Chapter 7 - The Confrontation at the Somerset Club
At 12:30 on Tuesday afternoon, the private dining salon of the historic Somerset Club on Commonwealth Avenue was convened for an emergency luncheon of the New England Energy Infrastructure Consortium.
Sitting around the forty-foot mahogany table were eight senior commercial lenders from First Manhattan Trust, two state utility commissioners, and Richard Rowe.
Rowe looked thirty years older than he had on Thursday morning.
His bespoke suit was wrinkled; his hair was unstyled; his hands trembled continuously against the linen tablecloth as he frantically pitched an emergency asset sale of Apex Capital’s distressed maritime debt notes:
"The liquidity bridge from Zurich is guaranteed, gentlemen!" Rowe pleaded, his voice rising into a sharp, brittle frequency that made the waiters near the sideboard exchange nervous glances. "We only need seventy-two hours to clear the Delaware chancery injunctions! Ethan Reed’s personal absence from the corporate sector gives our group the unilateral proxy to—"
The heavy double mahogany doors of the salon were suddenly thrown backward against the wainscoting with a concussive hydraulic roar.
BANG.
The eight banking executives and state commissioners froze in mid-breath.
Walking into the room was Ethan Reed.
He was six foot two, broad-shouldered, radiating an aura of total, uncontested sovereignty that made every man in the room instinctively push their chairs back from the table.
He wore an immaculate, custom-tailored dark charcoal three-piece wool suit with razor-sharp peak lapels, an ankle-length black cashmere overcoat open over his broad shoulders, his dark eyes colder than the winter Atlantic.
Walking beside him, holding his left arm with quiet, sovereign dignity, was Dr. Abigail Morrison.
She looked breathtaking.
She wore an exquisite, custom-tailored dark navy wool maternity dress with an ivory silk lapel, her dark auburn hair swept back into an elegant chignon, her grandmother's platinum sapphire ring flashing beneath the crystal chandeliers.
And following two paces behind them were Arthur Ross and Lead Special Agent Sarah Lin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, flanked by four armed federal marshals in dark tactical windbreakers.
Richard Rowe’s water glass slipped from his fingers.
CRASH.
The lead crystal shattered across the white linen tablecloth, ice water soaking into the legal briefs as the color drained from his face in a single, catastrophic wave.
"E-Ethan...?" Rowe stammered, leaping backward from the table, knocking his chair onto the parquet floorboards. "What... what is the meaning of this? This is a private commercial luncheon—"
"The only luncheon taking place today, Richard," Ethan Reed said, his clear, resonant baritone booming through the vaulted hall without the aid of a microphone, pinning every guest to the floorboards, "is your formal federal arraignment."
Arthur Ross stepped forward, dropping a thick, red-tabbed federal dossier directly onto the wet tablecloth right beside Rowe’s plate.
"Richard Rowe," Arthur announced, his deep voice carrying the cold finality of an executioner reading a docket. "You are formally served with federal grand jury indictments returned ninety minutes ago under Cause Number 26-CR-9941."
Rowe scrambled backward against the wainscoting, his hands trembling violently. "On what charges? This is a civil corporate restructuring—"
"Forty-eight counts of federal enterprise racketeering under the RICO Act, grand corporate fraud, interstate wire fraud, and the felonious conspiracy to extortionately manipulate public utility bonding," Special Agent Sarah Lin stated with freezing clinical detachment. "First Manhattan Bank surrendered your private Cayman routing logs at sunrise. We have the decrypted communications proving you manufactured the Berkshire debt deficit, the canceled checks confirming your unauthorized transfers, and the recorded audio files of your conspiracy."
Rowe’s face drained of every drop of color, leaving his skin the sallow, grayish hue of wet drywall.
He looked around at the eight banking partners who had toasted him twenty minutes earlier, finding every single man looking away, gathering their briefcases, and dissociating themselves from the fallen financier.
Two federal marshals in tactical blazers stepped forward, unholstering heavy stainless-steel handcuffs.
"Stand up, Mr. Rowe. Place your hands behind your back."
CLICK. CLICK.
As the steel ratchets locked around Rowe’s wrists, his expensive wool sleeves bunching beneath the metal, his hollow, bloodshot eyes caught Abigail’s where she stood beside Ethan beneath the chandeliers.
"A doctor, Ethan...?" Rowe hissed, his voice cracking into a dry, hoarse venom. "You blew up a four-hundred-million-dollar recapitalization... for a hospital resident?"
Ethan didn't answer with words.
He stepped forward, his hand settling securely over Abigail’s, their fingers lacing together over the sapphire ring.
May you like
"Take him out, Agent Lin," Ethan commanded softly.
The marshals dragged Rowe through the double doors, his leather shoes dragging across the parquet floorboards, his screams of ruined, pathetic vanity echoing down the grand staircase of the Somerset Club, out into the rainy chill of Commonwealth Avenue, and into the dark where he belonged.
