Chapter 7: Forty-Three Days Becomes Three
Ivan was back in Jessi's office by four o'clock.
He told her about Carol.
About Sophie.
About the second man and the threat.
Jessi listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
Then she picked up her phone and called her head of legal.
"Thomas.
Clear your afternoon." She paused.
"All of it."
She set the phone down.
"He threatened a child."
"Yes."
"That changes the legal exposure significantly." Her voice was controlled, but something underneath it wasn't.
"Witness intimidation.
Potentially criminal threatening." She looked at Ivan.
"He's panicking."
"He's escalating," Ivan said.
"There's a difference.
Panicking people make mistakes.
Escalating people make moves." He sat down.
"He knows we went to dinner and he didn't shake us.
He knows you have a husband he can't immediately discredit.
He's running out of clean options, so he's moving to dirty ones."
"How long before the board vote?"
"Thirty-eight days now."
Jessi stood and walked to the window.
The city spread out below her, indifferent and enormous.
"He's going to file the competency petition early.
Before the vote.
He's going to try to force an emergency board session."
"When?"
"If I were him?" She turned around.
"Within the week."
Ivan looked at the unlabeled folder still on her desk.
"Then we need to move first."
"The financial transfer records aren't complete.
I have eighteen months of data but the most recent three months are still being compiled by my forensic accountant.
Without the full picture—"
"What do you have right now that's usable?"
She crossed to the desk and opened the folder.
Spread three documents across the wood.
"Fourteen transfers.
Total value approximately 2.3 million dollars.
Routed through a shell company registered in Delaware." She tapped the third page.
"The shell company's registered agent is a man named Gerald Fitch.
Gerald Fitch is Marcus's college roommate."
Ivan looked at the documents.
"That's enough to open an investigation."
"It's enough to embarrass him.
It's not enough to convict him." She looked up.
"And if I move too early and he survives it, the board will see it as a desperate attack from a compromised executive.
It has to be airtight."
"Then we need the last three months."
"My accountant says ten days minimum."
"We don't have ten days."
They looked at each other across the desk.
"There's another option," Ivan said slowly.
"We don't wait for him to file.
We go to the board first.
Not with the financial records — not yet.
We go to them with Carol's statement and the witness intimidation evidence.
We let them know that Marcus has been attempting to illegally obtain confidential medical records and threatening witnesses." He paused.
"We don't need to prove the fraud to plant doubt.
We just need three board members to ask questions before he files."
Jessi was quiet.
"Which three?" she asked.
"You tell me.
Who on that board is genuinely independent?"
She thought.
"Patricia Howe.
Definitely.
She's been skeptical of Marcus for two years." She paused.
"Leonard Chu.
He's cautious but fair." Another pause.
"Possibly Renata Osei.
She's new.
She hasn't been cultivated by either side yet."
"Can you get meetings with all three before Friday?"
"Patricia, yes.
Leonard, probably.
Renata—" She hesitated.
"She doesn't know me well enough yet to trust a private conversation."
"Then I'll go with you to Renata's meeting." Ivan met her eyes.
"You said you needed a flawless performance.
That's what it looks like."
Jessi studied him.
"You've done this before.
Not the marriage part.
The other part.
Moving pieces before the other side sees the board."
"Intelligence work is mostly chess," he said.
"And patience."
"We don't have patience anymore."
"No," he agreed.
"So we move fast and clean."
His phone buzzed.
A message from Pete Callahan: *In position.
The kid got home from school fine.
Nobody on the street that I can see.
Staying the night.*
Ivan showed Jessi the message.
She read it.
Set the phone down on the desk.
For a moment she didn't say anything.
"Thank you," she said.
It came out quieter than anything else she'd said in two days.
"Don't thank me yet," Ivan said.
"Marcus is going to find out we went to Carol.
Probably by tomorrow."
"I know."
"When he does, he's going to come at you directly.
Something public.
Something designed to make you react."
Jessi straightened.
The tiredness in her face reorganized itself back into the Iron Queen's composure, but Ivan had spent enough time watching people under pressure to see what was underneath it now.
"Let him," she said.
Her desk phone rang.
Her assistant's voice came through the speaker: "Mrs.
Sterling.
Your brother is in the lobby.
He says it's urgent."
Jessi looked at Ivan.
May you like
Ivan stood up and buttoned his jacket.
"Tell him to come up," Jessi said.
