Page 88 of Her Selfless Warrior (Omega Sky)
“For real?” Ryker wanted to know.
Lark nodded. “I talked to the engineer in Kanpur who built it. He showed me his notes and his e-mails that date back before Sanofi was in business.”
“So why doesn’t he sue?” Amy asked.
Kostya snorted. “If Sanofi has people tied to the senate and Trusted Allies, that little guy in India would be squashed.”
“Yeah, and what’s more, now he’s working with Airbus and he just wants to put all of that behind him,” Lark explained.
“So what does this landing gear stuff have to do with Sanofi, your story, and Candy?” Ryker asked.
“Sanofi just used the retraction actuators as a way to legitimize themselves as a real-live manufacturing company here in D.C. What they really wanted to do was become a consulting company so they could get their tentacles into all the other big manufacturers and defense contractors all around Washington.”
“And it worked, didn’t it?” Kostya sighed.
“Oh yeah. After just five years in business, they were one of the biggest consulting firms in the Beltway. They had their fingers in every pie imaginable.”
“And nobody took exception to the fact that Alcott’s sister-in-law was part owner of this company?” Amy asked.
“No. After the second year, she divested all interest in the company. You know, it never ceases to amaze me that someone who graduated from Yale would think that using his sister-in-law as a smokescreen would really fool anyone,” Lark sighed.
“You’re looking at it the wrong way,” Kostya said ruefully as he tugged on a strand of her hair. “It’s because he thinks he’s so much more above the rest of us, that he underestimates almost everybody. That’s his Achilles heel.”
“You’re both wrong.” Amy rolled her eyes. “The people in D.C. don’t give a shit about the little people, hell they don’t even care about their peers. The players here in Washington give false smiles, stab each other in the back, but then it’s all good as long as everyone gets their beak wet. The restaurant I manage isn’t good enough for anyone in actual Congress, but it’s good enough for their underlings, and trust me, plenty of shady deals get made there.”
“So the sister-in-lawwasnothing but a smokescreen, is that what you’re confirming?” Ryker asked.
“’Fraid so,” Amy nodded. “Didn’t mean to spoil all your dreams, big guy.”
“It’s not untilyoustab me in the back that you’ll have spoiled my dreams,” Ryker responded with a heated grin.
“Okay, I guess we’re all in agreement that the sister-in-law wasn’t ever really part of this, but that it was the senator who had his nose in front of the trough.” Everyone nodded at Lark.
“So the lobby group, Trusted Allies, and Senator Alcott were just lining their pockets, nothing new there. You can’t fool me, that wasn’t the story you were working on, was it?” Amy asked with a smirk.
“You caught me,” Lark laughed across the table at her friend, her blonde hair getting into her eyes. Kostya tucked it back behind her ear and she shivered at his touch.
“So, whatisyour story?” Kostya asked.
“This is one of those stories that kind of falls into your lap because of coincidence and luck, you know?”
“Lady, I’ve read your work; I’m never going to believe that what you write comes from anything other than hard work,” Kostya scoffed.
“I like. I like you a lot.” Amy beamed at Kostya.
“Just listen up you two, okay? So, here’s the weird coincidence part. A couple of years ago, there was a tiny start-up in Wisconsin named Sunny-Solar and they came up with some innovative tech in the manufacturing of solar simulation power supplies. This was a big deal, and they had the market cornered. Now they were little guys, so they borrowed all they could get their hands on—friends, family, hell one of the guys even went to people at his church—just to get people on board to launch this. They knew they had something that was going to revolutionize the industry, and they went all-in.”
Lark saw Ryker and Amy grinning and nodding, but Kostya had a sour look on his face. She nodded at him. “Yeah, you’re getting it, Kostya. It all fell apart. Three weeks before they were going to go live, a Venezuelan company that is backed by their government launched their line that was identical to what Sunny-Solar was announcing. Sunny-Solar was in the announcement stage, but this company already had solar simulation power supplies produced and was ready to take orders, and they did. They took order after order, leaving Sunny-Solar in the dust.”
“Sunny-Solar went to our government to see if they had any recourse, but they didn’t. The only law on the books for going after this Venezuelan-backed company would be if they were selling to customers in the United States, but they weren’t. Therefore, Sunny-Solar ended up going out of business.”
“I don’t get it, how was this your big coincidence?” Ryker asked.
“One of the three owners, the one who had gotten his parents to invest their entire retirement into the company, decided to alert the press. He had read some of the articles that Craig Hardy had written in different newspapers where he combined tech and finance issues and made them easy to understand. So, Craig agreed to do the story.”
“How did you get involved?” Amy asked.
“Hardy’s a friend of mine. He knew that I had been in Venezuela recently and wanted my take on just how complicit the government might be about something like this. I said sure, and I gave him a little feedback one night and that was the end of it.”
