I looked at the digital blueprint of my living room.
I saw the layout: the upright Baldwin piano where seven-year-old Chloe practiced her Hanon scales every morning; the worn leather sofa where my nine-year-old, Maya, curled up with her sketchbook; the kitchen counter where Clara made whole-wheat sandwiches and packed carrot sticks into two small plastic lunchboxes.
“He wants the key, Marcus,” I said softly.
“He wants the key to unlock the sixteen offshore asset ledgers in Zurich before the federal grand jury can execute the asset freeze at noon,” Marcus agreed:
“If you walk through that front door alone… you are walking into an execution chamber.”
I stood up against the harness straps, reaching overhead to catch the yellow steel grab-rail of the cabin ceiling.
“He told me to come alone, Marcus.”
“Sebastian, you’re an operational analyst, not a door-kicker!”
“I spent twelve years pulling tourists out of seventy-foot crevices in the Mount Evans wilderness with broken ropes and forty-pound compound pulleys, Marcus,” I said, every syllable dropping like an iron plumb bob onto the aluminum deck:
