D-Day
Raphael Mirabaud
Just like a Texas Hold’Em table.
In every military campaign, there is an official start to operations.
During World War Two, when the Allies invaded Europe, the amphibious assault began on June 6, 1944, codenamed D-Day. Thirty-three thousand men or more died on French beaches that day.
Today was Raphael’s own, personal D-Day.
Carl von Clausewitzwould have been horrified at the possible outcomes of his operational plans. Clausewitz, the military philosopher who had writtenVom Kriege,which meansOn War,formulated strategies such that either Outcome A happened or Outcome B happened, not that the plan was either a success or a failure.
For Raphael, there was no Plan B, except to run. Once he stood up and started events in motion, therewas no room for retreat or an alternate course of events. There was only victory or a bullet in the back of his head if he didn’t run fast enough, and he’d have to fight his way past the Russian guards and into the Mirabaud estate, retrieve Flicka and Alina, and fight his way out again.
Escaping had an almost zero chance of success, but it was his only alternative if he wasn’t the president ofGeneva Trust by the end of the day.
Coups d’étatare difficult operations. Raphael wished for armies and airplanes. Macro-scale operations that depended on statistics, not personalities, were more likely to succeed.
Raphael sat in the boardroom at Geneva Trust, watching the other members of the GT governing body around the long table.The mahogany table could have easily seated thirty even thougheveryone sat in chairs with armrests, lest they accidentally rub shoulders or elbows with each other. Geneva Trust was a grand old institution. Cramming stockholders together at a table would have been uncouth.
Twenty other white people, most of them light-eyed and blond- or silver-haired, sat ramrod straight in their chairs, tall and strong. Most were quite closely related.
Some fidgeted withpens or paper.
Most watched whomever was speaking and took notes.
Only a few knew about the battle about to land on their shores.
Ten empty chairs clustered around on the far end of the table. Not every board member came to every meeting. As long as fifteen people were present—which there were—a quorum was established. Thus, binding votes could proceed.
Raphael was counting on that.
Valerianpresided over the meeting because he was the president of the bank, swiftly moving from one agenda item to the next. Most actionable items dealt with probable fluctuations in interest rates or commodity prices. Rumors were discussed. Secrets were divulged because the bank came first.
Raphael’s sisterOcéane sat on the other side of the table a few seats down. Her hair was twisted into a severeknot, and she wore a red scarf knotted around the high collar of her white blouse.
Raphael recognized business battle armor when he saw it. His tie was firm around his neck, and his dark gray suit jacket hung on his shoulders.
Near the end of the meeting, Raphael would put forth a motion of no-confidence in Valerian Mirabaud as the executive officer. When that passed, he would propose anothermotion that he, Raphael Mirabaud, should take over Geneva Trust as president.
Océane would second the motions. Océane held ten percent of the voting stock, so she was his pocket aces. He’d been surprised that she held so much voting stock, but it made sense. She’d been the one to come back into the fold after Raphael had bolted. There would have been rewards.
His uncleBastien sat at Valerian’sright hand. Raphael thought he could count on Bastien’s support. Bastien had promised Flicka that he would vote for Raphael.
Valerian Mirabaud held twenty percent of the voting stock because he was the president. It would take an uprising to unseat him, and Raphael was counting on just that.
Raphael would need over half of everyone else’s support to reach fifty-one percent and thus win the battle.He had no voting stock of his own to throw into the fray. His leaving when he was seventeen had cemented that.
His older sister Ambre Mirabaud-Messerli sat two seats down. She’d smiled at him when they’d been walking in, but he wasn’t sure if she knew what was going to happen. Océane had told him that Ambre was with them at least in theory, but he hadn’t talked to her directly. He hadn’t lookedinto her pale gray eyes and asked her if he could count on her to defy their father and dangerous Russian mobsters, endangering herself and her family.
Raphael’s other cousins and relatives sat around the table, speaking when they had something to contribute. Most of them held two to five percent of the voting stock. Either Raphael, Bastien, or Océane had talked to all of them. They’d conferredand calculated their odds.
If they were wrong about more than a few of them, he was lost.
The math added up, though. Valerian’s twenty percent essentially canceled out Oceane’s ten percent and Bastien’s ten percent.
Therefore, Raphael needed to get the votes of more than half of the stocks split between the other shareholders who were present.
