Chapter 6 - The Rat Trap
Chloe Whitaker, the twenty-one-year-old sister who had mocked Emily during the beating, believed she could escape the fallout by flying to her family’s luxury villa in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
She had booked a first-class ticket under her mother’s maiden name, slipping out of her suburban home in the middle of the night in a rented sedan.
But she didn't realize that Patel had been tracking her phone's GPS location and her credit card activity since the first day of the assessment.
When Chloe arrived at the international departures terminal at O'Hare Airport, she was met by two officers from the Department of Homeland Security, accompanied by our Team Epsilon operator, a former federal marshal named Dave.
"Miss Whitaker," Dave said, stepping into her path as she reached the security checkpoint. "We have a federal material witness warrant for your arrest regarding the ongoing investigation into the Whitaker Group’s financial fraud and the civil rights conspiracy case."
Chloe’s face turned white, her designer suitcase slipping from her hand. "You... you can't arrest me! I didn't do anything! It was my brothers! I was just standing there!"
"You were standing there recording the video, Chloe," Dave said, his voice flat as he pulled out a pair of high-resolution printouts showing her holding her phone, laughing while Emily lay bleeding on the stone patio. "And under federal law, that makes you an active participant in an organized criminal conspiracy. Please step this way."
As Chloe was led away in handcuffs, her screams of protest echoed through the busy terminal, captured by several travelers on their mobile phones. By evening, the video of the wealthy socialite being arrested at the airport was trending on every social media platform in the Midwest.
"Domino number five," Mara Vale said, updating the board. "The children are all accounted for. Now, we go after the foundation."
Arthur Whitaker’s sister, Eleanor, was the director of the Whitaker Family Foundation—a tax-exempt charity that was used to channel millions of dollars into various local political campaigns, judicial reelection funds, and high-society arts projects. It was the family’s primary source of social influence, the shield that kept the local judges and prosecutors in their pocket.
But our Team Beta had spent the last forty-eight hours analyzing the foundation's IRS filings.
"It’s a classic self-dealing operation," Sarah Vance explained, showing me the transaction records. "Eleanor has been using the foundation's charity funds to pay for the family's private jet travel, their country club memberships, and even their home renovations, labeling them as 'educational outreach expenses.' Over four million dollars in tax fraud over five years."
"Send the audit directly to the IRS Charity Division and the State Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau," I said. "And make sure the local press receives a copy of the filing. Let's see how many of their political friends stand by them when their names are linked to a federal tax evasion investigation."
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By Monday morning, the State Attorney General had initiated an official investigation into the Whitaker Foundation, freezing all their assets and suspending their charitable status. The politicians who had once proudly stood next to Arthur Whitaker at charity dinners quickly deleted his photos from their campaign websites, releasing statements condemning the family's "alleged illegal activities."
The shield was gone. The Whitakers were completely, utterly alone.
