"Marcus is transferring assets out of state before Friday's court discovery," she hissed, leaning over the counter. "Those drives aren't compliance telemetry. They are proprietary patent code he is licensing to an offshore consortium in Baja. If those drives cross state lines tonight, he liquidates the firm's intellectual property and leaves me with four million dollars in commercial debt from joint guarantees we signed three years ago."
Her explanation was smooth, tight, and completely plausible. If I hadn't spent forty-eight straight hours in the test bay watching Marcus torque the combustor housing with split knuckles, I might have believed her. She had rehearsed that story to justify putting an administrative freeze on Marcus's vouchers.
"Then let the FAA inspector at the gate sign for the drives," I said. "Agent Miller is on duty at the Concourse E compliance desk. We walk down together, open the chain-of-custody box in front of an active federal agent, and run the file hash against the propulsion registry. If it is patent theft, watch them arrest me. If it is live turbine telemetry, reprint my boarding pass and let me on Flight 840."
Evelyn smiled, but the mask had curdled. "You aren't walking to Concourse E, Cole."
From behind me came the firm squeak of rubber soles on tile.
"Officer Reynolds," Evelyn called out. "Over here, please."
A Port Authority officer with two gold stripes stepped around the stanchion, his right hand resting near his duty belt. He looked between Evelyn's frozen red screen, my torn boarding pass on the marble, and the canvas duffel sitting between my boots.
"What is the issue, Ms. Vance?" Reynolds asked.
"This individual attempted to board a restricted flight using a fraudulent corporate voucher tied to an active civil court injunction," Evelyn said, pointing at me. "When I flagged the ticket, he reached behind the desk to seize discarded documentation and photographed internal security consoles. I need him removed from the concourse and his carry-on bag detained pending verification."
Officer Reynolds turned to me. "Let's see some identification, son. Step back from the desk."
"My name is Arthur Cole," I said, handing him my driver's license and civilian contractor badge from Huntsville. "I am a propulsion specialist traveling on an FAA compliance priority voucher. Ms. Vance tore my ticket because of a divorce dispute with our chief engineer, Marcus Vance. But that red banner on her screen is an automated FAA manifest lock. It triggered because she used her internal terminal to delete a federally indexed passenger without authorization."
Reynolds looked down at my contractor badge, then up at the amber-and-red screen glowing behind Evelyn. His posture stiffened. An airport cop doesn't care about divorce settlements, but an FAA security freeze in a major commercial hub is a different classification of trouble.
"Ms. Vance," Reynolds said slowly, "why is terminal four displaying an FAA restriction header?"
"It is an automated system glitch triggered by the voucher freeze," Evelyn said, her voice rising. "I called dispatch to reset it. In the meantime, this passenger cannot remain in the priority queue."
"If you reboot that terminal," I told Reynolds, "the local operator audit trail clears. The log on that screen proves she accessed Flight 840 from the backroom before I arrived at the counter. She is trying to hold these flight-data drives until the midnight deadline passes so our certification defaults."
Reynolds stared at the screen, then at Evelyn's hand near the breaker toggle.
A sharp chime sounded from my pocket. I pulled out my phone. A text from Marcus lit the display: They just pulled the gate lock on our Huntsville server. Someone in Atlanta is downloading the test files right now.