He was sitting at the kitchen table with the document in front of him and Victoria across from him and Emma at school in the desert afternoon heat pressing on the windows. "If the car exists, they assume liability for it. And they knew about the project before they signed, which means when Marsh later tried to leverage the car, he He threatening to expose not just his own misconduct, but a flaw in Stratton's due diligence and the specific clause in their acquisition agreement. Victoria's voice was flat with the effort of staying precise. They didn't just want the car gone to protect against embarrassment.
They wanted it gone because it's existence is a legal liability they assumed contractually. How big a liability? Victoria looked at him steadily. The intellectual property value of a completed experimental hypercar prototype, engine, chassis, bodywork, full build documentation, if authenticated and brought to market, would be tens of millions at the conservative end. A pause.
Under the acquisition clause, Stratton would be responsible for that value being properly accounted for on their books. It wasn't. For 9 years it wasn't. That's an accounting problem. And if shareholders weren't informed of the potential liability, securities issue, Cole said.
Possibly. Yes. Cole sat back. The document was four lines and a blanket clause, and it had the weight of something that was going to move a great deal of things before it was done. Okay, he said.
Now we go to the journalist. Victoria nodded once. Her name was Dana Marsh. No relation to Gerald, which was a coincidence that nobody found funny. She was 44, had been writing about automotive history and corporate provenance for 19 years, and she arrived in Tucson on a Wednesday afternoon driving her own car and carrying a recorder and a notebook and the particular energy of someone who recognized a significant story and was working very hard not to show how much they wanted it.
Cole had agreed to the meeting on two conditions. Nothing published before the formal authentication report was in hand and Emma was not present, not mentioned, and not to be sought out. Dana had agreed to both without hesitation. They met at the workshop. Cole walked her through the documentation in the same sequence he'd prepared for Reyes and Driscoll.
Physical evidence first, historical record second, the acquisition documents last. Victoria sat to the side and answered specific questions about the Westfield records and the Stratton background. Cole answered everything technical. Dana asked good questions. She wasn't trying to catch them in anything or poke holes in the story.