Chapter 5 - The War Council at Dawn
At 5:30 AM, the master study was transformed into an active military command post.
Frank Callahan, my chief corporate counsel and the most feared appellate litigator in New York, sat at the long walnut conference table alongside Marco DeLuca and Special Agent Raymond Callahan of the FBI’s Organized Crime Strike Force.
Clara stood at the head of the table. She had discarded the cashmere robe, dressed in an impeccably tailored black silk power suit Mrs. Whitfield had procured from an upscale boutique on Madison Avenue at 4:00 AM, her hair pulled back into a sleek, severe ponytail, her amber eyes blazing with regal authority.
"The legal architecture is airtight, Alexander," Frank Callahan reported, sliding three thick, red-embossed binders across the table. "Under the emergency provisions of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the maritime salvage treaties of 1988, Clara—as the sole surviving legal heir to the Romanov-Tarkov Trust—has executed an irrevocable assignment of all American commercial assets to Castile Global."
Frank turned the primary sixty-inch monitor toward the room.
"At 6:00 AM, when the financial markets open in London, the Delaware chancery court will unseal emergency receivership orders seizing every shipping terminal, fuel storage tank, and commercial barge registered to Victor Ivanov’s shell entities in North Jersey."
Special Agent Raymond Callahan leaned forward, his weathered face hard as flint.
"My federal task force has been monitoring Ivanov’s money laundering through the Brighton Beach fuel depots for eighteen months," Agent Callahan said. "We had forty percent of the paper trail. But the encrypted cryptographic keys on Miss Tarkova’s drive provide the unredacted banking ledgers connecting Ivanov to forty-two million dollars in Russian state extortion."
Agent Callahan looked at Clara with deep, professional reverence.
"With your sworn deposition, Miss Tarkova, the Southern District has unsealed an eighty-four-count federal indictment against Victor Ivanov for Racketeering under the RICO Act, Interstate Arms Trafficking, and First-Degree Premeditated Murder in the death of your father."
I looked at Clara.
Her jaw was set like polished marble.
"Where is Ivanov right now, Marco?" I asked.
"At Tank Farm Four in Port Newark, Boss," Marco replied, checking his tactical tablet. "He knows the federal injunctions are dropping at dawn. He’s gathered forty armed mercenaries from Brighton Beach. They’re transferring twelve million dollars in cash and bearer bonds into three armored transport vans, preparing to flee to a private airfield in Pennsylvania."
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I rose from the table, buttoning my charcoal three-piece suit, my long black wool overcoat resting over my arm.
"Tell the garage to fuel the convoy," I commanded, my baritone echoing off the mahogany walls like an iron bell. "We are going to Newark. It’s time for Miss Hayes to collect her final severance."
