Damian did not laugh.

I told them the rest plainly, because plainness was the whole point.

Keystone had begun looking at Cardinal months earlier, when its lenders first threatened to pull the company apart and sell it for scrap.

What I had found, looking closely, was a company worth saving — real engineers, real patents, eight hundred people who did honest work.

What it lacked was not talent or orders or a reason to exist.

What it lacked was honest control at the top.