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I ignore him
"Miss Pham, thank you for answering the questions and for being here today."
"For the second guest, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask that Mr. Alex Hamilton, CEO of The Hamilton Group be invited into the board room."
This time it’s hard to separate the protests, but Damien simply gets up and opens the door again, this time for Alex.
Luna looks back and forth between the two of us, looking even more surprised than some of the board members to see him there.
"Alex Hamilton, welcome and thank you for here. Let’s get right into it. We’ve just heard from Miss Pham that she did not share any privileged information about Baxter Enterprise’s bid with you. Can you confirm?"
He nods. "Yes. I can. Luna never once told me anything."
"Thank you. The second question I have is that your joint bid with Farmington Inc seemed quite last minute. To the best of your ability, could you please share with us what happened?"
He takes a deep breath. "Before I go on, I want to emphasize again that Miss Pham never shared any information with me. And that she confessed to that in her public response because she was trying to protect me. Whatever you think about her, please take that into consideration. She never once shared with me anything she might have learned during her relationship with Kingsley Baxter that might be considered privileged. As for my bid with Farmington, Inc., a few days before we submitted the bid, Drake Farmington approached me with a suggestion. He said that he had it on good authority that this was going to be a winning bid and that while Farmington, Inc., would not be able to fulfill the contract themselves, The Hamilton Group and Farmington could put in a joint bid. He showed me what The Hamilton Group’s commitment would be. I felt it was fair so I agreed to the joint venture."
"Anything else, Mr. Hamilton?"
"Yes, one more thing. When he provided the numbers, he said that it was specifically Baxter Enterprises’s bid, and that we were going to undercut it by 3%"
"And did he tell you who had provided that information?"
He looks around the room, nervously, until he comes back to Luna, who stares at him, expectantly. "No, he did not say it outright. But he did allude to who it might be."
"And who was that, Alex?"
"When he alluded to it, he had made it seem that this person had just accidentally let it slip in conversation. But I think now that that might not actually have been the case."
"A name, please, Mr. Hamilton."
A pause. "Gerald Baxter."
If I thought that it was chaos before, the mayhem that erupted makes Mount Vesuvius look like an eighth grade science project.
Gerry practically jumps on the table and launches him at us, only getting pulled back by the members around him.
"This is preposterous!"
"Order, order!"
I shout through the noise. "Mr. Chairman and members of the board, I reiterate that Mr. Hamilton has shared that he thinks that the information obtained came from Gerald Baxter. And I would like to agree."
"Kingsley, I suggest that you start providing some evidence instead of hearsay," Leonard orders.
"Mr. Hamilton, could you please show us the information that Mr. Farmington shared with you?"
Alex hands me a document. "This is the information he gave me, the numbers he said we should base our bid off. At the time I didn’t realize where it came from."
I lay Alex’s paperwork out on the table, and then slap a folder on the table and pull out a report.
"This"— I point to Alex’s paperwork— "is the paperwork Drake Farmington gave Alex. And this"— I point to a second report—"is an internal memo of the final numbers for Baxter’s bid. " I hold the documents up side by side. "Identical. Now, there are only six people who should have a copy of this internal memo, fiveof them are in this room. The four regional directors and CEO. Me. Matthias. Damien. Kylian." I point to each of them in turn. And then I face my uncle, pointing to him. "And you, Gerald. The sixth person is our VP of government contracts. Now, I could ask the five other people if they leaked this to Drake Farmington, but I know their answer. That leave you, Gerald."
"That proves nothing! It could’ve been any of you.’
"It could’ve, but I’ve already collected all of their copies of the paperwork. And see, Gerry, since you haven’t worked in the office in over six months, there have been some changes around here that you might not be privy to. Recently, I have realized that the company was lacking in security practices, so we had implemented some new security measures to minimize and track security hacks. And leaks."
I pull out four more sheets of paper and fan them on the table.
