Chapter 1 – MURDER
Charlie Bakkendorf considered himself an ordinary man. Neither virtuous nor villainous, he lived a life driven by simple wants and needs, with no space for malice. His title, “vault manager” at the esteemed investment bank Bolton Sayres, carried prestige but little meaning; in reality, Charlie managed nothing. A high school graduate with no special credentials, he had drifted into the role without fanfare.
At 32, Charlie was single and ached with loneliness. That, however, was about to change. Or so he believed. In just two weeks, Maria had turned his world upside down. Her face lingered in his mind, vivid and irresistible. He was smitten.
He hoped his insistence on sending her home by taxi had made an impression. It was a small gesture, but one he felt conveyed his sincerity. Smiling to himself, he replayed the memory of their coffee date, which had unexpectedly blossomed into a charming dinner. On Saturday, he would see her again, treating her to an evening designed to dazzle: dinner at an exclusive New York City restaurant, followed by a Broadway show.
The lavish night would cost a fortune, perhaps over a thousand dollars, but for once, Charlie wasn’t concerned. He had hit the jackpot. Two million dollars. Enough to fulfill his every dream. Spending a fraction of it to treat Maria like royalty felt not only doable but right. The 21 Club and prime Broadway seats were just the beginning. Adjusting to his new wealth might take time, but starting Saturday, he was determined to embrace it.
The taxi ride back to Brooklyn jolted him from his reverie. He reached for his wallet, calculating the fare. Old habits lingered; the thought of paying another fifty dollars for the rest of the trip made him cringe. Why spend so much when the subway costs a mere two fifty? With a sigh, Charlie paid the cabbie and stepped onto the platform at the 181st Street station.
The subway, mercifully quiet, was a world away from its usual chaos. A few scattered passengers milled about as Charlie boarded the train. He welcomed the solitude, envisioning a future where he could afford to leave this grind behind. Soon, he would buy an apartment in Lower Manhattan and stroll to work. Or perhaps leave work altogether.
Switching lines mid-journey, Charlie made it home in under thirty minutes. Emerging from the station, he stepped onto a dimly lit street. Pools of weak light spilled from scattered lamps, barely illuminating the surrounding shadows. Something about the darkness unsettled him, a feeling that grew sharper as he noticed a figure emerge from the gloom.
The man, short and stocky, appeared abruptly at Charlie’s right. His arrival was jarring, and Charlie’s pulse quickened. Encounters like this were rare in his mostly white neighborhood. Though Charlie prided himself on being open-minded, the sight of an unfamiliar Black man triggered a pang of unease. What could he possibly want?
The stranger had been waiting, impatiently, for hours. Frustration tightened his jaw as he stepped closer.
“You Charles Bakkendorf?” he asked, his voice edged with a thick street accent.
Charlie stiffened. How did this man know his name? He kept walking, quickening his pace, hoping the stranger would lose interest. But the man followed, easily matching his speed.
“I’m talkin’ to you, brotha’! You Charles Bakkendorf or not?”
Charlie hesitated. If the man knew his name, he probably wasn’t a mugger. That thought calmed him, slightly. Stopping, he turned to face the stranger. The dim streetlamp made it difficult to make out the man’s face, and recognition didn’t come. “What do you want?” Charlie asked cautiously.
“You Charlie Bakkendorf?” the man pressed.
“Yes,” Charlie admitted.
Before he could say more, a second figure stepped from the shadows. This one was enormous, a towering six-foot-nine giant with a ponytail of salt-and-pepper hair and a thick mustache. The bandanna wrapped around his forehead gave him the air of an aging hippie, though his demeanor radiated menace rather than peace.
Before Charlie could react, the giant slipped a garrote around his neck and pulled tight. Panic erupted as Charlie clawed at the thin nylon cord, desperate for air. But the man’s grip was unyielding. Positioned slightly behind him, the giant thwarted any attempts to fight back. Kicks missed their mark; his fingers found no purchase between the rope and his throat. Oxygen dwindled. The world blurred. Within moments, Charlie’s body went limp.
The Black man and the White giant worked quickly. Each looped an arm under one of Charlie’s, propping him up like a drunk friend. To anyone watching, the trio appeared to be a group of rowdy pals heading home after a night out. No one would guess that Charlie was already dead.
They reached a waiting BMW and maneuvered Charlie’s lifeless body into the backseat, tucking his legs neatly in place. Once the doors shut, the car’s heavily tinted windows concealed its grim cargo. Even if someone had looked closely, Charlie merely appeared to be asleep, save for the telltale red line across his neck.
The giant, seated in the passenger seat, peeled off his mustache and wig, revealing a clean-shaven face with a military-style buzz cut. With practiced efficiency, he retrieved a fresh license plate from under the seat. Surveillance cameras would scan the car as it passed, but the new plate would send them chasing ghosts. Confident and methodical, the men drove into the night.
Chapter 2 – EYES OF A SPY
Outwardly, it was indistinguishable from the many commercial structures near Wall Street, its above-ground spaces bustling with businesses. But 90 feet beneath its foundation, embedded in Manhattan’s ancient basalt, lay a clandestine surveillance hub, actively operational on July 24, 2008, the night Charlie Bakkendorf was murdered.
This underground facility housed an extraordinary electronic surveillance system known as THEATRES, masterminded by Adriano Navarro, a middle-aged former soldier turned tech architect. Navarro had designed it ostensibly to protect New York City from terrorism, but it also served the financial interests of a few mega-banks. These institutions used the system to monitor competitors and customers alike, consolidating power through omnipresent surveillance.
The heart of THEATRES was a network of three supercomputers connected via a dense web of fiber-optic links. Tens of thousands of cameras, microphones, drones, and other devices streamed data into the system, their inputs processed by cutting-edge algorithms capable of outpacing an army of analysts. From his vantage point above the control floor, Navarro marveled at the system’s scope, an achievement once deemed science fiction. With a mere keystroke, he could extract intimate details about any resident’s life: employment, finances, health records, and even personal relationships.
Despite his pride, Navarro was a man marked by both physical and emotional scars. Of Italian and Greek heritage, he liked to imagine himself a descendant of the ancient Spartans, warriors renowned for their discipline and agility. Yet time had diminished his actual physical prowess. Once a lean and formidable fighter, his reflection now revealed graying temples and a bald crown. A bad limp, the result of a military ambush during the Gulf War, reminded him daily of his vulnerability.
The ambush had left him with a shattered hip, a broken arm, and two fingers amputated. Though he’d survived, thanks to Kurdish rebels and subsequent medical evacuation to Germany, the ordeal reshaped his life. Declared unfit for active duty in the field, Navarro had been reassigned, at his request, to defense intelligence, where he honed his skills in wiretapping and counter-surveillance. A pivot that eventually drew the attention of Wall Street.
In the post-9/11 chaos, Navarro’s tactical brilliance shone. His emergency plans earned the support of New York’s financial elite, culminating in the birth of THEATRES. To sidestep constitutional challenges, its operations were privatized, ensuring no civil rights lawsuits could claim government overreach. By 2008, the system was an omnipresent force, logging faces, vehicles, and conversations with unparalleled efficiency.
Navarro leaned back in his office chair, sipping coffee brought by his assistant, Susanna Maloney. Smart, efficient, and charming, Susanna had been his trusted aide for years. While her presence sometimes stirred sexual thoughts in his mind, he kept them suppressed. Navarro valued her professionalism.
The routine evening was interrupted by a young operator with troubling news: a partial blackout of surveillance feeds in downtown Brooklyn. Navarro limped his way forward, following the young man as they exited to the control room. Moments later, they stood at the operator’s monitoring station. As expected, the monitor displayed a blank screen.
Navarro sat down, adjusted the controls, and engaged the touch-sensitive zoom feature. The console was user-friendly, akin to a video gaming machine. He zoomed out until the display reverted to a map covering a large section of Brooklyn.
“There,” the young man suggested, pointing to a specific area on the map.
Navarro zoomed in and clicked on “street view,” but the screen filled with static instead of a video feed.
It was impossible to see or hear anything. Navarro typed the reset protocol and waited. The subsystem computer rebooted rapidly, but it didn’t resolve the issue. The screen and speaker remained filled with static.
Navarro looked at his watch. It now read 10:40 PM. Five minutes had passed. Soon, the system would restore itself.
“We might need to reboot the entire system,” he noted. “In the meantime, send an NYPD team and a repair crew to the area.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man replied. “But it’ll take at least 10 to 15 minutes to get people there.”
As it turned out, however, the time factor quickly became unimportant. Suddenly, at 10:41 PM, as if by magic, the relevant video feed flickered back onto the screen. Although the area was dark, the infrared imaging made it relatively clear. A drunken man staggered down the street, mumbling incoherently. The young operator shook his head, confused.
“I don’t understand it. Should I still send the NYPD?” he asked.
“Go ahead and do that,” Navarro replied, smiling as he made his way back to his office, his walking stick helping him along the way.
He turned back to the young man and added, “And email the programming team. We’ll see what they have to say.”
Chapter 3 – FIVE YEARS LATER
Jim Bentley grabbed his coffee and headed to the bank’s car loan office at 9:30 AM sharp. Another day at Bolton Sayres, another assignment no one else wanted. As a young lawyer working at his father-in-law’s bank, a position secured through his marriage to Laura Stoneham, the CEO’s daughter, he’d jumped at the chance for courtroom experience. But a real estate foreclosure case seemed bizarre for an investment bank.
In the fourth sub-basement, Leroy White was just finishing waxing a burgundy BMW 528i. The 60-year-old transplant from Mississippi managed the bank’s fleet of luxury cars with meticulous pride, his position secured through his own son-in-law’s political connections in New York’s Black community. Though illiterate, Leroy knew every vehicle like the back of his hand.
“Morning, Mista Bentley,” Leroy called out with a broad smile. “She’s all ready fer ya.”
After a quick check of Jim’s paperwork, Leroy handed over the ignition token. “Don’t forget me at Christmas now,” he added with a wink.
The BMW’s silent cabin made Jim think of his own 2002 Chevy Cavalier. It was still gathering dust in a Manhattan garage. He hadn’t touched it since moving to the city. What was the point? Most bank employees relied on subways and taxis; many didn’t even have licenses. But Jim liked driving, even if opportunities were rare these days.
Laura’s words echoed in his mind: “Money doesn’t matter.”
That was easy for her to say. She’d never known anything but wealth. She’d drawn him to New York despite his hatred of city life, and he’d followed for love. But everything had changed since their marriage, especially after their daughter’s birth. His wife’s dramatic weight gain had transformed her into someone he barely recognized.
What choice did he have? Their daughter needed him, and he wouldn’t abandon his responsibilities as a father. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what remained of their relationship beneath the weight of all these changes. They hadn’t had sex for months.
By 10:00 AM, the BMW was cruising north on the New York Thruway toward Clarksville, the county seat of Verde County. The journey took him from Manhattan’s concrete jungle to the pristine Catskill Mountains, where 76,000 residents lived among rolling farmland and tourist destinations. The courthouse, a 19th-century Roman-style building of red sandstone, dominated the small town of 20,000.
At 1:40 PM, Jim slipped into the traditional courtroom, taking a seat several rows behind the other pinstriped lawyers. Before Judge Floyd Van Hewing sat two attorneys: Jeb Knight, a respected Kingston lawyer known for representing big businesses, and Albert Bennington, a local sole practitioner.
Knight rose to speak.
“Your honor, as my colleague admitted in his paperwork, NY Code Section 3212 provides that creditors have no claim upon life insurance if the named beneficiary survives the deceased.”
“Doesn’t that mean I have to deny your motion?” Judge Van Hewing interrupted.
“No, your honor. Our bank is one of Thomas Mattingly’s creditors. But as you know, back in 2010, the bodies of three members of the Mattingly family were found dead in their home in Paradise. A forensic investigation proved that the cause of death of the wife and son was murder, followed by the father’s suicide.”
“Why would the insurance company pay out on a suicide?” the judge cut in.
“The policy was purchased over two years before the suicide,” Knight explained. “Suicide exclusions are active for 2 years. After that, it’s assumed that a suicide wasn’t done for financial gain.”
“I see.”
“No one disputes that his wife, Sarah Mattingly, was the named beneficiary of the policy and that she died 2 hours before her husband.”
“What difference does it make?”
“It means that Sarah did not survive him. Therefore, her beneficiary status never kicked in. The only surviving heir is Thomas Mattingly’s grandson,” Knight pointed out. “But since he was NOT a named beneficiary, and New York law protects only named beneficiaries, the money must be paid into the estate.”
“And then, of course, to the creditors, which means to your bank, right?” the judge finished.
“Exactly, your honor.”
The judge leaned forward. “If I grant your motion, the boy will, in practical terms, be left with nothing, because your client will take every penny, minus administration costs.”
“Maybe, your honor. But that’s the law, and we’re all sworn to uphold the law.”
“How do we know that the omission of the boy was not an oversight by his grandfather on the insurance policy?” The judge asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” the lawyer argued, “because there’s no basis for a potential heir to receive life insurance proceeds, in preference to the Estate of the deceased, unless he is named in the policy.”
“How much is the debt?”
“The line of credit was 25 million dollars. Of that, Thomas Mattingly had drawn down 1.4 million. The appraisal on the house comes to 738,000. The remaining balance is 642,545 dollars and 34 cents, including foreclosure costs.”
“Mr. Knight.” The judge’s voice hardened. “Part of this court’s job is to protect widows and orphans.”
“The appraisal, I might add, is very generous,” Knight continued, undeterred. “The bank will almost certainly get less money on the subsequent sale. But we’ve agreed to take ownership at the appraised value.”
The judge flipped through his file.
“I don’t like taking away an insurance policy from an orphan.”
“Your honor,” Knight stated proudly, “You won’t be taking it away, because he never had it. Bolton Sayres provided a line of credit of 25 million dollars on very thin collateral. They have a right to be repaid.”
“Why would they do that?” the judge pressed. “Why would they loan someone up to 25 million dollars based on collateral consisting of a farm worth only 700,000?”
Knight paused before responding.
“Your honor, this wouldn’t be the first time the bank’s helped someone achieve a dream, even at great risk. That’s what banking is about. That’s why we’ve got to collect this money. We work hard to reduce our losses, to make sure we can help more people.”
“Oh, please. Spare me,” the judge commented.
“Thomas Mattingly’s dream,” Knight continued, “was to build a ski resort. My client tried to help him achieve that dream. It must recoup what it can and, even after we collect this money from the Estate, we’ll still have lost a great deal of money.”
“I represented Catskill Bank of Commerce before it was taken over,” the judge grumbled. “Lending so much money with so little collateral, well, frankly, it seems like a serious violation of the executive’s fiduciary duty to shareholders. You don’t give away money to back crazy schemes.”
As Albert Bennington prepared to respond, Jim frantically reviewed the file he regretted not reading thoroughly earlier. Something wasn’t right. Bolton Sayres was an investment bank that packaged mortgages into bonds. It never actually wrote the mortgages itself. The case made no sense. The bank dealt in stocks, bonds, and derivatives, not personal loans. Official policy explicitly prohibited ownership of illiquid assets, that is, any property that couldn’t be quickly traded on the exchanges. Real estate loans were one of the most illiquid assets known to man.
Lost in thought about Bolton Sayres’ business practices, Jim’s attention snapped back as Bennington rose to speak and his voice rang out:
“Your honor, it would be outrageous to award life insurance to a greed-mongering bank!”
Bennington pointed to a woman in the third pew.
“This young mother is a widow, made so by a terrible tragedy. Her young and innocent child, an orphan boy, less than 4 years old, has no father. He did have a grandfather who, no doubt, would have expected the life insurance proceeds to go to his grandson. Is this young boy going to become a ward of the state?”
“Objection, your honor!” Knight jumped to his feet.
“Overruled,” the judge barked.
“But Mr. Bennington is appealing to emotion and suggesting that you ignore the law!”
“You’ve been overruled!” Judge Van Hewing barked at the bank’s lawyer, then turned to his nephew, Bennington. “Are you suggesting that I ignore the law?”
“Of course not.”
“What legal citations support your position?”
“The rule of fairness and equity prohibits unjust enrichment, and the rule of pretermission of unborn children.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” the bank’s lawyer exclaimed. “There is no rule of pretermission of unborn children!”
“Overruled,” the judge said, then asked his nephew, “Do you have some cases or statutes that support your argument?”
“No,” Bennington admitted, then added passionately, “But we all know what’s right and wrong.”
“That doesn’t hold up on appeal,” the judge muttered. “Anything in rebuttal, Mr. Knight?”
“There’s nothing to rebut. The law is clear. Mr. Bennington can’t make a decent legal argument because there are none to be made. The boy is not a named beneficiary. His client has no case. It’s as simple as that.”
The judge scribbled some notes as he spoke:
“Gentlemen, I won’t be deciding this today. As you know, I’ve ordered mediation, and I expect both sides to engage in good faith negotiations. Can I trust you both to do that?”
Both lawyers agreed, and as they gathered their papers, Jim rummaged through his own. Among the documents in his briefcase, he caught a glimpse of the foreclosure judgment: “In re: The Estate of Thomas Mattingly. Bolton Sayres Holding Corporation v. The Estate of Thomas Mattingly.” The loan documents attached to the complaint caught his eye. The borrower’s signature line showed both a clear signature and typed full name. But the bank’s signature was entirely illegible, with no typed name underneath. Who at the bank had authorized this irregular loan?
Jim intercepted Mr. Knight, the bank’s attorney, as he headed for the door.
“My name’s Jim Bentley,” he explained. “I’m with the legal department at Bolton Sayres.”
“Hi, Jim.” Knight’s welcome was hearty. “They told me you were coming. Let’s talk for a moment outside.”
In the hallway, Knight whispered, “As I told your colleague, Tim Cohen, this case is a slam dunk.”
“The judge didn’t seem too enthusiastic about finding in our favor.”
“If he decides against us, we’ll win on appeal. Even if the law wasn’t on our side, he should have recused himself. Bennington’s his nephew.”
“How about mediation?”
“Just a formality,” Knight waved dismissively. “The judge wants his nephew to make money. We won’t offer anything.”
“But then,” Jim hesitated, already planning to seek settlement authority, “Why am I here? What’s the point?”
“Actually, there isn’t any particular point, never has been. The judge ordered mediation. Corporations have to be represented by someone, and I can’t be the representative because I’m the lawyer. So you’re here. Simple as that.”
“Sounds like a waste of time.”
“Might be, but it’s the law.” Knight shrugged. “Mediation’s at three, across the street in Bennington’s office. The Lawyer’s Building.”
In the courthouse café, Jim mechanically ate his egg salad sandwich while trying to reach Murray Sachs, his supervisor. The idea of offering nothing in mediation just didn’t sit right. Even a small settlement would be better than leaving the boy with nothing. But Murray was a stickler for rules and hated risk. He wouldn’t budge without approval from above.
Desperate after being rebuffed by Mr. Sachs, Jim tried calling his father-in-law, the highest authority at the bank. It was a risky move. Jeremy Stoneham had never hidden his contempt for the man who’d won his daughter’s heart. Everything—the job, the salary—was done solely to keep Laura in New York City. But his father-in-law’s secretary had long since been trained to stop putting Jim’s calls through during business hours. So with 3:00 PM approaching, Jim gave up and headed to mediation.
Bennington’s office sat right across the street. Inside, five people had already gathered around a long polished conference table when Jim arrived slightly late: Mr. Bennington, Mr. Knight, the widow Sandra Mattingly, and the court-appointed mediator.
“Sorry, I’m a bit late,” Jim apologized.
The woman didn’t match the expectations he had of grieving widows. Sandra Mattingly was slim and fresh-faced, like an untouched maiden off the farm. Her soft smile when they shook hands, combined with her brown hair, green eyes, wide hips, and narrow waist struck him immediately. At barely 22, wearing a low-cut dress that accentuated her curves, she looked nothing like a grieving widow. Jim did the math. She must have become pregnant at 17, just before her husband died.
What sort of widow dressed so provocatively? Of course, many years had passed since her husband’s death. No one could grieve forever. Still, any competent lawyer would have ensured his client wore more appropriate attire. Bennington was clearly riding on his uncle’s coattails. He was incompetent for letting her dress this way for a mediation. Her delicate perfume drifted across the table, and as he looked at her, the feelings she stirred inside him made him uncomfortable. How could a woman on the opposing side, a widow no less, affect him this way?
He loved his wife, didn’t he? But they hadn’t been intimate in a very long time. Their baby’s endless crying kept them up at night, and Laura wasn’t very interested now that she was breastfeeding. If he was honest with himself, though, it was mainly his choice. The intense attraction he’d once felt for his wife had faded along with the expansion of her waistline.
The mediation dragged on, and Jim found his sympathies growing alongside his attraction. As a Bolton Sayres employee, he was duty-bound to represent the bank’s interests. But a strange idea took hold. He had no settlement authority. What if he offered money anyway? His father-in-law was CEO of the bank. Sure, Laura’s father didn’t like him, and Murray Sachs might complain to the personnel committee, maybe even try to get him fired. But in the end, Sachs was powerless. He couldn’t risk his own job, and Jeremy Stoneham wasn’t going to let him get fired, leaving his daughter with an unemployed husband. That was the beauty of nepotism.
The thought made him uncomfortable. Using his connections this way would make him everything he despised. Normal lawyers got fired for such things, but he was protected. His father-in-law might despise him, but loved his daughter and granddaughter. Any rule violation would be swept under the rug. Even if the worst-case scenario actually happened and he got himself fired, what was the harm? He didn’t like his job anyway, hated New York City and wanted to leave. Getting fired would give him that opportunity.
After more than an hour of fruitless discussion and seemingly endless excessive demands from Bennington, who should have known he had no case, and no offers from the bank, Jim couldn’t take it anymore.
“On behalf of Bolton Sayres, I can offer you 50,000 dollars maximum,” he blurted out.
Silence fell. The face of the bank’s trial lawyer, Jeb Knight, lost all color. If accepted, the case would end, along with his juicy fees. But Bennington simply shook his head, taking the offer as a sign of weakness.
“Not a penny less than 200,000 dollars,” he repeated. “As you know, there’s no way the judge will put this family in the poorhouse.”
“You’ve got a 100 percent chance of losing because the law is against you,” Jim pointed out, not considering the fact that the Judge was Bennington’s uncle.
“I suppose you’re making the offer, then, out of the goodness of your heart?” Bennington snapped.
“Actually, yes,” Jim replied. “I’m just trying to close this case so the family will have something. Because even if your uncle decides in your favor, you’ll lose on appeal.”
“I beg to differ!”
“You’ve got no statutes or case law to back you up. The language of the statute is clearly against you.”
This back-and-forth banter went on for a while longer. But by 4:30, much to the relief of the bank’s local counsel, they had reached no settlement. During breaks, the local litigator’s anger about the unauthorized offer had become clear. He would certainly report it to Murray Sachs with a disciplinary recommendation. But Jim didn’t care. He knew that 50,000 dollars was meaningless to the bank, which would earn 20 billion dollars in annual profit that year. Of course, unauthorized settlement offers violated bank rules and legal ethics. But Jim wasn’t concerned with that. He just wanted to do the right thing.
The drive to the tiny town of Paradise took over an hour through winding Catskill roads. The region was beautiful, but not all mountains make good ski resorts. Jim knew enough about skiing to see through the scheme. The mountains near Paradise were foothills. Too low, too close to the Hudson Valley, and had insufficient snowfall to stay white for long. Competition from established resorts like Hunter Mountain, with infinitely better slopes, made the plan’s foolishness even clearer. Only an idiot would approve such a loan. He wondered about that as he drove. It wasn’t clear who had signed off on it because there was no typed bank representative’s name on the contract and the signature was illegible.
The Mattingly farm was beautiful from afar: rolling acres against three heavily forested slopes. Up close, however, the reality set in. Wild overgrown fields, a termite-infested picket fence, and a large but deteriorating house built in 1886. Its white wood shingles hadn’t seen paint in decades, and the paint that remained was peeling off in large sections. The winter-browned grass was so high it had gone to seed. The place was rotting away.
Finding no real estate agent waiting, Jim used his key. Inside, darkness and musty air greeted him. All furniture lay draped with coverings, even the mirrors, prepared for a long absence. Years of emptiness had let cobwebs grow large enough to block corners of the foyer. The polished oak floors had lost their shine beneath thick dust.
Upstairs, he found three bedrooms. Two looked untouched for a century, but the boy’s room stood out with modern Ethan Allen furniture—not cheap, he knew from shopping with Laura. Was it the former room of the four-year-old boy? Unlikely, since he would have been less than one when the family left after the initial foreclosure. A worn baseball bat and mitt rested in one corner, with Yankees and Mets emblems on the walls. Jim guessed this had been the dead father’s boyhood room, not his son’s.
The stink in the air drove Jim to wrestle with a stuck window. As he struggled with it, his foot caught an uneven floorboard. The window finally opened, but he heard a loud cracking sound underneath his foot. Looking closer at the floor, he found that there was no damage to the wood. Instead, there was a thin hinged opening, a secret compartment. Inside lay a thick red leather-bound book with golden edges. Dusting it off revealed the title: “DIARY OF ROBERT MATTINGLY.” The murdered father of the boy now fighting for his grandfather’s insurance money.
He hesitated. This was private, carefully hidden from prying eyes. But what harm could reading a dead man’s diary do? He opened to a random page:
“July 24, 2008 Dear Diary: Two nights ago, near the road, we saw two men carrying a bag that looked like it had a body inside…”
“Hello?” a woman’s voice called from downstairs.
Jim quickly closed the diary and slipped it into his briefcase.
“I’m up here!” he called back.
The real estate agent, Jane Simon, waited below: a middle-aged, blonde, blue-eyed woman. She seemed like an older, more worn version of his own wife. Beauty is fleeting, Jim decided, and just like Laura’s, Jane’s had been worn down. In her case, not just by age or childbirth, but by a string of former husbands and lovers, none of whom had given her children. Well into her mid-40s, she’d learned not to depend on men, making her way selling rural real estate despite her minimal education.
They exchanged awkward handshakes and pleasantries before getting down to business.
“We normally provide the listing contract,” she noted before signing his paper.
“I understand, but remember, we’re a bank. Big bureaucracies have big rules, and one of those is that we always write the contracts.”
It was true and not true. The bank did try to write its contracts. But this was different. There was no standard form for a listing agreement in the legal department’s database. He’d had to search the Westlaw database to find a template to use, and he had drafted a custom agreement himself.
After pleasant conversation and a thorough tour of the bank-owned house, it was time to leave.
“I’ll be in touch,” she promised, heading out.
As they walked to their cars, Jim’s stomach rumbled.
“Is there a decent place to eat around here?”
“Paddy’s Diner,” she suggested. “A lot of tourists go there. It’s in downtown Paradise.”
Later, sitting in the diner, Jim checked his watch: nearly 8 PM. He pulled out his phone.
“Laura? Yeah, it’s me. I know, I know. It’s late. I don’t want to wake the baby but, frankly, there’s nothing I can do about the timing now. The meeting ran overtime, and I had to check out this property.”
He sighed, wondering if he should mention the diary now burning a hole in his briefcase. No, this wasn’t the time. And given the contents, he certainly didn’t want to discuss it over the telephone.
Chapter 4 – MARCUS DUNLOP
On March 19, 2008, the morning sun glinted off New York Harbor, casting long shadows across the luxury office suite high atop the Bolton Sayres Tower. Five years before Jim Bentley’s drive north toward the tiny town of Paradise, NY, another man was very busy doing what he did almost every morning, as the Statue of Liberty stood as a silent witness to his morning routine.
At twenty-five, Marcus Dunlop represented banking royalty. He was the son of Christopher Dunlop, the patriarch of the powerful family behind W.T. Fredericks Bank. Though his door carried the modest title “Quantitative Investment Analyst,” his true role ran far deeper. In banking, titles mean little; the size and placement of one’s office told the real story. Dunlop’s office was large, well-appointed with fine furniture, and commanded a sweeping view of the harbor. These were all the marks of genuine importance.
The young woman in his office zipped up her tight jeans with practiced grace, adjusting her silver belt buckle before pulling on her pink top.
“You turn me on… you, handsome man,” she cooed in accented English, running her fingers down his chest.
Dunlop’s perfectly chiseled features twisted into an amused smile. With his impressive height, dark hair, and light brown eyes, he could have attracted any woman he wanted. But traditional relationships came with complications he preferred to avoid.
“You’re so beautiful, baby,” he said, reaching for his wallet. “But I need to work.”
Her eyes tracked across the office, searching. “Tell me vhat you do, again?”
“It’s too complicated…”
“I understand lots of tings.” Her smile widened as she watched him take out the first hundred-dollar bill. Finding her missing hairpin, she pressed, “Smart girl, I am… tell me vhat you do…”
He studied her for a moment, knowing he would share nothing. Not even the sanitized version of his role.
“Yes, you’re not only smart,” he said, drawing out ten one-hundred-dollar bills one by one. “You’re expensive, too.”
To the outside world, Marcus Dunlop was a habitual liar, cheat, drunkard, and whoremonger. But within the banking cartel, where traditional values held little sway, he was the golden child. A rising star with a perfect pedigree. His true power, however, lay not in his lineage but in the software running on his computers.
Marcus had created a rigged game. Like a casino that controls the cards, Marcus made sure the house always won. Except in this case, the house was a handful of mega-banks. His computer programs made it look like banks were competing against each other, buying and selling gold and other things, furiously. But it was all fake.
Marcus smiled as he thought about how simple the scheme really was. In the investment banking business it’s called “wash trading.” The banks secretly worked together, splitting profits and losses behind the scenes. It was like a puppet show where the audience watches different puppets fighting, never realizing that the same person controls all the strings. When regular people saw fake trades on their screens, they thought prices were moving naturally. They had no idea they were watching theater.
There was an alliance between Bolton Sayres and his father’s bank, W.T. Fredericks. That alliance ran deeper than anyone outside the inner circle suspected. Business journals described them as competitors. They were not. They were branches of one shadowy organization, their interests so deeply intertwined that separation would bring down the entire system. For all intents and purposes, the two huge banks operated as one unit, though ownership was different.
“You have to pay for top qvality, darling…” she purred, her previous questions forgotten as she stuffed the bills into her purse.
She settled onto his lap for one last embrace. Dunlop glanced at the clock. 6:20 AM. Beautiful as she might be, the girl had overstayed her welcome. His visits from prostitutes typically happened in the early morning hours between 4:30 and 5:30, and the girls normally left no more than an hour later.
“OK,” he said, “But I do have a lot of things I need to work on…”
She took the hint and sashayed to the door, throwing a flirtatious look, smile, and blown kiss over her shoulder.
“Good riddance,” he thought, watching the clock tick to 6:30.
Marc Dunlop’s special secure phone buzzed right on schedule. Time for the daily London call. The phone was military-grade hardware, the kind spies use, impossible to hack or track.
“Hello…”
“Hi, Marc!”
“What’s going on in London?” Dunlop asked his cousin Jennett, who’d taken over his old job at the London desk of Bolton Sayres.
“Nothing unusual. Everything’s normal.” Jennett replied.
Dunlop held back a smile. His cousin was an idiot, but that’s exactly why he’d picked him for the job. Someone smarter might figure out that what they were doing, on the private side of their trading for the bank, was a crime. Not merely a violation of the law, which didn’t matter so much, but of the banking cartel’s governing rules. If British officials, for example, ever caught on, even the largest bribes might not keep them quiet. And, even if they could be bribed, it would cost a fortune.
“What did the Bank of England say?”
“They said ‘no’.”
“That’s exactly what I expected.”
“Why do we even need them?” Jennett asked, confused.
“Because they actually have gold and we don’t,” Dunlop explained impatiently. “When we artificially reduce paper gold prices on computer screens, some people go out and buy real, physical gold, especially in countries like India and China. Someone has to provide it or our trading scheme collapses.”
“But they said no. Something about the US Treasury not signing the papers…”
Dunlop sighed and decided to spell it out for his dim-witted cousin.
“Think of it like borrowing your neighbor’s car,” Marcus explained. “The Bank of England has gold that belongs to lots of different people. Small countries, wealthy families, other banks. These people think their gold is safely locked away, but the Bank of England secretly lends it out to us. If we can’t pay it back, the U.S. government promises to replace it with America’s gold from Fort Knox. It’s like having your rich uncle co-sign a loan. The paperwork gets handled through a Swiss bank that specializes in keeping these deals secret.”
“But who actually owns all this gold?”
“Lots of people. Small countries, other banks, wealthy individuals. They all store their gold at the Bank of England for safekeeping, but here’s the catch: they only get a receipt saying they own some gold. Not specific bars with their names on them. So the Bank of England can use anyone’s gold for whatever they want, as long as they can replace it if the real owner asks for it back.”
“Why not just take the gold straight from Fort Knox?” Jennett asked. “Treasury works with us, right?”
“Congress would tear them apart. Touching the reserves is political suicide.”
Jennett considered this. “But what if the Bank of England wants the gold back?”
“Then we’re screwed,” Dunlop admitted. “But after we crash the price, we buy replacement gold cheap from miners.”
“What if they won’t sign? I’ve bet almost everything I have on this…”
Dunlop smiled coldly. Fear was good. Fear meant leverage. But in this case, his cousin’s panic was a liability.
“The U.S. Treasury has to sign,” Dunlop said. “If they stop controlling gold, people might trust gold more than dollars. That’s their nightmare scenario.”
Then came the shock.
“Marc…” Jennett’s voice wobbled. “I need to tell you something. I… I didn’t place the bets like you said…”
“What?”
“We’re losing so much money.”
Dunlop wanted to strangle his cousin. Losing money early on was part of the design. It was like betting on a horse race when you know the race is fixed. You want the longest odds possible, because you already know how the race will end, when no one else does. In markets, that means buying in before other people understand which way prices are about to move.
Marcus and Jennett were betting that gold would fall. Hard. And soon. The government would help make it happen. When the crash hit, they would make millions. It is called front-running the market. Illegal, yes. A felony offense. But the regulators weren’t sophisticated enough to find out. It was guaranteed money. The outcome was rigged.
It wasn’t really a bet. It was a certainty.
Dunlop’s software would cause the coming crash. His cousin’s only job had been to load up on “puts,” that is, bets that prices would go down, long before it happened. For a time, prices would continue their upward trajectory. So, buying puts early on was certain to look like a terrible decision at first. But once the crash arrived, they would explode in value.
“For Christ’s sake,” Dunlop shouted, “our people run the fucking Treasury and the Federal Reserve!”
But the opportunity was limited in time. And, now, it was too late. Nothing he said now mattered. His idiot cousin had cost him millions. Amazingly, the magnitude of the mistake seemed to mean nothing to Jennett. The man simply switched topics.
“I’m heading to Jersey’s Steakhouse,” he said, cheerfully, oblivious to the pain he had just inflicted on Dunlop.
“Yeah, sure,” Dunlop growled and he slammed down the phone.
After the connection was severed, he exclaimed: “Idiot!”
7:07 a.m.
He tried to calm himself in order to think clearly. What could he do now? Could he quietly add some puts, himself, on the regulated exchanges, rather than on the over-the-counter trade in London? No. Too dangerous. The regulators, or worse, the cartel itself, might notice. The cartel had one iron rule. Banks could profit from government-backed manipulation. Individual executives weren’t allowed to profit.
He stepped into the doorway and looked out across the maze of cubicles. Dozens of line traders. They all worked for the bank. But not one of them knew his real job. They would follow whatever technical analysis he issued, convinced the charts were authentic. None of them realized they served a far larger design.
His bots would paint a perfect picture, An ideal trading chart that would signal to the traders what they should do. Real traders at places like Bolton Sayres would see compelling signals scrolling across their screens. Signals manufactured entirely by software using Federal Reserve “loan” money.
The Fed could not print enough cash to move the whole gold market. Too much printing would trigger runaway inflation. So, instead, they used a few billion dollars as a match. The match would ignite a flame. The flame would start a firestorm. And the firestorm would rage because legitimate traders would chase the fake signals. Their enormous trades would push prices exactly where Dunlop wanted them to go.
It was like shouting “Fire!” in a crowded room. Panic always becomes real once enough people run.
Another glance at his watch. Not quite 7:30.
Wolff Grubman from Treasury should have called by now. Doubt gnawed at him. If his cousin had gone rogue, why not this government official too? It was a horrifying thought. One shift in timing could destroy every side bet he had. Something like that would mean he’d never make the profits he was counting on. But it was worse than that. His cousin in London had screwed things up, but he could still make money on the deal. On the other hand, if Grubman crapped out, he’d be wiped out.
He opened his financial spreadsheet and considered the debt he’d taken on. He’d put down half a million on a Caribbean island. That was just the deposit. The full price was ten million, plus millions more for construction. Breakwaters, sea wall, mansion, Olympic pool, tennis courts, gardens, helipad. All of it depended on the windfall from the upcoming operation.
7:37. Should he call Grubman? No. Desperation smelled bad.
Then, suddenly, the phone rang. He lunged to answer.
“Hello.”
“Marc?”
Relief washed through him. The familiar Brooklyn accent mispronouncing words was unmistakable. Grubman handled currencies for the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a unit of the Treasury, buried inside the New York Fed.
“What’s the scoop?”
“I’m not sure you’re gonna like this, but…”
Dunlop’s hand tightened on the receiver. Fear coursed up and down his spine.
“What is it?”
“I just got off the phone with Treasury a few minutes ago.”
Dunlop frowned and thought: “You are the fucking Treasury!”
But he said nothing aloud.
“They need you to start right away.”
He let out a long breath. Relief!
“Excellent. I’m ready. Just send over the money and the gold.”
“You got it,” Grubman said. “But they only need ya ta do a hundred-fifty dollar drop dis time. Make a point but not burn through the gold. We giving ya four hundred sixty million for da performance bonds.”
“That’s only half what I asked for.”
“Don’t worry. We can give you more.”
Of course they could. The Fed printed limitless money through its loan windows. The overnight loans renewed indefinitely. They were gifts masquerading as loans. But big banks can always get that cash. They didn’t need to mount gold price manipulation scams to get it. Cash was not the problem. Gold was.
“I need physical gold, not just cash.” He said.
“You guys ain’t returned even one gold bar in twenty-eight years,” Grubman complained.
“Returning gold bars isn’t my job,” Dunlop replied. “Preserving the government’s borrowing power is.”
“I was just explainin’.”
Physical gold scarcity had driven prices up for several years at this point. That was because European countries, once a key source of supply for price manipulation efforts, wanted out.
“Ya know da shrinking supply is a serious problem,” Grubman said. “If Congress found out…”
“There’s a price for stability,” Dunlop answered.
It was a well-worn assertion that everyone in their circle like to make. Stability required sacrifice. The sacrifice came from draining sovereign gold reserves. But the fear of consequences was rising. Congress might one day demand an audit of America’s gold reserve. And an honest audit would be catastrophic.
“Some people think the cost is gettin’ too high.”
“If they don’t put up the gold, we’re out of business.”
“I know. But they got priorities above my head.”
“So what’s the bottom line?”
“You get thirty-five tons.”
“Thirty-five?” Dunlop stared at the wall. “Shit! You expect me to knock gold down a hundred fifty dollars with thirty-five tons? I have to deal with London, Switzerland, India, China.”
“No one expects it to hold. It’s just for show, ya know, because of all dat stuff about banks failin’.”
“I’m not a magician.”
“I ain’t really supposed to tell you this,” Grubman said hesitantly.
“Tell me.”
“They actually got sixty tons allocated. I’m supposed to tell you thirty-five so you stay motivated.”
“No problem,” Dunlop said. “I never heard it from you.”
“Don’t tell nobody I told ya dat. I’d get in big trouble.”
“Don’t worry. You can trust me.”
A pause stretched between them.
“There’s sometin’ else,” Grubman added.
“What?”
Dunlop straightened. He’d worked with Grubman for years, but that didn’t mean he didn’t despise the man. Too old, too Brooklyn, too low-class. The man was a necessary piece of machinery, nothing more.
“I always treated ya right, haven’t I?”
“Sure.”
“I always give ya extra info. Like today.”
“Yeah.” He could not deny that.
“I don’t gotta do that…” Grubman said.
A spike of adrenaline hit Dunlop with sudden force. Did the man know about the front-running? Impossible! But what if he did? Would he dare? The Bahamian lawyer guarded all of Dunlop’s secrets fiercely. Bahamian secrecy laws came with teeth. The man would be disbarred if he didn’t.
“I need somethin’ from ya.”
Dunlop braced himself. Sharing the profits with his idiot of a cousin was bad enough. Sharing with this creature was unthinkable. His heart raced. But he forced himself to calm down.
“If there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it.” He said, nervousness hidden by his usual facade.
“I applied for a position at W. T. Fredericks. I wanna get on your dad’s staff.”
Relief washed through Marcus. The man knew nothing. Good.
“You have my highest recommendation.” He replied, immediately.
“Tanks.” Grubman replied, his Brooklyn accent continuing to color his speech.
The cartel always rewarded its friends. High-ranking officials got millions after they left office with the government. It is said that there is honor among thieves. A Federal Reserve Chairmen, for example, might be paid a million dollars or more for a one hour speech after leaving office. One hand washes the other. All perfectly legal.
Lower-level bureaucrats, like Grubman, got cushy jobs. That was all he wanted.
The idea of this slug working on his father’s staff made him ill. But, thankfully, the man was pushing sixty. He’d likely be dead by the time Marcus inherited the bank.
The call ended. Dunlop returned to his console and checked his bots. Ready! Before the day ended, the portfolio he and Jennett held would swing from deep red to healthy profit. Within days, his private bets would explode in value. He’d still make a fortune, although thanks to his cousin, not as much as he could have.
His watch read 7:55.
Plenty of reprogramming remained to be done. No prostitutes, he promised himself. Not for the next few days at least. Crashing the gold market by a hundred fifty dollars with only sixty tons of physical gold would take all the care and precision he could bring to the job. He had to stay focused.
But he would deliver. He always did.
Chapter 5: MANHATTAN AGAIN
The drive back to Manhattan dragged through the evening. By the time Jim pulled into the garage beneath the Bolton Sayres Tower, the massive building loomed mostly dark, inhabited only by security guards and a few late-working stragglers. The parking levels echoed with empty stillness. Unusual for a banking center, but it was the weekend.
Every single loaner car was gone. He smirked at the thought. Executives joyriding against company policy, pretending not to. He seemed to be the only one actually using a vehicle for company business. He wondered if anyone had noticed the BMW he was driving was missing. He could practically hear the chorus of pampered, overpaid brats complaining that their favorite toy wasn’t available for yet another getaway to the Hamptons.
He dropped the ignition transmitter into the late return box and headed back out. A quick detour into a twenty-four-hour mini-mart followed. Years of experience had taught him a hard truth. Angry women required offerings. Candy or flowers. Laura preferred candy, which gave him a stab of guilt. Her weight problem had gone from occasional concern to undeniable issue, and he could no longer pretend he played no role in it. Still, he might as well make her happy tonight.
A cab carried him through the quiet streets to the five-story red brick apartment building in midtown Manhattan that he and his little family called home. Midnight had just passed. As he eased open the front door, a familiar melody drifted through the apartment. Laura’s voice, soft and patient, singing a lullaby as she tried to coax the baby back to sleep. He followed the sound and gently pushed open the nursery door.
Laura sat in the rocking chair with Jenny in her arms. When she saw him, the pointed glare she shot at him said everything. He backed out without a word, closing the door with practiced silence.
In the bedroom, he stripped to his underwear, draped his clothes over a chair, and collapsed onto the bed. Exhaustion tugged at him. He stared at the ceiling, thoughts dissolving into haze, when a jolt of remembrance snapped him upright.
The diary.
He shot out of bed, padded to the foyer, and fished the book from his briefcase. He should give it to Sandra Mattingly. She was the executor. But nothing was simple now. The diary belonged to the deceased, yes, but the writing inside was potential murder evidence. The police needed to see it.
He returned to bed, propped himself up, and resumed reading from where he had left off.
“Our suspicions were confirmed when the bag tore as they were carrying it, and a man’s arm came dangling out. The bigger man stuffed it back in, but then we knew for sure that the two men were burying a body in the woods…”
It was the diary of the murdered young man. Father of the orphaned boy whose mother was fighting the bank in court. But who was the “we” he kept referring to? Jim turned the page.
“It was my first date with Sandra and this was the last thing I wanted her to see. I just wanted to show her my special glen in the woods…”
Sandra Mattingly again. The same woman battling Bolton Sayres over the insurance payout tied to her supposedly suicidal and murderous father-in-law. The dates matched perfectly. July twenty-four, 2008, documenting events from the twenty-second.
He would have kept reading if the bedroom door hadn’t creaked open. Laura stepped inside.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
“Nothing important.” Jim set the diary on the floor beside the bed.
She spotted the red-ribboned box on the dresser. “What’s this?”
“A gift.”
She crossed the room, tore into it, and devoured two chocolates with impressive speed. The box came with her to the bed. Before climbing in, she paused and posed in her new Victoria’s Secret lingerie. On her, the effect stirred conflicted feelings. She leaned down and kissed him, the taste of chocolate lingering, then settled against him with a soft, forgiving sigh.
“I can’t stay mad at you,” she murmured. Then her voice stiffened slightly. “You remember we’re going to the zoo tomorrow with Jennifer?”
He nodded automatically. In truth, he had forgotten again.
Her hand drifted lower, a silent invitation. The perfume she wore was expensive and heavy. He realized she must have prepared for this moment all evening. Hours of grooming. Hours of planning. A ritual meant to rekindle desire. Yet nothing about it stirred him. The makeup, the perfume, the lingerie. On her figure now, it only reminded him of how far things had drifted.
Like mother, like daughter.
He could never tell her. The smallest comment about her weight brought tears. To make his body cooperate now, he had to close his eyes and imagine the striking young widow from that morning. Sandra Mattingly. The thought was twisted and he knew it, but it was the only way.
When it ended, emptiness settled in. He stared at the ceiling as Laura drifted into sleep. Carefully, he slid from the bed, grabbed the diary, and retreated to the living room. Settling onto the sofa, he continued reading.
“April 8, 2010 I finally told Dad. What else could I do? There is a man buried in the woods right under our soil and only I know. Who better to go to than Dad. Sandra will not understand…”
Jim froze. Was the body still buried on the Mattingly farm? That seemingly innocent widow knew far more than she admitted. This diary changed everything. A hidden corpse hinted at foul play. Perhaps the suicide was staged. But why target the entire Mattingly family? Why was Sandra hiding what she knew?
He skimmed past unrelated entries until another relevant one appeared.
“April 17, 2010 Sandra is angry at me for telling my father. She says I promised not to tell anyone. But I had to tell him. He is my dad. Anyway, there is nothing I can do about it now.”
The clock read two-thirty in the morning. Tomorrow’s zoo trip loomed, yet he could not stop reading. He was a lifelong murder mystery fan, and here was a real one unfolding in his hands. But solving it wasn’t his job. He needed to hand the diary to the authorities. As an attorney, he knew that. But once he handed it over, it would vanish forever.
Or would it.
That thought snapped him into action. At his desktop scanner, he carefully copied every page and saved the files to both his laptop and a USB drive. Nearly an hour later, he placed the diary back in his briefcase and crept into the bedroom again. Now he could surrender the original and keep a private copy. A quiet violation, small as sins went.
Sleep refused to come. His thoughts wandered to Laura. To how it had been at the start.
He had met her at UCLA’s law library during finals week. Back then, she had been stunning. Floral dress, bright eyes, perfect figure. When she caught him staring, she smiled. They flirted over physics textbooks. Got kicked out by Wilma Valdez, the brilliant, bitter law student who had recently mounted a crusade to ban undergraduates from the library. A campaign supposedly about maintaining quiet, but really about keeping pretty coeds away from the limited supply of male law students.
Laura had rescued him from that confrontation, suggesting they grab food instead. Over burgers, they talked about everything. She was from New York, studying acting. He was broke, buried in student loans, dreaming of fighting for the little guy. She gave him her number. For days afterward, she didn’t answer his calls. Then, after finals, she called back. Asked if he liked opera. He hated opera but said yes.
For two weeks, they were inseparable. Cool California nights, empty beaches, salt air and promise. One sunset on Malibu, they made love in the sand. Neither realized they had just created new life.
Afterward, as he drifted toward sleep, she told him she was leaving for New York. Three months. He could come after the Bar exam. Three months felt like eternity. Not just fear of losing her, but old grief surfacing. His parents had died when he was eleven. Foster homes after that. No family to anchor him. Others went home for summer. He had nowhere.
“Jim.” Laura’s voice cut through his memories. “Wake up. We are going to the zoo. Remember?”
He blinked awake. She stood over him holding the diary.
“What is this?” she asked.
“It is a diary.”
“Whose diary?”
“It is complicated.”
She set it on the dresser. “Well, don’t tell me now. No time. Get dressed.”
Chapter 6… Want to find out what happens next?
Keep Turning the Pages and Find Out!
The stakes are real. Money. Murder. Power. All converge. The truth behind THEATRES. Darker than anyone imagines. By the time Jim uncovers it, someone he loves will end up dead.
People aren’t who they seem. Jim isn’t quite the clean-cut lawyer he pretends to be. Laura’s loyalty has limits. The killers? They’re not lurking in the shadows anymore… they’re inside the system, watching your every move!
Every thread connects. Every moment counts. Every event makes a difference. A gold fraud buried in 2008. A surveillance network running in real time. Every clue circles back.
One name = THE BANK = Bolton Sayres.
Exposure comes with a heavy price. Get too close. Get erased!
Five chapters in and you probably think you know what’s happening. You don’t. The real conspiracy is only beginning. By the time you see it, the chess board may have shifted.
Because the stakes get higher. Darker. Deadlier. The body count rises. KEEP READING! Not everyone can survive the truth. Find out who makes it out. And who gets erased…