Beneath our grandfather’s old timber boundaries lies **Valve Station Ten**—the Appalachian command spur of **Conduit Ten**!”*
*“The classified, electromagnetic-shielded, pressurized analog command artery running eighty feet beneath this continent, connecting the deep naval command redoubts at Norfolk straight into Washington!”*
*“Inside that conduit are forty-eight solid-titanium transit cylinders containing the physical, analog mechanical targeting release matrices for our nation’s strategic nuclear deterrent!”*
*“Under the nineteen-forty-four Mercer Sovereign Charter: our grandfather deeded the fee-simple title to that defense bedrock exclusively to his direct biological descendants.
Unto me.
And unto you, Sarah.”*
*“Marcus forged my signature on an adverse quitclaim deed three days ago.
He borrowed forty million dollars in mezzanine factoring debt from Vaduz to finance the theft.
When I confronted him in his study tonight with the forensic accounting proofs… he looked at me and said that mountain stairs are very steep in the dark, and that an inheritance looks much cleaner when there is only a grieving widower left to sign the closing papers.”*
*“I packed my bags.
I called the United States Admiralty Chancery in Washington.
And I stitched this phone into the lining of this navy dress because I knew Marcus would pick it out for the casket to make sure I looked respectable for his investors.”*
*“Sarah… check the encrypted folder.
The master foundation die is inside the—”*
*CLICK.*
The audio recording cut off abruptly with the sharp, violent sound of a heavy door being kicked off its hinges, followed by Rachel’s muffled scream and the concussive clatter of wood splintering in the dark!
The living room fell into an apocalyptic, suffocating silence.
My mother dropped the silver tray.
*CRASH.*
Water glasses shattered across the oak floorboards, spraying ice and crystal shards across the hem of Rachel’s casket skirt.
Marcus Vance did not look at his mother-in-law.
He did not look at his weeping son.
His face had transformed into an expression of pure, predatory, homicidal desperation.
He reached into his tailored charcoal jacket, his right hand wrapping around the grip of an un-registered, compact .380 automatic pistol concealed in his interior holster:
“Give me that phone, Sarah,” Marcus whispered, his voice dropping into pure, sub-zero polar diamond:
“Give me the phone right now, or I swear to God, not one person walks out of this parlor alive.”
Before Marcus could pull the weapon from his breast pocket…
*KABOOOOM.*
The heavy front double doors of my mother’s Asheville house did not swing open.
They were pulverized inward by an eighty-pound linear hydraulic tactical breaching ram!
*CRASH-ROAR-SHATTER.*
A concussive shockwave of freezing mountain rain, pulverized oak splinters, and high-pressure tactical propellant blew through the three-story foyer into the parlor, blowing the white chrysanthemums clean off their wire stands!
