Chapter 22 - Mother's Final Currency
Richard’s face drained of what little color it had left. "Eleanor? She... she was supposed to wait in Atlanta until Thorne confirmed the transfer!"
"Your wife doesn't trust you to split a sandwich, let alone fifty million dollars in extortion bonds," Arthur said, standing up from the desk. He walked over to an old-fashioned telephone mounted to the wall—a rotary unit wired directly to a hardline copper conduit buried ten feet beneath the soil. He picked up the heavy black receiver and dialed a four-digit extension.
"Sergeant Miller," Arthur said into the mouthpiece. "The secondary perimeter is active. Do not engage them on the fire road. Let them reach the turnaround at the well house. Funnel them into the courtyard."
He hung up the phone and looked at me. "Mark. Come here."
My legs felt like lead, but I crossed the room to where my grandfather stood. He reached out with one massive, calloused hand and gripped the back of my neck, pulling my forehead down until it touched his. The smell of cedar, tobacco, and old rain enveloped me. It was the same smell that had meant safety every single day of my childhood.
"I’m sorry for the lie, little bird," he whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion he had kept locked behind steel for decades. "I had to let you hurt so they wouldn't kill you. If they thought you knew what was in the well, you wouldn't have lived to see your twenty-fifth birthday."
"What's in the well, Grandpa?" I asked, my voice shaking. "You told me never to look down the shaft when I was seven. You padlocked the iron cover."
"The well isn't for water," Arthur said, releasing my neck and looking me square in the eyes. "The well is the elevator shaft."
Outside, the muffled, heavy *thump-thump-thump* of high-caliber machine gun fire vibrated through the limestone walls of the bunker. The assault had begun.
Arthur turned to his two tactical operators. "Take Thorne and Richard into the secure cell at the back of the magazine. If either of them moves, shoot them in the knees."
"Arthur! You can't do this!" Richard screamed as the soldiers hoisted him by his arms. "I'm your blood! I'm your son!"
Arthur stopped, his hand resting on the heavy mechanical lever that sealed the bunker door. He looked back at my father, and the cold disgust in his eyes was more lethal than any bullet.
"My blood," Arthur said quietly, "doesn't sell its father's bones to pay off a gambling debt in Macau. You stopped being my son the day you handed Julian Thorne the combination to my study safe."
The soldiers dragged them through the heavy iron door into the secondary vault. The latch dropped with a sickening, final *clang*.
Arthur turned to me and unholstered a matte-black Colt 1911 from a leather shoulder rig beneath his jacket. He checked the magazine, chambered a .45 ACP round with a crisp snap, and pressed the heavy weapon into my hands.
May you like
"Take off the safety," Arthur ordered. "Your mother isn't coming here to reconcile, Mark. She's bringing the cleanup crew Thorne hired from the Balkans. And they don't take prisoners."
***
