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Chapter 176: The Consortium Signs
Tariq Samir landed in Crestford at seven in the morning and was in the Cole Group's boardroom by nine, which told Ethan something before the man had spoken. People who came to deliver bad news by telephone did not cross three time zones to do it in person.He arrived with two members of his committee and a bound folder, shook hands with Ethan, Catherine, and Franklin Greer in that order, and declined coffee. He was a compact, unhurried man in his fifties, and he sat down as if the room were a place of business, not a place of drama."I want to be clear about why I'm here," he said. "I'm not here as a friend. I'm not here because of New Harbor, though I read about it. I'm here because the consortium has reached a decision, and I would like it executed properly, in front of the people it concerns, with counsel present.""We're listening," Ethan said."The committee has reviewed the past two months. The succession dispute. The court's findings on the documents. The notice Gerald served o
Chapter 175: The Neutral Faction Moves
By the following morning, New Harbor had stopped being a private matter. The federal officers had said nothing publicly, and Catherine had been careful to say nothing at all, but a registrar's duty log is read by more people than the registrar, and an incident at a court-protected facility, with two men detained and a set of forged papers bagged for evidence, travels through a city like a smell through a corridor. By eight o'clock, three board members, a lender and the editor of a trade newsletter had telephoned Franklin Greer to ask whether it was true."I told all of them the same thing," Greer said, settling into his usual chair in the archive room. "A matter is under investigation, the court has been informed, and nobody has been hurt. Beyond that, I knew nothing." He took the cup Leo handed him. "They didn't believe the last part. But they stopped asking.""Who's reacting?" Ethan asked."Everyone who can afford to be. I'd rather tell you which of them matter." Greer opened a note
Chapter 174: The Confrontation at New Harbor
The first car stopped at the yard gate and stayed there with its engine running. The second, which had followed it along the river road, slowed almost to a halt, let its headlights pass across the wall of the records house, and then continued on toward the New Harbor docks without turning in. Leo watched it go on the tablet and said nothing about it. He had trained himself to count what he could confirm, and what he could confirm was one car, at the gate, with two men in it.They got out unhurriedly. One was tall and fair, in a dark overcoat, carrying a leather folder under his arm. The other was shorter and heavier, and he stayed a pace behind with his hands visible, which Leo noted and approved of in the abstract, the way one approves of good manners in an adversary. Neither had raised his voice. Neither looked toward the building as though he expected to be stopped.Ethan remained in the corridor outside the vault room, where Leo had told him to stay. He could hear the exchange thr
Chapter 173: The Race to Aldric
Leo made the first call before Ethan had finished speaking. He stood at the end of the table with the phone against his ear, giving the facility's custodian a series of short instructions in a voice that carried none of the urgency his hands betrayed, and when he lowered it, he had already crossed to the wall map and put a finger on the river road."Custodian confirms the papers are inside, logged and sealed, and nobody has entered since the transfer. Two of ours are in the building, two more outside." He turned. "That's what I know about the facility. What I know about Gerald is thinner. The team watching his house reported twenty minutes ago that a car left the estate gate and was joined at the corner by a second. They didn't think it mattered until the log from Lane's phone came in. They're on the east approach now. If they're heading where I think they're heading, they have the river road at about forty-five minutes.""Forty-five from now?""From this minute. I'm allowing for the
Chapter 172: Gerald's Backup
"That was an offer to buy the past," Catherine said, once the screen had gone dark. "He didn't want the company divided. He wanted the question closed."Ethan did not answer at once. He was looking at the phone as though it might still say something, and when he finally spoke, it was to Leo. "How did he know I'd read the note this morning? He said he wrote to a man who would have the sense to read it before doing anything else. He knew it had reached me. He knew I'd had time to arrange it.""He might have guessed.""He might. He sounded as if he'd been told."Leo had not moved from the doorway, and his face had settled into the particular stillness that Ethan had learned meant he was working. "I've been treating that note as a message," he said slowly. "Something designed to be read and answered. But the call came within the hour. Whoever wrote it knew roughly when it would be opened, and knew you'd have the sense to bring it to this table first. That isn't a guess about a man's chara
Chapter 171: The Call
"Ethan," Gerald said. "I thought you might let it ring out."It was the first time Ethan had heard that voice without a table, a lawyer or a camera between them, and it was exactly as he remembered it from the dinners where he had stood behind chairs: unhurried, courteous, pitched so that nobody had to lean in. In the archive room, Catherine had lowered herself back into her seat without a sound. Leo had not moved from the door. Ethan put the phone on the table and touched the screen so that the speaker caught it, then looked at Catherine. She nodded once, which was the only permission he needed."You wrote to the vault," he said."I wrote to a man who would have the sense to read it before he did anything else. I see he did." There was a faint pause, almost approving. "I'm not calling to threaten you. I'd have thought you'd noticed I've stopped doing that. It hasn't produced anything lately.""Then why are you calling?""Because we've both spent a great deal of money and a great many
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