Chapter Five: The Missing Four Minutes

Farland thought the cash was in transit. The banks thought Farland had settled. Merchants saw balances they could not withdraw. “Disable retry,” Lu said. “If we do, every pending entry reverses at once,” Zhou replied. “Your 4.6-billion balance becomes negative in ten minutes. That would be the real run.” Forty-six hours remained. Then Farland's southwestern depot closed. Carriers refused to unload, and more than seven hundred refrigerated trucks jammed a highway exit. Among them were blood products and insulin needed by sixteen hospitals that morning. Lu tried to deploy company cash. An emergency board resolution passed an hour earlier prohibited any payment above fifty million without the CFO's countersignature. The CFO had disappeared.