Chapter 4 - TACTICAL DISMANTLING
Ethan was panting on the floor,
clutching his wrist,
the scotch from his glass soaking into the deep-pile carpet.
"You're dead,"
he gasped,
his eyes filled with a desperate,
ugly light.
"I’ll destroy you."
"I’ll pull every contract your friends have,
I’ll burn your reputation to the ground!"
Richard looked down at him,
feeling nothing but a profound sense of disgust.
"You talk about your company as if it's a shield,"
Richard said,
pulling a small,
encrypted tablet from the pocket of his uniform jacket.
"Caldwell Digital Solutions."
"You recently secured a contract with the Department of Defense for logistics software,
didn't you?"
Ethan blinked,
the pain in his wrist momentarily forgotten.
"How do you know about that?"
"That’s classified."
Richard smiled,
a cold,
brief flash of teeth.
"I may be retired,
Ethan,
but my name is still on the door of the Pentagon’s vetting committee."
"I spent the last twenty minutes on the phone with the Inspector General’s office while I was driving over here."
"I told them that the CEO of one of their primary contractors is currently being investigated for domestic violence,
kidnapping,
and psychological torture."
Ethan’s face went white,
the blood draining from his cheeks faster than the scotch had soaked into the rug.
"You...
you can't do that."
"That contract is worth eighty million dollars!"
"It was worth eighty million dollars,"
Richard corrected,
tapping a command on the tablet screen.
"Now,
it’s under 'Immediate Review for Ethical Violations'."
"Your board of directors is receiving an emergency notification as we speak."
"Your stock is going to open tomorrow morning at half its current value."
Ethan scrambled to his feet,
lunging for the tablet,
but Richard simply stepped aside,
tripping him with a casual,
disciplined leg-sweep.
Ethan hit the floor hard,
his breath leaving his body in a pathetic wheeze.
"That's just the business side,"
Richard continued,
standing over the fallen "visionary."
"The personal side is even more interesting."
"I’ve been watching you,
Ethan."
"I know about the offshore accounts you've been using to hide money from the IRS."
"I know about the 'donations' you made to the city council to get the zoning permits for your new headquarters."
"I have three decades of experience in intelligence gathering,
and you have the digital footprint of a clumsy child."
Richard looked at Emily,
who was now standing up,
wiping the blood from her lip and looking at her husband not with fear,
but with a dawning sense of liberation.
"He’s not a king,
Emily,"
Richard said.
May you like
"He’s just a bully with a high-speed internet connection."
"And his 'perfect life' just ended."
