Their flint-gray eyes were shadowed by an ancient, terrifying, un-survivable realization that had just been unsealed eighty feet beneath the Capitol bedrock:
“Clara,” Colonel Bennett said softly, setting a black calfskin portfolio bound with crimson wax onto the polished wood:
“David.”
“Michael.”
“Eleanor.”
“Marcus.”
“What is it, Colonel?”
I asked, my fingers gently tracing the laser-cut serial number on the titanium key:
“Julian Vance and his private security detail are in federal transport chains at the military brig at Miramar.
The Parcel Nine estate has been secured under sovereign receivership.
The sixty billion dollars has been frozen in Zurich.
Willa is safe.
The cleaning supplies were left behind.
The ledger is balanced.”
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Bennett slowly, deliberately reached into the calfskin portfolio.
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**:
