A Harvest of Thorns Read online

  “That’s quite an indictment,” Blitzer said. “Beatrice, you represent the business community. What’s your response?”

  “Despite Ms. Hwang’s unflattering portrayal,” Walker replied, “US companies care deeply about worker rights. Many of our members participate in initiatives like the Fair Labor Association that monitor factory compliance with international labor standards. After the disaster at Rana Plaza, apparel brands in North America and Europe formed the Alliance and the Accord, which are currently inspecting all registered factories in Bangladesh. The brands have pledged millions of dollars toward improvements. This fire is a terrible tragedy. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. But to lay the blame at the feet of American business is offensive.”

  Cameron hit the Mute button. “Obviously Ms. Hwang has a twisted conception of what we do every day, but she’s far from alone. That’s why this inquiry is so important. Declan, when we spoke earlier, you said we moved Millennium Fashions to our Red List six months ago. Do you have the last factory audit report?”

  “Right here,” Declan replied, pushing a stack of paper across the table. Born in Dublin and raised in New York, Mays had the tenacity of a bulldog and a star-studded CV—economics at Cornell and Oxford, law at Georgetown, and a decade in practice as a compliance specialist at Cameron’s old law firm, Slade & Barrett. He was the first person Cameron had hired after moving to Presto. When it came to ferreting out the truth, no one was more effective.

  After scanning the audit report, Cameron could barely contain his indignation. “Three fire extinguishers for a thousand workers. Exposed wiring. Aging breaker box. Generators in a storeroom of flammables. How did we ever authorize this factory in the first place?”

  “We didn’t know how bad it was,” Declan said, his voice laced with disquiet. “The audit company we used before was compromised.”

  “You mean corrupt.”

  “We couldn’t prove it, but we think so. The new audit company is more expensive but beyond reproach. As soon as we got their findings, we put Millennium on the Red List.”

  “And you communicated that to our sourcing folks in Dhaka?”

  Declan nodded. “We informed them immediately.”

  Cameron tossed the report on the table. “So here’s the fifty-million-dollar question—and I mean that literally. The negative publicity alone is going to cost us that much in sales. What were our pants doing at Millennium last night? Manny, tell me about the order.”

  Singh folded his hands. “It’s nothing unusual,” he replied. “A hundred and twenty thousand pieces. Six-week turnaround time. Our supplier is Rahmani Apparel—one of the best in Bangladesh. The shipment is due at the harbor in Chittagong in three days.”

  Cameron stared at Manny until the sourcing executive began to fidget. A veteran of the retail industry and the direct hire of Rebecca Sinclair, Presto’s senior vice president of sourcing, Singh was incontrovertibly competent but accustomed to deference. It was the mien of his department. Sourcing was Presto’s skunk works. As long as each new product line appeared in stores at the price point set by the costing analysts, no one looked behind the veil.

  Cameron opened his briefcase and took out the picture of the girl, which he had printed on photo paper. He slid it toward Manny. “Take a good look at her. We don’t know if she’s dead or alive. What we know is that she’s wearing our pants—kids’ pants, mind you—like a mask. Are you telling me our clothes were not at Millennium?”

  Singh looked suddenly nervous. “I’m not saying that. I can’t explain it.”

  “You were responsible for the placement of the order, were you not?”

  “Our Dhaka office chose the supplier. It was Rahmani Apparel. I signed off on it.”

  Cameron nodded. “At last, a semblance of transparency. Keep going. Connect the dots. Did Rahmani subcontract the order to Millennium?”

  Singh shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s four in the morning over there.”

  Cameron allowed his displeasure to show. “You can’t be serious. A factory is burning, people are dying, our company is getting trashed in the international press, and you’re concerned about somebody’s sleep? Get them out of bed.”

  Singh looked at Cameron in astonishment. “Now?”

  Cameron shook his head, exasperated. “No, tomorrow. You can use the phone over there. Or you can go back to your office. Just get me an answer.”

  Singh leaped to his feet. “I’ll be back in a few,” he said, then disappeared out the door.

  “That was pleasant,” Cameron said evenly, retrieving the photograph without looking at the girl’s bloodstained face. He couldn’t handle the despair it evoked in him, not in the midst of a crisis. A year and a half he had trained his mind to forget. But Olivia was always there, lying beside him in the darkness of the roadway, her lips unmoving, concealing the scream that never came. Let her go, he commanded himself. You can’t change what happened.

  He turned back to Declan. “You know how these things work. Explain it to me.”

  “You said it yourself,” Declan answered. “Rahmani subcontracted to Millennium. Or they subcontracted to another factory that subcontracted to Millennium. It’s hard to turn around a large order in six weeks. Rahmani might not have had capacity for it. Or maybe they ran into delays. Manufacturing is dynamic. We don’t see most of it.”

  “But Rahmani signed our Code of Conduct,” Cameron objected. “All subcontracting has to be approved by us or they’re in breach.”

  Declan leaned forward in his chair. “Without Manny here, I’ll be frank. As long as our supplier gets the shipment to the port in Chittagong on time, nobody in sourcing really cares how it gets done. The Code of Conduct is window dressing.”

  Cameron’s studied calm began to slip. “Why have I never heard this before?”

  “Because I can’t prove it,” Declan said simply.

  Cameron took a moment to think. The Code of Conduct was an addendum attached to Presto’s supplier contracts—all twenty-two thousand of them around the world—that set forth requirements relating to factory safety, worker rights, environmental protection, corruption, and financial integrity. Every retail company had one, but Presto’s was more thorough than most. Cameron had written it himself. Occasionally, suppliers were found in breach. That was why Presto conducted factory audits twice a year—to enforce compliance. But the notion that Presto’s own sourcing team treated the code dismissively left him profoundly unsettled.

  “Has a supplier ever ignored the Red List before?” he asked.

  Declan cleared his throat. “I’ve heard rumors, but again, I have no proof.”

  Cameron turned toward the television and watched as firefighters shot streams of water into the conflagration. Against his better judgment, he pictured the girl again, imagined her terror as she chose gravity over flames. He knew what fear felt like on the meridian between life and death. For a vanishing moment, he was there again with Olivia as shadows and metal twisted around them. He closed his eyes and banished the memory.

  “So what you’re telling me is that Millennium is not alone,” he said. “There are other high-risk factories out there making our products without our knowledge.”

  Declan looked at him gravely. “I don’t know how many, but yes.”

  Manny reappeared at the door, a line of sweat on his brow. “I spoke to our office director in Dhaka. He was horrified. He told me the order is with Rahmani, not Millennium. He promised to look into it right away.”

  Cameron looked Singh in the eye, thinking, Why am I not reassured? An idea came to him then. It was highly unconventional, but the situation was dire. “I’m starting to believe he may need some additional motivation.”

  Manny regarded him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  When Cameron made the decision, he knew it was right. “Go home and get packed, both of you. We leave for Bangladesh in the morning.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE GANGPLANK MARINA

  WAS
HINGTON, DC

  NOVEMBER 6, 2013

  6:17 A.M.

  Candlelight flickered on the tablecloth, diamonds danced on her fingers, but Cameron saw only dismay in Olivia’s eyes. His phone was in his hands, the screen bright with Vance’s words, anxiety and apology etched upon the dreamscape of his memory. “Just got off the phone with Red. Ravenswood acquired a 4.9% stake right before close. Confirms the rumors. Getting crisis team together at 8. Need you there. Sorry for the timing. Tell Olivia I’ll make it up to her.” Cameron didn’t want to go, but Vance’s orders were clear. He suggested to Olivia that she stay through the weekend and take the train home. But he knew she wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want to spend her birthday alone. It’s time, he heard her whisper, later on. He felt her skin beneath the covers, her warmth all around him. He hated the thought of leaving. He wanted to stay with her forever. But she insisted. It’s time to go, she whispered again, a touch louder. Cameron—

  His eyes shot open in the darkness, and he breathed to steady his racing heart. For an instant he thought he was back in their old apartment, hearing Grayson, one of Olivia’s Russian Blue cats, scratching at his post. But then he realized it was water sloshing beneath the hull of his sailboat. The apartment was gone—he’d sold it almost a year ago. Grayson and his sister, Bella, were with his parents in Boston. He was living on the Breakwater, his custom-built yacht, the only artifact from his previous life that didn’t feel haunted. Olivia had never enjoyed sailing. It was Vance who went with him in search of blue water.

  He looked at his watch and climbed out of bed. After a quick shower, he ate a bowl of granola in the galley, dressed in a navy suit and red tie, and then grabbed his suitcase and went topside, locking the companionway door behind him. He had never quite gotten used to it, living at the marina. It felt transitory, impermanent, but that was the way of things now. Olivia had been his polestar. When she died, his world had spun like a gyre and never stopped.

  He left a note for the harbormaster and drove his Lincoln sedan out of the lot. He made it to Reagan airport in eight minutes. The Gulfstream G550 was waiting for him on the tarmac, bronzed by the sunrise. Declan Mays and Manny Singh met him in the hangar and walked with him to the plane. Inside the oak-paneled cabin, they took seats on leather chairs near to the flat-screen television. The flight attendant, Bridget, offered them coffee or espresso. Cameron ordered a cappuccino, along with sparking water, and then tuned the television to CNN.

  The fire was again the lead story. Daylight in Bangladesh had brought with it footage of the burned-out factory and the lifeless bodies that surrounded it. But there were no new close-ups—nothing like the picture of the girl. According to reporters on the ground, the factory owner had barred the gates after the firefighters brought the blaze under control. With limited information, death toll estimates were ranging wildly.

  “Anything new from Dhaka?” Cameron asked Manny as the plane began to taxi.

  The sourcing executive gave him an impervious look. “Nothing yet.”

  Cameron turned to Declan. “Do you have the supplier list?”

  “Here,” Declan replied, handing him an expandable folder.

  Inside was a printout showing every Bangladeshi factory that Presto had ever authorized to make clothes for its three brands—Piccola, its kids’ line; Burano, its adult and activewear line; and Porto Bari, its premium line of business and resort wear. The list contained over twelve hundred suppliers and was organized into five categories in order of preference—Gold, Silver, Green, Yellow, and Red. Only a few were Gold and Silver; the majority were Green and Yellow.

  Cameron flipped to the Red List at the back. The criteria for banning a factory were stringent. The transgressions had to be egregious—either a threat to the life or health of workers or a serious infraction that remained uncorrected after a second audit. He was surprised to find more than ninety companies on the list. Almost all were small outfits, with fewer than 300 workers. Millennium was an outlier with 942.

  “Prepare for takeoff, folks,” said the captain over the intercom.

  Cameron sat back in his chair as the Gulfstream accelerated down the runway. It took flight gracefully and banked east toward the rising sun. As soon as they left DC airspace, the pilot slowed their ascent, allowing Bridget to prepare breakfast. Cameron returned to the supplier list, scanning the columns of data—names of managers, physical addresses, years in business, number of lines and capacities, audit history, and style specialty. Most of the factories on the Red List made “basic” clothing—T-shirts, polo shirts, shorts, and pants. And most, Cameron noticed, had been added in the past six months, likely the result of the new auditing firm.

  “Mr. Alexander?” Bridget said, holding a tray of scrambled eggs, bratwurst, and croissants. “Would you like me to put this on the table?”

  “That’s fine,” he said distractedly. An idea was taking shape in his head. He flipped backward in the report and found Rahmani Apparel. His suspicions were confirmed.

  “Line capacity,” he said, looking at Declan, then Manny. “We know how many pieces every factory can make each month. Correct?”

  “Of course,” Manny replied. “It’s critical to our decision making. We not only know their capacity, we get daily updates about how it’s being allocated.”

  “And if memory serves,” Cameron went on, “our policy is to book no more than 30 to 40 percent of a factory’s capacity, even with our best suppliers.”

  Manny nodded. “Sometimes we push the limit, but I’ve never gone higher than forty.”

  “Then explain this to me,” Cameron said. “Rahmani has a monthly capacity of one hundred fifty thousand pieces. The Piccola order required them to make that amount in six weeks. Unless we booked two-thirds of their capacity, they had to get help from someone else.”

  Manny answered deliberately. “With large orders, we anticipate sub-contracting. But we expect our suppliers to handle it properly, with all the necessary permissions, including ours.”

  “What other permissions are there?”

  Manny glanced at the table where Bridget had placed their trays. “Can we continue this over breakfast? Our food is getting cold.”

  Irritated, Cameron almost rejoined, You can eat when I’m finished with you. Instead, he nodded politely and moved the conversation to the table.

  After a few bites, Manny answered his question. “There are four thousand factories registered with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, or BGMEA. Many more are unregistered, but we don’t work with them. When a registered factory subcontracts to another registered factory, the BGMEA issues a license, signed by both factories. We require our suppliers to provide us a copy of that license for every subcontract.”

  Cameron ate a slice of bratwurst. “So if Rahmani subcontracted our order to Millennium, they had to get a license. That means there’s a record of it somewhere.”

  “Not necessarily,” Declan quipped, even as Manny said, “Yes.”

  Cameron pointed at Declan. “You first.”

  “Manny is technically correct,” Declan said, “but this is Bangladesh. A lot of suppliers don’t have the patience for formalities. Here’s an illustration. Our supplier falls behind on an order. He doesn’t want us to know because it will reflect poorly on him, and we might not give him our next order. So he calls a friend with extra capacity and does a deal over the phone. The friend sends a truck for the materials and returns the finished garments. Or the friend might call another friend—a third factory—and send part of the order—say, the finishing work—to him. Our supplier doesn’t know about the third factory, and we don’t know about any of it.”

  Cameron set his fork down, his stomach puckering. What am I walking into? “Manny,” he said quietly. “Tell me this isn’t the core of our business.”

  “It isn’t,” Manny replied, a little too quickly. “Look, informal subcontracting happens. But we monitor our suppliers carefully. There isn’t room for orders to fall through
the cracks.”

  Declan shook his head. “I have a fifteen-year-old daughter. What she does and what she tells me afterward are often worlds apart. Our suppliers are the same. They’re in a cutthroat business. They do what they have to do to make a buck, and they tell us what we want to hear.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Manny shot back. “You get their audit reports twice a year. We get e-mails from them every morning.”

  Declan smiled in a subtle way. “I have back channels. I know more than you think.”

  Manny stared at his plate, his dark eyes smoldering. Cameron watched him, feeling little sympathy. The people at the pinnacle of Presto’s sourcing apparatus were paid handsomely, for they were the rainmakers, the beating heart at the profit center of the firm. As long as they did their job, Cameron had no qualm with it. But this kind of lapse was inexcusable.

  And it was only the beginning. He was certain of it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHAHJALAL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  DHAKA, BANGLADESH

  NOVEMBER 7, 2013

  10:18 A.M.

  The sky over Dhaka was washed out like parchment, the horizon soot-stained as if singed by flame. Cameron looked out the window as the Gulfstream made its final approach. The city was at once dense and sprawling, a vast concatenation of buildings heaped upon one another between rivers brown with silt and streets clogged with vehicles and pedestrians. They landed with barely a bump and taxied to a remote spot on the tarmac. Two SUVs were waiting for them—one marked with the name of the airport authority and the other an unmarked black Mercedes. The copilot lowered the steps and admitted a customs official who stamped their passports, issued them visas, and welcomed them to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

  Cameron stifled a yawn and collected his briefcase. They had been in transit for sixteen and a half hours. He had slept off and on and taken anti–jet lag pills, trying to adjust to the new time zone in advance. But the shock was inevitable. It was midnight in DC. Here the sun was at its zenith. He felt as if his brain had been tumbled in a washing machine.