A. S. M.
ARTHUR SEBASTIAN MERCER-STERLING
DIRECTOR, NAVAL LOGISTICS & SOVEREIGN RECONSTRUCTION (1942–1978)
Arthur Sterling stared at the brass.
His mouth opened.
His tongue moved across his dry teeth, but no sound came out—only a thin, dry, whistling gasp that sounded like an ancient bicycle pump leaking air in an empty garage:
K-k-k.
“Mercer…?” Arthur gasped:
“Arthur Sebastian… our oldest brother?! Our brother who disappeared in nineteen-seventy-four during the Chicago port reorganization?!”
“Arthur didn’t disappear, Arthur,” Eleanor Vance-Sterling said, every word an iron spike driven straight through his coffin:
“Our brother Arthur walked away from the family firm because he discovered that you and Carter Holbrook were using the maritime trust to finance off-book arms syndicates through the port of Norfolk.”
Eleanor reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a yellowed, fifty-year-old certified birth certificate bound with blue silk ribbon, and laid it flat atop the cherry-wood table:
“Arthur took the name Miller.”
