Chương 7
“How big?”
“Large enough.”
Renner answered for her.
“Large enough that losing it would trigger layoffs.”
The cabin became very still.
Derek appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a tablet and stopped when he sensed he had walked into something.
Marcus looked at Natalie.
“So missing the plant visit matters.”
“Yes.”
“Enough for someone to want you to miss it?”
Renner crossed his arms.
“Possibly.”
“Competitor?”
“We have several.”
“Inside person?”
“That is not a discussion we should have casually.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You’re standing inside a sabotaged airplane.”
Renner’s mouth tightened.
“Point taken.”
Derek climbed the stairs.
“I have the access list.”
Tessa was no longer there, so he handed it to Natalie.
She scrolled.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Garrison asked.
Natalie said nothing.
Her thumb moved back up the screen.
Renner stepped beside her.
“What is it?”
She turned the tablet toward him.
His expression changed.
Marcus could not see the name from where he stood.
“Who?”
Natalie kept looking at the screen.
“Evan Cole badged into the hangar at 5:56 last night.”
Priya said, “That makes sense.”
Natalie continued.
“He badged out at 12:14.”
Garrison frowned.
“But he was here until four.”
Derek nodded.
“That’s the problem.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“Was there another badge event?”
“No.”
“Side doors?”
“All controlled.”
“Vehicle gate?”
“Separate credential system.”
Derek swiped to another record.
“He never badged back in.”
Priya’s face went pale.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Marcus looked toward the cabin windows.
“It means someone else’s access got him back inside.”
Garrison stared at him.
“Or he never left.”
Derek shook his head.
“I saw him leave.”
Everyone turned.
Derek swallowed.
“At midnight.”
Natalie’s voice became very quiet.
“You saw Evan leave at midnight?”
“Yes.”
“And he was here afterward?”
Garrison nodded slowly.
“I spoke to him around three thirty.”
Derek looked confused.
“That can’t be right.”
Marcus felt the shape of the problem change again.
The broken knife was no longer the strangest thing in the aircraft.
He looked at Derek.
“Who came back through the gate between midnight and one?”
Derek scrolled.
His face emptied.
“No one.”
Renner stepped forward.
“What do you mean, no one?”
Derek held up the tablet.
“The gate log shows no entries.”
Priya whispered, “Then how did Evan get back in?”
Marcus looked toward the open service cabinet, then at the damaged harness, then at Natalie.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
Natalie looked at Marcus as though she was deciding whether his sentence was insight or accusation.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re treating two pieces of information as if they belong to one person.”
Garrison frowned.
“You think somebody used Evan’s name.”
“Maybe.”
Priya stepped closer.
“You mean badge cloning?”
Marcus shook his head.
“I mean I don’t know yet.”
Derek looked down at the tablet again.
“But Garrison said he talked to Evan.”
“Did you see his face?”
Garrison stared at him.
“Yes.”
“Clearly?”
“I was standing ten feet away.”
“At three thirty in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“What was the lighting like?”
Garrison’s irritation came back, but now it was mixed with uncertainty.
“It was the hangar lighting.”
“Did you have a conversation?”
“A short one.”
“What did he say?”
Garrison’s mouth opened.
Then closed.
He looked toward Priya.
“He said the forward rack continuity looked clean.”
Priya shook her head.
“That was my test.”
Garrison turned.
“What?”
“I did that continuity check.”
“You and Evan were together.”
“Earlier.”
Her face tightened.
“At around one.”
Garrison looked back at Marcus.
“He told me it looked clean.”
“That isn’t proof it wasn’t Evan.”
“No.”
Marcus pointed toward Derek’s tablet.
“But we’ve got a man who physically left the building at midnight, somehow appears inside again without reentering, and later gives you the result of somebody else’s work.”
Renner rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“Could he have stayed inside somewhere and only pretended to leave?”
Derek shook his head.
“I watched his truck leave the east gate.”
“Could he have come back on foot?”
“Maybe from the public road, but the perimeter fence is ten feet and topped.”
Garrison looked at Priya.
“Did Evan ever leave his truck here?”
“No.”
“Did you talk to him after midnight?”
Priya’s eyes moved upward as she searched her memory.
“I saw him.”
“That’s not the question.”
She looked at Marcus.
“I saw someone I thought was Evan.”
The cabin went quiet again.
Marcus leaned against the galley partition.
“What was he wearing?”
Priya closed her eyes.
“Dark work jacket.”
“Does Evan wear one?”
“Everyone wears one when it gets cold.”
“What else?”
“Baseball cap.”
Garrison looked at her.
“Evan never wears a hat.”
“He does outside.”
“Not on the floor.”
Priya’s face flushed.
“I wasn’t taking attendance.”
Marcus watched her shoulders tighten.
“No one said you should have been.”
She looked at him.
“I know what this sounds like.”
“It sounds like somebody wanted to be mistaken for Evan.”
That landed differently.
Not as a conclusion.
As a possibility nobody wanted.
Renner took the tablet from Derek.
“Show me every person who badged into the facility between five and midnight.”
Derek scrolled.
“Employees, contractors, vendors?”
“All.”
The list was longer than anyone expected.
Forty-three entries.
Catering.
Cleaning.
Security.
Engineering.
Two executives.
The three-person cabin network vendor crew.
Marcus noticed Natalie’s expression when one name appeared.
“Who’s Graham Voss?”
She did not answer immediately.
Renner did.
“Chief operating officer.”
Marcus looked at Natalie.
“He was here last night?”
“He visits projects.”
“At eleven forty-seven?”
Renner’s head turned sharply toward the tablet.
Derek looked apologetic.
“His badge entry was eleven forty-seven.”
Natalie held out her hand.
Renner gave her the device.
She read the line twice.
“He told me he was in Chicago.”
Nobody spoke.
The hum of ventilation through the cabin vents seemed suddenly louder.
Garrison looked toward the hangar windows, where the sky beyond them had turned from black to a washed-out blue.
“Could his badge have been used by someone else?”
Renner answered carefully.
May you like
“Executive credentials aren’t supposed to be transferable.”
“Supposed to be?”
