Cooper turned the heavy vellum page of the brief, displaying a timestamped satellite intercept log:
“For two years, you deployed your granddaughter, Vanessa, to infiltrate Olivia Mercer’s life, romance Ethan Cole, and attempt to extinguish Arthur Mercer’s sovereign lineal veto over Conduit Ten!”
“Last night, your agents planned to destroy her bridal gown and steal the physical transit keyway to force an adverse quiet-title foreclosure before midnight tonight!”
Cooper slammed his palm onto the brief:
“Under Section Fourteen-B of the **1944 Mercer Sovereign Lineal Charter**: eighty years ago, Arthur Mercer Senior decreed that if an adverse commercial factoring partner or fraudulent friend attempts to murder, defraud, abandon, or extinguish the living lineal bloodline of the master surveyor on an active sovereign defense homestead…”
Admiral David Mercer bared his teeth in a razor-thin, cold line of white bone:
**“Every commercial share of The Valkyrie Trust, your family’s estate in Newport, Vanessa Reed’s luxury factoring accounts in Vaduz, and seventy billion dollars in carried defense reserves reverts in absolute, un-divided fee simple unto Chancellor Olivia Eleanor Mercer!”**
