Chapter 100 - The Purge of the Old Guard
I looked at Rowe with narrowed eyes, keeping my senses heightened while Harris’s operators moved systematically through the command deck, disarming the surviving council members and securing the perimeter.
"Terrified of what?" I asked, picking up the data drive Rowe had thrown.
"Arthur Harrington didn't just hoard docks and offshore treasuries," Rowe said, his voice grim against the steady howl of the North Atlantic tempest outside the shattered windows. "In his final years, when he realized you were growing beyond his control and that Jason was nothing more than an incompetent parasite, Arthur made a desperate deal with a faction far more radical than the Council."
Rowe tapped the interface console, overriding Vance’s fallen terminal with his own biometric key.
The screen shifted instantly. The coastal maps showing the Eastern Seaboard vanished, replaced by an intricate geopolitical schematic detailing hundreds of covert logistics hubs, deep-water undersea cables, and subterranean vaults stretching from Halifax to the Gulf of Mexico.
"Arthur was the fourth gate," Rowe explained. "There are seven gates in total across the hemisphere. Each gate guards an entry point to the old reserve network—billions in unbacked gold, military intelligence archives, and autonomous weapon caches buried during the height of the Cold War. Vance thought he could force you to surrender your mother's key so he could seize the Fifth Gate before the real predators arrived."
"And who are the real predators?" Harris asked, stepping beside me, his rifle resting low across his chest.
"The Syndicate of the Iron Serpent," Rowe replied, his jaw clenching. "A rogue military-industrial splinter group that Arthur privately funded behind the Council’s back. When you bankrupted Arthur's front companies, you starved them of operational capital. They don't want to blackmail the United States, Brian. They want to trigger a systemic collapse across the eastern maritime corridor to seize the underground reserves by force."
"And Arthur gave them the keys?" I asked, anger tightening like a vise around my chest.
"He gave them half the key," Rowe said, turning to look directly at the ring on my finger. "Your mother kept the other half. When you docked your ring with this terminal, you didn't just lock down the *Tartarus*. You initiated the global synchronization sequence. You signaled every gatekeeper from Maine to Florida that the true heir has claimed the mantle."
A loud, deep hum reverberated through the very hull of the rig, shaking the metal deck beneath our combat boots.
On the tactical board, an urgent red notification flashed across every monitor:
*ALERT: GATE FIVE BREACH IN PROGRESS.*
*LOCATION: MINOT’S LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE BASIN — MASSACHUSETTS BAY.*
*TARGET ASSET: HARRINGTON FAMILY ANCESTRAL VAULT.*
My blood ran cold.
May you like
Minot’s Ledge was less than twenty miles from my private estate—where Elena and our son were sealed in the underground bunker.
***
