Twenty years later, Summit Ridge had offices in Chicago and New York and a reputation for taking on difficult companies without promising miracles. Maya supervised operations with a precision that frightened careless executives. James had built a legal team that could see three problems hiding in every attractive sentence. Ethan remained the person investors called when they wanted someone who could say no without performing outrage. His self-control had helped build the business, though Marilyn sometimes worried it had cost him the freedom to show when he was wounded.
The Northstar assignment had been troubling from the beginning. William Parker, the airline's sixty-three-year-old chief executive, had approached Summit Ridge after two banks declined to extend another unsecured line. Ethan respected William's willingness to acknowledge the figures in private. He was less certain about the senior team William had allowed to run daily operations with minimal challenge. One name appeared repeatedly in interviews with managers who chose their words carefully: Nathan Caldwell, vice president of operations.
Nathan was sixty, silver-haired, and famous inside Northstar for making difficult problems disappear before they reached the chief executive. Some employees called him the man who could get an airplane moving during a thunderstorm. Others described him as someone who treated an inconvenient passenger, crew member, or station manager as an obstacle rather than a person. Ethan had flagged those accounts for further examination but had not yet concluded whether Nathan was harsh, incompetent, or protected by a system that rewarded both.
The trip to New York on Flight 1876 had been scheduled weeks before. Ethan intended to meet pension representatives and aircraft lessors before joining Northstar's afternoon funding review remotely. He preferred to hold those conversations in person, especially when jobs and retirement obligations were involved. His own staff had offered to charter an aircraft, but Ethan booked a commercial first-class seat because the work demanded concentration, not ceremony.
He chose 2A because he liked the window and because that cabin layout allowed him to work with his tablet without disturbing another passenger. The confirmation arrived in his inbox, then a reminder the night before, then another notice when the airline opened check-in. His travel coordinator had checked everything twice. There was no ambiguity about the seat, its purchase, or the passenger assigned to it.
At the airport, Ethan passed through security with an ordinary briefcase and a small overnight bag. The departure lounge was crowded with business travelers, students, and parents steering children through the unfamiliar logistics of flight. Gate agents checked credentials and boarding passes with practiced efficiency. Ethan had no reason to believe that anything unusual would happen before breakfast.
A few minutes before boarding, he noticed an older white man arguing near the priority lane. Richard Hayes wore a gray suit and an expensive watch, and he tapped two fingers against his leather briefcase while speaking to a gate agent who had already apologized twice. "You know me," Richard said. "I have never sat anywhere but the forward window on this route. Get Nathan on the phone if you need someone to explain that."