k-k-k.
“The man survived…?! Melissa… you told me the doctor was an exhausted nobody who would sleep through the flight!”
Melissa Vance wept into the asphalt, her screams muffled by the vehicle engines:
“FATHER! HE HAD THE KEY! HE OPERATED ON CHLOE’S HEART IN MID-AIR! WE ARE FINISHED!”
CLACK.*
Two SOG tactical operators stepped forward in synchronized, terrifying mechanical precision across the wet concrete apron of Slip Ten.
Their gloved hands caught Former Chief Justice Arthur Sterling-Vance by his vicuña lapels, spun his eighty-year-old frame ninety degrees against the crane bumper, and ratcheted a pair of heavy-duty, double-locking, high-security stainless-steel military transport restraints around his wrists with two sharp, definitive snaps:
SNAP.
SNAP.
A second set of chains clamped around his ankles—the identical stainless-steel irons used for capital traitors at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth:
SNAP-CLINK.
Arthur Sterling-Vance shrieked into the freezing drizzle, his designer clothes tearing along the seams, his tears mixing with the slurry on the dock:
