At the private terminal gate, a security guard named Doug stepped out of his booth before Caleb had finished rolling down the window. He had been given a list of visitors and an instruction to keep the service entrance separate from the path used by investors and reporters. Caleb's truck was not on the list, and Doug reacted to the truck before he looked at the paperwork.
"Deliveries around back," he said.
"The client specifically requested a personal handoff at the terminal," Caleb replied, holding up the work order. "I've got a delicate unit here. If it gets dropped or stored the wrong way, their airplane stays down another day."
Doug glanced at Caleb's coveralls, his faded name patch, and the rusted toolbox visible on the passenger seat. "We have a situation here today. Important people. The main entrance isn't for deliveries."
Caleb felt the old heat in his neck, familiar enough that it no longer surprised him. The paperwork was valid. The instructions were clear. But he also knew that arguing with Doug could cost him an hour, and an hour could cost him the rush fee. He returned the paperwork to the dashboard and asked where the rear gate was.
"Past the fuel trucks. Left at the second fence. You can't miss it."
Caleb thanked him because Grace would have, even if she had been angry. He drove around the terminal, parked in a cracked service lot, and carried the package and toolbox toward the rear entrance. A gust of cold air came across the apron, carrying the smell of jet fuel and wet concrete. Then a great hangar door rolled upward somewhere to his left, revealing a white aircraft surrounded by enough people to fill a conference hall.
Caleb slowed. He did not mean to. He loved airplanes in the same unreasonable way musicians loved a difficult instrument, and it was impossible for him not to look when a machine that beautiful sat helpless in a room full of people trying to understand it. He noticed the engine maintenance stands, the disconnected access panels, and the way several technicians were still clustered around hardware that had clearly been inspected more than once. A long row of diagnostic screens glowed green against the hangar wall.
There were very few things more suspicious to Caleb than a room full of people staring at green lights while an aircraft refused to perform the one function that mattered. He shifted the package higher against his chest. Then he stepped closer to the open door, and the course of his life changed. Noah Bennett noticed the stranger because he was the only person at the hangar entrance who was not staring at the reporter's camera.
Noah was twenty-three, a recently hired systems engineer with a graduate internship that had once seemed like the beginning of everything. For eight days, it had become an education in how experienced people behaved when their reputations were more important than the problem in front of them. He had slept five hours in the past two nights, and his notebook contained a dozen questions he no longer felt comfortable asking.
"Sir?" he called. "This area's restricted."
Caleb stopped immediately. "Sorry. I'm taking a processor to the terminal. Somebody said the rear walk was open."