CHAPTER 6: PROLOGUE TO PART 3: THE SECRET IN CONDUIT TEN (THE HOOK TO PART 3)
`23:45:12 EST.`
The subterranean command continuity bunker eighty feet beneath the foundations of the Mayflower Hotel—a fortified strategic redoubt constructed in 1944 beneath the historic bomb shelters—was completely dark except for the amber glow of thirty encrypted tactical monitors.
Outside, the cold October sleet had turned into heavy, silent snow, cloaking the monuments of Washington and the empty avenues in two inches of pristine, un-trodden white velvet.
I sat at the head of a twelve-foot reclaimed chestnut drafting table—the table my father had constructed with his own hands in 1964—wrapped in his twenty-ounce Scottish tweed hacking jacket, sipping a steaming ceramic mug of dark-roast chicory coffee that Caleb had poured from an insulated field thermos.
My evening gown had been exchanged for my service dress blue uniform; the polished silver eagles of a full Colonel gleamed on my epaulets; my hands were clean, warm, resting flat upon the wood.
Beside my chair on the concrete floor, fast asleep with his heavy golden head resting across my boots, was Barnaby.
On the table between my forearms…
Resting atop the blue vellum deed to Conduit Ten…
Was the four-inch antique solid-titanium **Admiralty Sovereign Master Key**:
`KEY IDENTIFIER: MERCER-BENNETT-010`
`CLASSIFICATION: STRATEGIC SOVEREIGN ESCROW // TITLE 50 CONTINUITY`
`TITLE: CONDUIT TEN // THE CAPITAL COMMAND SPUR`
The heavy bronze blast doors of the subterranean pressure manifold clicked open softly on their oiled tracks:
*CREEEAK.*
Stepping into the room, wearing his full service dress blue uniform bearing the four silver stars of the **Chief of Naval Operations**, his chest covered in ten rows of medals and ribbons including the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal…
Was **Vice Admiral David Mercer**.
My late father’s oldest surviving comrade.
Beside him walked **Major General Caleb Vance** and **United States Attorney Marcus Cooper**.
The Admiral stopped at the edge of the chestnut table.
He did not look like an officer who had just concluded an eighty-million-dollar domestic defense recovery.
His flint-gray eyes were shadowed by an ancient, terrifying, un-survivable realization that had just been unsealed eighty feet beneath the marble floor of the Mayflower:
“Nora,” the Admiral said softly, setting a black calfskin portfolio bound with crimson wax onto the polished wood:
“Caleb.”
“Marcus.”
“What is it, Uncle David?” I asked, my fingers gently tracing the laser-cut serial number on the titanium key:
“Victoria is in federal transport chains at the military brig at Quantico. Sienna is in solitary confinement. The sixty billion dollars in sovereign maritime escrows has been secured in the veterans’ lineal trust. The engagement party was cleared. The slaps were answered. The ledger is balanced.”
Vice Admiral David Mercer slowly, deliberately reached into the calfskin portfolio.
He pulled out an unsealed, forty-year-old **Classified Naval Intelligence Admiralty Flight Manifest** bound in black calfskin, stamped with the red wax seal of the **CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS // 1984**:
`SOVEREIGN OVERRIDE // CODE ARCHANGEL`
`ORIGIN: STRATEGIC COMMAND // SUBMARINE BASE KINGS BAY`
`RECIPIENT: SPECIAL MASTER ARTHUR MERCER & JULIAN BENNETT`
`MESSAGE: “JULIAN. VICTORIA BENNETT WAS NOT AN INDEPENDENT SOCIALITE.”`
`”THE ASSASSINATION IN GARMISCH WAS NOT AN ISOLATED DOMESTIC POISONING.”`
`”CONDUIT TEN BENEATH THE CAPITAL BASIN CONCEALS THE MASTER”`
`”ANALOG TARGETING RELEASE CIPHER ARTERY FOR THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE”`
`”STRATEGIC BOMBER FLEET AT MINOT, BARKSDALE, AND WHITEMAN.”`
`”AND THE MAN WHO ORDERED VICTORIA TO SEIZE YOUR DAUGHTER’S ESCROWS TONIGHT…”`
`”IS NOT SITTING IN A VIRGINIA PRISON CELL.”`
`”HE IS CURRENTLY SITTING IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.”`
The air in the subterranean vault seemed to drop fifty degrees in half a second.
My hands did not shake.
Caleb’s breath did not hitch.
Through the quiet room, as the distant chime of the National Cathedral began to strike midnight across the frozen river…
I slowly, deliberately looked down at the signature at the bottom of the classified transmission slip:
A name that was currently the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Victoria’s patron.
Sienna’s corporate protector.
The elder patriarch of the Vance-Sterling dynasty.
**Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance**.
The man who had spent forty years pretending he was an impartial constitutional jurist while constructing an offshore syndicate to seize the strategic defense bedrock of North America.
A slow, radiant, terrifying smile broke across Colonel Nora Bennett’s face—a smile that held zero fear, zero debts, zero lies, and zero graves.
I reached out with my right hand.
Discover more
Parenting
Defense Industry
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I picked up the four-inch antique solid-titanium transponder key from the table.
I looked at Caleb.
I looked at Uncle David:
“Uncle David,” Colonel Nora Bennett whispered softly into the quiet vault:
“Warm up the White Hawk.”
“Tell the grand jury in Washington that the Colonel has finished her party.”
“The mother is in her cage.”
“The sister is in chains.”
“The slaps have been audited.”
“The uniform is pristine.”
“Now…”
She clicked the titanium key against the transponder cylinder with a clean, sharp, definitive *SNAP*:
“…we’re going to the Supreme Court to audit the Chief Justice.”
