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-CLARA-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 sovereign title arrest in Oyster Bay.
