I leaned down until my clear slate-gray eyes filled his entire field of vision:
“You were right about one thing, Dustin.”
“Someone needed to learn respect.”
“And tonight…”
I pointed toward Uncle David:
“…you are going to learn it at Fort Leavenworth.”
CLICK-CLACK.
The two federal marshals hauled Dustin Vance and Coach Rex Kovacs to their feet by their armpits, marching them down the center aisle of the gym in waist-chains and leg-irons toward the armored tactical transport BearCats waiting in the rain:
*SCREEECH.*
Behind them were marched the four heavyweight fighters, their weapons stripped, their encrypted offshore banking tokens sealed inside heavy forensic evidence drums:
*CRASH-ROAR-PANT.*
The bay doors of Apex Combat Systems closed behind them with an authoritative, airtight, pneumatic *THUD*.
The gym returned to silence.
The only sound left was the sixty-cycle hum of the White Hawk’s turbine idling outside on West 5th Street, the steady breathing of Admiral Mercer beside me, and the rhythmic *tack… tack… tack* of Arthur Mercer Senior’s chronometer watch on my wrist.
CHAPTER 5: PROLOGUE TO THE HIGH CAPITOL AUDIT
`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.
I 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 uniform was spotless; the silver eagles of a full Colonel gleamed on my shoulder boards, my chest bearing five dense rows of combat decorations.
Pinned to the left lapel of my grandfather’s tweed jacket was his unpolished bronze surveyor’s transit pin, its miniature brass vernier catching the amber instrument glow.
Beside my chair on the diamond-plate deck, fast asleep with his heavy golden head resting across my boots, was Barnaby.
In the adjoining pressurized observation suite, visible through the reinforced ballistic glass, my daughter, Captain Marcy Mercer, sat upright in a specialized naval trauma recovery berth, her ribs bandaged beneath a clean service dress shirt, her orbital fracture stabilized, drinking hot peppermint tea and reviewing the sovereign geodetic patents that proved her family owned forty miles of continental stone.
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**, Deputy Director of Special Operations Command, and United States Attorney Marcus Cooper.
On the table between our 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-CLINTON-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 dress green uniform bearing the ribbons of the Military District of Washington…
Was **Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Bennett**.
Beside him walked **Chief Judge Eleanor Mercer**, eighty-two years old, Presiding Judge of the Second Circuit, tapping her gold-headed surveyor’s cane against the diamond plate.
The two senior officials stopped at the edge of the chestnut table.
They did not look like people who had just concluded an eighty-million-dollar counter-intelligence and domestic assault arrest in Cleveland.
Their flint-gray eyes were shadowed by an ancient, terrifying, un-survivable realization that had just been unsealed eighty feet beneath the Capitol bedrock:
“Clint,” Colonel Bennett said softly, setting a black calfskin portfolio bound with crimson wax onto the polished wood:
“Marcy.”
“David.”
“Michael.”
“Eleanor.”
“Marcus.”
“What is it, Colonel?”
I asked, my fingers gently tracing the laser-cut serial number on the titanium key:
“Dustin Vance, Rex Kovacs, and Dr.
Aris Vance are in federal transport chains at the military brig at Miramar.
The Cleveland gym has been secured under sovereign receivership.
The sixty billion dollars has been frozen in Zurich.
