Chapter 46 - The Bastard’s Claim
A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the pier, broken only by the lap of the tide against the slimy granite pilings.
Special Agent Vance looked from me to the silver locket resting in my palm, then slowly turned his gaze toward Vivienne de Winter. "Baroness? Is this true? Is the salvage container encrypted with a secondary mechanical key?"
Vivienne’s composure fractured. The aristocratic mask slipped, revealing the raw, frantic greed beneath. "It doesn't matter! Under maritime salvage law, possession of the derelict hull confers primary salvage rights! The lock can be cut with hydraulic torches!"
"If you put a hydraulic torch to that canister," I said, turning my gaze upon Vance, "the internal magnesium thermite charges installed by the Department of Naval Intelligence in 1944 will ignite instantly. The contents will be reduced to a puddle of molten slag in less than four seconds. That was Harold’s standard operating procedure for courier transport. Isn't that right, Agent Vance? Or did your department forget to read the declassified technical manuals from the Bureau of Ships?"
Vance cleared his throat, his professional detachment suddenly compromised. He raised his radio. "Coast Guard cutter *Seneca*, this is Vance. Hold your position off the *Zephyr’s* port quarter. Do not attempt boarding. Maintain a five-hundred-yard exclusion perimeter around the target vessel."
Over the radio in my hand, Christian’s voice came back, stripped of all arrogance, cold and venomous. "What do you want, Eleanor?"
"I want you off that ship," I said. "I want you to step down the gangway onto this pier, alone, without your armed mercenaries and without your aunt’s lawyers. You claim to be a Sterling? Then you will stand on Sterling granite and face the family you tried to rob."
"Mother, no," Julian said, his hand closing over mine on the radio. "It’s a setup. If he steps on land, his diplomatic immunity shields him from state arrest. He could have private security waiting to—"
"Julian," I said, silencing him with a single glance that brook no defiance. "A counterfeit coin looks like gold only as long as it stays in the dark. Bring him into the light, and everyone sees the lead underneath."
Into the microphone, I spoke the final challenge: "You have fifteen minutes, Christian. If you are not standing on the breakwater by the turn of the tide, I will drop this key into the harbor, right back where your father left it. And you can explain to your European creditors why their forty-million-dollar investment is sitting at the bottom of thirty feet of Boston mud forever."
I did not wait for his answer. I clicked the disconnect button and handed the phone back to Marcus.
May you like
Vivienne looked at me, her hands trembling inside her sable muff. "You are insane, Eleanor. You would destroy the family name—you would expose Harold’s treachery to the entire world—just to spite me?"
"Harold never betrayed his country," I said, turning my back on her to face the cold expanse of the bay. "And as for the family name, Vivienne... I didn't spend fifty years building this house to watch a French thief and a Dutch bastard tear it down over lunch."
