Page 25 of His Wall

The meeting ran for forty minutes. Declan opened with Halberg & Vance. Nolan walked us through the revenue report. Good numbers. Clean numbers. But every time I looked at the page, I saw the man’s hand on her face, and the page went out of focus.

Claire was in the corner, pen moving, eyes down. I looked at her three times in fifteen minutes. The third time, Declan caught it.

“Jules. The goodwill multiple.”

“Sorry. Say it again?”

“They’ve come in at 9.2 times. We pegged it at 7.0. What’s your read?”

“It’s high. Two and a half points high.”

“And?”

“We let them have 10% of it. Say 8%. Walk away from the rest.”

Declan held my eyes a beat. “You with us, Jules?”

“I’m with you.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Five minutes later, he had to call my name again. I gave the right answer, but he didn’t look pleased.

The meeting wrapped up before lunch.

“Stay,” I said. “Both of you. Just a minute.”

Declan looked at Claire. “Thank you, Claire. We’ve got it.”

“Of course.” She gathered her folders and left, closing the door behind her.

I sat back down and pulled a folder from my bag — the one I’d been keeping in my bottom drawer. I set it on the table.

“I’ve been working on something.”

I opened it. “Two shell companies. Delaware LLC and a Nevada Corp. Same registered agent, no officers, no history. They’ve been moving money through accounts that touch the Vanguard’s older infrastructure. I’ve been tracing them since February.”

Declan’s eyes went wide. “February? It’s June.”

“I know.”

“You’ve been sitting on this since?”

“I needed to know it was real before I put it in front of you.”

“That’s not how we do this, Julian.”

Nolan hadn’t moved. “Let him finish, Dec.”

I turned the page. “This week, I traced a third entity. British Virgin Islands, nestled within a Cayman trust, held by a Belize foundation. It routed funds in 2011 through a correspondent bank in Zurich and into one of our founding-era accounts. Before either of you joined.”

I turned the page again. “The original capital binder. Page sixteen. The trust that funded our first regulatory bond. I traced it back through two intermediaries last night. It’s a name we’ve never seen in any Vanguard record.”

“Whose name?”

“Charles R. Whitlock. Federal judge, Southern District. His signature is on the regulatory approval that lets us operate in our first year. He’s not in any of our files. Not on any server.”