CHIEF JUSTICE ARTHUR M.
STERLING-VANCE,`
`RICHARD EDWARD MITCHELL, EVELYN BEATRICE MITCHELL, ET AL.`
`CHARGES: CAPITAL HIGH TREASON UNDER ARTICLE THREE, SECTION THREE,`
`PREMEDITATED SABOTAGE OF CLASSIFIED STRATEGIC NUCLEAR DEFENSE ASSETS,`
`PREMEDITATED EXTORTION OF A COMMISSIONED SOVEREIGN CUSTODIAN (18 U.S.C. § 1114),`
`AND THE SEDITIOUS USURPATION OF SOVEREIGN ADMIRALTY ESCROWS.`
`EXTRAORDINARY CAPIAS BENCH WARRANT: IMMEDIATE ARMED ATTACHMENT.`
I stepped down the aluminum air-stair.
My hand-welted leather field boots made a clean, concussive *tack… tack… tack* against the wet marble.
Barnaby walked beside my knee, his dark coat glistening with sleet, his amber eyes locked onto the massive bronze central portals.
Beside me walked Cadet Julian Arthur Mercer, standing tall on his titanium-reinforced legs, his service dress uniform immaculate.
Behind us walked Major General Michael Grant and United States Attorney Marcus Cooper.
Judge Eleanor Mercer did not offer an emotional family greeting.
She turned her slate-gray eyes onto me, looked down at Arthur Mercer’s tweed jacket, down at the unpolished bronze transit pin, down at the silver eagles on my collar, down at the four-hundred-page vellum brief in my arms, and then down to the four-inch titanium key resting in my gloved right hand:
“Is the chain of custody intact, Helen?
Julian?” the Judge asked.
Her voice had no volume; it was fifty decibels of pure, un-forgiving Maine iron:
“Did the son stand without legal defect?”
“Julian stood on his own feet before thirty-four witnesses, Aunt Eleanor,” I answered:
“The dining room ambush in Bloomfield Hills was dismantled four hours ago.”
“The communications logs have been decrypted by naval intelligence.”
“The sixty billion dollars in diverted defense reserves has been frozen in Zurich.”
“The Au Sable trauma records and the wheelchair key have been logged under Title Eighteen.”
“Julian is standing watch.”
“And the master vellum deed to Conduit Ten is pristine.”
Judge Mercer unsealed the execution block of the capias warrant:
“Chief Justice Arthur Vance has locked the monolithic, four-inch-thick bronze blast doors of the West Conference Room,” the Judge stated:
“He has severed all external civilian telecommunications lines with the Department of Justice.”
“Arthur Vance’s private appellate lawyers entered the basement garage eleven minutes ago, carrying the forged quitclaim deed.”
“They believe that your son is sitting in a motorized wheelchair in Michigan, that Richard holds the plenary conservatorship, and that you are weeping over an eighteen-year lie.”
“They believe that the sixty billion dollars from Zurich will clear before the morning opening of the financial exchanges.”
