Chapter 64 - The Ghost in the Boardroom
By ten o’clock the following morning, the international media storm had reached a fever pitch.
Headlines across the globe blared news of the dramatic cyber-attack on my speech, the ticking clock, and the miraculous stabilization of the mysterious child. But behind closed doors on the fortieth floor of the foundation’s Manhattan headquarters, an entirely different battle was raging.
"You have compromised the foundation's non-profit charter!" shouted Harold Sterling, the senior board chairman, slamming his palm onto the mahogany conference table. "A live tactical raid? Using proprietary, unapproved gene-stabilizing drugs on an unidentified infant during an internationally televised broadcast? The FDA is preparing a federal audit as we speak!"
The remaining eight board members murmured in anxious agreement, their eyes darting nervously toward the television mounted on the wall, where stock tickers for our partner pharmaceutical firms were plummeting.
I sat at the head of the table, entirely composed, dressed in a sharp ivory suit. Marcus stood silently in the corner behind me, his arms crossed over his chest, projecting an aura of lethal patience.
"The drug was not unapproved, Harold," I said, my voice cutting through the panic with surgical precision. "It was patented under the pediatric emergency compassion protocol six weeks ago in Geneva. Furthermore, that infant is not unidentified."
I slid a thick stack of documents across the glass table.
"That child is Jonathan Vance Hayes," I continued, looking each board member in the eye. "He is my biological brother. And under the original corporate covenants established by my father—covenants that three of you signed in 1994—he is the majority shareholder of the underlying land and laboratory facilities this very foundation occupies."
Harold Sterling went pale, his hand hovering over his coffee cup. "That’s impossible. Those covenants were terminated during the restructuring."
"No, Harold," I smiled coldly, leaning forward. "They were hidden. Just like you hid the two hundred thousand dollars wired to your offshore account in the Caymans twelve hours before the cyber-attack on my gala last night."
The room plunged into dead silence.
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Marcus took one step forward, tossing a tablet onto the center of the table. The screen showed Harold Sterling's encrypted communications, detailing the specific bypass codes used to hijack the auditorium’s public address system.
"Federal marshals are in the lobby, Harold," Marcus said casually. "You have roughly forty-five seconds to gather your belongings before they escort you out in front of the press."
