"You knew they were planning to leave before the information became public."
"So did the delegation. And everyone standing outside when we discussed it. Several people were copied on the internal scheduling changes afterward. I can't tell you where the leak came from, but I didn't provide it."
"You understand how this looks."
"I understand how an accusation can look if you start from the conclusion and work backward."
Grant stiffened. "I'm responsible for risk."
"Then investigate the source. Ask IT and legal to preserve the relevant records. Don't decide it's the driver because the driver surprised you."
The words were delivered without heat. That made them harder for Grant to dismiss. He looked down at the notes Daniel had made, where questions about suppliers, safety, and employee accountability were arranged in small, orderly handwriting. There was nothing theatrical about the man in front of him. Daniel was not fishing for a promotion or scanning the room for people to impress. He was doing the work with the quiet persistence of someone who had once been very good at it and had never quite stopped thinking that way.
"I shouldn't have said what I said outside," Grant admitted, not yet looking him in the eye.
"You were concerned about the meeting."
"That doesn't make it acceptable."
Daniel set down his pen. "No, it doesn't."
Grant drew a slow breath. "I've worked for fifteen years to reach this position. I've watched this agreement consume nearly every weekend for three months. When Chairman Watanabe said he wanted to leave, I heard failure. When you spoke, I heard someone else noticing it first."
"A deal can fail without making the people involved failures," Daniel said. "But refusing to listen because you're afraid of failure can make failure more likely."
Grant looked at him for a long moment. "I don't know what to do with that yet."
"You don't have to do anything with it this minute. There are attorneys waiting for your answer on the financing covenants."
For the first time, Grant gave a genuine, tired laugh. He walked back to his team and asked them to bring the engineering assumptions into the next model rather than burying the issue as a footnote. Daniel watched him go, cautiously encouraged. He knew that a single conversation did not change a person's habits. Still, the willingness to name a mistake was a beginning, and beginnings mattered.
At two forty-five, the lending advisers returned their preliminary analysis. They believed the revised structure could be financed if the parties clarified which strategic decisions required joint agreement and established a realistic process for deadlocks. The change reduced some forecast savings but also lowered the probability of expensive disruption. Evan sent the analysis to Victoria and Tanaka, adding a note that made him uncomfortable but relieved: the original cost model had understated transition risk. It was the kind of sentence investors hated to read and needed to read before they committed money.
Watanabe studied the model with Fujimori. Then he asked Daniel to walk with him toward the windows. The Chicago sky had darkened, and a steady gray rain was beginning to blur the towers along the river. For several seconds neither man spoke. Finally Watanabe said, in Japanese, "You know what I feared when we arrived?"