Thanks. I thought I might have managed to connect a few dots, at least enough to reduce the number of possibilities...

As far as any ongoing negotiations, I forgot to ask what happens if SFMI does happen to come up with the money to pay off Earll? Earll goes away happy, but what about Anton? He's left out in the cold (or maybe just in his mommy's basement), with nothing to show for his years of "DD". Might be why his posts have gotten more and more shrill, frenzied and scared sounding. He must be terrified that SFMI might actually succeed...