Chapter 77 - The Counter-Breach
"The seventy-two thousand dollars wasn't the purchase price," Clara said, leaning in so close her breath warmed my frozen cheek. "It was the delinquent property tax lien! If the county auctioned that condo for unpaid taxes, the city marshals would have entered the unit, discovered the safe, and confiscated the bearer shares as abandoned assets!"
"Beatrice couldn't pay the taxes herself without alerting the probate court that she was exercising control over an undisclosed corporate asset," I realized. "She needed me to pay it under the guise of an extravagant wedding gift. When I refused, she panicked. She threw the tantrum to trigger the secondary contingency—the malicious disinheritance claim."
"Which gives them sixty days of emergency operational control," Clara added, pulling out her mobile phone. "Julian, look at the time. It’s 5:48 AM. Sterling said the Frankfurt clearinghouse opens at seven-fifteen central time. But they can’t wire the forty-four million without those certificates."
"They don't have them yet," I said.
The realization struck me like lightning.
"Marianne and Beatrice aren't heading to an airport to fly to Switzerland. They’re driving directly into downtown Chicago. They’re going to 1414 North LaSalle to retrieve those shares before the morning sun comes up!"
Suddenly, the screen of Clara’s ThinkPad pinged.
A red notification banner flashed across the desktop: *INCOMING ENCRYPTED VOIP CONNECTION.*
The caller ID was an unlisted Chicago regional prefix.
I hesitated for half a second before hitting the accept button and putting it on speaker.
"Julian?"
It was Miller. His voice was ragged, breathing heavily through what sounded like a secure vehicle headset.
"Miller! Where are you?" I demanded.
"Listen to me very carefully," Miller hissed. "I’m in the rear seat of a transport vehicle heading east on Interstate 90. They relieved me of my badge twenty minutes ago, but they didn't know I had a second burner taped behind the glove compartment."
"Miller, Marianne Vance is an imposter. The death certificate for Victoria—"
"I know," Miller cut me off. "I just ran the biometric registry on the digital release Sterling handed to the federal judge. The thumbprint on the Zurich release form didn't match Victoria Vance’s passport record. It matched a federal fugitive wanted by the Southern District of New York since 2004 for corporate asset stripping."
"Marianne Vance," I said.
"Her real name is Marianne Croft. Arthur Sterling’s former law partner and his ex-wife. She was never your grandfather’s mistress, Julian. She was his offshore financial manager. When your grandfather died, she forged an adoption decree in Cook County to insert Beatrice into the succession line!"
The diner booth seemed to spin around me.
"Beatrice isn't my sister?" I gasped.
"Beatrice is Arthur Sterling and Marianne Croft’s biological daughter," Miller revealed. "They planted her in your family twenty-six years ago to systematically siphon the Vance industrial estate from the inside out. Your mother Victoria found out six months ago. That’s why she went to Zurich—she was trying to change the trust beneficiaries to Clara and you. But Marianne intercepted her at the clinic."
"Where is Victoria, Miller?" I shouted, my voice cracking, heads turning from the front counter. "Is she alive?"
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"She was admitted under an alias to the Saint-Gothard Rehabilitation Center in Lucerne," Miller said, his connection crackling with heavy static. "She’s alive, Julian. But if those bearer certificates leave the country this morning, Marianne’s Swiss network will pull the plug on her life support before lunch. You have one hour. Get to LaSalle Street."
The line went dead.
