“Is gone, Arthur,” Colonel Lauren Mercer whispered softly across the table.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable epitaph that sealed forty years of dynastic treason into solid rock forever:
“My grandfather surveyed with honest stone.”
“I audit with honest steel.”
“And around here…”
I reached out with my hand, picking up his antique gold Montblanc pen from the table, and snapped the gold nib in half across the granite:
CRACK.
“…the Mother… always balances the ledger down to the absolute last cent.”
Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance let out an un-human, animalistic shriek from the bottom of his lungs:
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The seventy-six-year-old titan of American law did not look like a statesman now.
He lunged across the granite table, his black silk robe tearing at the shoulder seams, his manicured hands hooked into claws aimed directly at my face:
“YOU PENNILESS SENTRY!
I AM THE CHIEF JUSTICE!
I AM THE MASTER OF THIS CAPITOL!”
CLACK.
Two SOG tactical operators did not draw their sidearms.
The two-hundred-and-twenty-pound tactical operators stepped forward in synchronized, terrifying mechanical precision:
Their gloved hands caught Chief Justice Arthur Vance by his midnight-blue lapels, spun his six-foot-three frame ninety degrees against the black granite table, and drove his face down onto the stone with three hundred pounds of linear kinetic leverage:
SLAM.
His cheek struck the granite, the broken pieces of his gold pen snapping beneath his chest, his bespoke silk tie soaked in the spilled coffee:
SNAP-SNAP.
A pair of heavy-duty, double-locking, high-security stainless-steel military transport restraints ratcheted around the wrists of the Chief Justice of the United States with two sharp, definitive snaps that sounded like twin rifle shots across the silent bunker:
SNAP.
A second set of chains clamped around his ankles—the identical stainless-steel irons used for capital traitors at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
Beside him, two federal marshals pinned his private clerk against the wall, heavy transport irons slamming shut around his wrists:
SNAP-CLINK.
Arthur Vance wept into the stone, blood and tears pooling around his split lower lip:
“Lauren…
Eleanor… please!
Think of the Vance family name!
Think of the Court!
We built this country together!
You can’t let them take the Chief Justice to a military prison in chains!”
I walked to the head of the table.
I stood beside where he lay pinned.
I did not strike his cheek.
I did not raise my voice.
I reached into my uniform pocket, pulled out the red sticky note Harrow had given my daughter—the note stamped *NOT VERIFIED*:
SLIP.
I laid the paper note flat across the nape of Arthur Vance’s silver neck:
TINK.
“You told your grand-niece forty years ago, Arthur, that an un-noticed child could be humiliated while you laundered defense reserves,” Colonel Lauren Mercer whispered softly.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable decree that sealed forty years of dynastic treason into solid rock forever:
“You told her that my husband’s service wasn’t verified.”
I leaned down until my clear slate-gray eyes filled the Chief Justice’s entire field of vision:
“You were right about one thing, Arthur.”
“It wasn’t verified by your court.”
“It was verified by the bedrock.”
“And tonight…”
I pointed toward Uncle David:
“…the transport flies straight to Fort Leavenworth.”
