Came twelve operators from the **United States Navy Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU Red Squadron)**!
Across their chests hung suppressed SIG Sauer MCX Rattlers, their weapon-mounted PEQ-15 infrared lasers cutting through the drifting concrete dust in twelve razor-sharp needles of incandescent crimson light!
“FEDERAL INQUEST! CORDON ESTABLISHED! DROP FLAT ON THE DECK! DO NOT REACH FOR POCKETS!”
Six crimson laser dots locked dead-center onto Arthur Sterling-Vance’s chest!
Two locked onto Claire’s diamond bracelet!
Two locked onto the scattered 1944 survey patents!
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
The sound of hand-welted naval leather bridge boots stepping through the pulverized debris was slow, unhurried, rhythmic, and concussive.
Every step fell with the mechanical, heavy cadence of a naval battery firing across an enclosed harbor.
Walking through the breach behind the tactical stack…
Wearing his full Service Dress Blue uniform of heavy midnight-blue wool, his four solid-silver cast stars catching the fluorescent lights, his broad chest covered in ten dense rows of combat decorations including the Navy Cross with gold star, the Silver Star with two oak leaf clusters, and the Distinguished Service Medal…
Was my grandfather Arthur’s surviving younger brother.
**Vice Admiral David Mercer**.
Seventy-four years old.
Chief of Naval Operations.
Surgeon General Emeritus of the United States Navy.
Beside Admiral Mercer walked **United States Attorney Marcus Cooper**, Chief Federal Prosecutor and Special Admiralty Master, holding an unsealed, four-hundred-page federal grand jury indictment stamped with the raised red-wax dry seal of the **DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY // SPECIAL ADMIRALTY CHANCERY**.
Admiral David Mercer stepped to the center of the vault.
The seventy-four-year-old four-star Admiral snapped his polished leather bridge shoes together with an audible *CRACK* against the concrete, looked down at his grand-nephew standing unyielding in his Carhartt jacket, turned forty-five degrees toward me, and brought his white-gloved right hand up to an unyielding, razor-sharp military salute:
