It rang once.
A man answered.
Amelia's face remained calm.
"James. Code Seven. Downtown. Now."
Five words.
Then she ended the call.
Webb stared at her. "That's it?"
"That's it."
"You expect me to believe some mystery call changes anything?"
"No," Amelia said. "I expect you to keep behaving exactly as you have been."
Lisa Chen's stomach tightened.
There was something about that answer. Not a bluff. Not bravado. It sounded like a person preserving evidence.
Lisa pulled her tablet closer and, for the first time, entered the internal employee messaging system rather than the customer database. She searched recent executive alerts.
Nothing yet.
Webb had begun pacing behind the desk. His confidence was no longer smooth. The phones bothered him now. The crowd bothered him. Rodriguez's reluctance bothered him. Most of all, Amelia's composure bothered him because it denied him the emotional evidence he had been trying to create from the beginning.
"Corporate security will back me up," he said. "You can't disrupt a branch and then make a phone call to intimidate staff."
"I haven't intimidated anyone."
"You're counting down like you're threatening us."
Amelia checked her watch. "Ninety seconds."
That drew nervous laughter from someone in the lobby.
Webb's face reddened.
"Ninety seconds until what?"
"Until you understand who you're speaking to."
At 2:58 p.m., Lisa's tablet chimed.
A red priority banner appeared across the top of the internal messaging system.
EMERGENCY EXECUTIVE RESPONSE - DOWNTOWN BRANCH. REGIONAL VP EN ROUTE. DO NOT ESCALATE FURTHER. CODE 7.
Her hand went cold around the tablet.
She read the message twice.
Then she looked at Amelia.
"Marcus," Lisa said, and for the first time there was no deference in her voice. "Stop."
Webb turned sharply. "What?"
"We need to stop this right now."
"Why?"
She hesitated, not because she did not know the answer, but because she suddenly understood how much she did not know.
"There's an executive emergency notice," she said quietly.
The color shifted in Webb's face.
"About what?"
Before Lisa could answer, Amelia said, "You still haven't asked my name."