CHAPTER 5: THE HOOK TO PART 3: THE HIGH CAPITOL AUDIT
Thaddius Bromel let out an un-human, animalistic roar from the bottom of his lungs:
*“YOU LIED TO ME! YOU WATCHED MY MOTHER DIE IN THAT BED WHILE YOU HELD THE DEED!”*
He lunged across the desk, his hands hooked into claws aimed directly at my throat:
“I WILL KILL YOU BEFORE I LET YOU WALK OUT OF THIS BUILDING!”
*CLACK.*
Two two-hundred-and-twenty-pound SOG tactical operators did not draw their sidearms.
They stepped forward in synchronized, terrifying mechanical precision:
Their gloved hands caught Thaddius Bromel by his bespoke lapels in mid-air, spun his six-foot frame one hundred and eighty degrees against the mahogany desk, and drove his face down onto the broken crystal shards of his bourbon glass with three hundred pounds of linear kinetic leverage:
*SLAM.*
His cheek struck the glass, the crystal fragments cutting into his cheekbone, his bespoke silk tie soaked in the spilled alcohol and his own blood:
*SNAP-SNAP.*
A pair of heavy-duty, double-locking, high-security stainless-steel military transport restraints ratcheted around Thaddius Bromel’s wrists with two sharp, definitive snaps that sounded like twin rifle shots across the silent office:
*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, Marisol shrieked into the carpet, her designer sweater torn, spit, snot, and tears running down her face onto her Cartier watch:
“THAD! TELL THEM TO STOP! CALL UNCLE ARTHUR! HIS BENCH OVERRULES THE ADMIRALTY!”
I walked around the desk.
My hand-welted leather field boots made a clean, concussive *tack… tack… tack* against the Persian rug:
I stopped two inches from my husband’s bleeding face.
I did not strike his cheek.
I did not raise my voice.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the cheap blue ballpoint pen he had left beside my hospital bed ninety minutes ago—the pen I had used to sign my name on his dissolution papers:
*SLIP.*
I laid the plastic pen flat across the nape of Thaddius Bromel’s neck:
*TINK.*
“You told me in Room 414 this morning, Thad, holding your manila folder, that I had fulfilled the single purpose you had for me,” Coraly Mercer whispered softly.
Every syllable fell like an un-appealable decree that sealed eight years of domestic deceit into solid rock forever:
“You told me that your family didn’t need me anymore.”
I leaned down until my clear hazel eyes filled his entire field of vision:
“You were right about one thing, Thad.”
“You don’t need me anymore.”
“Because around here…”
I turned toward Uncle David:
“…nobody ever, ever… signs a deed without taking the house.”
CLICK-CLACK.
The two federal marshals hauled Thaddius Bromel and Marisol Bromel to their feet by their armpits, marching them down the grand mahogany staircase in waist-chains and leg-irons toward the armored tactical transport BearCats waiting on Elm Street:
*SCREEECH.*
Behind them was marched Talia Brennan, her high-priced litigation brief impounded by federal agents, her designer shoes dragging through the drywall dust and glass on the floorboards as she was hauled toward the waiting tactical vans:
*CRASH-ROAR-PANT.*
The heavy double doors of the Bromel Mortuary were sealed behind them with yellow tactical crime scene tape and an authoritative, airtight, pneumatic *THUD*.
The carriage house returned to silence.
The only sound left was the sixty-cycle hum of the mechanical air scrubbers, the steady breathing of Admiral Mercer beside me, and the rhythmic *tack… tack… tack* of my grandfather’s chronometer watch on my wrist.
Then, Admiral Mercer reached beneath his service bridge coat.
He did not pull out an ordinary civilian property seizure order.
He pulled out an unsealed, forty-year-old **Classified Naval Intelligence Admiralty Flight Manifest** bound in black calfskin, stamped with the red wax seal of the **CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS // 1984**:
`SOVEREIGN OVERRIDE // CODE ARCHANGEL`
`ORIGIN: STRATEGIC COMMAND // SUBMARINE BASE KINGS BAY`
`RECIPIENT: SPECIAL MASTER ARTHUR MERCER SENIOR`
`MESSAGE: “ARTHUR. THADDIUS BROMEL WAS NOT AN INDEPENDENT SPECULATOR.”`
`”THE TRANSPLANT EXTORTION AT ST. JUDE’S WAS NOT AN ISOLATED DOMESTIC CRUELTY.”`
`”CONDUIT TEN BENEATH THAT MORTUARY VAULT CONCEALS THE MASTER”`
`”ANALOG TARGETING RELEASE CIPHER ARTERY FOR THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES NAVY”`
`”ATLANTIC BALLISTIC SUBMARINE FLEET AT KINGS BAY AND NORFOLK.”`
`”AND THE MAN WHO ORDERED THADDIUS TO HARVEST CORALY’S ORGANS TODAY…”`
`”AND THE MAN WHO CONVENED THE MIDNIGHT SESSION TO DEED THE BEDROCK AT ZERO-TWO-HUNDRED HOURS…”`
`”IS NOT SITTING IN A GEORGIA JAIL CELL.”`
`”HE IS CURRENTLY SITTING IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT.”`
The air in the carriage house seemed to drop fifty degrees in half a second.
My hands did not shake.
Dr. Oay’s breath did not hitch.
Through the quiet room, as the distant chime of the cathedral clock on Monterey Square began to strike eleven times across the cold sleet…
I slowly, deliberately looked down at the signature at the bottom of the classified transmission slip:
A name that was currently the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Adelaide’s biological older brother.
Thaddius’s uncle.
The supreme architect of the Vance-Sterling-Bromel dynasty.
**Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance**.
The man who had spent forty years pretending he was an impartial constitutional jurist while constructing an offshore syndicate to seize the strategic defense bedrock of North America.
A slow, radiant, terrifying smile broke across Coraly Mercer’s face—a smile that held zero fear, zero debts, zero lies, and zero graves.
I reached out with my right hand.
I picked up the four-inch antique solid-titanium transponder key from the desk.
I looked at Barnaby.
I looked at Uncle David:
“Uncle David,” Coraly Mercer whispered softly into the quiet carriage house:
“Warm up the White Hawk.”
“Tell the grand jury in Washington that the donor has left her bed.”
“The husband is in his cage.”
“The sister is in chains.”
“The mortuary has been cleared.”
“The divorce papers have been executed.”
“The ledger has been opened.”
“Now…”
She clicked the titanium key against the transponder cylinder with a clean, sharp, definitive *SNAP*:
“…we’re flying to the Supreme Court to audit the Chief Justice.”
