Albright closed the office door, the click echoing with finality. He didn’t speak for a long moment, simply staring at the stack of documents, rain still dripping from my coat onto his polished floor.
“Walter,” he finally said, his voice quiet, “do you understand what you’re asking me to do?”
“I understand that men’s lives are at stake,” I replied, my voice raspy. “And this fraud could compromise entire convoys.”
He ran a hand through his closely-cropped hair. “These are serious allegations. Falsifying wartime defense contracts… this could be court-martial material for me if I mishandle it.” He gestured at the logs. “And if this is a mistake, or an unsubstantiated claim, it could ruin both our careers, Walter.”
“It’s no mistake,” I insisted, pushing a particular page across his desk. “Look at the tensile strength ratings. They’re identical across different batches, different suppliers. It’s impossible. And the dates… they’re all notarized by Silas Croft.”
Albright picked up the page. Silas Croft’s name, scrawled beneath a notary seal, stood out. Albright recognized the name. Croft was a known maritime appraiser, usually dealing with insurance claims, not metallurgical tests. A flicker of suspicion crossed Albright’s face.
“Croft?” he murmured. “That’s… unusual.”
I leaned forward. “Hallowell found a way to bypass every inspection. These frigates, Daniel, they’re not safe.”
Albright looked from the documents to me, then to the telephone on his desk. His hand hovered over it, then dropped. He knew the official channels would bury this, or at least delay it long enough for Hallowell to cover his tracks.
“If I go through official channels without direct evidence beyond these copies,” he said slowly, “Hallowell will have this entire shipyard scrubbed clean by morning.”
“We don’t have time,” I urged. “They could destroy the test plates. The physical evidence.”
A sudden resolve hardened Albright’s features. He stood up, pacing the small office. He was a Navy man, by the book, but the sheer scope of what I’d presented had clearly shaken him. He looked out the window at the rain, then back at the stack of damning papers.
“An emergency federal subpoena,” he declared, his decision made. “It’s the only way to secure the actual steel plates before they disappear.”
He was risking everything. His commission, his future. All for a stack of papers presented by a weary, rain-soaked inspector.
He snatched up the phone and began barking orders into it, his voice tight with urgency. I heard him mention federal marshals, a judge, and the Delmarva shipyard storage vaults. The process was a blur of frantic phone calls, legal jargon I barely understood, and Albright’s unwavering determination.
Within the hour, two federal marshals, grim-faced and stoic, arrived at the shipyard. Their official uniforms stood out against the grime and chaos of the docks. They moved with a quiet authority that instantly commanded attention.
I watched through Albright’s window as they marched straight towards the Delmarva storage vaults, accompanied by a bewildered shipyard foreman. The sheer speed of it was shocking, a direct challenge to Hallowell’s power. Albright had truly risked his military career, and in doing so, had opened a door to the truth.
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