Chapter 4 – Rivalries and Blackmail.

Shawn Long was very much a compulsive organizer.

He was in his last year of High School and while some kids were out skateboarding or causing mayhem, he was doing his work and organizing his life. For god sakes he had a full scale, office grade file cabinet in his bedroom for his school work and a credenza for everything else. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars that he spent monthly on office supplies, when in fact the only thing he had to use them on was his school work. It didn't matter to his parents though, they were just proud of the fact that that he was like this, it was a good probability that he'd be this way for the rest of his life and that's what they counted on.

Despite the fact that it was 12:37 and that he should go to bed, he couldn't sleep, he kept thinking about this internal shakeup at the company that he wanted to run one day. He'd always thought Trevor was an imbecile on matters of business, but this latest development only sought to further that assumption. Who invested life savings into an investment banking fund? You'd have to be a complete and total feeble minded idiot to do that. Trevor should have been run off of Wall Street, and in a sense, he supposed, his brother would soon be. No company in the world would hire him after this disaster of epic proportions.

Sliding into his office chair that was in front of his large computer desk in his bedroom, Shawn reached over to the left of the desk itself and opened up the credenza cabinet and began to sort through the many files that he had. The paper that he was searching for was for his Senior Class Project, a project that included the student picking a career to follow into and the shadowing someone in that profession. Now the private school that he went too had the children of Federal Judges, Congressman and other Wall Street Titans as Students, so Job Shadows of this magnitude were not uncommon. But the subject of his Job Shadow didn't even know that he was the subject and he intended on telling him about it in the morning.

If he e-mailed his teacher and told her that he was going to be going to shadow his father for the day and to call his mother to confirm it, he'd be able to spend the entire day at the Corporate World Headquarters, and to be in the environment. It was something that he craved, he longed to play that game and even though he'd be able to do it legally in a few months, he'd like to get a big dose of it now. Besides, he wanted to be on the inside and see every moment of his father's day tomorrow.

Finding the paper, he pulled it out of the file and shut the cabinet before turning in his chair and laying it on his desk. Quickly reading over the instructions, he began to practically write the e-mail to his teacher in his head before finally abandoning the paper. Shawn stood up and grabbed a book of yellow note paper and a pen and set them on the desk for the morning. Yes, he'd do his Job Shadow tomorrow. He'd planned on doing it in a few weeks, but he didn't want to miss the inner workings after this fiasco occurred under the watch of his fanatically stupid brother.

Shawn smiled and opened up his e-mail on his computer.

It was all coming together, he'd would finally open his father's eyes.

OOOO

The series of events that would push Jake to his limit started with a phone call at 4:00 AM that morning.

"Fucking seriously," Jake grumbled as his hand fumbled for his charging cellphone on the bedside table. Detaching the cord, his opened his eyes and looked at the ID on the screen. 'Does Maxwell ever fucking sleep?' Jake thought irritably as he pressed answer button and held it up to his ear, "You'd better have a damn good reason for waking me up!"

Frankly, Jake didn't give a shit if he woke the entire house up, he loved his seldom sleep and he hated to be woken up from it. However, his anger subsided substantially when he heard the almost disbelieving tone in Maxwell's voice, "Jake, I just got a subpoena from the DOJ, they're demanding that we turn over all financial documents concerning Marcus."

Jake shot up and clapped his hands to turn the lights on, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. He squinted his eyes as he stumbled to his office that was built across from the master bedroom and turned the light on at his desk, "Please tell me that they haven't found out about the money."

"I don't know," Maxwell sounded genuinely exhausted, "Point is though, we have a day to turn over all of the documents, or you and I are going to be held in contempt and they'll issue a bench warrant for our arrests."

Jake sighed and rubbed his eyes before slapping his hand against the desk, "Well what fucking choice do we have? Give them all the documents that they request. By the way, I want you to call the Attorney General into my office tomorrow, I need to speak with him about the account."

"And about Trevor?" Maxwell offered.

"Well he's going to destroy my kid, I've got to head him off," Jake nodded and began to rub the back his neck, "Just prepare them to be sent."

Little did Jake know, the US Department of Justice was not only opening up an investigation on Marcus and Associates, but also INGB and Marcus's other big clients. This was only the tip of the iceberg for this his escapade.

OOOO

It was their method of operating, Jake supposed as he looked at the phone in shock. There wasn't anything that he had to worry about necessarily, but there was with John Marcus. If Marcus didn't give him that $28 Billion Dollars before the Federal Government swarmed in on him, he'd have to go through official channels to do that and it would take a long time to get every dime of it back. It was going to impact him if he liked it or not, when the Markets found out about all of this, they'd react accordingly and when his employees found out, they'd act accordingly.

Jake would be forced to do things that he wouldn't like to do, he'd have to see beyond what people wanted and what people needed and he'd have to choose for himself what he was going to do about it. If you wanted this life, you'd have to make those choices sometimes and though he had done it before, he had stayed away from them through the majority of his career and tried to control his environment so that he didn't have to do it. But every so often things slipped out of his control and he'd be forced to make them, this was one of those moments and he hated it.

The reason it was so foreign to Jake was because he hadn't had many of them in this 25 years and he'd pay any price to have it go away.

Sighing, Jake picked up the telephone on his desk and pressed Trevor's number on the Speed Dial panel, he had to warn Trevor that the feds were looking at him now. It hadn't even occurred to Jake that they could move so quickly, but they did and now he had to twiddle the Federal Government's Advantage down quickly. If Jake could warn Trevor that the Government was looking at the firm he worked at, that would give at least Trevor a moment to duck out of the way of the guns that were now pointed at John Marcus, "Dad, do you know what time it is right now?"

"4:21 in the morning," Jake answered and bean to scribble notes down on a piece of paper that he had in front of him, "I just got a call from Maxwell, apparently the Justice Department just issued subpoena for all of our documents that have Marcus and Associate's name on them."

On the other line, he could tell that Trevor had shot to attention from whatever he was doing and he was now talking into the phone frantically, so frantically in fact that it scared Jake himself. He had never heard his son speak like this and he didn't want to hear it anymore. But he had the feeling that he was going to be hearing it a lot more then he wanted to in the coming days and perhaps weeks, "Oh my god, what did the subpoena? Can you tell me specifically what they wanted from you and are you under the bullet yourself over this whole mess that I made?"

"I don't know," Jake scratched his forehead, "But I'm going to call the Attorney General tomorrow and see if he'll come down to my office tomorrow, there are a few things that I want to talk to him about."

"You have to make sure that he secures this money for you," Trevor groaned, he was in too deep now.

"I plan on it son," Jake said, "I've already got a list of potential incentives for him."

"What?" Trevor asked, he felt as if he had a right to know.

Jake shook his head, sensing this from his son, "Remember Trevor, if it were not for you, we wouldn't even be in this situation so don't act as if you have any right to know what I am going to try to do to save this company for destruction."

"I guess you're right," He said, he sounded depressed, "I'll let you go."

And without saying goodbye, Trevor hung up the phone. Jake looked at it in surprise, his son was always polite on the phone, he always had been. Maybe this was really getting too him. Well, Jake supposed, if he had been responsible for this, he'd be depressed too. Shaking his head, he hung up the phone and dropped his head into his arms on the desk. He felt completely and totally helpless about this.

"What the matter?" Rose asked sleepily from the door.

Jake looked up and shook his head, "Everything is coming down."

"What do you mean?" She asked again, yawning loudly.

"The Department of Justice just served subpoenas on the company, I have to give them all of the documents that we have with Marcus and Associates or Maxwell and I are going to prison," Jake sighed and shook his head, "And I wouldn't mind that as much as I need to get those people their money back from Marcus."

Rose frowned and walked behind the desk and placed herself in his lap. She leaned down and laid her head on his chest, "You've gotten through worse things."

"No I haven't," Jake realized as he wrapped his arms around her waist, "I actually haven't, this is the first time that I've ever had to deal with a loss like this before."

Something occurred to Rose, it was only a fleeting thing, and she almost dismissed it, but her husband was very distraught, "Do you need me to help you Jake?"

"Help me do what?" Jake looked up to her.

"Well," Rose began, "I'm very good at finding things out about people that they want to keep hidden. Would you like me to find some things out about the Attorney General? Or perhaps the President himself, it could help you get your money."

Jake thought about that for a moment, normally, he wouldn't have done that, but in times of war, the law fell silent. Sometimes you needed to make these choices as he had realized earlier, and perhaps now was the time, "How would you do it?"

"I have my ways," Rose winked at him, "You leave that to me, I promise that it will attract no attention to you, and if you want me to, I'll get started in the morning."

He was silent for a moment, he needed to give it a little more thought. He was desperate, and he didn't want to impede the investigation into Marcus, but he couldn't let that money be frozen up, "How long would it take?"

"I could have it by tomorrow afternoon," Rose replied to him.

Jake raised an eyebrow, "That quick?"

"Like I said," Rose nodded, "I do have my ways."

"Do it," Jake said.

OOOO

She had to make sure that Jake had gone back to sleep before she made the call to her old background contact. Rose had used him for years to find information on all sorts of people, from the people she hired to watch her kids, to business partners that had done business with the Huntsclan's front company. He was very good, in fact he was the best, and even after she left the Huntsclan, he still offered to do work for her at a price. As long as she paid him, he'd do his job and she expected no different from him now, "Rose, do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Malcolm," Rose said, running a hand through her messy hair as she looked out at the darkened Long Island Beachfront. The waves rolling onto the beach had an odd calming effect on her, "I need information on someone by tomorrow afternoon."

"Jesus," He told her, he sounded as if he was crawling out of bed, "Who is it that is so important that you need information on them that quick. I mean, it will be my personal best if I can do it and I've been doing this for thirty years."

"The Attorney General of the United States," Rose told him.

Malcolm was silent for a moment and then he began to laugh, "You're not serious?"

"I will pay you $5 Million Dollars," Rose told him, "I am quite serious about this."

"$5 Million you say?" He sounded intrigued, she normally only paid him $500,000, this really was big, "What do you want on him?"

"Dirty little secrets, arrests that were expunged, known vices, laws that he might have broken and gotten away with, any financial misconduct, I know he was a Vietnam Vet, any bad things he might over done over there what would garner him hate over here," Rose wanted to be thorough, "He's about to come down on my husband and he could cause my husband's company to come undone and I will not have that, I need it by tomorrow afternoon."

"I'll do it," He said with a satisfied smile, "I'll get you want you need keep him off your back."

Rose nodded with a smile, "Don't disappoint me."

"I trust I'll see you at the Country Club this Saturday?" Malcolm asked lightly.

Rose nodded, "Yeah, I'm going to ask my kids if they can all come, it's been a while since we've all had a meal together."

You see, Malcolm Arnold wasn't any ordinary person who had amazing abilities to uncover secrets that had been buried. Malcolm was the son of the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Arnold, the heir to a $5 Billion Dollar Fortune. He didn't need to work, he had plenty of money. He just moonlighted doing this for a little extra cash on the side. He was a Millionaire, but he wouldn't have his father's money until he died, and he needed to keep feeding his bank accounts and his lifestyle, "Well that's good, and I'll be sure to get your information as quick as I can."

"That's why I called you," Rose grinned.

OOOO

The Next Morning

Jake sipped on his coffee and studied the reports in front of him. It was the usual stuff that he had to do that when he didn't finish it the night before. Signing off on one of the reports, he flipped to the next one and he was about to dive into another one when he was tapped on his shoulder. He turned and smiled at his wife and he instantly knew the look on her face, like she was hiding a little secret, "Do you have something you want to share with me dear?"

"You'll have your information earlier than I expected," Rose said, sitting down next to him and handing him a piece of paper that she had in her hand. She had just gotten off another phone call with Malcolm and he had told her that getting information on him was very easy. It was hidden well, but Malcolm had been better and he had cracked it in five hours, he wasn't done, but this was a list of some of the things that he had found, "There's still more coming and I'm expecting a dossier of it all to be delivered to me when it's all put together, but what I've got right now is pretty incriminating. Do you remember when Lehman Brothers went down a few years back?"

Jake nodded and grinned, "I remember, I cried for a week when it went down and took $400 Million Dollars in my own cash with it."

"Well," Rose said pointing to her first note, "He pulled his stock out two days before it was announced the the Treasury would not be bailing it out. But here's the thing, we know that the Secretary of the Treasury came to this decision three days before it was announced, and at the time, the Attorney General was the-…"

"Assistant Secretary of the Treasury," Jake realized.

"And while he was in Vietnam, Major Paul Erickson had a bit of a mental breakdown and ended up gunning down an entire village," Rose said, rubbing the back of her head with a sad smile, "It's sad, but the Army backed him up and covered it up, no one ever found out, but my contact did. Not to mention his little arrest when he came back."

"Little arrest?" Jake asked, taking another look at her notepaper.

"Oh yeah," Rose grinned and snickered, "He was arrested for possession of Cocaine and Heroin when he came home, but the funny thing is where the police found it."

Oh lord, Jake thought and turned to stifle a chuckle, "W-where did they find it?"

"Up his ass," Rose chuckled and leaned forward to bury her head in her hand.

Jake snickered and rubbed his chest, "Oh my god."

"My contact says there's more, but he's trying to get his hand on the evidence," Rose tapped her hand against the table, "I think you have your leverage."

It was in that moment that Shawn decided to walk into the kitchen and both he and Rose looked back to their son. He was late for school, his sister had left about fifteen minutes ago, and Rose was about to go up there and ask him what the fuck he was doing. But then she noticed that he only had a yellow notepad in his hand. Rose raised an eyebrow in time with Jake's, "Shawn Long, you'd better give me a good reason why you're fifteen minutes late for school."

Shawn had practiced his little lie many times, "You forgot?"

"Forgot what?" Rose asked.

"I have my job shadow," Shawn said pointing at Jake, "I've had this planned for a month, I can't believe that you forgot."

Rose and Jake looked at each other, they must have forgotten it. That was strange, because if Jake forgot something, Rose usually reminded him, they could count the number of times on one hand when they both forgot something. Jake looked at his son, "I'm sorry I forgot, I've just been so busy, so you're going to be shadowing me?"

"Yeah," Shawn nodded, "Through everything."

Jake's hand went back to his coffee on the table, "And if we call your teacher, will she confirm this?"

"Yes, in fact I expect her to call in case she forgets," Shawn said pointing to the phone, "You want to call her now?"

Against her better judgment, Rose shook her head, "I believe you, if you were skipping school. I highly doubt that you'd be skipping school to go with your father."

"So when are we going?" Shawn looked to his father.

"A few minutes," Jake said and looked back to his wife, "Can you fax me the dossier when you get it?"

Rose stood up from the table and nodded, "Yeah, I'll be sure that you get it."

OOOO