Chapter 25 - The Counter-Strike
The war room was assembled by midnight. My top legal counsel, my lead forensic accountants, and Jonathan were gathered around the massive digital whiteboard in the secure executive suite. I stood at the head of the room, fueled by black coffee and absolute, unyielding resolve.
"Richard Sterling expects us to play defense," I announced, pointing to the map of Apex BioGen’s corporate structure. "He expects us to scramble to save our distributors. We are going to do the exact opposite. We are going out on the offensive."
"How?" our lead accountant asked. "Apex is incredibly insulated."
"Apex BioGen’s primary revenue stream relies on a massive federal contract with the Department of Defense for trauma-grade coagulants," I explained, pulling up a specific file I had kept saved for months. "When I purged Grant's old board, I kept a record of all the back-channel bribes they had orchestrated. Grant and Richard Sterling colluded three years ago to artificially inflate the pricing on that DoD contract."
Jonathan’s eyes widened in realization. "You have proof of federal price-fixing?"
"I have the encrypted emails Grant thought he deleted," I smiled coldly. "If the Department of Defense finds out Apex BioGen has been defrauding the federal government, they will instantly freeze Sterling’s contracts. His company's valuation will drop by half overnight."
"But if you reveal the collusion, it implicates Vale Medical in the past crimes," my lead counsel warned.
"Grant is already in federal prison for fraud," I countered smoothly. "Vale Medical is currently operating under a deferred prosecution agreement, which mandates we report any newly discovered historical crimes. We aren't colluding; we are complying with federal transparency laws. We get immunity as the whistleblowers. Sterling gets the full wrath of the federal government."
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I looked around the room, seeing the shock and awe on the faces of my team. They were used to traditional corporate defense. They weren't used to tactical nuclear strikes.
"Draft the disclosure package," I commanded. "I want it hand-delivered to the Department of Justice by 8:00 AM Monday morning. When the markets open, Richard Sterling isn't going to care about our distributors. He is going to be too busy trying to keep himself out of a federal penitentiary."
