Chapter 4 - The Toronto Strategy
They couldn't stay at the farm. Leaving Leo to handle the disposal of the bodies and the local police containment through his federal connections, Dominic and Megan took Clara and fled north, toward an isolated cabin near Lake Superior. The drive was silent, the atmosphere thick with the realization that running would only delay the inevitable.
"We can't live like refugees, Dominic," Megan said as they crossed the Mackinac Bridge, the vast, dark waters of Lake Huron stretching into the horizon. "Clara deserves a life, not a series of safehouses. If Vanguard Helix wants their four billion back, we give them a reason to drop the bounty."
"How?" Dominic asked, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. "They want the original encryption keys. If we give them those, they recover their funds, but they also get the names of every informant, every federal judge, and every politician we used to secure our freedom. The moment that data goes live, the federal magistrate turns on us to save his own skin."
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"Then we don't give them the real keys," Megan countered, her eyes gleaming with the cold brilliance that had made her the Commission’s most dangerous analyst. "We create a counter-leverage scheme. Vanguard Helix has a board of directors. Five men who control the entire corporate empire. They think they are safe in their high-rise towers in Toronto. We go to Canada, Dominic. We take the fight to their boardroom."
Dominic looked at her, a slow, grim smile appearing on his face. It was a dangerous, borderline suicidal plan, but it was the only way to permanently cut the head off the snake. They reached the cabin at dawn, immediately transforming the wooden kitchen table into a command center. They had forty-eight hours before Vanguard realized their first team had failed.
