The gravel crunched with the hard rhythm of purpose. Steel-toed boots planted themselves with mechanical precision beside the foundation trench. Mikhail didn't need to ask who it was.
He was already on his way across the site, clipboard in hand, motioning Lars and Kat to follow behind but stay quiet. The inspector, thin, severe, and weatherproofed in a long municipal-issued coat, was muttering measurements under his breath, checking rebar spacing with a rigid metal gauge.
"You're early," Mikhail said evenly as he came up beside him.
The inspector didn't look up. "You poured early. Weather or not, that's your call. I'm just here to make sure it holds."
Behind them, the concrete glistened in the morning haze, still damp but setting. Tarps flapped weakly along the edges where Lars had secured the site overnight. Kat hovered at the edge of earshot, biting her glove.
Mikhail walked with the man step for step, saying nothing unless asked. A moment passed. Then the questions started.
"Water's pooling here," the inspector said, pointing with the butt of his pen toward a low patch near the drainage cut.
"Temporary basin. We've got gravel arriving in the afternoon to backfill and regrade."
The man grunted. He paced five more steps. "That edge is slumping."
Mikhail didn't flinch. "That section was poured fifteen minutes after the rest. Slightly wetter mix. It'll cure the level, I've monitored the slope."
The inspector said nothing. He stepped over to a covered pallet, flipped the tarp with one flick of his clipboard. "Why aren't these tagged?"
Lars stiffened, but Mikhail answered smoothly. "They are. Tags are punched into the strapping bands. Waterproof ink fades. I can get the invoice from the supplier now if you'd like."
Another grunt. Another pause.
Then the man stopped dead. He turned to face the southeast corner of the trench, the largest pour, the one nearest the access road.
"Where are the expansion joints?" he asked.
Silence.
Kat looked at Mikhail. Lars stopped breathing.
Mikhail stepped forward calmly, pulled a folded set of field notes from his jacket, and opened the page to the joint schematic. "We omitted them in the pour to beat the storm," he said, voice low and firm. "But they're planned. Marked, measured, and scheduled for cutting within the curing window. Before dawn."
The inspector narrowed his eyes. "Pouring without expansion joints is a structural risk."
"Pouring with ten millimeters of rain in the forecast is a bigger one," Mikhail said. "We cut as soon as the concrete hardens. You'll see joints running every fifteen feet. Nothing is being skipped."
The inspector took the notes and scanned them. His pen tapped once. Twice. Then he scribbled something on the form clipped to his board. A moment passed.
Stamp.
"Make sure it's done by dawn," the man said, turning to leave.
Mikhail stood still, watching the stamp dry.
Behind him, Kat finally exhaled. "You didn't even raise your voice."
"I didn't have to," Mikhail said.
Lars smirked. "But we do have to cut joints. Immediately."
Kat checked her watch. "Sun's dropping. We've got four hours."
Mikhail turned toward the toolshed. "Then we'd better start scoring."
The screech of the first saw blade broke the evening silence like a war cry.
Mikhail pressed the concrete cutter's spinning teeth into the foundation slab, guiding the machine with the kind of intensity that shut out everything else, the cold, the damp, even the exhaustion humming in his shoulders. Sparks flared briefly as the blade met embedded rebar too close to the surface. He adjusted his angle, felt the vibration shift, and kept moving.
Behind him, Lars unrolled a fresh extension cord while Kat knelt with a chalk line, snapping deep blue stripes along the slab's width. "Next cut's twelve feet west," she shouted over the noise. Her voice was hoarse, her cheeks smudged with cement dust. "Rebar's deeper there. Should be clean."
Mikhail nodded, sweat beading on his brow despite the chill in the air. The cutting saw jerked slightly in his grip as he reached the end of the first joint. He pulled it back, turned off the motor, and exhaled. The groove ran straight and clean. Twelve millimeters wide, six deep, just enough to guide expansion.
"Looks like you're drawing blueprints with a buzzsaw," Lars muttered, impressed.
"It's the only time my lines can be off by a hair and still hold," Mikhail shot back, rolling the cutter to the next chalk mark. "And I'm not off."
As night deepened, portable lights cast long, angular shadows across the slab. The foundation, just hours ago a smooth monolith of effort, now bore a growing gridwork of scored lines, expansion joints that would keep it from cracking when temperature changes struck. Every pass of the saw was a promise: no shortcuts, no surprises, no failures.
Kat stopped to rub her shoulder. "You know we could've just hired a finishing crew."
"And let someone else screw up our first slab?" Mikhail asked, flipping down his ear protection. "Not a chance."
The motor roared again, and the next cut began.
Halfway through the fourth segment, Lars leaned over. "Remind me again—how wide did you say thermal movement gets on a slab this size?"
Mikhail didn't look up. "Half an inch over fifty feet. If the joints are wrong, it is spiderwebs."
"And we've got what? Forty-nine?"
"Forty-eight and three-quarters."
Lars grinned, despite the ache in his back. "You're a machine."
"No," Mikhail said quietly, cutting through another clean stripe of concrete. "I'm just not willing to make the same mistake twice."
By the time they reached the final stretch, Kat had taken over the cutter. Her arms shook with the effort, but the line she carved was as clean as Mikhail's. He stood beside her with a work lamp, guiding the beam and watching the blade with narrowed eyes.
Then, as the final groove hissed into the slab, the sound of a car engine approached from the access road.
All three of them paused.
The headlights flashed once, then again, short, deliberate.
Lars stood up straighter. "That's not the inspector, is it?"
"No," Mikhail said, already stepping forward, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Wrong kind of caution."
Kat squinted into the light. "Then who the hell is showing up at midnight on a site like this?"
The engine idled, and the driver's door opened.
A man stepped out. Trim suit. Leather shoes. No hardhat. No clipboard.
Mikhail's brow furrowed. "That's not an auditor. That's a suit."
Lars pulled off his gloves. "You think he's from the city?"
"No," Mikhail said slowly, watching the man approach with confident steps and a neutral smile. "I think he's worse."
The man stopped just short of the light's edge and extended a hand. "Mikhail DuPont? I represent someone with an offer."
Mikhail didn't take it.
Instead, he glanced at the still-warm concrete behind him, then at the man's shoes, clean and uncracked.
He crossed his arms. "Then talk fast. We're still working."