Chapter 8 - The Ashes of the Empire
The sunrise over Washington D.C. broke in streaks of cold gold and pale lavender, burning off the heavy autumn mist that clung to the Potomac River.
By eight in the morning, the steps of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse were swarming with satellite trucks. Every major news network in the country had crews camped along Constitution Avenue. The chyron scrolling across the bottom of every cable news broadcast read like the plot of a political thriller:
*SENIOR PROSECUTOR MARCUS STERLING INDICTED ON FEDERAL RACKETEERING CHARGES.*
*PROMINENT D.C. LITIGATOR ARRESTED IN ATTEMPTED MURDER OF GENERAL VANCE'S DAUGHTER.*
*STERLING & HOLBROOK SHUT DOWN AMID MASSIVE FRAUD PROBE.*
Inside the firm's headquarters on K Street, the silence was total.
Forensic accountants from the Internal Revenue Service and special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation moved through the mahogany-paneled corridors like a swarm of silent locusts. Every computer terminal had been tagged with an evidence sticker. The leather-bound volumes of the Virginia Code had been pulled from the library shelves to reveal hidden wall safes containing off-the-books ledgers.
Arthur Holbrook sat in his corner office, watching two young agents box up his vintage bronze statues of Lady Justice.
"You don't understand," Holbrook wheezed, his heavy face gray with defeat. "We didn't know about Carter's domestic issues. We are an institutional firm! We represent Fortune 500 corporations!"
"You knew about the settlement in Annapolis three years ago, Mr. Holbrook," the lead agent said without looking up from his inventory sheet. "You signed the wire transfer authorization for the hundred and fifty thousand dollars paid to the trauma surgeon who reconstructed that young woman's cheekbone. That makes you an unindicted co-conspirator to interstate racketeering. The U.S. Attorney will be in touch by noon regarding your surrender."
Holbrook’s head sank into his hands.
Thirty years of billable hours, of private jets to Davos, of sitting at the right hand of senators and cabinet secretaries—evaporated in less than twelve hours because an arrogant junior partner thought a farm girl had no teeth.
***
Meanwhile, on Potomac Ridge Road, the moving trucks had already arrived.
Under federal civil forfeiture rules, property purchased with or maintained by funds derived from illegal racketeering activity can be seized prior to formal trial if an emergency restraining order is issued by a district judge. Marcus Sterling had used his laundered campaign funds to pay the property taxes on the estate for six consecutive years.
The house belonged to the United States Government now.
Workers in gray coveralls were carrying Eleanor’s antique French furniture out through the shattered front entrance. The grand piano was rolled down a ramp into a storage container. The crystal chandeliers were being carefully lowered into wooden crates, slated for public auction on the steps of the courthouse next month.
Curious neighbors stood along the perimeter fence, watching in stunned silence as the myth of the Sterling family was systematically dismantled and packed into cardboard boxes.
"I always knew there was something wrong with that boy," one woman in a tennis skirt whispered to her companion. "Did you see how he looked at the cleaning staff? Pure arrogance."
"And Eleanor," the other replied, sipping an iced latte. "Always talking down to everyone at the garden club about her pedigree. Turns out her brother-in-law was stealing from the county retirement fund to pay for her landscaping. Disgusting."
Down the street, sitting in the back of an unmarked black Suburban, Clara watched the workers load the last of the living room furniture into the truck.
She was pale, but the color was slowly returning to her cheeks. She was wearing a simple wool coat, her father sitting beside her in the back seat. In her arms, wrapped in a heated hospital blanket, was a secure digital monitor streaming the live feed from the NICU isolette at Suburban Hospital.
On the screen, Thomas’s tiny chest rose and fell in perfect synchronization with the ventilator. His oxygen levels were holding at ninety-eight percent. The neonatologist had reported an hour ago that his lung maturity was progressing faster than expected; they planned to extubate him within forty-eight hours.
"Do you want to go inside one last time?" my father asked softly.
I looked at the mahogany door, now swinging open to reveal the empty, gutted foyer where my blood had pooled twelve hours ago.
"No," I said. "There’s nothing in that house except ghosts and rot. Burn it down, or sell it to someone who knows how to love. It doesn't matter to me."
"The forfeiture order has designated the net proceeds of the auction to be placed into an irrevocable trust in Thomas's name," my father said, handing me a leather-bound folder. "The estimate is roughly six point two million dollars after the mortgage liens are cleared. Carter will never touch a cent of it. Neither will Eleanor."
I closed the folder, resting my hand on the cool leather.
"Where will they go, Dad? Before the trial?"
"Carter and Marcus have been transferred to the supermax wing at the Northern Neck Regional Jail," my father said, his voice flat and unyielding. "They were denied bail forty minutes ago by Magistrate Judge Reynolds. Marcus tried to invoke his thirty years of public service; Reynolds told him that his public service was precisely why he belonged behind bars until the jury reaches a verdict."
"And Eleanor?"
"Eleanor experienced a hypertensive crisis during processing," my father replied. "She is currently under armed guard in the psychiatric observation ward at the state hospital. When she is stabilized, she will be transferred to the women’s detention center in Goochland to await trial for felony accessory to attempted murder."
I looked down at the monitor in my lap.
Thomas moved his tiny arm, his fist brushing against the transparent wall of the incubator.
*He survived.* We both survived.
May you like
"Take me back to the hospital, Dad," I said, leaning my head against his broad shoulder. "I want to be there when they take the breathing tube out."
My father nodded to the driver. The heavy engine rumbled to life, and the Suburban pulled away from the curb, leaving the ruined remains of the Sterling dynasty behind in a cloud of exhaust and dead autumn leaves.
