A Place at the Table
10
Quality
Liam
FATHER WAS CONVINCED there was simply an incorrect entry in the inventory and it would be straightened out as soon as he got accounting to do an audit. I couldn’t argue with that as it may well have been a typo. But Father didn’t see anything wrong with me checking out a case of the rifles and taking them to the test range. He wrote the order and assigned a delivery driver to me. We picked up Richard on the way to the office Monday morning.
“So, what are we looking for?” Richard asked as we headed to the warehouse.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully enough. “I’ve listed it as being a test so we can write copy for the catalog and develop a brochure on the rifle. So, we’ll check performance, sighting, clustering. I’m certain the test range has calibration equipment and we can check the ballistics, muzzle velocity, gauge, and whatever else we want. I just want to know what these guns are.”
“What are you doing here in here?” the warehouse manager demanded as our driver fired up a forklift.
“We have permission to extract a random crate to take to the test range,” I answered, shoving Father’s official memo at him.
“These weapons have been tested and sealed.”
“It will only be one crate. The test is to compile information for a marketing catalog,” I responded, smiling at him. “There’s no data on file that we can use to create the marketing pieces. You know how the bosses are about marketing. He decided my internship should include building the brochure from the ground up.”
“Take the end case. I had it prepared for just this kind of contingency. Knew someone from marketing would be meddling with them,” the manager said. He turned on his heel and went back to the office.
“We’ll take this one, Joe,” I said, pointing to a case in the center of the third row. He’d have to shift three other crates in order to pull that one out.
“Mr. Wilcox said…”
“The boss said take a random crate, not one that had been prepared for marketing,” I said. “He wouldn’t like it if he thought someone had prepped a case for us to use.” I left Richard to watch the unloading to make sure we got the crate we wanted and took the information from the end of the box to a phone on the wall near the door. “Mr. Daniels? This is William Thomas, the intern working for Mr. Cyning. We’re bringing a crate of rifles out to run some tests on. He called you? Good. We’ll need a case of 270 over 30 ammunition according to the crate spec. 130 grain. Yes. There are eighteen in a crate according to the spec. And they load six shells. We’ll run at least a full chamber on each rifle. Thank you. We should be there in half an hour.” I walked back to Richard and Joe was moving the forklift back to head to his truck.
“I told you to take that crate! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Sorry, Mr. Wilcox. The boss specifically stated that we were to take a random crate.”
“What’s the difference between that one and the one I pointed to?”
“I don’t know, sir. Should we take both and compare them?” I thought he blanched.
“You’re only authorized one crate. Get out of my warehouse!” He turned on his heel and headed for the office again. I looked back as we left the warehouse and saw him on the phone.
“What else can I do for you?” Joe asked. There was no forklift on the range, so we’d manhandled the crate to the loading table where the range master met us. It weighed around 200 pounds. He issued goggles and ear covers.
“It’s going to take us a while here, Joe, but you’re welcome to stick around if you aren’t scheduled for anything else.”
“Mr. Cyning said I was assigned to you for the day. I’m even to take you home if necessary,” Joe said. He was a nice guy and I didn’t mind him sticking around. Mr. Daniels, the range master, clipped the bands on the crate and lifted the lid.
“Oh. Nice,” Richard said as he lifted the first rifle from the crate.
“Please take the rifle to the loading table and strip it,” Daniels said. “No rifle goes to the shooting range without having been stripped and cleaned.”
“Yes, sir!” Richard snapped. I decided to watch the process since I really didn’t know the first thing about stripping a rifle. Watching it in Richard’s hands was like magic. It just fell apart into neat order on the cloth. He swiftly ran a cleaning cloth through the barrel and wiped each piece, all while talking. “Nice rifle. Good solid stock adds weight at the shoulder but isn’t uncomfortable or too heavy to lift. Twenty-two-inch barrel. This weapon has been modified from a bolt action to semi-automatic. It will take six shells and auto-eject the casing each time the rifle is fired. As the casing is ejected, the next shell is chambered. Estimated overall weight is between nine and ten pounds. Recoil will be moderate. Field scope has also been modified for sighting up to one thousand yards. Sir, weapon has been cleaned and reassembled. Ready for loading.” It had taken him a total of five minutes.
“Well done, soldier,” Daniels said. “Are you active duty?”
“West Point, sir.”
“Glad to have you on the range. Six shells are on the firing table. First target is 200 yards. Second target is 500 yards. Third target is 800 yards. See how it handles while I give instruction to your friend.” Richard took the rifle to the firing table and a horn blasted as a warning to clear the range. Daniels turned to me and showed me how to strip down the rifle and clean it. It took me much longer than five minutes. By the time I was finished, Richard was standing next to me stripping and cleaning the rifle he’d fired six shots from. I turned to him and asked how it went.
“Nice. Marksman quality at 200 and 500 yards. I’m not an expert at 800 yards, but hit the target. There’s an interesting click as the shell advances,” Richard said.
“Do you mind if I run a set through it?” Daniels asked.
“Please be our guest,” I said. “Expert opinions are what we need here.” He directed me to a firing table where he laid out the six shells and watched as I inserted them and closed the chamber.
“Take your first six and see if you can get a cluster on the 200-yard target,” he said. “I’m going to see how it performs on the 800.” Richard already had another rifle out of the crate and was showing Joe how to strip it and clean it. I had a feeling we were going to use more than the 108 shells I initially projected. While I’m not great at stripping and cleaning, I am a fairly good shot. I’d been hunting with our groundsman on a number of occasions and he taught me carefully about gun safety and targeting. I lined up and squeezed the trigger, near enough to the target center to have made a kill if hunting. My next three shots clustered near the first. I was feeling good about my performance when I squeezed off the fifth shot and nothing happened. I looked at the rifle but couldn’t see anything. I raised it and attempted to fire again. Nothing.
“Liam! Stop!” Richard shouted. Daniels had just finished his sixth shot and stepped back from the table at the shout. I immediately laid my rifle on the firing table. “You’ve got a jam. Did you hear the click as the last shell ejected?” I confessed that I hadn’t been listening for it. Daniels confirmed that he’d heard it in the first rifle. We stepped back from the table and Richard quickly but carefully broke down the rifle and cleared the jam. He held up the jammed cartridge and inspected it. He held it up for Daniels. “I don’t see severe damage but it’s scratched.”
Daniels pulled a pair of pliers from his pocket and removed the bullet from the shell. He tipped the powder out on the table.
“We don’t reload a jammed shell,” he said. “I’d like to run a set through that rifle if I may.” We nodded and he loaded. We stepped back and watched as he put six shots into the 500-yard target. No jam.
“Must be Liam’s… uh, William’s loading,” Richard snickered. He stepped up to the firing line and sighted in on the 500-yard target. After four shots the fifth cartridge jammed, just as mine had. “I don’t like this,” he muttered as he cleared the jam and handed the damaged cartridge to Daniels.
The rest of our morning proceeded much the same way. We ran at least two full sets through each weapon and averaged a jam every third set. One rifle jammed on the first cartridge. Daniels went into his office and emerged with a toolkit and magnifying glasses. He and Richard both sat to examine the rifles in minute detail.
“If we put a .30 caliber barrel on this and used .303s in it, I don’t think we’d be having this problem,” Richard said. Joe had run out to get us sandwiches and the four of us sat in Daniels’ office to eat. “It’s the stepdown shell that’s creating problems. There’s too much give room in the head. It wobbles going into the chamber. If these rifles were in the hands of the military, our guys would get killed. No one can afford to clear a jam every ten to twenty shots. It loses the whole advantage of the semi-automatic delivery.”
“I’d have to agree,” Daniels said. “It’s hard to believe our company is putting out something like this. The Old Man would never have tolerated it.”
“Well, the boss has been trying to discover what has things out of kilter. It’s difficult to come into a business like this and take over from such a legendary founder. Three years is not that long.”
Daniels eyed me speculatively. I think he’d caught onto the fact that I wasn’t here just as an intern working on a school project. Before he could say anything else, though, Richard jumped up.
“I’ve got it!” he said. “We could resolve the issue with some machining and salvage the bulk of the current equipment.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“The problem is in chambering the stepdown cartridges and the fact that when they removed the bolt, they tried to squeeze two more cartridges in. It would be a comparably simple process to convert it to a magazine. We could even expand the capacity to maybe ten. I could build one if you’d like,” he said. Daniels nodded.
“I think you might have something there. You’d need to re-machine the chamber to take the magazine feed instead of the rotating action of the current feed. It would speed reloading as well.”
“What would you need to set it up, Richard?” I asked.
“A machine shop and tools. It wouldn’t take much more.”
“I have a shop here at the range,” Daniels said. “I often rebuild old weapons out here for the museum.”
“May I use your phone?” I had to dial Father at the clothing factory as he’d already left the office at Lincoln Arms. “Mr. Cyning, it’s William Thomas. Yessir. Our day has been profitable. We—and I mean by that, Mr. Lingam and Mr. Daniels—discovered a design flaw in the D-270 that causes a jam every ten to twenty shots. Mr. Lingam believes he can machine a replacement part that would enable us to refit the rifles in a cost-effective manner so they could safely be put in the catalog.”
“Liam, I’m distressed at your discovery and pleased with the solution. I believe I have found the missing inventory record but it was not listed with the same model number. If Richard can work there at the range with Daniels, he’s hired. Have Daniels get him any material he needs. Other than the jam, what’s the quality?”
“We’ve decided overall it’s an excellent weapon and is probably within the specs for military usage. But as Richard says, the military wouldn’t touch it if it jams all the time. People would die.”
“Very well. Let me speak with Daniels and I’ll authorize the work. Keep the crate of rifles you have out at the range and if possible, update all of them.”
“Yes, sir.” I handed the phone to Mr. Daniels and motioned Richard outside. “How long do you think it will take to make the conversion and generate patterns that the machinists can follow?” I asked.
“I should have the first part milled in a week,” Richard said. I could see him nodding to himself. “A lot of custom millwork to get the first piece right. Then I can generate the pattern and we should be able to turn out enough pieces to refit this crate within three weeks.”
“Three weeks? How does that stack up against when you need to be back at school?”
“Oh, damn! What day is this? No, it should work. I report September fourth. I can get this done before then.”
“According to the Boss, you’re hired. And Richard, thank you.”
“Thanks? This is fun!”
“Meredith, can you work late tonight?” I asked. I’d barely made it home before dinner.
“Of course, Liam. I was staying here tonight. What’s up? You must have had a productive day with Richard,” she said as we sat at the table in the kitchen.
“We did. Richard is working at the range machine shop for a couple of weeks. Father says he thinks he’s found the missing inventory entry and we discovered why it’s stacked in the warehouse without a listing. I need to work on that report. I want to make sure Father has all the details before he makes a move at the plant.” I was hungry and the sauerkraut and German sausages Cook prepared were perfect.
“Makes a move? You sound like there might be culpability involved.”
“I’m afraid so. Two hundred seventy-five crates of rifles don’t get shuffled into a corner and forgotten. I estimate the market value for these would be well over $300 each or a total of around one-and-a-half million. That’s a huge hole in accounting.”
“Who would try to hide a million and a half dollars of inventory? And why?”
“That’s a big part of the question. Lingam thinks they were built for military use. If that’s true, the question is, ‘Whose military?’” That’s what had been bothering me most of the afternoon as we continued to test the rifles. If they were loaded with only four shells instead of six, the jams occurred less frequently. Joe proved to be quite helpful in cleaning and preparing the rifles. Richard and Daniels did most of the test firing while I wrote notes.
We finished our dinner and headed to the library.
“Meredith, I wanted to thank you for preparing the party this weekend. It was good to see the gang again. I don’t know why I’ve never thought of having a group over before. Mostly, the only guests are guys from school and then only one at a time. Remy was quite taken with Rosemary. I think they’ll go out.” I hesitated to mention the next but I knew Meredith would know. For some reason I felt there would be no secrets from her. Ever. “I uh… asked Hana out again this weekend. She said she is off the weekend schedule at the hospital for another week. I thought we might uh… Oh, God,” I sighed.
“What is it Liam? Hana’s a wonderful woman.”
“Yes. It’s not that. It’s just that I opened my mouth and just sort of asked her if she’d like to go out this weekend and she said yes. And I have no idea what to do! What do people do on dates? She already said she doesn’t expect anything as fancy as another concert. But I don’t know what people do? Where do they go? I’m lost!”
I didn’t expect Meredith to start laughing. When she did, I realized how ridiculous I sounded. A beautiful young woman had consented to go out with me without knowing what we would do and I was asking my assistant—who was every bit as beautiful and who would be a wonderful partner if I could muster the courage to ask her out—to help me plan a date with another women. It was ludicrous.
“I’m sorry, Meredith. I don’t expect you to plan dates for me. It isn’t fair. If you have advice, though, please let me have it.”
“Oh, I will. And thank you for excusing me from planning your dates. It’s not the kind of thing you should delegate. A woman you go out with should know you put some thought into it, not that you had your assistant plan it.”
“It’s not just that,” I said. “When I talk to you about planning a date, I feel bad that it is not you I’m taking out. That seems unkind.”
“Um… Liam, you shouldn’t think that way about me. I will always do my best to assist you. You don’t need to feel sorry for me.”
“I see. You think I’d only take you out for sympathy? That wouldn’t be likely. I don’t feel sorry for you. If anything, I feel sorry for myself.” What an idiot! I’m making a mess of this. “Just never mind. I’ll call Lonnie and ask him.”
Meredith started to respond and then backed off.
“Very well, then. Shall we start outlining your report?”
“Yes. I suppose we should do that.”
“She does like Italian food,” Meredith said just loud enough that I could hear her. She started drawing an outline on the chalkboard and I quickly joined her to fill in the blanks. We worked for about two hours. Meredith took the notes and promised to have them assembled and typed up by the time I got back from the factory tomorrow.
“Let’s plan on an afternoon ride if the weather holds, can we?” I asked. She smiled at me.
“That would be nice, Liam. Goodnight.” She headed for the stairs. I stepped out to the patio to look at the stars and think a bit.
Father had my report and said he’d be meeting with Mother this afternoon to determine what they should do. It was clear there had been a massive coverup of weapons that were faulty. People were going to be fired. I wasn’t satisfied that we knew the story yet. Wednesday morning, I wandered back to the warehouse to look at the inventory again. I expected to be accosted by Mr. Wilcox when I entered, even though I wore a proper hardhat and goggles as required in the warehouse. I glanced through his office window but he wasn’t there. I could hear the forklift moving somewhere farther on so followed the sound, noting what arms and munitions were stored where.
As I turned down the last aisle, I saw Wilcox operating the forklift. For a minute I watched, unable to figure out what he was doing. He seemed to be shuffling crates around at random. As I started toward him, I saw more clearly what he was doing. Crates at the top of the stack leaned out toward the aisle. He’d been stair-stepping the crates with each layer stacked farther out over the one below it. And they didn’t look stable at all.
“Mr. Wilcox! Stop! You’ll get hurt!” I ran toward the forklift. He apparently heard or saw the motion of me running because his head snapped toward me. There was something wild in his look and the forklift pulled back then jammed forward into the bottom row of crates, lifting and tilting. I pulled up short as the top row of crates began to slide off the pile toward the forklift and a domino effect started everything within yards of the forklift began to tilt and slide. “Run! Run!” I screamed but he simply stared at me as the first crate came over the lift and slammed into him.
In a second twenty or more crates had tumbled out of the wall and onto the forklift and its operator. I ran to the wall and slammed my hand on the emergency alarm button next to the door. The klaxon sounded and I ran back to see if I could uncover Mr. Wilcox. I started shifting crates. These were slightly smaller than the D-270 crates we’d moved on Monday. A lighter weight weapon or number of units per crate. While I could barely lift one, they had bounced quite a lot, causing units to come loose from the other side of the aisle.
There was no question in my mind that Wilcox had set this up deliberately. The forklift—and Wilcox—were buried under a mound of crates. It would take me forever to shift them if someone didn’t hurry up and get here.
“Stand aside,” a man yelled at me. I looked and saw a red armband with the words ‘Safety Officer’ emblazoned on it. He was accompanied by six other men, all equipped with the required warehouse equipment. More were arriving.
“There’s a man under there on the forklift!” I yelled.
“We need to assess whether moving things will cause others to fall,” he responded. “We’ll get him out.” I was pushed back by the men with armbands and watched them start to work. “Here,” the officer said coming up to me. The men were moving steadily forward to stabilize the mess. “Take this tape and run it across the head of the aisle and get on the other side of it. Make sure no one crosses into this aisle.” I nodded and took the tape to block the aisle, stepping to the other side.
I wrapped a piece of the tape around my own arm and as people came into the warehouse, I waved them back unless they had a safety officer armband on. Three more of those arrived. A shop foreman joined me at the head of the aisle and started shouting for people to clear out of the warehouse and head back to their jobs. Before long the area was cleared of all but a few management types who were being given hardhats and goggles like anyone else.
My father came straight to me.
“What happened?”
“Mr. Wilcox was operating the forklift and a row of crates fell on him.” He looked at me with an eyebrow raised. I glanced at the other managers in the aisle and he nodded his head.
“Avery! See that Wilcox’s relatives are notified of the accident and kept informed of where he has been taken. Someone open the far door for the ambulance; I can hear the siren. Jack, stay with me. Everyone else clear out of the area.”
It took half an hour to uncover the broken body of Wilcox. The ambulance crew had him loaded in the ambulance and was screaming toward the hospital. They hadn’t covered his face, so perhaps there was a chance for him to survive. Father pulled Jack Lenova and me to Wilcox’s office. Jack started examining the desk and drawers while Father and I sat to talk.
“Now you can tell me what really happened.”
“I didn’t see everything, Father. I’d just gotten to the warehouse, intending to ask Wilcox who had given the order to warehouse the D-270s. It doesn’t make sense that he would have been the person responsible for them. It has to go into the manufacturing area, design, and probably sales. He wasn’t in his office but I could hear the forklift down that aisle. When I got into the aisle, I saw Wilcox on the forklift rearranging crates. He was stair-stepping them out at the top. When he saw me, he rammed the bottom layer with the fork and lifted and tilted until the crates started falling. The whole wall of crates came down on him and caused crates from the other side of the aisle to fall as well,” I said.
“You think it was deliberate, then?” Jack asked.
“Yes, sir. There’s no way he’d have been stacking crates like that if he didn’t intend for them to fall,” I said.
“A trap for someone else?” Jack asked. I just shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know.
“How is Richard getting on out at the range?” Father asked, changing the subject.
“I was going to give a call out there this morning before all the chaos started,” I said.
“Go ahead. I’d like to know if it still looks like a good refit will be possible.”
I picked up the phone on Wilcox’s desk and looked at the card of numbers next to it. I dialed the range. Daniels picked up. He didn’t want to talk at all and put Richard on the line immediately.
“Richard, how’s the progress?”
“Liam, we may have a bigger problem than sloppy machining of the chamber.”
“What? What else is wrong?”
“Something we didn’t notice when we were test firing Monday but became aware of as we were drafting plans. Are you sure these weapons were manufactured at Lincoln Arms? There’s no manufacturer’s mark and no serial number on any of them.”
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