Chapter 11: The Sea-Foam Memo

The Meridian revision landed in Anna's inbox at 2:58 PM.

I know because I watched the send confirmation appear with the specific attention of someone who has missed exactly one deadline in their professional life and will not miss another. Two minutes to spare. Forty-three revisions in the structural section. The third counterparty name — Pelagic Meridian Partners LLC — now appeared in seven additional locations where it had been conspicuously absent, each cross-referenced against the Q1 supplemental with a footnote explaining why its presence there and absence everywhere else constituted an anomaly rather than a clerical oversight.

I labeled the footnote series in green. Needs second source. Everything about Pelagic Meridian needed a second source. Everything about Pelagic Meridian needed a second source, a third source, and probably a forensic accountant with a security clearance and a willingness to not ask where the original lead came from.