“If an unauthorized engineering crew attempted to breach the casing from the surface with diamond drills, the system would register a structural pressure drop and flood forty miles of the tunnel with sixteen million gallons of river water, permanently sealing the cryptographic vault from below.”
Cooper pointed his gold pen at the vellum deed in my lap:
“Arthur Vance needed the master cryptographic key card.”
“He needed the sovereign lineal proxy that only Arthur Mercer’s direct biological descendants could execute upon the statutory reversion.”
“When Julian reported that Mrs.
Whitaker had moved out, that you were in the house with a mop bucket, and that he had thrown an eviction order in your face, Arthur believed the board was won.
Believing that Julian would deliver the executed surrender waiver before dawn, Arthur convened an extraordinary emergency midnight session of the Supreme Court for zero-two-hundred hours.
