Frank considered. His cover was blown anyway. And this woman — sharp, honest, angry about the fee — was either an asset or a problem. He was betting asset.
"I'm auditing this airport," he said. "And as of about an hour ago, my audit found its first finding." He stood. "The question is whether you want to help me find the rest."
Ruth Adler looked at him for a long moment — at the flannel, the boots, the calm. Then she said, "The fee money. I've always wondered where it goes."
"Let's find out," Frank said.
They walked out into the terminal — the bright, buzzing, oblivious terminal — and Frank felt the familiar shift: from passenger to operator. He'd done it a hundred times, in a hundred places. The flannel stayed. The eyes changed.
"Tell me about Aegis," he said. "Everything."
Ruth talked as they walked — past the shops, past the gates, two people having a normal conversation. Aegis Secure. Eighteen months. Victor Hale. The fee agents — all Aegis hires, all fast-tracked. The cargo manifests. The camera outages.
"The service corridor," she said quietly. "That's the key. It connects cargo to the secure side. It's supposed to be the most monitored thirty yards in the airport."
"And?"
"And the cameras keep malfunctioning. Always Tuesday and Friday nights." She glanced at him. "You don't have to be an auditor to smell that."
Frank nodded slowly. Twenty-eight years had taught him: corruption always had a schedule. Tuesday and Friday. Like clockwork. Like arrogance.
"Ruth. I need to see that corridor. Tuesday."
"That's four days away."
"Then we prepare for four days." Frank stopped at a coffee stand, bought two — black, the way operators drank it. "Tell me about Shane Kovacs. Everything."
She told him: twenty-eight, hired eighteen months ago, no prior airport experience. Three complaints — all dismissed. A new car. A new watch. Lifestyle, Frank thought. Beyond his means.
"He's protected," Ruth said. "Someone wants him exactly where he is."
"At the counter," Frank said slowly, "shaking down the vulnerable ones." He sipped his coffee. "It's not about the seventy-five dollars, Ruth. It's about training. Teach the staff that rules bend. Teach the passengers not to ask questions." He looked at her. "The fees are the culture. The real money's somewhere else."
"Where?"
Frank looked toward the cargo bays — the trucks, the crates, the schedule.
"Tuesday," he said. "We'll find out Tuesday."
Behind them, Flight 447 was long gone. Frank didn't mind. He'd caught a different flight — the one that mattered.
They walked out of the little room together — the auditor and the officer — into the bright, buzzing terminal. Somewhere above them, Flight 447 pushed back without Frank Delaney.
He didn't mind. He had a different flight to catch now — and it didn't leave from any gate.
Cross's Aegis file arrived encrypted — Frank decrypted it on the hotel laptop, the old tradecraft coming back like muscle memory.
What he found made him sit back: Aegis Secure hadn't just won the Merritt contract. They'd redefined it. The original RFP called for "screening support services." Aegis's bid — 40% under the nearest competitor — promised the same. But the amendments — eighteen of them, all approved by the former regional director — had quietly expanded the scope: more staff, more access, more corridors.
Scope creep as corruption, Frank thought. Classic.
He cross-referenced the amendment dates with Ruth's notes. Every expansion of Aegis's access preceded a spike in fee incidents. They'd been building the machine — piece by piece, amendment by amendment — for eighteen months.
Patient, Frank thought. I'll give them that.
His phone buzzed. Unknown number. He let it go to voicemail. Then listened:
"Mr. Delaney. This is Victor Hale. I understand you're... auditing us." A pause — the $200-an-hour smile, audible. "I'd love to buy you coffee. Discuss your findings."
Frank deleted the voicemail. Coffee with Hale. He'd rather drink with the corridor cameras.
But the call told him something: they were watching. They knew he was digging. Which meant the timeline was compressing.
Good, Frank thought. Compressed timelines make people stupid.
He called Ruth. "Hale just called me."
"What did he want?"
"Coffee." Frank smiled, thin. "I think I'll pass."
"Frank — "
"I know." He stood, pacing the hotel room. "They're nervous. Nervous is good. Nervous makes mistakes." He paused. "How's Eddie?"
"Scared. But holding."
"Tell him Tuesday. Tell him we're coming."
He hung up and looked at the Aegis file — the amendments, the scope creep — and thought about Margaret.
Pull the thread, she'd have said. See what unravels.
"Working on it, honey," he murmured. "Working on it."
Chapter 4 — Aegis Secure
Aegis Secure occupied the third floor of a glass building overlooking the tarmac — all brushed steel and frosted glass, the architectural equivalent of a shrug. Frank stood across the street with a coffee, watching the morning shift change, and thought about all the contractors he'd known. The good ones were invisible. The bad ones had glass buildings.
Victor Hale, CEO, was forty-eight, ex-military (logistics, never saw combat — Frank had checked), with a smile that cost $200 an hour to maintain. He'd founded Aegis six years ago, won the Merritt contract eighteen months back, and in that time, Aegis's revenue had tripled. Tripled, Frank thought. On a fixed-fee screening support contract. Math with questions.
Frank's DHS file on Aegis was thin — too thin. No-bid extensions. Waived inspections. A revolving door: the former TSA regional director now sat on Aegis's board. Standard, Frank thought. Standard and rotten.
He met Nadia Rahman at a diner off the airport road — twenty-nine, investigative reporter for the Merritt Ledger, the kind of journalist who still carried a notebook and asked the second question.
"You're the torn ticket guy," she said, by way of greeting. "The video's got two million views."
Frank blinked. "What video?"
Nadia turned her phone around. There it was — grainy, vertical, unmistakable: Shane tearing the boarding pass, Frank's calm smile, "Son, you have no idea what you just did." Two million views. The comments were a war zone.
Frank closed his eyes. Cover's blown, he'd told Cross. He hadn't known it was blown on camera.
"Mr. Delaney," Nadia said, leaning forward. "I want to do a story. Not about the ticket — about Aegis. I've been digging for six months. The fees. The no-bid contracts. The — " She lowered her voice. "The cargo."