“We will own **Conduit Ten**.”
“Sixty miles of decommissioned military bedrock running from the nuclear submarine berths at Kings Bay straight into the strategic retaliatory vaults beneath the Savannah River Site.”
“Uncle Arthur has the Swiss buyers waiting in Zurich.”
“Sixty billion dollars in carried liquidity.”
“And the stupid, pious little nurse gave it to us for fifty thousand dollars and a hospital gown.”
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
The sound came from the ground-floor receiving room.
It was not the soft, respectful tread of a grieving family coming to select a bronze urn.
It was the clean, concussive, military cadence of hand-welted leather field boots striking the terrazzo floorboards with eighty pounds of linear kinetic authority.
Thad frowned, setting his crystal tumbler down on the blotter with an irritated click:
“Who the hell is in the foyer, Marisol? I told the staff we were closed for private family business until the evening wake.”
