"Then our model was too aggressive before this morning," Evan said slowly.
"Yes," Priya answered. "I flagged it in September."
Grant looked at her. "To whom?"
"Your project office. Twice."
Daniel did not look triumphant. The discovery was serious because it meant that even if the Japanese investors had signed, the joint venture might have been financed on savings that would not arrive on schedule. Unchallenged assumptions had become promises, and promises had become the basis for decisions. He imagined the workers in a Mizuhara plant being told that their suppliers were disappearing because a spreadsheet had already claimed the money. He also imagined Bennett employees being blamed later when the promised savings failed to materialize. The problem reached much further than an uncomfortable meeting.
Victoria asked Priya to explain the report in her own words. She listened while the engineer described testing cycles, certification requirements, and the difference between a low-cost commodity supplier and a long-standing partner whose knowledge was built into a product's reliability. When Priya finished, Victoria asked why the warning had not reached her. The young woman hesitated, glanced at Grant, and said that she had been told to record the concern as an implementation detail. That phrase was becoming an unpleasant pattern.
"An implementation detail can still destroy an implementation," Victoria said. "From now on, I want the people who own a technical risk in the room when we discuss that risk. Not just their conclusions rewritten into one sentence."
Grant felt every word. He had pushed his project team hard because the board wanted progress, and he had rewarded people for bringing him decisions instead of problems. Over time, his staff had learned to translate objections into manageable labels that sounded less threatening. He had not told anyone to falsify a report. He had created conditions in which inconvenient realities became smaller each time they moved upward. For the first time that day, he considered the possibility that the problem outside the building had not begun with the Japanese visitors at all.
During the next hour, the lawyers and engineers revised the supplier clause. Existing critical suppliers would receive an initial continuity period and an objective evaluation before replacement. Exceptions would be available for proven quality, safety, legal, or capacity failures, with an expedited route when immediate action was necessary. Cost competitiveness remained a legitimate factor, but any major transition would require documentation of the full cost, including testing, retraining, and disruption. Both sides agreed that nobody benefited from a paper saving that created a production failure later.
Daniel sat beside Priya while she explained the technical appendix to Tanaka. She spoke with the confidence of someone who knew the material and the caution of someone accustomed to having her conclusions shortened. After the call, she thanked him for asking the question that brought the report out. He told her she had done the hard work long before he arrived. "You shouldn't need a stranger to make your own company listen to you," he said. "I hope that's one of the things they fix after today."
She studied his temporary badge. "I've seen your resume," she admitted. "It was attached to the transportation contractor's file when someone asked whether you were authorized to sit in the meeting. I didn't believe it at first."