Chapter 45 - A Voice Across the Radio
Before Vivienne could formulate a retort, Marcus’s satellite phone shrieked. It was not a standard ringtone; it was the sharp, urgent pulse of an encrypted marine frequency override.
Marcus fumbled with the receiver, his thumb pressing the speaker toggle. "Marcus here."
"Put her on," a voice rasped through the speaker. It was Christian Sterling, speaking directly from the bridge of the *Zephyr*. The background was alive with the hum of high-output marine turbines and the rhythmic *ping* of active sonar.
I reached out and took the handset from Marcus’s shaking fingers, holding it to my ear. "You have your father’s chin, young man, but you possess neither his patience nor his manners."
A low, dry chuckle crackled over the line. "Aunt Eleanor. It’s a pity we must meet under these conditions. If you had accepted Helena’s little compromise—the quiet transfer of the European portfolio in exchange for your family peace—we wouldn't be having this conversation on an open harbor frequency."
"Helena was an imbecile who smashed a photograph because she lacked the intelligence to forge an invoice," I said coldly. "And you are an insolent bastard hiding behind a diplomatic flag on a rust-bucket survey vessel. If you think seventy-year-old silt will buy you Harold’s seat at the head of this family, you are as foolish as the mother who raised you."
"The 'rust-bucket' just retrieved forty million dollars in pre-war gold certificates, Aunt Eleanor," Christian replied, his voice hardening, shedding its polite veneer. "Along with Harold's private combat log. The log where he recorded the exact coordinates of the scuttling, signed with his own hand. In twenty minutes, the Dutch consul will present those documents to the maritime magistrate in South Boston. By nightfall, the Sterling Trust will be declared the proceeds of an active war crime, and your son will be stripped of every title, property, and dime he possesses."
"Then why are you calling me?" I asked, my voice dropping to a low, lethal murmur. "If your victory is so complete, Christian, why haven't you weighed anchor and run for the three-mile limit?"
There was a silence on the line—a split second of hesitation that told me everything I needed to know.
"Because the conning tower didn't open, did it?" I whispered into the phone.
Julian looked at me sharply. Vivienne de Winter took an involuntary half-step backward, her gloved hand twitching against her sable lapel.
"The conning tower was built with dual-key mechanical interlocks," I continued, speaking not just into the phone, but to Vivienne, to Agent Vance, to the gray, listening sky. "Harold designed them himself at the Fore River Shipyard. One key was kept in the conning tower. The other was placed inside the family photograph that your clumsy niece shattered against my dining room hearth."
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I drew a small, heavy silver locket from the inner pocket of my coat—the very piece of tarnished metal I had recovered from the splintered mahogany backing of that heirloom portrait three nights ago.
"You have the steel box, Christian," I said, listening to the sudden hitch in his breath over the satellite link. "But I have the tumblers. And without me, your forty million dollars is nothing more than eighty tons of radioactive scrap iron that the United States Navy will confiscate before the tide turns."
