CHAPTER 8: THE LAST ALLY
Harrington was not alone in his cage. His primary legal counsel, a man named Sterling, had been his shadow for thirty years. Sterling knew where every body was buried. He was the one who drafted the contracts that allowed the bribery, the one who negotiated the silence of the victims.
Eleanor knew that to fully dismantle the entity of Harrington Enterprises, she needed Sterling to break.
She entered the interview room where Sterling sat, looking significantly smaller than he had in the ballroom. He was still wearing his expensive suit, but it looked rumpled, a sign of his own declining morale.
"You’re going to prison, Sterling," Eleanor said, sitting across from him. "You’ve done the math. You know the sentencing guidelines for aiding and abetting a RICO enterprise."
Sterling looked up, his eyes weary. "I was just doing my job. I was an attorney. I owed a duty of loyalty to my client."
"You owed a duty of loyalty to the law," Eleanor corrected. "Your client is gone, Sterling. He has no money to pay you, he has no leverage to protect you, and he has explicitly named you as the orchestrator of the Cayman accounts. He sold you out to save his own skin."
Sterling laughed, a dry, bitter sound. "He did that? After thirty years of covering his mistakes?"
"He did," Eleanor said, sliding a copy of the deposition transcript across the table. "He laid the blame at your feet. He told the investigators that you were the one who suggested the offshore structure. He’s already written your obituary."
Sterling read the document, his fingers trembling. The betrayal was complete. He had sacrificed his integrity for a man who viewed him as a discardable resource.
"What do you want?" he whispered, his resolve crumbling.
May you like
"I want the keys to the private vault," Eleanor said. "I want the internal communications that show he knew about the water contamination three years before he authorized the mining. I want the truth, Sterling. And in exchange, I’ll tell the prosecutor that you were the one who provided the evidence that led to the arrests. I’ll make sure you don't spend a single night in a maximum-security prison."
Sterling sat in silence for a long time. The weight of his own moral bankruptcy hung in the air. Finally, he reached out and took the pen.
