Chapter 3 - The Shadow of the Board
By three o'clock that afternoon, the Garfield Elementary scandal had reached the top floor of the Chicago Public School District Headquarters in downtown Manhattan.
Inside a glass-walled corner office overlooking the rain-slicked city streets, Superintendent Julian Mercer sat behind a massive glass desk. Beside him stood Arthur Caldwell, who was pacing frantically, wringing his hands until his knuckles were white.
"He threatened to pull the seven-million-dollar grant, Julian!" Caldwell whined, his voice high-pitched with panic. "He brought security guards into my office! He talked about federal child labor investigations!"
Superintendent Mercer—a smooth, forty-five-year-old political climber in an expensive Italian suit—sipped his espresso, his face unreadable.
"Calm down, Arthur," Mercer said coldly. "Nathan Reed is a tech mogul. He thinks because he has billions of dollars he can walk into our district and dictate policy. He doesn't understand how municipal politics work in Chicago."
"You don't understand!" Caldwell yelled. "He caught the girl scrubbing the floor! The Vance child!"
Mercer set his cup down with a sharp click. His eyes narrowed.
"The Vance child?" Mercer asked, his tone dropping an octave. "Clara Vance’s daughter?"
"Yes! The mother is a temp in the cafeteria!"
Mercer stood up, walking to his floor-to-ceiling windows. A dark, calculated smile touched the corners of his lips.
Julian Mercer was not just a school superintendent. He was the secret managing partner of Apex Facility Solutions—a shell company registered in Delaware that had been awarded a fifty-million-dollar contract by the city to handle maintenance, sanitation, and catering for thirty public schools in the district.
For three years, Mercer and Caldwell had been siphoning millions out of the maintenance budget. They had fired eighty percent of the unionized custodians, replaced them with overworked, underpaid temp workers, and forced low-income parents into unpaid labor under the threat of losing their jobs or having Child Protective Services called on them.
The money saved was laundered through Apex and deposited into offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands.
And Clara Vance’s late husband, Mark Vance, had been a mid-level accountant at Apex who had discovered the discrepancy three years ago—right before he met with a fatal "accident" on a construction site.
"So," Mercer murmured, rubbing his chin. "Nathan Reed picked Clara Vance’s child out of all the kids in that school. What a poetic coincidence."
"What do we do?" Caldwell pleaded. "If Reed’s lawyers start digging into the custodial contracts, they’ll find Apex! They’ll find the kickbacks!"
Mercer turned around, his eyes cold and lifeless.
"Nathan Reed is an idealist," Mercer said smoothly. "He thinks he can fix the world with money and libraries. But every man has a price, Arthur. And if he doesn't have a price, he has a reputation that can be destroyed."
Mercer reached for his desk phone and dialed a private, encrypted number.
"Get me Vance Corporate Investigations," Mercer commanded into the receiver. "I need everything you can dig up on Nathan Reed’s private life. Find out every company he owns, every board member he answers to, and every secret he buried on his way to the top. I want a smear campaign ready for the morning news cycles."
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Mercer hung up the phone and looked at Caldwell.
"We aren't surrendering the Garfield contract, Arthur," Mercer smiled dangerously. "We are going to war with Nathan Reed."
