There was a short pause.
Vanessa expected Sterling, a man famous for demanding supplier discipline, to approve.
Instead, she heard keyboard clicks on his end.
"I'm looking at the joint production feed," he said.
Vanessa's eyes shifted.
"The what?"
"The feed your company grants us under the quality appendix."
Grant stopped moving.
Sterling began reading.
"Fault opened at twenty fourteen yesterday. Diagnostic sequence initiated. User identification Cole, E. Component isolation, cabinet three timing card. User identification Cole, E.
Correction logged at zero six zero four. User identification Cole, E. Thermal validation cycle one complete. Thermal validation cycle two complete. Line returned to nominal at zero six thirty-one.
User identification Cole, E."
Vanessa looked through the glass wall toward the plant floor several stories below.
Sterling continued.
"Your walk-through was at six forty according to your own access record. So I want to be sure I have this right before I explain it to my program office. You fired the man who spent the night saving my lot nine minutes after he returned the line to service."
Vanessa opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
She turned toward Grant.
He had gone pale.
His hand moved toward his tablet as if a document might appear there and rescue him.
"Mr. Carrington," Vanessa said finally, and her voice was steady but pitched too high, "I clearly need to review the sequence internally. Let me get you a full account before your team arrives. I want to assure you the delivery timeline is not affected."
"The delivery timeline is the least of your problems."
Sterling's voice never rose.
"Have someone open Annex Four, Revision C, of the master agreement. Read Section 3.2. Then call me back. And Mrs. Blackwood, read the whole thing, not the summary."
The line went dead.
Vanessa remained seated with the receiver in her hand.
On the wall, Grant's slide still said cultural reset.
Mara stepped into the room cautiously.
"Do you want legal?"
Vanessa placed the phone back in its cradle.
"Now."
General Counsel Patrick Shaw arrived with a laptop three minutes later. Patrick was fifty-one, careful, pale, and the only executive in the building who never raised his voice because he believed volume usually meant someone had stopped thinking.
"Annex Four, Revision C," Vanessa said. "Section 3.2."
Patrick searched the document system.
"Which agreement?"
"Carrington master supply."
"Commercial or technical package?"
Vanessa stared at him.
"I don't know."
Grant answered too quickly.
"Technical, probably."
Patrick found it.
The file had been uploaded five months earlier. It was forty-three pages long.
"Read three point two," Vanessa said.
Patrick scrolled.
His expression changed almost imperceptibly.
"Critical lots designated for flight-test programs require final calibration verification signed by an individual from the approved roster maintained in Appendix B. Verification signature shall constitute a condition of lot acceptance and shall confirm continuity of the validated calibration method, fixture state, and reference chain."
Vanessa folded her arms.