Chapter 14 - The Inside Man
While Camille's legal defense was disintegrating in the conference rooms, Harrison Grant and I knew that she couldn't have moved over six million dollars across international borders without high-level internal assistance. Someone inside Sterling Logistics had been stamping the financial approvals and falsifying the tax filings to keep the auditors blind.
We spent a long weekend sequestered in my office, running cross-references between Camille’s private calendars and the company’s accounting department access logs. By Sunday midnight, the algorithm I had written flagged a glaring anomaly.
"Look at this," I said to Harrison, pointing at the glowing screen. "Every time Camille submitted a fake vendor invoice from her shell company, the payment was manually expedited through accounts payable within two hours. No standard thirty-day holding period, no secondary verification."
Harrison squinted at the approval signatures. "Signed by Marcus Vance... our Chief Financial Officer."
"Not just signed," I added, pulling up a secondary bank trace we had subpoenaed through the federal court order. "Look at Marcus’s personal checking account at the offshore clearing bank in Bermuda. Every time Camille withdrew a million dollars, a ten-percent consulting fee was deposited directly into a shell account registered to Marcus's wife."
Harrison let out a low whistle. "He was taking a hundred-thousand-dollar bribe on every transfer. He was her inside inside man."
On Monday morning at 9:00 AM, Marcus Vance walked into the executive suite wearing his tailored Italian suit, holding a cup of gourmet coffee, expecting another routine week of corporate numbers. Instead, he found Harrison Grant, myself, and two FBI financial investigators waiting for him in his office.
"Marcus," I said calmly from behind his desk, running my fingers over the edge of my fiberglass cast. "We have a choice for you to make before your morning coffee gets cold."
Marcus stopped dead, his eyes darting to the FBI badges clipped to the belts of the two investigators. "What is the meaning of this, Sydney? Why are federal agents in my office?"
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"Because we know about the Bermuda accounts, Marcus," Harrison said, sliding a copy of the wire transfers across the desk. "You face twenty-five years in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aiding wire fraud. Or, you sit down right now, waive your right to counsel, and sign a full proffer agreement turning King's Evidence against Camille Sterling and Eleanor Sterling."
Marcus looked at the wire traces, his face turning the color of wet ash. His coffee cup slipped from his trembling fingers, shattering on the plush carpet as he sank into his desk chair. "Where do I sign?"
