Chapter 4 - The Infiltration
To expose Arthur, I needed definitive physical proof connecting Apex Capital's offshore accounts to the hitmen hired twenty years ago. The physical paper trails were locked inside Arthur’s private safe at his private estate in Sandy Springs.
"I can get you in," a voice said over my encrypted phone line.
It was Chef Jean-Luc, my private executive chef at the mansion. I had called him into my study earlier that morning, fully expecting to fire him for making me think Grace was a thief. Instead, when I told him the truth, the old French chef wept openly.
"Arthur Vance’s head housekeeper is my sister, Marie," Jean-Luc explained. "He treats his domestic staff like dirt. Marie has complained to me for years about strange men coming to his study late at night with steel briefcases."
Two nights later, under the cover of a torrential thunderstorm, Jean-Luc helped me enter the Vance estate through the service entrance. Disguised in an electrician's uniform, I carried a diagnostic toolbox containing specialized cracking software provided by an independent private investigator I had hired.
While Arthur was away attending a charity gala Downtown, I slipped into his dark, wood-paneled library.
Behind a painting of a 19th-century hunting scene sat a high-tech biometric safe.
I connected the bypass device to the electronic keypad. The screen flickered, cycling through thousands of code combinations per second.
10%... 45%... 88%...
BEEP. The blue LED turned green, and the heavy steel door clicked open.
Inside lay stacks of bearer bonds, passport books under false names, and an old cassette tape labeled: Oseni Project - Nov 14.
May you like
I grabbed the tape and the folder labeled Apex Capital just as headlights flashed through the tall library windows.
Arthur was home early.
