Chapter 10
Julian stared at Catherine, his brow furrowing as he tried to trace the logic through his exhausted mind. “Zurich? We closed those accounts during the corporate audit three years ago. The SEC mandated the complete liquidation of all foreign holding vehicles.”
“That’s what we wanted the SEC to believe,” Catherine replied, a grim, humorless smile touching her lips. She leaned against the rolling tray for support, her fingers gripping the edge of the metal until her knuckles turned white. The bandage on her forehead seemed to pulse with her heartbeat, but she ignored the pain, driven entirely by a desperate, vindictive survival instinct. “We liquidated the primary accounts, yes. But we left a secondary reserve untouched under a dormant subsidiary—the very subsidiary that Arnold personally managed before he was promoted to senior counsel.”
Thomas walked slowly back toward the bed, his eyes locked onto the document in Catherine’s hand. The skepticism in his posture had vanished, replaced by a sudden, sharp interest. “Arnold managed the subsidiary? Are you certain?”
“I signed the formation documents myself,” Catherine said, her voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial whisper. “Arnold set up the subsidiary as a slush fund to finance his own real estate acquisitions in Vermont five years ago. He used our signatures as collateral, but he’s the sole beneficiary listed on the primary bank ledger in Switzerland. If the federal prosecutor sees this document, Arnold’s immunity deal evaporates instantly. He didn't just facilitate the fraud—he orchestrated the embezzlement from the very beginning.”
Julian slowly rose from the armchair, stepping closer to inspect the paper. He read the dense lines of text, tracing the routing numbers and the signature block at the bottom. There was no mistaking it; the looping, elegant handwriting belonged to Arnold. It was the smoking gun they had been searching for since the investigation began.
“This changes everything,” Julian breathed, a glimmer of hope cutting through the deep despair that had gripped him all morning. “If we hand this over to the U.S. Attorney before Arnold’s formal deposition takes place this afternoon, the prosecution’s entire case against us crumbles into obstruction and conspiracy charges that we can plea down to misdemeanors.”
“And Arnold?” Thomas asked, his tone ice-cold. “What happens to him?”
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“He takes the fall for the entire operation,” Catherine said simply, her eyes hardening as she looked at her two colleagues. “He wanted to play the hero and walk away clean? We’ll make sure he carries the weight of every single dollar we stole.”
Julian nodded slowly, the moral hesitation that had plagued him the night before completely evaporating in the face of self-preservation. He reached out and took the document from Catherine’s hand. “Give me the burner phone. I’ll call the prosecutor’s office directly and schedule an emergency deposition before noon.”
