It was my grandfather’s 1956 Admiralty Gold Chronometer—the identical mechanical watch Chief Master Surveyor Arthur Mercer Senior had worn while charting seventy miles of deep subterranean granite for the Department of the Navy during the Second World War.
Beside my steaming ceramic mug of dark-roast chicory coffee on the twelve-foot reclaimed chestnut trestle table sat an unsealed, four-hundred-page federal grand jury brief bound in dark-blue archival vellum, stamped with the raised red-wax dry seal of the DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY // SPECIAL ADMIRALTY CHANCERY.
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Sitting across from me, his tailored charcoal suit unbuttoned, reviewing a real-time satellite telemetry feed on his encrypted tablet, was Nathan Brooks.
“Marcus Hale has spent four million dollars since midnight, Claire,” Nathan said, his sharp, diagnostic eyes lifting from the display:
“He hired twelve private intelligence firms. He put a fifty-thousand-dollar cash bounty on your vehicle plates. He has four forensic accounting firms attempting to trace the offshore server that severed his mansion's security array.”
