Chapter 55: Highway Collision

The sound of crunching metal shrieked through the speakerphone.

"Morgan!" Camilla yelled, stepping forward and gripping the edge of the mahogany table.

"He is trying to pit me," Morgan gritted out. The roar of wind and the whine of a straining engine flooded the line. "Gray sedan. Heavy front end. He is trying to push my back passenger panel."

Lucas stared at the phone resting on the polished wood. He opened the System, looking for anything that could reach a car on a highway.

[Current AP Balance: 100]

[No available skill within current AP.]

He did not need the System to tell him he was powerless to stop a car forty miles away.

"Morgan, listen to me," Lucas said. He kept his voice flat and steady. "Do not try to outrun him. If he taps your rear quarter panel at highway speeds, you will roll the car. Drop your speed. Break his alignment."

"I am boxing him out against a freight truck," Morgan replied, her breathing jagged but controlled. "But my lane is ending. I am running out of shoulder."

Victoria Sterling turned sharply to her gray-haired security chief.

"Call the state police," Victoria said. "Tell them a woman is being run off the northbound interstate by a gray sedan. Give them her car and her number. Now."

The security chief nodded, already pulling a two-way radio to his mouth and stepping out into the corridor to make the call.

"Morgan, where are you exactly?" Camilla asked.

"I just passed an overpass," Morgan said. A horn blared over the speaker. "There is a service plaza coming up in two miles."

"Get there," Lucas said. "He wants you on an empty stretch of highway where he can force you into the median. He is a corporate fixer, not a cartel hitman. He will not follow you into a parking lot full of families, cameras, and witnesses. Take the exit hard."

"He is pulling up on my left," Morgan said. The sound of her steering wheel jerking echoed over the line. "He is trying to block the off-ramp."

Lucas watched Nathan Cole sitting at the far end of the table. The deputy general counsel’s face was gray. Whoever was in that sedan, Cole knew the people who had sent him.

"Use your brakes, Morgan," Lucas instructed. "Let him overshoot. The moment his rear bumper clears your front tire, cut behind him and dive for the ramp."

For a moment there was only road noise.

"Doing it," Morgan said.

A sharp squeal of rubber tore through the speaker. Lucas heard the heavy thud of Morgan’s car hitting the grooved shoulder of the highway, followed by the frantic blaring of multiple horns.

"I am on the ramp," Morgan gasped. "I am laying on the horn. I am driving straight to the front doors of the plaza."

"Is he behind you?" Camilla demanded.

"No," Morgan said. She let out a long, shuddering breath. "He aborted. He swerved back into the center lane. He stayed on the interstate."

The security chief stepped back through the glass doors. He looked at Victoria and offered a curt nod.

"Troopers are pulling into the service plaza right now, Ms. Hale," the security chief said toward the phone. "They have your vehicle description. Flash your hazard lights. They will provide a secure escort for you and the documents all the way to our underground garage."

"I see them," Morgan said. The adrenaline was finally catching up to her voice, leaving it slightly shaky. "I have the Northshore original. It is safe."

"You did perfectly, Morgan," Lucas said softly. "Catch your breath. We will see you soon."

He ended the call.

Lucas did not look at Victoria or Camilla. He knew the secret he was harboring. He was the one who had altered the routing numbers on page forty-seven. He had parked the Vertex money in Camilla’s dormant account to keep it out of Cole’s hands, inadvertently putting it right in front of Mads Ellstrom.

He could not admit that to Victoria. If Victoria found out her attaché had altered a city contract under her nose, whatever trust they had built would be gone.

Camilla walked over to the mahogany table. She picked up her phone and looked at Cole.

"Morgan is safe," Camilla said. Her voice was ice. "The wet-ink original is safe. Your friends in Wilmington are running from the state police. You are out of moves, Nathan."

Cole stared at the polished wood in front of him. He looked hollow.

Lucas activated his Micro-Motive Perception.

[Target Psychological Collapse Confirmed.]

[Target sees no remaining exits.]

"Mads played you, Nathan," Lucas said. "One phone call put the state police on your people in Wilmington, and all that heat lands on you while he drives south with the Vertex money."

"He was supposed to manage the internal audits," Cole whispered. "He was supposed to keep Camilla blind."

"He kept everyone blind," Camilla stated. She turned to Victoria. "My bank needs a formal police report filed within twenty-four hours to make the freeze on the Panama wire permanent. We have the Delaware forgery. We have the man who built it sitting right here. We call the police now."

Victoria folded her arms and looked at Cole.

"We file the wire fraud charges against Mads to lock your money," Victoria agreed. "And we hand Cole to the authorities for corporate fraud. We deliver the narrative. We explain that two rogue employees colluded to frame us. We protect both companies in one move."

It was the clean answer. For once, they held the cards.

"Chief," Victoria said, addressing her security head. "Contact the financial crimes division of the local precinct. Tell them the CEO of Vertex Management and the CEO of Verman Development need detectives dispatched to our second-floor conference room immediately to report an embezzlement."

"Right away, Ms. Sterling," the chief said. He turned and walked out the glass doors again.

Camilla let out a slow breath and leaned against the edge of the table. She looked at Lucas and gave him a small nod.

"Mads wiped his laptop before he left my building," Camilla murmured, mostly to herself. "But my IT department can pull server backups. We will give the detectives every email he sent for the last two years."

"He won’t get to Panama," Lucas said. "Not if the wire is frozen. He has no capital. He is just a man in a black SUV running out of highway."

Cole finally raised his head. He looked at the three of them.

"You think you can control this," Cole said softly. A dark, bitter smile touched his lips. "You think you can just hand me over and walk away clean. Mads is a coward, but he is a vindictive coward. He knows what Northshore represents. He knows the government will view a joint shell company as an illegal cartel."

"The wet-ink original proves our signatures were forged," Victoria said flatly.

"It proves they were lifted," Cole corrected her. "It does not prove you didn’t order the forgery for plausible deniability. The federal government hates billionaires. They hate monopolies. When they see a shell company connecting the two biggest real estate developers in the city, they will not see a frame job. They will see the antitrust case of the decade."

"We will take our chances with the detectives," Camilla said.

The glass doors of the conference room swung open.

The security chief stepped back inside. He was holding his phone away from his body, as if it might go off in his hand.

"Did you reach the police?" Victoria asked.

"They are sending detectives," the security chief said. "But there is something else, Ms. Sterling. The front desk just forwarded me a call."

"From whom?" Victoria asked.

"A reporter from the financial press," the chief said. "She says she received an anonymous email forty minutes ago with formation documents for a Delaware company called Northshore Remediation Group. She wants comment on why Vertex Management and Verman Development own it together."

Nobody moved.

Lucas did the math. Forty minutes ago, Mads had still been in Camilla’s building, wiping his laptop.

He had not just taken the money and run. Before he left, he had sent out the one story Cole had been holding back for two years.

Cole let out a short, humorless laugh.

"I told you," he said. "He is a vindictive coward."

The chief cleared his throat. "She says she is publishing at six o’clock tonight, with or without a statement."