Chương 3
“What?”
Garrison looked over his shoulder.
“There’s a shim behind the lug.”
Marcus watched the faces around them change one by one.
Not understanding yet.
Only recognizing from Garrison’s voice that the morning had become something larger than a broken airplane.
Natalie looked at Marcus.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus kept his eyes on the open panel.
“It means whoever put it there wanted the connection to look secure.”
“And?”
“It means under the right vibration and electrical load, it isn’t.”
Garrison stood slowly.
“That could corrupt reference voltage.”
“Yes.”
“Across multiple controllers.”
“Yes.”
The younger engineer with the tablet looked toward the cockpit.
“The fault codes.”
Garrison’s face drained.
“They weren’t separate faults.”
Marcus nodded.
“They were symptoms.”
Natalie stared at the aircraft that had consumed eleven hours of work, three replacement components, and the confidence of nearly every engineer in the building.
Then she looked at the folded money visible at the edge of Marcus’s pocket.
“What happens if we remove the shim?”
Marcus’s answer came quietly.
“We find out whether whoever did this made one mistake.”
He looked toward the open bay.
“Or whether they expected you to find it.”
Natalie looked at Garrison, and for the first time that morning she did not seem to know which person in the hangar she should be angry with.
“Kill auxiliary power.”
Garrison hesitated only long enough to glance at Marcus.
Then he turned toward the cockpit.
“Daniel, shut it down.”
A technician climbed the stairs into the cabin.
The faint mechanical hum died in stages until the hangar settled into a quieter kind of tension.
Marcus crouched beside the open panel but kept his hands outside it.
“Photograph everything before you move anything.”
Natalie looked toward Derek.
“Get security.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Get security quietly.”
Her eyes hardened again.
“I heard you the first time.”
Derek started toward the offices.
“Derek.”
He stopped.
“Don’t use the radio.”
Marcus said it before Natalie could.
Derek nodded and disappeared through the glass door.
Garrison remained beside the aircraft, staring at the thin metallic shim tucked behind the bonding lug.
“How small is that?”
“Maybe fifteen thousandths.”
Marcus leaned closer without touching.
“Enough to create intermittent resistance under load.”
Garrison’s voice had lost its earlier edge.
“You saw that from the pump cycling?”
“No.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
Marcus stood.
“I heard a system compensating for something it shouldn’t have had to compensate for.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you came here.”
“It does if you know the electrical architecture.”
Garrison looked at him carefully.
The question finally appeared on his face.
Not how Marcus knew.
Who Marcus had been.
Natalie saw it too.
“What aren’t you telling us?”
Marcus rubbed his thumb against the side of his toolbox handle.
“Nothing relevant to getting your airplane safe.”
“That answer is becoming irritating.”
“I noticed.”
A mechanic near the service cart looked down to hide a smile.
Natalie ignored him.
“Assume the shim was deliberate.”
Marcus looked toward the aircraft.
“I already am.”
“Then why would someone sabotage a bonding connection instead of simply cutting a wire?”
“Because a cut wire is obvious.”
Garrison answered this time.
Marcus glanced at him.
Garrison continued.
“A hidden resistance could scatter faults across unrelated systems.”
“Which sends us replacing parts.”
One of the younger engineers spoke from behind them.
“Exactly.”
Marcus looked at the removed components sitting on a padded cart.
Three expensive boxes, each tagged and bagged.
“Did any of those test bad after removal?”
Garrison’s silence answered first.
“One showed an out-of-range transient on bench test.”
“Repeatable?”
“No.”
“Then probably not bad.”
Garrison exhaled through his nose.
He had the expression of a man replaying the last eleven hours and finding new ways to dislike each one.
Natalie’s phone buzzed again.
This time she answered.
“Whitmore.”
She listened for several seconds.
“No, the schedule hasn’t changed yet.”
Another pause.
“I said yet.”
She walked away from the group, lowering her voice.
Garrison watched her go.
“She’s going to skin somebody.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Maybe don’t volunteer.”
Garrison almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
“You really think this was intentional?”
“I think somebody put a piece of metal where no piece of metal belongs.”
“Could be accidental contamination.”
“Behind a torqued bonding lug?”
Garrison looked back at the panel.
“No.”
Marcus let the silence sit.
An older technician named Alvarez approached with the coffee he had nearly abandoned earlier.
He offered it to Garrison.
“You look worse than I do.”
Garrison took it.
“Thanks.”
“That was mine, by the way.”
Garrison stared at the cup.
Alvarez shrugged.
“You looked like you needed it more.”
For a few seconds the room became almost normal.
Then Derek returned with a broad-shouldered woman in a navy jacket and a gray-haired man in a white shirt with no tie.
The woman moved like law enforcement even before Marcus saw the corporate security badge clipped at her waist.
The gray-haired man carried no visible badge at all.
Natalie ended her call and met them halfway.
“This is Tessa Vance, head of security.”
The woman nodded once.
“And this is Paul Renner, general counsel.”
Renner did not nod.
His attention went directly to the open access bay.
“Nothing has been touched?”
“Not since we identified it.”
Natalie looked at Marcus.
“Photographs first.”
Tessa removed her phone, then stopped.
“Company device only.”
She held out her hand toward Derek.
“Get me evidence kit six and the security camera access tablet.”
Renner looked around at the employees gathered nearby.
“This floor needs to clear.”
Natalie’s head snapped toward him.
“No.”
“If we’re treating this as intentional interference with an aircraft, every person here becomes part of the evidence environment.”
“They’re also the team keeping this aircraft from becoming a very expensive sculpture.”
“We don’t even know whether the aircraft is safe to touch.”
Marcus answered before either executive could continue.
“It isn’t.”
The room quieted again.
Renner looked at him.
“And you are?”
“Marcus Webb.”
May you like
“What is your role?”
“Contract maintenance.”
