd offered bonuses to seven different pilots. The flight that had been scheduled publicly enough that anyone monitoring a tracking device inside the aircraft would have known exactly when it was supposed to leave and exactly where it was supposed to land. Malcolm thought about that morning about Daniel Mercer coming down the air stairs with his flight bag about six pilots saying no about the aircraft sitting grounded on the tarmac. He thought about what might have happened if the maintenance log had been clean if his name had been in the certificate. if Daniel had flown. He thought about it for a moment longer than was comfortable.
Then he put it away because there was work to do, and thinking about what might have happened was less useful than making sure it didn't happen again. Delgado arrived at 3:22 with two additional agents and a technical specialist in a separate vehicle. They moved through the hangar with the contained urgency of people who had just had the scope of their investigation expand in a direction they'd half expected. Delgato looked at the tracking device for 2 minutes without speaking. Then he looked at Malcolm.
When you were conducting the restoration on the primary aircraft, he said, "Did you access the avionics bay?" Standard restoration scope doesn't include avionics unless there's a flagged issue. Malcolm said, "We didn't access it on the primary aircraft. So if there's a device in the primary aircraft's avionics bay, you need to open it." Malcolm said. Delgato turned to his technical specialist. The specialist was already moving.