Chapter 54: Flight Risk

Nobody in the second-floor conference room spoke.

Victoria closed her eyes for two seconds. When she opened them again, she was already working.

"It is Saturday," Victoria said. Her voice was flat. "An international wire that size does not just disappear on a weekend. The clearinghouses are closed. The money is sitting in a correspondent queue."

Camilla Verman was already moving. She did not waste time looking at Cole. She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed her private banker.

"Flag the outgoing wire as unauthorized," Camilla commanded the moment the line connected. She paced the length of the conference room. "Initiate a SWIFT recall under fraud protocols. I do not care if your compliance officer is on a golf course. Get him on the phone. I need the receiving routing number and the destination institution right now."

Lucas watched the two of them. Neither one froze.

He stayed quiet. He did not volunteer the fact that he was the one who had altered page forty-seven. He had parked the Vertex money in Camilla’s dormant account to keep it out of Cole’s hands. Mads had been watching those accounts, seen the money land, and taken it.

Lucas looked down at Nathan Cole.

The deputy general counsel was sitting rigidly in his leather chair. The defiance was gone. His face was gray.

"He burned you, Nathan," Lucas said softly.

Cole slowly raised his head.

"You built the shells. You forged the environmental reports," Lucas said, keeping his voice low enough that Victoria and Camilla would not be distracted from their phones. "But Mads was the one inside Camilla’s office. He had the access to her dormant accounts. When he saw the Vertex money land in that account, he didn’t call you. He moved it himself."

"We agreed nobody touched that account," Cole whispered. His voice shook. "Not until Northshore was clean."

"He is her assistant," Lucas said. "He handles her devices and her authorizations every day. He didn’t need your agreement. He took the one pile of money he could reach, and he left you here to take the fall."

[Target Psychological Collapse Detected.]

[Nathan Cole’s belief in his exit strategy has been completely eradicated.]

Cole leaned forward and put his face in his hands.

Camilla ended her call and turned back to the table.

"The receiving account is a corporate shell in Panama," Camilla said. "My bank has issued a temporary freeze on the transfer. But because the money moved from an account in my name, standard banking regulations require a formal police report within twenty-four hours to hold the freeze. If we don’t file one, the transfer clears on Monday morning."

Victoria looked at her gray-haired security chief.

"Get me someone senior at the police department," Victoria said. "Not a desk sergeant." "We are filing a criminal complaint for felony wire fraud against Mads Ellstrom."

"If you bring the police into this, they look at the origin of the funds," Cole said through his fingers. He dropped his hands and looked at Victoria with bloodshot eyes. "They look at the zoning contract. They find Northshore. They find the collusion trap. You pull the trigger on Mads, you shoot yourself."

"I am not letting an assistant walk away with my money," Victoria stated.

"We have Morgan," Lucas interjected.

Both women turned to look at him.

"Morgan Hale has the wet-ink original from Delaware," Lucas reminded them. "She is driving back with it right now. The moment she arrives, you hand the physical forgery to the police. You don’t have to hide the collusion trap. You expose it yourselves. You prove that Mads and Cole forged your signatures to frame you."

Victoria thought about it. Her jaw loosened slightly. If they controlled the narrative and delivered the evidence themselves, they were victims of a rogue conspiracy, not members of a cartel.

Camilla’s phone rang again. She answered it immediately and put it on speaker.

"Ms. Verman," her head of security said over the line. The sound of rapid typing echoed in the background. "We pulled the loading dock and service corridor cameras. Ellstrom bypassed the main lobby. He left the building twenty-two minutes ago."

"Did he get in a taxi?" Camilla demanded.

"No," the security head replied. "He had a vehicle waiting in the alley. A black SUV. We have the plate, and the bank across the street let us see their camera."

"Is he heading for an airport?" Victoria asked, stepping closer to the phone.

"No, Ms. Sterling," the security head said. "He hit the southbound interstate. He is driving away from the airports. He is heading toward Delaware."

The room went quiet.

Lucas’s stomach dropped.

Mads was an assistant, but he was not stupid. He knew that even with the money transferred, his entire future hinged on the Delaware formation documents. If the wet-ink original proved the signatures were forged and notarized by him, the federal government would hunt him to the ends of the earth. He could not spend the money if he was on Interpol’s red notice list.

And Mads had notarized that page himself. He knew exactly where the original lived, and who in Wilmington would have it.

"He is not running," Lucas said. "He is going to clean up the evidence."

Victoria turned to him. "Morgan is on the highway."

Lucas already had his cracked smartphone in his hand. He mentally checked his System interface, calculating his remaining options.

[Current AP Balance: 100]

A hundred points would not buy anything that mattered here. This was on Morgan.

He dialed her number.

The line rang once. Twice. Three times.

"Pick up," Camilla whispered, stepping into Lucas’s space and staring at the phone.

"Hale," Morgan answered on the fourth ring. The loud, rhythmic hum of highway tires over pavement rushed through the speaker.

"Morgan, where exactly are you?" Lucas asked. He kept his voice steady, refusing to let the panic bleed through the connection.

"Still on the interstate," Morgan said. She sounded tense. "Maybe forty minutes out. The Northshore folder is on the passenger seat. What is going on at Vertex?"

"Mads Ellstrom is Cole’s accomplice," Lucas said quickly. "He wiped his laptop and left Camilla’s building. He is driving south toward Delaware right now. If he calls Pell and Garrity, they will tell him you have the paper."

For three seconds there was nothing on the line.

Lucas heard the sound of Morgan’s turn signal clicking in the background.

"Lucas," Morgan said. She was calm, but her words had gone very precise. "Pell and Garrity already know. Their lawyer watched me walk out of the hold center with it."

"What are you saying?" Victoria asked, leaning closer to the phone.

"I am saying there is a gray sedan that has been two cars behind me since the Wilmington on-ramp," Morgan said. Her engine revved as she accelerated. "I thought it was weekend traffic. But every time I change lanes, he changes lanes."

Lucas gripped the edge of the mahogany table.

Mads did not need to catch Morgan himself. He only needed to make one phone call.

"Morgan, do not pull over," Lucas ordered. "Keep your speed. We are calling the state police right now to intercept."

"He’s closing in," Morgan said. Then a loud metallic crunch came over the line.

"Morgan!" Camilla shouted.

"He just clipped my rear bumper," Morgan said, her voice tight. Tires screeched through the speaker. "He is trying to run me off the road!"