Chapter 40 - The Token of Blood
Harrison stepped aside as a woman stepped out from behind the heavy mahogany doors of the judicial library. She wore a tailored charcoal suit, her raven hair swept back into a severe knot. She was young, perhaps thirty, with striking amber eyes that held not a shred of empathy. In her gloved hand, she carried a tablet.
"Judge Vance," she said smoothly. Her voice was the melodious purr that had mocked me over the phone on the docks. "I am Vanessa Crowe. I represent the governing board of the sovereign consortium. You have eighty minutes before our satellite uplink connects to the international news wire."
She tapped the screen of the tablet and turned it toward me.
The screen flickered, revealing an iron-walled room lit by a single tungsten bulb. Maya was sitting on a wooden chair, her hands tied behind her back. She was crying softly, her small shoulders shaking, but she was alive. On the floor beside her was a digital clock counting down in red numbers: *00:44:12*.
Standing behind her was an operative in full tactical kit, the barrel of a suppressed pistol resting against the back of her child's neck.
"Look closely, Eleanor," Vanessa said, her voice dripping with venomous pleasure. "Do you hear the background rhythm? That deep, low thrum?"
I forced my mind to ignore the blinding panic clawing at my throat and listened. Beneath Maya's sobs, there was a steady, rhythmic mechanical thudding, echoing with metallic resonance. It wasn't an engine. It was an industrial piston.
"You’re broadcasting from inside this facility," I said, keeping my gaze locked on Vanessa's cold eyes. "You didn't fly her across the state line. You brought her into the subterranean sub-basements—the old drainage channels beneath the federal reserve vaults."
May you like
Harrison smiled, a hollow, skull-like grin. "A brilliant legal mind, as always. But deducing her location does not grant you the power to reach her. Those blast doors are sealed with biometric locks keyed to Vanessa's hand alone. If her pulse spikes or ceases, or if the countdown timer hits zero without her override code, the ventilation shafts in that chamber will flood with liquid nitrogen from the cooling generators."
"So you see, Eleanor," Vanessa whispered, leaning in until her breath touched my ear, "you are going to stand up there on the bench, smile for the cameras, and hand the Republic over to us. Or you will personally oversee the funeral of your only child."
