Read Chapter 12: THE MAN WHO BENEFITED

Adrien's second "tampering" was a cut ignition lead discovered before flight.

Armand Cazeneuve sealed the hangar himself and demanded Bellon investigate.

"You thought sabotage was imagination yesterday," Luc said.

Cazeneuve ignored the insult. His exhaustion had stripped away much of his polish.

"Someone tried to kill my cousin."

"Someone has been trying to kill pilots for months."

"Not Adrien."

"Then perhaps he was useful until he wasn't."

The words landed.

Cazeneuve dismissed the guards and lowered his voice.

"What do you want?"

Luc almost laughed. "You think this is a negotiation?"

"Everything in war is a negotiation until somebody shoots."

"Fabre might disagree."

Cazeneuve's face tightened.

Luc had guessed correctly. Roche's confession had named him, but Cazeneuve did not know that.

"You cut his elevator cable."

"Be careful."

"Chardin saw the strands. Roche kept records."

Cazeneuve took one step toward him.

Then stopped.

"Roche is missing."

"Yes."

"You have him."

Luc said nothing.

For a moment the lieutenant looked ready to strike him. Instead he sat on an ammunition crate.

"Fabre was going to destroy all of us," he said.

"By reporting fraud?"

"By collapsing the squadron in the middle of an offensive. Do you know what command cares about? Results. Aircraft in the air. Enemy machines down. Morale. Fabre wanted purity in a war built from mud and lies."

"So you killed him."

Cazeneuve stared at the floor.

"Roche told me Fabre would have us court-martialled. Savarin would withdraw support. Delorme would lose command. My family would be disgraced. I loosened a cable clamp. I thought it would force him to abort."

"You cut strands."

"I did not."

That was unexpected.

"Chardin said they were half cut."

"Then someone finished what I began."

Luc believed the fear in his voice.

The conspiracy was less controlled than they had assumed. Participants sabotaged one another's sabotage. Each knew enough to be guilty and not enough to feel responsible.

"Who?"

"Roche, perhaps. Delorme. Savarin's man, Fournier. He was an aviation mechanic before the war."

Fournier—the civilian in the barn.

A technical hand outside the squadron explained why failures appeared across machines maintained by different men.

"Why Adrien now?" Luc asked.

Cazeneuve swallowed. "Savarin's prototype suffered two failures in testing. The ministry demonstration may be cancelled. Adrien knows the company paid to build his record. If the contract dies, he becomes evidence instead of advertisement."

"And you?"

"So do I."

Luc considered him.

"Will you testify?"

"Against Delorme and Savarin?"

"Against yourself too."

Cazeneuve laughed once, bitterly. "There is your mechanic's logic. Every broken part listed honestly."

"It is how you stop the next machine from breaking."

Cazeneuve looked toward his cousin's SPAD.

"I will give you documents. Not testimony."

"Not enough."

"It is what I offer."

He told Luc about a second ledger kept by Fournier: payments, test failures, names of journalists and officers. It was stored in Savarin's temporary office at a château outside Épernay.

"Why tell me?"

"Because this morning I found a note in Adrien's cockpit."

He handed Luc a scrap of paper.

ONE ACCIDENT ENDS MANY QUESTIONS.

No signature.

Cazeneuve's hands were trembling.

"I thought I was using them," he said. "Now I understand I was only useful."

Luc folded the note.

"That understanding came late."

"Most understanding does."