Chapter 4 - The Anatomy of a Slap
Back at Hawthorne Preparatory School, Conrad Voss was trying to stop his hands from trembling.
The boardroom was empty now. The trustees had scurried out like roaches caught beneath a sudden spotlight. Wallace Kemp had refused even to ride the elevator with him, muttering something about retained retainers and conflict-of-interest disclosures before practically sprinting to his town car.
“Idiots,” Conrad muttered under his breath, splashing three fingers of single malt into a tumbler. “Pompous, cowardly idiots.”
He paced the length of the oriental carpet, stopping by the fireplace to look up at the oil portrait of Hawthorne’s founding patron. Conrad had built this place into an empire. The annual tuition rivaled an Ivy League university; the endowment sat comfortably in the hundreds of millions.
What did it matter if he moved two or three million dollars through North Vale Consulting? The money had gone toward the new athletic complex—and perhaps a modest, necessary retainer for the private charter services he required for fundraising trips to Aspen and Saint-Tropez.
He had simply smoothed over an administrative shortfall. Owen Price was an office cleaner’s son; the boy would find a public school, take his state exams, and become an accountant anyway. Hawthorne didn't need charity cases; Hawthorne needed capital.
The door to his inner office clicked open.
It was his administrative assistant, Brenda, her eyes wide behind round glasses. She held a stack of cream-colored memo slips.
“Mr. Voss?”
“I told you no calls, Brenda. Tell the board secretary we will issue a formal statement regarding Mrs. Mercer’s dismissal by tomorrow morning. Gross insubordination and breach of faculty contract.”
“It’s not the board secretary, sir,” Brenda said, her voice shaking. “It’s the Bank of New York Mellon.”
Conrad frowned, lowering his glass. “What about them?”
“Our operational line of credit. The forty-million-dollar liquidity facility we use for payroll and campus operations. It’s been frozen.”
“Frozen? That’s absurd. Call Arthur Sterling immediately. His firm oversees—”
“Mr. Sterling’s office called four minutes ago,” Brenda interrupted, near tears. “He has resigned from the board. Effective thirty seconds prior to the call. And… Mr. Voss? Look out the window.”
Conrad turned, his heart thumping against his ribs with a sudden, sickening rhythm.
He walked to the leaded-glass bay window overlooking the grand quadrangle.
The sleet was falling heavier now, coating the manicured lawns in a sheet of gray glass. At the campus gates, three black suburban utilities had parked nose-to-tail, blocking the main exit. Men in dark overcoats were getting out. They carried silver aluminum briefcases and hard-bound leather files.
Behind them, a fourth vehicle—a massive, blacked-out Mercedes Sprinter van equipped with satellite arrays—had pulled onto the school’s private lawn, crushing the championship-grade turf without hesitation.
“Who authorized those vehicles on campus?” Conrad demanded, his throat dry. “Call the local township police!”
“I did, sir,” Brenda whispered. “The chief said the New York Attorney General’s Special Financial Crimes Unit had filed an emergency subpoena and an asset preservation order twenty minutes ago. The township was ordered to stand down.”
Conrad dropped his glass.
The heavy crystal tumbler hit the parquet floor and shattered, amber liquid soaking into the wood.
Through the window, Conrad watched one man step out from the Sprinter van. He was young—no older than forty-two—tall, lean, dressed in a charcoal cashmere topcoat with no hat despite the freezing rain.
He did not hurry. He did not look around at the stately brick buildings, the slate roofs, or the historic arches.
He walked with the terrifying, mathematical certainty of an executioner who had already checked the rope three times.
May you like
Roman Vance Mercer had arrived.
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