CLICK-CLACK.
The two federal marshals hauled Derek Vance and Vance Miller to their feet by their armpits, marching them through the shattered glass of the entrance in waist-chains and leg-irons toward the armored tactical transport BearCats waiting in the rain:
*SCREEECH.*
Behind them were marched the two senior instructors, their gym bags impounded, their private phones seized as federal evidence:
*CRASH-ROAR-PANT.*
The front doors of Apex Grappling were sealed behind them with yellow tactical crime scene tape and an authoritative, airtight, pneumatic *THUD*.
The warehouse returned to silence.
The only sound left was the sixty-cycle hum of the ventilation scrubbers, the steady breathing of Admiral Mercer beside me, and the rhythmic *tack… tack… tack* of my grandfather’s chronometer watch on Cole’s wrist.
CHAPTER 7: PROLOGUE TO PART 3: THE HIGH CAPITOL AUDIT (THE HOOK TO PART 3)
`23:45:12 EST.`
The subterranean command continuity bunker eighty feet beneath the foundations of the United States Naval Medical Center in Bethesda—accessible only through the high-security hydraulic blast hatch beneath the research laboratories—was completely dark except for the amber glow of thirty encrypted tactical monitors.
Outside, the cold Maryland sleet had turned into heavy, silent snow, cloaking the naval helipads and the dark expanse of the National Mall in three inches of pristine, un-trodden white velvet.
Cole sat at the head of a twelve-foot reclaimed chestnut drafting table—the table Chief Master Surveyor Arthur Mercer Senior had constructed with his own hands in 1944—wrapped in his twenty-ounce Scottish tweed hacking jacket, sipping a steaming ceramic mug of dark-roast chicory coffee that Marcus Cooper had poured from an insulated field thermos.
The black compression shirt was gone; he wore his immaculate, tailored Army Service Uniform, the gold oak leaves of a Major gleaming on his shoulder boards, his chest bearing the ribbons of twelve years of classified operational commands.
Pinned to the left lapel of his tweed jacket was our grandfather’s unpolished bronze surveyor’s transit pin, its miniature brass vernier catching the amber instrument glow.
Beside his chair on the diamond-plate deck, fast asleep with his heavy golden head resting across Cole’s boots, was Barnaby.
Across the table sat Vice Admiral David Mercer, Chief of Naval Operations, his service bridge coat unbuttoned, his four gold stars catching the instrument lights.
Beside him sat Major General Michael Grant and United States Attorney Marcus Cooper.
On the table between their forearms…
Resting atop the blue vellum deed to Conduit Ten…
Was the four-inch antique solid-titanium surveyor’s compass transit key, machined with fifty-six analog cryptographic notches along its lower edge:
`KEY IDENTIFIER: MERCER-COLE-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.*
