The first drawdown was scheduled for that Friday.
I was traveling from Los Angeles to New York for a final meeting with Northstar's board and leadership team.
Most of the necessary work was complete.
But I had several unresolved questions.
Not about the aircraft expansion itself.
About the information the airline had provided during diligence.
Over the previous month, my team identified inconsistencies in certain operational reports.
Maintenance-related expenditures didn't always reconcile cleanly with the supporting schedules.
Several customer-service complaints appeared to have been classified as isolated incidents despite patterns that warranted closer attention.
And an internal source had contacted our compliance counsel with allegations concerning how some executives handled unfavorable reports.
Nothing had been proven.
We didn't assume the airline was dishonest simply because its records were imperfect.
Large organizations made mistakes.
Different departments recorded information differently.
And commercial diligence often uncovered issues that could be corrected with proper disclosure.
But the unresolved questions mattered because investors needed accurate information before releasing funds.
I had planned to raise them privately.
Professionally.
Without embarrassing anyone.
What I didn't know was that somebody at Northstar had decided the best way to protect the financing was to keep me from examining the remaining evidence.
And Richard Halden had been selected to make that happen.
Three weeks before Flight 408, my chief investment officer walked into my office carrying a folder she clearly didn't want to bring me.
Maya Bennett was forty-one, a former corporate restructuring specialist with a reputation for asking questions that made important people uncomfortable. We'd worked together for nearly a decade, and she was one of the few people in the firm willing to tell me outright when she thought I was making a mistake. She had two children, an extraordinary memory for numbers, and absolutely no patience for executives who treated financial disclosures like public-relations brochures.
She closed the door behind her and placed the folder on my desk.
“Adrian, we have a problem.”
I looked up from the investment committee materials.
“Northstar?”
She nodded.
“Potentially.”
I opened the folder. Inside was a summary of aircraft maintenance expenditures, scheduled fleet improvements, and operating reserves tied to the airline's expansion plan.