The Counterpunch Part 2

Chapter 096: The Counterpunch Part 2 Leah called Ethan before she took off Catherine Marsh's gray blouse, because Rachel Okonkwo had said the request number aloud in the cafeteria and no amount of ordinary evening ritual could make that safe. "REQ-2024-0347 has been flagged," she said when he answered. "Security review. Ten to fourteen days instead of five to seven. Rachel knew the number, the document age, and the delay before I did." Ethan's voice lost its social polish. "Rachel Okonkwo." "Corporate Development analyst. Level three access. Six years inside the company. She also knew Hunt Capital had asked about the Foundation's PRI program." "That means one of two things. Either she has access to logs she should not be discussing, or someone with access wanted you to know you were being watched." Leah stood in the narrow kitchen of her apartment with the morning's untouched toast still hardening on the counter. Through the window, Manhattan looked indifferent, a city full of lit rooms and closed files. "I need to know which before I make another move." "I'm already running her background." "When?" "Tomorrow morning, if the source answers tonight." "Tomorrow may be late." "Catherine Marsh is not going back into the retrieval system tonight." The sentence was not an order, but it landed like one. Leah closed her eyes once and saw Rachel's thin smile, the cafeteria steam, the way the words long memory had slipped under Catherine's ribs. "The thirty-sixth floor is not just sitting there, Ethan. Martha moved the archive once. If security flagged the request, she can move whatever survived again." "And if you panic, you give them a reason to search your desk, your badge history, your apartment, and every Catherine Marsh credential Viktor built." That stopped her because it was true. She hated that it was true. Ethan let the silence hold for one beat, then softened only enough to keep the argument from becoming personal. "Tell me exactly what Rachel said." Leah repeated it: Sebastian's board meetings, Hunt Capital's review drifting through staff talk, Martha's habit of surviving crises, the flagged request, the warning about the thirty-sixth floor. She kept her voice clinical until she reached the end. "She was not frightened of Martha. She sounded angry." "Anger can be useful. It can also be bait." "So can patience." "Patience is what keeps you alive." "No," Leah said. "Invisibility keeps me alive. Patience just tells me how long I have to use it." He was quiet long enough that she knew he had heard Isabella under Catherine's voice. "Then use it. No more sensitive ThorneVault searches. No more pre-2015 requests. No more curiosity that looks like curiosity. For the next few days Catherine Marsh does exactly what David Choi hired her to do." "Healthcare analysis." "Executive briefing prep, market comparisons, whatever boring assignment lands on your desk. The more competent and forgettable you are, the harder it is to make you the leak." Leah looked toward the tote bag by the sofa. Her Moleskine was inside it, the only place where Catherine and Isabella told each other the truth. "Boring will not open the archive." "No. Rachel might." The admission shifted something. "You think she is recruitable." "I think she is observable. There is a difference." "If her background is clean?" "Then we decide whether she is the first internal ally with real access, or a woman who tried to warn the wrong new hire and will get destroyed if we pull her too early." Leah sat at the small table and opened the notebook. The page waited, blank and accusing. "And if the background is not clean?" "Then you treat her as a sentinel and let her see exactly what Security expects to see." "A junior analyst who works late and asks no more questions." "A junior analyst who knows less than Rachel thinks she knows." The shape of it settled between them: not retreat, not surrender, but a lower profile so strict it became camouflage. Catherine Marsh would become useful to David, harmless to Priya, uninteresting to Legal, and invisible to Sebastian. Isabella would have to live beneath that skin without scratching through. "There is another problem," Leah said. "David mentioned Hunt Capital's Foundation review in a staff meeting. Rachel said people noticed. If Sebastian has not connected the article to your review yet, he will." "Let him. Hunt Capital is a legitimate due diligence agent. If Sebastian comes at us directly, he makes his own disclosure problem worse." "That protection covers your institution. It does not cover Catherine." "I know." The words were too quick and too honest. For a moment Leah heard the man from Central Park, not the banker building legal shields. "Do you?" "Yes," he said. "Which is why I'm telling you not to turn Rachel into an ally before we know whether she is standing on solid ground." Leah wrote the date at the top of the page. April 2. Day nine. She wrote the facts in short, controlled lines: the article, the SEC inquiry, the flagged retrieval request, Rachel's access, David's loose staff-room mention, the narrowed protocol. Seeing them on paper made the day less like panic and more like a map. At the bottom, she added one sentence and underlined it once: Catherine Marsh must become boring. "What did you just write?" Ethan asked. "A survival rule." "Good." "It is not enough." "It is enough for tonight." Leah looked at the discarded toast, then at the laptop where David's healthcare deck waited in its tidy corporate folder. The counterpunch had not come as a subpoena or a threat. It had come as delay, scrutiny, and the slow tightening of access. She could not hit back without showing her hand. So she would disappear in plain sight. "Send me Rachel's file when you have it," she said. "I will." The call ended. Leah made tea she did not want, threw away the toast, and opened the healthcare analysis. For three hours, she revised revenue projections, corrected footnotes, and made Catherine Marsh's work so clean that David Choi would have no reason to wonder what else she did after midnight. Near ten, a new calendar invitation appeared in her inbox. Executive Healthcare Portfolio Briefing. April 7. 2:00 PM. Conference Room 40-A. David had added her as a presenter for the clinical diagnostics section. The attendee list loaded slowly, name by name: David Choi, Antonio Costa, two Foundation trustees, Richard Thorne. Then the last name appeared. Martha Thorne. Leah sat very still, one hand on the laptop, while Catherine Marsh's safest disguise became an invitation to the executive floor.