Chapter Thirteen
Lamont filled the coffee maker with water and grounds he measured with experience rather than a spoon.
He’d never really noticed how unlived in his apartment was until he brought Ewen into his space.
But it was workable, and he could always buy or zap in anything his mate might need.
His kitchen was well stocked. In his opinion, coffee was one of life’s better inventions, right up there with central heating and the printing press.
While the machine gurgled and hissed, Lamont pulled two mugs from the cabinet. One had “World’s Okayest Journalist” printed on it - a gag gift from Damon the last time he’d visited. The other was plain white ceramic, old but still unchipped.
Ewen had settled on the leather couch in the living room, still clutching his envelope and looking around with wide eyes. His fox was close to the surface. Lamont could feel him through their bond. The fox was a curious creature, taking in every detail of the new space.
“My office is down the hall,” Lamont said. “Second door on the left. It’s got a proper desk and better lighting. If you need somewhere to spread out, that is.”
Ewen stood, his movements still a bit shaky. “You have an office here?”
“I have offices in most of my apartments.” Lamont poured coffee into both mugs as the pot finished brewing. “The rest of this place might look like a museum, but the office actually gets used.”
He carried the mugs down the hallway, with Ewen following close behind. The office door was already open. Lamont never bothered closing it when he was alone.
Lamont was quietly proud of his working space.
The room was completely different from the rest of the apartment.
One might even say it was the only messy room in the place, but Lamont saw order in the chaos.
Books spilled from shelves onto the floor, the piles determined by whatever Lamont had been researching at the time.
A massive oak desk dominated one wall, its surface scattered with reference materials and half-finished articles.
Maps covered another wall, some modern, some ancient enough that the countries they depicted no longer existed.
A comfortable reading chair sat by the window, worn leather cracked from centuries of use.
“This is more like it.” Ewen seemed to visibly relax. He set his coffee on a coaster on the desk and began carefully spreading out his documents, arranging them in what appeared to be a familiar pattern.
Lamont claimed the reading chair, giving Ewen space to work. His mate was completely focused, creating neat rows of papers across the desk surface. Each document was either an original or bore witness signatures verifying it as a true copy.
“You’re thorough,” Lamont observed.
“I learned early on that sloppy research gets you nowhere.” Ewen’s fingers traced the edge of one document. “My first editor at The Times used to say that facts without verification are just rumors wearing a suit.”
Lamont sipped his coffee and watched Ewen arrange the last few papers.
The depth of research impressed him. These weren’t hastily gathered scraps - it was clear that Ewen had spent months carefully documenting and cross-referencing his evidence points, all designed to provide irrefutable proof of any claims he was making.
“Alright.” Ewen settled into the desk chair and gestured at his spread of evidence. “Where do you want me to start?”
“The beginning.” Lamont leaned back, cradling his mug. “How did you even find out about this case?”
Ewen leaned over and picked up a photograph from the corner of the desk.
It showed a man who was probably in his mid-thirties, his military bearing evident despite the civilian clothes he was wearing when photographed.
Lamont winced at seeing jagged pink scars that traced the man’s jawline and disappeared under his collar.
“This is Sergeant James Cortesi. He’s had three combat deployments and earned the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
” Ewen started strong, but then his voice lowered.
“He was injured when his squad’s transport vehicle was hit by an IED.
Four soldiers died that day. Cortesi survived but lost his left leg below the knee. ”
Lamont studied the photograph. The man’s eyes held the kind of darkness, a form of dead-stare that came from seeing too much.
“The vehicle wasn’t supposed to fail like that,” Ewen continued. “According to the specs, the armor plating should have protected the occupants against that type of explosive. But it didn’t. The blast punched through like the armor was made of cardboard.”
“Faulty equipment.”
“That’s what Cortesi thought.” Ewen set down the photograph and picked up a hospital report.
“While he was recovering, he started asking questions. You know, reasonable questions for a man who’d gone through what he had.
Things like why had the armor failed? Had there been other incidents?
Were soldiers still using the same defective vehicles? ”
“Questions the military didn’t want answered, I assume.”
“Exactly.” Ewen’s jaw tightened. “They gave him an honorable discharge, a compensation package for his lost leg, and basically paid him to go away. After that, nobody would take his calls. Not his congressman, not the Department of Defense, not even the company that manufactured the vehicles.”
“But he found you.”
“Actually, no, I found him.” Ewen pulled out another document, this one a printed email exchange.
“I was working on a completely different story about government waste in procurement contracts. Cortesi’s name came up in a veterans’ forum I was monitoring.
He’d posted about trying to get someone to investigate the armor plating issue. ”
Lamont set down his coffee and leaned forward. “So, you reached out to him.”
“I did. I met him at a diner in Newark six months ago.” Ewen’s fingers drummed against the desk.
“He had documentation, limited as it was. He gave me field reports he’d managed to keep copies of.
Maintenance logs showing repeated failures in the vehicles.
He’d done some digging of his own and gave me casualty reports that mentioned armor penetration.
None of it was concrete enough to prove intentional wrongdoing, but it was enough to make me suspicious. ”
“And I guess that’s when you started digging.” It was what Lamont would’ve done.
“I started digging.” Ewen gestured at the documents spread across the desk. “The first thing I found was the manufacturer, Hardline Defense Solutions. They’re a billion-dollar defense contractor with offices in twelve countries. They’ve had the US military vehicle contract for eight years.”
Lamont picked up a financial statement from the desk. The numbers were staggering.
“I then went looking for a paper trail. I wanted to be able to prove a direct link between the company and the faulty vehicle armor.” Ewen pulled out a stack of procurement documents.
“I managed to get hold of the original specifications for the armor plating. It was meant to be a military-grade steel composite, tested to withstand specific blast yields. These specifications were verified and approved by the Department of Defense.”
“But?” There had to be a but.
“But these” - Ewen produced another stack of papers - “are the actual manufacturing specifications Hardline used. The steel composite is thinner, cheaper, and mixed with inferior materials. According to the experts I showed these to, there is no way the composite would pass the required tests.”
Lamont took the documents and compared them side by side. The differences were subtle but damning. “So, in effect, the company substituted cheaper materials and pocketed the difference.”
“It’s a scam repeated by dozens of companies every year - the ones that only care about their bottom line.
In this case, the differences were worth millions of dollars annually to the company.
To the soldiers, it was a totally different story.
” Ewen’s voice was hard. “Profit is one thing, but in this case, the company falsified the safety testing to cover it up. I have signed affidavits from three former Hardline employees who witnessed the falsification. One of them provided the original test results. Those results showed the armor failed before anyone doctored the numbers.”
Sitting back in his chair, Lamont frowned. “That would be enough to sink the company.”
“That’s enough to put executives in prison.
” Ewen pulled out more documents. “But it gets worse. Someone at the Department of Defense had to sign off on those falsified tests. Someone had to approve the vehicles for deployment, knowing they were sending soldiers into combat zones with defective equipment.”
Lamont’s hound stirred, angry at the betrayal of innocents who deserved better. “Did you find out who that was?”
“You know I did, although that took more work. It was the Assistant Deputy Director Martin Winters.” Ewen produced a series of emails, bank statements, and property records.
“He’s been on Hardline’s payroll for six years.
Not directly - that would be too obvious.
But from what I found, his daughter’s consulting firm has received over two million dollars in contracts from Hardline in the past year alone.
Contracts for services that were never performed from what I could see. ”
“Bribes disguised as legitimate business expenses, in other words.”