“Come on, Barnaby,” Maya whispered, taking her little sister by the hand:
“Let’s go find the big red ones.”
The dog rose from the floorboards, his heavy tail thumping against my knee, following the two girls through the kitchen toward the glass sliding patio door.
CLICK-SLIDE.
The door closed behind them.
The living room went into an absolute, radioactive silence.
Clara walked to the fireplace, her hands resting easily against the brick mantelpiece, her posture perpendicular to the floorboards, her eyes tracking the movement of the Admiral’s right thumb on the pistol.
I turned to Arthur Sterling.
I reached into my cargo pocket.
I pulled out the four-inch, titanium-sleeved cryptographic transponder key:
THE SOVEREIGN KEY // CODE: ANCHOR-OAK-01
I held it between my thumb and forefinger, letting the midday sun streaming through the front picture window catch the brushed metal.
The red LED indicator beacon on the key’s side was pulsing with that steady, rhythmic, sixty-cycle heartbeat.
