Chapter 21 YellaWood 500 #4
“No, Carry. Please understand me.” She glanced over at Carry in the passenger seat. “I want Greg to have the full picture of both of us, so when he chooses we can’t say we left anything on the table.” She smiled. “I don’t want either of us to be the ghost that haunts the relationship of the other.”
“I was shocked when you asked me to come along,” Carry admitted.
“I respect you deeply Carry. If Greg chooses you, I’ll step aside, just as I expect you to step aside if Greg chooses me.”
“Does Greg know that all three of us are going to dinner together?” Carry asked as she realized that not one sentence had been mentioned about this.
“It’s a surprise. You know that he likes consistency in some places and a little chaos in others.”
“And this is the chaos to help him choose?” Carry questioned.
“Because he’ll have both of us side by side.”
“Allowing him to compare and contrast,” she retorted. “Seems like you thought this thing through.
“There’s one mistake I wouldn’t have made.” She smiled. “I’d never have left.”
“Greg,” Fred said as he approached him leaving the main file room. “David,” he continued as he exited. “Ben’s wondering if we have everything ready for this weekend?”
“Molly has all the tickets ready. Are you sure you want to include all the Senior Associates on this trip?” David asked.
“Yes, David. We’ll be meeting his entire board at the race. He wants us to wow them with what we’ve been working on over this past year for their expansion.”
“Fred, are you sure that doing a presentation on the infield is the best option?” Greg asked with concern.
“That’s how they roll, Greg. When in Rome.” Fred smiled. “That little distribution hub you discovered is going to be pure gold, my friend.”
“Thanks, Fred. I’m glad to be able to help,” Greg said with a smile, keeping a tight grip on the large file in his hands.
“What are you and David up to coming out of the file room?” Fred said with a touch of curiosity in his voice.
“Fred, do you have a few minutes to spare?” David asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got Mark holding the fort down. Why?” he asked, now concerned.
“We’re going to need your help on this one,” David said making a sweeping motion toward the file in Greg’s hands. “We’ve got an issue that is going to take all three of us to fix.”
“Then, by all means. We can step into any office or conference room you want,” he started to suggest then saw the disapproving look on David’s face. “That bad?”
“Not here,” Greg quickly replied. “We’re heading to David’s office.”
“Lockdown?” Fred asked.
“Absolutely,” David confirmed. “Walk with us?”
“You got it.” They started down the hall as Lisa approached. “Lisa, tell Mark I need him to keep things rolling with the team. I’m going to be delayed for a while in Executive Session.”
“Yes Sir, Mr. Davis,” Lisa said. “Will you want anything when you get through?”
“Yes,” he said and stroked his chin. “I’d like the chicken-club with fries and a Pepsi,” Fred said. “I’ve already got several bottles packed for the trip.”
“On it boss,” Lisa said with a nod, then quickly moved on down the hallway.
“She’s so reliable,” Fred said. “I’m glad you found her for me David.”
“You were complaining that you were the only one who had a lackluster PA,” David mused. “Molly recommended Lisa and I agreed she’d be a good fit.”
“That girl you had before was in over her head,” Greg observed. “What was her name?”
“Kelly Sutton,” Fred recalled. “Nice lady but she couldn’t do shorthand to save her life and she wasn’t the most organized girl I’ve ever met.
” They all shared a laugh as the arrived at David’s office.
“Shall we?” Fred said with a sweeping arm motion through the doorway.
Fred shut the door and locked it then pressed the wall button for Secure Room.
Once it went green he turned around. “We’re good now. ”
“Oh am I glad Andy made this room a scif,” David called. “Now I know that nothing leaves this office.
“Is he doing that to ours?” Fred asked.
“Yours is next, then he’s going to finish Greg’s.” David saw the confusion on their faces. “Andy had most of the pre-work configuration done on Greg’s last year when he was out and we did the remodel. He just made mine a priority after we identified the Marsden Breach.”
“So, why doesn’t he finish mine before doing Fred’s?” Greg protested.
“Because we’re using your office as misinformation hub to the Marsdens via Jack,” David said.
“David?” Greg said with concern. “Did you forget that we extracted Jack a few weeks ago?”
“Yes, we did,” he confirmed. “But Andy has chosen to leave the ‘breach’ in place so the Marsdens will think we don’t know about it.”
“Why?” Fred asked. “Aren’t we just looking for trouble that way?”
“No,” David said slowly. “This does not leave this room, are we understood?”
“Absolutely,” Fred and Greg replied in unison.
“Good. I made the decision.” Both men’s mouths dropped open and looked taken aback.
David waited a moment to let it sink in that this was his operation now.
“I charged Andy a few months back to ‘Reverse the Hack’ and he did. We now have access to everything thanks to Jack. That’s why we had to extract him. ”
“But why during the Kline wedding?” Greg asked.
“He was supposed to leave after that, but Jack got nervous after cloning Jenny Easthaus’ phone and getting a call while she was only twenty feet away.
” David shook his head. “He silenced the phone from that point forward but started thinking that he was being scrutinized and watched, so I made the call to pull him out. Brick wasn’t happy about it, and neither was Keith. But they were prepared.”
“I didn’t realize you were that involved in all this, David,” Fred said, slightly stunned.
“I know I’ve been unusually busy with managing Full Court Press after Greg went down again, but this is some next level stuff we’re talking about here.
You should have consulted us about leaving that breach in place. ”
“Consider yourselves consulted now!” David said firmly. “We agreed that I was the CEO and all final decisions were mine.”
“Very well then,” Fred said slowly. “No further objections.”
“Good, now on to why we’re here in the scif.”
“What does that even mean?” Fred asked. “What kind of little boat do you think we’re on?”
“Not a skiff, but scif.” David looked closely at them both.
“It’s the acronym for a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
” He shook his head. “Keith told me about them one day when we were having lunch together. He used them all the time back in the Navy to protect classified information and briefings.”
“So, a complete lockdown of all communications from this room,” Fred observed. “I like it. So, what’s the big hubbub?”
“This!” Greg said as he laid the folder on the desktop. “We were going over some anomalies in the finances of Tashugi Enterprises after Noboko requested help raising another seven hundred million dollars for more oil well platforms for the Kurile Islands project.”
“Seven Hundred Million?” Fred replied flabbergasted. “Are you kidding me? That little three well project is pulling in more oil than the others are. He’s got plenty of money for more wells.”
“Actually,” David said, shaking his head, “He doesn’t Fred.” Fred dropped to the couch and brought both hands to his face. “It seems his money is being siphoned off through the backdoor payment system his father built with Taito-San.”
“You mean that partner of his dad is embezzling money from Tashugi Enterprises?” Fredd asked incredulously. “How and why?”
“The how is right here, Fred. Just look at what Nobuko and Taito-San set up. TSC Affiliate. It’s how they were moving financing money back and forth without their government getting involved and taxing it.”
“David, I need to ask something,” Fred said slowly. He looked at Greg then back to David. “You just said this was set up as a way to avoid the tax penalties, so what if Noboko is just paying back loans he had with Taito-San?”
“We thought of that when we opened this file. The loans are public, and to repay them, they aren’t penalized when done in public,” David answered.
“So, that begs the question then,” Greg mused slowly. “What is this money going to be used for? That’s the why question you asked, and I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” David confirmed with an exasperated sigh. “We’re hoping you could help us shed some light on the motivation here.”
“I’ll think on it some, but I’ve got to tell you that I’m not familiar with Tashugi Enterprises at all.
That was always your baby,” Fred said looking directly at Greg.
“You and David had him as your backer when we founded Pimico. I brought my own money. So, give me some time to look through this and see if I can figure something out.”
“You can do that here, now,” David said, “or in the Secure Cabinet later.”
“Let’s freshen up before we head over to Greg’s place,” Veronica said as they pulled in to her home. She stopped the car out front and shut it off. “We’re here.”
“Is this your place?” Carry said with amazement. “It’s bigger than Greg’s house.”
“Just slightly,” she answered nonchalantly. “This isn’t exactly built with raising a family in mind like Greg’s place, but it’s got features that I need as a singer.”
“Thank you for showing me your house, V.” Carry got out of the car followed by Veronica. “I really like it.”
“Come on in, and I’ll show you around like I did Greg,” she said as she moved to the front door with her keys in her hands. “Don’t dally,” she called over her shoulder as she unlocked the door. Carry finally started moving over to join her.
“How much did this cost you?” Carry asked.
“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “James handled all that for me.”
“I bet it was a pretty penny.” Carry looked around and noticed the grand stairway. “That is impressive.”