Chapter 7 - The River Crossing
The rain pelted our faces like handfuls of cold gravel as we dropped onto the slick metal deck of the municipal water taxi. The small, enclosed cabin smelled of stale diesel and wet canvas, empty except for a lone operator hunched over the helm in a yellow slicker, staring blankly out at the churning grey expanse of the Cooper River.
As the diesel engine sputtered and the boat surged away from the municipal dock, the towering span of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge loomed above us, its suspension cables swallowed entirely by low-hanging storm clouds.
Dileia sat on the wooden bench across from me, the corporate tablet resting on her knees. The glow of the screen illuminated the dark circles under her eyes, but her fingers flew across the glass interface with practiced speed, bypassing corporate firewalls using her employee administrative override credentials.
“I’m inside the hangar’s internal logistics log,” she said, her voice competing with the rhythmic thump of the hull against the river swells. “Leo’s badge was scanned into Sector Four—the heavy maintenance bays—at 4:00 PM yesterday. But look at this entry timestamp.”
She turned the tablet toward me. I leaned in, squinting against the dim light.
“An override code was entered using a master administrative key,” I noted, reading the alphanumeric string. “Issued to whom?”
“To Arthur Pendelton’s corporate security profile,” Dileia whispered, her breath catching. “The same man you saved on the plane. The auditor who was carrying the micro-SD card.”
The implication hung heavily between us, cold and undeniable.
“Pendelton wasn't just an innocent victim caught in a corporate cover-up,” I said slowly, connecting the threads of what Vance had told me in the hotel lounge. “If his own security profile authorized the access, he knew about the structural flaws in the 737 fleet long before Flight 412 took off. He was part of the audit team that signed off on the compromise to secure government subsidies, and he must have had a crisis of conscience—or he was trying to leverage Meridian for a golden parachute.”
Dileia pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders, her gaze dropping to the floorboards. “Which means my brother wasn't just a whistleblower. He was the fall guy. They set Leo up to take the blame for the avionics override so Pendelton could walk away clean.”
The water taxi lurched violently as we hit a deep trough in the river, spray crashing over the bow. The operator at the helm didn't even turn around; he had seen enough Charleston storms to know better than to ask questions.
“When we reach the other side, we aren't calling the authorities, and we aren't looking for a safe harbor,” I said, my voice steady as I locked eyes with her. “We’re walking straight into that hangar. We need that physical micro-SD card, and we need your brother alive.”
Dileia looked up, the hesitation completely gone from her expression. The gentle, cautious flight attendant who had fallen into my arms during the turbulence was entirely gone. In her place stood a woman fighting for her family’s survival, tempered by the harsh, unyielding truth of what we had uncovered.
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“My badge still grants Level 2 perimeter access to the south loading dock,” she said, her jaw tightening. “If we bypass the main security gates, I can get us inside the restricted tarmac without tripping the silent alarms.”
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