Chapter 9 - THE SHOT IN THE BOARDROOM
Marcus collapsed.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
Security rushed everyone away from the windows.
The shooter had fired from an unfinished building across the street.
By the time police reached it, the room was empty.
Only one object remained.
A gray envelope.
Inside was a message.
Stop authenticating old records.
Alexander understood.
Someone feared the microfilm.
Marcus survived surgery.
From his hospital bed, he told Alexander what he knew.
Seventeen years earlier, Stephen Pike approached him about a classified research partnership.
Marcus refused.
Weeks later, documents appeared showing his approval anyway.
He confronted Stephen.
Stephen claimed it was a clerical mistake.
Marcus threatened to investigate.
Then Nathan disappeared.
Marcus backed away.
“I was afraid.”
Alexander stared at him.
“You knew someone was forging signatures.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I had children.”
Alexander laughed bitterly.
“So does everyone they hurt.”
Marcus lowered his eyes.
Then he revealed something more useful.
The original authorization system had a hidden administrative layer.
Not created by Alexander.
Not Nathan.
A contractor designed it during Cole Dynamics’ first expansion.
A woman named Eleanor Greyson.
Alexander froze at the surname.
“Grey.”
Marcus nodded.
Eleanor was a systems architect.
Brilliant.
Private.
She left the company before its IPO.
Officially.
Unofficially, Marcus believed she retained covert access.
Alexander searched employment archives.
No Eleanor Greyson existed.
Another erased identity.
Sarah found a reference in Julia’s files.
E.G.
Founder’s shadow access retained.
Alexander felt the pattern click into place.
Director Grey might not be a title.
It might be shortened from Greyson.
They dug deeper.
Old payroll records showed payments to a consulting firm called Greyson Strategic Systems.
Its owner had died twelve years earlier.
Or supposedly died.
Alexander no longer trusted death records.
Meanwhile, Nathan contacted him again.
This time Alexander demanded a meeting.
Nathan agreed.
An abandoned marina.
The same coast where he had supposedly drowned.
Alexander arrived with federal agents nearby.
Nathan stepped from an old maintenance building.
For the first time in nine years, the brothers stood face to face.
Alexander punched him.
Nathan fell against the wall.
He did not fight back.
“That was for letting me bury you.”
Nathan wiped blood from his mouth.
“Fair.”
“That was the easy part.”
Alexander grabbed him.
“Who is Eleanor Greyson?”
Nathan’s expression changed.
“So you found her.”
“Is she Grey?”
Nathan nodded.
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“No one sees Grey directly anymore.”
Nathan explained Meridian was compartmentalized.
Orders arrived digitally.
Rebecca believed Grey was Eleanor.
Nathan was never certain.
“What happened to Eleanor?”
“She built the hidden access layer. Then Stephen Pike recruited her into Meridian.”
Alexander’s stomach tightened.
Stephen.
His board chairman.
Mentor.
The man who invested in Cole Dynamics when no one else would.
“Stephen knew?”
“He financed the first trials.”
Alexander stepped back.
Nathan continued.
“Julia discovered it.”
“Did Stephen kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I wasn’t there.”
Nathan’s anger finally emerged.
“I spent years trying to infiltrate the people who hijacked what we built.”
“You joined them.”
“Yes.”
“You let children become experiments.”
Nathan looked away.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
That honesty surprised Alexander.
Nathan handed him a small device.
“Julia sent me this the night she died.”
It contained a partial audio recording.
Julia’s voice.
A second voice.
Older female.
“You should never have opened the founder archive, Julia.”
Julia answered, “Alexander deserves to know.”
The woman said, “Alexander was never supposed to know because Alexander was never the founder we needed.”
Alexander frowned.
Nathan stopped the recording.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Then headlights appeared outside.
Nathan’s face changed.
“You were followed.”
Gunfire struck the building.
Federal agents returned fire.
Alexander dropped behind a concrete barrier.
Nathan pulled him toward a rear exit.
As they ran, Nathan shouted the sentence that changed Alexander’s understanding again.
“Stephen didn’t invest in Cole Dynamics after you founded it.”
Alexander looked at him.
May you like
Nathan grabbed his arm.
“He chose you before you ever built it.”
