Chapter 12 - The Federal Cut
The Federal Maritime cutter Intrepid sliced through the heavy harbor chop like an iron scalpel. On the bridge, federal marshals in windbreakers stood vigil, their automatic rifles pointed out toward the shoreline where state police cruisers gathered at the barricades like angry hornets, forbidden from boarding a federal vessel.
Clara sat wrapped in a coarse wool blanket in the cutter's briefing room, sipping black coffee from a tin cup. Elena Croft stood beside a rugged, gray-haired federal prosecutor named Marcus Vance—Mark and Julian’s estranged uncle, a man who had cut ties with the family fortune twenty years ago to join the Department of Justice.
Marcus inserted Clara’s micro-SD card into an encrypted military laptop. The speakers crackled, and Judge Raymond Sterling’s voice filled the cabin, detailing the theft of Clara’s inheritance, the orchestrated hit on Mark in Zurich, and the order to terminate Clara if she refused the settlement.
Marcus’s jaw remained tight, his eyes hardening with every syllable. “My sister Eleanor was a monster,” he said quietly, looking out the porthole at the city. “And Julian was her creation. But Sterling... Sterling was the spider weaving the web.”
“Is this enough to arrest a sitting Supreme Court judge?” Clara asked, her voice raw from the fight on the ferry.
“It’s enough to bring down the whole state judiciary,” Elena replied, laying out a series of bank warrants. “Julian didn't drown, Clara. The harbor patrol fished him out of the locks twenty minutes ago. He’s in a critical care holding cell under federal guard. The moment the burns were treated, he started singing. He gave up Sterling’s private offshore accounts to save himself from the death penalty.”
“Sterling won't surrender,” Clara said, remembering the cold, detached gaze of the judge in the meatpacking plant. “He controls the courthouse guards. He’ll shred the paper trail before you can serve the warrant.”
Marcus closed the laptop with a snap. “He won't have time. The grand jury is being convened in the federal building in forty-five minutes. But we need you to authenticate the journal’s handwritten entries in person, Clara. Without your formal testimony, his lawyers will claim the audio was an AI deepfake generated by Cross before he died.”
“I’ll testify,” Clara said without hesitation.
Elena looked at her grimly. “The route between the federal dock and the courthouse runs straight through the city center. Sterling’s private contractors know where we have to go. They’ll try to intercept the convoy.”
May you like
Clara stood up, letting the blanket drop to the floor. She looked at her reflection in the dark glass of the porthole—bruised, hair tangled, wearing a mechanic’s uniform, but her eyes were steady.
“Let them try,” Clara said. “I’m done running.”
