Warren stepped forward.
“We’ve had multiple teams—”
“I didn't ask you.”
The hangar changed slightly.
Forty technicians suddenly became very interested in not appearing interested.
Adrienne looked toward them.
The young technician swallowed.
Roy pointed.
“You.”
The kid looked behind himself as though Roy might mean somebody else.
“Yes.”
“Name?”
“Danny.”
“Last name?”
“Morales.”
“Danny, what was original discrepancy?”
Danny looked toward Warren.
Roy saw.
Adrienne saw too.
Warren said:
“This isn't an interrogation.”
Roy looked at Adrienne.
“It should be.”
Her jaw tightened.
Warren laughed once.
“This is exactly what I warned you about.”
Roy put his tool bag down.
He did not open it.
Adrienne stepped more firmly between him and the aircraft.
“Mr. Machado, I appreciate your confidence, but you are not qualified to touch that jet.”
The line carried across the hangar.
Silence followed.
Roy looked at her finger.
It was inches from his chest.
Then at Warren.
Warren’s expression was carefully neutral.
Roy had seen that expression fourteen years earlier in another hangar.
He looked back at Adrienne.
“All right.”
She seemed caught off guard.
“No argument?”
“No.”
“No certificates?”
“I have them.”
He nodded toward the van.
“A&P.”
“Inspection authorization.”
“Manufacturer training going back far enough to embarrass me.”
“But you didn't ask to see them.”
Adrienne’s expression shifted.
Warren interrupted.
“Those old credentials do not make him current on—”
Roy raised one hand.
“Stand back.”
Adrienne stared.
“Excuse me?”
“Stand back.”
“I’m not touching the airplane until you say I can.”
“But if you want to know whether Warren is telling you the truth, stand back.”
The room became impossibly quiet.
Adrienne slowly lowered her hand.
She looked toward Warren.
For the first time, doubt appeared.
Warren’s voice sharpened.
“Adrienne, don't entertain this.”
That was his mistake.
He had used her first name like ownership.
Roy saw her notice.
She stepped aside.
“One demonstration.”
Warren’s face went pale.
Roy turned toward Danny.
“You know the reset?”
Danny said nothing.
Roy waited.
“Danny.”
The kid’s lips parted.
“Yes.”
Warren snapped:
“Don't answer that.”
Adrienne turned toward him.
“Why?”
Warren’s face tightened.
Roy bent toward the service panel.
He did not begin explaining.
There was no reason to turn a maintenance safeguard into theater.
It was a manufacturer procedure.
Simple.
Standard.