A Harvest of Thorns

by Corban Addison

  He moved toward the exit and descended the steps into the sweltering heat, Manny and Declan at his heels. The moist tropical air surrounded him like water, and his first breath came out like a cough. A Bangladeshi man in a business suit stood beside the rear door of the Mercedes. He gave Cameron a vigorous handshake.

  “Welcome, Mr. Alexander. I am Shelim Madani, director of the Dhaka office.” He opened the door and gestured to the leather interior of the vehicle. “Please, it is cooler inside.”

  After they climbed in, Shelim took the wheel and tore across the tarmac at a fierce clip, rounding an aircraft hangar and merging onto a side road.

  “The Radisson Blu is not far,” Shelim said, his accent blending the lilt of Bengali with something starchier—perhaps a bit of Britain. “You can check in, and then we can talk in the Business Class Lounge. It’s very private.”

  Cameron shook his head. “I want to go to our office.”

  “There are reporters there,” Shelim objected gently. “No one goes in or out without being questioned. Also, traffic is bad in the city. It would take us at least an hour to get there.”

  As soon as he said it, they ran into congestion at the airport roundabout. Cameron gazed out the window at the deadlock of cars, trucks, buses, and rickshaws all measuring progress in inches. The honking was deafening. “How far away is the Rahmani Apparel factory?”

  Shelim glanced over his shoulder in confusion. “Rahmani?”

  “Our supplier for the Piccola pants.”

  Shelim’s voice took on a perceptible edge. “It would be two hours by car or twenty minutes by helicopter. But I would need to make arrangements.”

  Cameron watched Shelim’s face carefully. “Does the hotel have a landing pad?”

  Shelim tightened his grip on the wheel. “There is a field nearby.”

  “Excellent,” Cameron said. “Summon the chopper. We’ll eat while we wait.”

  They ordered room service in Cameron’s suite and took seats in the living area. Apart from the bleating of horns on the street and the faint odor of something burning seeping through the seal around the window, they could have been in any city in the world. The “business bubble,” Cameron called it whenever he found himself wishing for a more authentic cultural experience. Today, however, he didn’t care. He was here for answers, nothing more.

  “Tell me how the Millennium order came about,” he said to Shelim.

  The office director glanced at Manny Singh. “We placed it in late August, but there was a modification at the last minute. Our designers in Hong Kong were not satisfied with Rahmani’s sample. The factory asked for an extension, but we could not grant it. The pants are part of our holiday collection. Rahmani agreed and made adjustments to its line schedule.”

  Cameron scribbled on his notepad. “You cut the turnaround time by half. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a supplier.”

  “They are used to it,” Shelim said with a shrug. “Changes happen regularly.”

  “I looked at the data. Rahmani didn’t have capacity to fulfill the order themselves. They had to subcontract part of it.”

  Shelim nodded. “They sent sixty thousand pieces to Freedom 71. I authorized it.”

  “Was that by e-mail?”

  Shelim shook his head. “We do business on the phone.”

  “I assume you have a record of the license from the BGMEA?”

  “The license is on file.”

  Cameron took a moment to think of his next question. Internal interviews were a delicate dance—neither adversarial nor friendly. His instinct as a lawyer was to treat them like a deposition, but unless an employee was accused of wrongdoing, that was a mistake. He had to massage the truth out of Shelim, convince him that it was in his interest to be transparent.

  “When was the last time you spoke with Rahmani? Before the fire, I mean.”

  Shelim glanced up at the ceiling. “I called the general manager on Sunday. He confirmed with his production manager that the order was on schedule.”

  “Did you have a conversation like that with the other factory—Freedom 71?”

  Shelim shook his head. “Rahmani is our contractor. I deal only with them.”

  “What about quality control?”

  As soon as Cameron spoke the words, he knew he had touched a nerve. Shelim blinked and looked down at the floor, then turned to Manny as if searching for cover. The sequence happened in less than a second, but Cameron missed none of it. Years ago, when he was a junior partner at Slade & Barrett looking for a way to distinguish himself, he had taken lessons from a deception expert. In time, most people had become an open book to him.

  When Shelim replied, his words were measured. “There is an inspection before the order ships to the port. My quality-control people handle that.”

  There’s something you’re not telling me, Cameron thought. “What happens if the order fails the inspection?”

  “We open random boxes,” Shelim explained. “If we find too many issues, we can reject the whole lot. But Rahmani is a Gold supplier. We’ve never had problems with them.”

  “I take it you do the same with subcontracting factories?”

  Again, Shelim’s eyes shifted ever so briefly to Manny. “We inspect everything. Our suppliers ship only the highest-quality merchandise.”

  Another deflection, Cameron thought. He considered asking a follow-up question but decided to reserve it until he spoke with Rahmani. “Let’s talk about Millennium. They’re banned from our supplier list, but somehow they received a portion of our order. Who sent it to them?”

  Shelim tensed visibly. “I don’t know. Rahmani doesn’t know. It is a mystery.”

  That much was clearly a lie. “Have you spoken to Freedom 71 since the fire?”

  “No,” Shelim said, rubbing his hands together. “Only Rahmani.”

  Cameron gave the office director an incredulous look. “You didn’t think it would be valuable to find out if they subcontracted the order to Millennium?”

  “Rahmani is our contractor,” Shelim repeated. “They spoke to Freedom 71. No one knows how the order found its way to Millennium.”

  In his younger days, Cameron might have allowed his rage to slip, but he held his feelings in check. “What about the apparel association? Did you ask them whether Rahmani or Freedom 71 had obtained a license to subcontract to Millennium?”

  Shelim’s eyes widened a fraction. “I did not. I trust Rahmani.”

  Or you want them to cover for you, Cameron thought. Just then, he heard a knock at the door. Declan opened it, and a male attendant wheeled in lunch on silver trays.

  “Is the helicopter on its way?” Cameron asked Shelim.

  The office director glanced at his wristwatch. “It will be here in twenty minutes.”

  “Good,” Cameron said. “We’ll see if your faith in Rahmani is merited.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RAHMANI APPAREL, LTD.

  NARAYANGANJ DISTRICT, DHAKA, BANGLADESH

  NOVEMBER 7, 2013

  2:01 P.M.

  Even from the height of five hundred feet, the Rahmani factory was immense. There were at least a dozen buildings scattered around the grounds, three of which were as cavernous as airport hangars. The roads were all paved and marked with centerlines. There were trees in abundance and park-like spaces with lush grass, footpaths, and benches. The largest building, connected by skybridges to its two smaller cousins, had a tower encased in blue glass with a helipad on the roof. And off to the side was an indigo-colored pool, churning like a vat of butter.

  “Is that a water treatment facility?” Cameron asked Shelim over the whir of the blades. It was widely acknowledged in the industry—but not so widely publicized—that the production of textiles was one of the most prolific sources of water pollution in the world.

  Shelim nodded. “It’s state of the art. After they wash their jeans, the water is scrubbed and then recycled. Only a quarter of it goes back into the river.”

  When the helicopter s
ettled onto the landing area, an aircrewman escorted Cameron and his entourage across the sunbaked helipad to a stairwell that led to a conference room lined with windows. Two Bangladeshi men dressed in European suits were waiting for them.

  “Mr. Alexander,” said the older one, a heavyset man with graying hair and penetrating eyes. “I am Habib Khan, owner of Rahmani Apparel. This is Khaled Chowdhury, my GM. I hope your flight was comfortable.”

  After the obligatory pleasantries, they sat down at a round table. A young woman entered the room with a tray with teacups and sugar cookies.

  “Cha,” Habib explained as the woman distributed the snacks. “In India, it is chai.”

  Cameron took a sip of the tea, and it nearly scalded his tongue.

  “Ah,” Habib said with a smile, “you must allow it to cool a bit.” Then in an instant, his mercurial eyes grew sad. “We are all deeply troubled by the tragedy unfolding at the Millennium Fashions factory. We are especially troubled because it appears that part of the order you entrusted to us was diverted there without our knowledge. We have spoken to our subcontractor, Freedom 71, and they have yet to provide us with a satisfactory explanation. I can assure you that if we do not receive one, we will cease doing business with them.”

  Cameron folded his hands on the table and returned Habib’s gaze. In only a handful of minutes, he had already made a number of critical observations about the owner. He was a man in control of his emotions, which made him a formidable adversary. But he wasn’t immune to the involuntary movements of face and body that revealed hidden wells of deception. Cameron had caught one of them when he spoke the word Millennium. It was a small thing, but it was there—a shrug of the shoulder. And it gave Cameron all the confidence he needed.

  “You’re lying to me,” he said simply and watched Habib’s facade crumble. The owner broke eye contact with Cameron and glanced at Khaled, struggling to recover his poise.

  “Mr. Alexander,” he said, “our relationship with Presto goes back two decades. We have never missed an order. We have invested millions in updating our facilities to keep your business. Your accusation is . . . unprecedented.”

  In a glance, Cameron saw Declan’s intensity, Shelim’s discomfort, and Manny’s bewilderment. “That may be,” he replied, keeping his face impassive. “But the only thing that matters right now is the truth. The clock is ticking.”

  Habib stared back at him, and his mouth began to twitch.

  Cameron counted to ten, then stood abruptly. “That’s fine. I’ll go to the apparel association and pull all the licenses they’ve issued to you in the past six months. Then I’ll find someone from Millennium—someone who’s still alive—to talk to me about our order history. When all is said and done, I doubt Presto will order from you again.”

  “No.” Habib’s objection came out almost like a bark. He found his footing quickly. “That will not be necessary. Perhaps—if you are not in a hurry—I could give you a tour of the factory. I know Khaled and Shelim have business to discuss. The others can stay with them.”

  Cameron made a show of pondering this, but he had already made his decision. He glanced at Shelim again and saw the lines of apprehension on his forehead. “I’d like that,” he said and followed Habib out the door.

  The Rahmani factory was a paragon of efficiency, as intelligently managed as it was maintained. The sewing floors were spotless, brightly lit, and well ventilated. The stations were neither cramped nor cluttered with stray fabric. The workers—mostly young women—were focused on their tasks, their supervisors strolling among them, doling out instructions. A few sewing operators looked up when Cameron and Habib walked past, but only briefly.

  “The last pieces of your order,” Habib said, holding up a pair of nearly finished Piccola pants. “They will be packaged tonight and shipped tomorrow to the port.”

  Cameron took the pants in his hands and rubbed the spandex fabric between his thumb and forefinger, imagining mothers across America dressing their six-year-olds in them for Christmas. Of all the things to die for, he thought.

  After the sewing areas, Habib led him across the cutting floor, a vast open space with tables piled high with bolts of fabric. Around the perimeter of each table, eight workers—all young men—smoothed out wrinkles in the fabric with combs while cutters guided saws along cardboard patterns, creating one hundred pieces at a time.

  “As you can see, safety is a top priority,” Habib explained, pointing out a shiny fire extinguisher beside a marked exit door. “This building was built in accordance with the highest international standards. What happened at Millennium and Rana Plaza will never happen here.”

  Next, Habib showed Cameron the printing floor, where an array of machines deposited ink on T-shirts—three primary colors blended together into images and words. Then came the embroidery floor, where workers were stitching floral patterns onto children’s dresses using machines that resembled the control panels on the starship Enterprise.

  Eventually they entered a glass-enclosed room with a table and chairs and a large display of finished garments on hangers, illumined by halogen bulbs. A sign on the door read PRESTO.

  “This is where your quality-control people conduct inspections,” Habib said. “They will be here tonight and tomorrow to check the Piccola shipment.” He gestured to a chair. “Please, sit down. I will tell you what you want to know.”

  Cameron took a seat and calmly folded his hands on the table, waiting for Habib to make the next move. The owner sat down too, shifting his weight to get comfortable. Beneath the dazzling lights, Habib’s eyes were limpid, his forehead dotted with perspiration.

  “I have no wish to deceive you,” Habib began. “But your question presents me with a dilemma. We used to be a profitable company. Now we are struggling. The water treatment facility you saw on the flight in? That was funded by my real estate ventures. Our competitors abroad are undercutting us. Many factories in China are vertically integrated, their lead times down to thirty days. Vietnam has better technology. Indonesia and Cambodia have cheaper labor. Buyers—including your people at Presto—are demanding lower prices and faster turnarounds, or they will go elsewhere. We have no choice but to agree and then find a way to deliver.”

  Habib adjusted himself again. “When I received your last-minute changes, I got help from Freedom 71. But they ran into problems and had to cancel half the shipment. I had two weeks to make thirty thousand pieces and no capacity in my lines. So I did what I have done for years. I called Millennium. They told me they could do it for a very reasonable price. I did not ask how. I have never asked how. Now I am beginning to see. Before I sent the materials along, I made another call—to Shelim. I explained the situation and told him Millennium could finish the order. He made only one request—that I deliver the pants to the port on time.”

  Cameron sat perfectly still, listening to the sounds of the factory filtering through the glass. He thought of Vance at his desk fielding frantic calls from investors, Kristin Raymond in the war room fending off press inquiries, and traders at the New York Stock Exchange taking sell orders for Presto stock. The company’s share price had tumbled 12 percent in two days. It was not in free fall, but it would be if the media ever learned what Habib had just said.

  “Millennium is no longer on our authorized list of suppliers,” Cameron said slowly.

  “That is why I called Shelim,” Habib replied, his breathing laborious now. “Otherwise I would have gone straight to the BGMEA for the license.”

  “Has our office ever given you permission to ignore the Red List before?”

  Habib blinked, his face awash with guilt. “Shelim is a good man. He has a family. I do not wish to make trouble for him.”

  “Shelim is not your concern. I need an answer.”

  At last Habib nodded. “The Red List does not matter. Only 98 percent on-time delivery.”

  Cameron touched his wedding ring, drawing strength from the cool metal on his skin, the band without beginning or end, unbroken d
espite Olivia’s death. His eyes bored into Habib. “In the past six months, how many of our orders have you subcontracted to Millennium?”

  Habib swallowed visibly. “I don’t know the dates. But there have been others.”

  When Cameron heard the owner’s words, he came within a hairsbreadth of revealing the shock that twisted his gut. Presto had eleven hundred authorized apparel suppliers in Bangladesh. If Shelim had given Habib carte blanche to keep the orders flowing, he had almost certainly done the same for other suppliers. It was a compliance breach of staggering proportions. Yet the fire and the media spotlight bound Cameron’s hands. He could neither terminate Rahmani Apparel nor relieve Shelim of his duties. For the time being, at least, he needed to keep them close and quiet.

  “This practice ends today,” he said. “I hope that goes without saying.”

  The owner nodded again, this time vigorously.

  Cameron stood up and walked to the display case, running his hand along the rack. Rahmani’s wares ranged from Burano T-shirts and athletic shorts to Porto Bari winter dresses and tops. The designs were unexceptional, but the workmanship and fabrics were two or three cuts above what other discounters offered.

  He turned around and saw Habib watching him intently. “I have another question. When you subcontract part of an order, how is quality control handled?”

  “That depends,” Habib replied. “When we have time, we bring all the pieces from the order together so your people can do an inspection here. When time is short, they inspect the pieces at the subcontracting factory.”

  Cameron felt suddenly queasy. The executive in him did not want to know the answer to the next question, but the lawyer had to ask. “With the pants you sent to Millennium, did any of our people ever visit that factory?”

  Habib held out his hands as if the truth were self-evident. “I spoke to Millennium the afternoon before the fire. Your people were there.”