“…Colonel Clara Mercer is the registered, sovereign fee-simple owner of Conduit Ten.”
“And under Section Nine of the Rivers and Harbors Act of Eighteen-Ninety-Nine…”
“No commercial lease…”
“No private equity conveyance…”
“And no Swiss defense transfer can be executed without the wet-ink consent of the registered fee-simple owner.”
Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance slowly, agonizingly rose from his leather executive chair.
He stood six feet three inches tall, his black judicial robe hanging from his broad shoulders as if his skeleton had just been liquefied by high-pressure steam.
His silver hair was disheveled; his eyes were wild, burning with an unholy, volcanic fury that stripped away forty years of aristocratic supremacy:
“It doesn’t matter what an antique codicil says, Eleanor!”
Arthur roared, his voice shaking the acoustic baffles of the vault:
