In my right hand, I carried an unsealed, brushed-titanium diplomatic case containing the certified genetic records from Dr. Salinas.
Around my neck, resting against my collarbone, hung my grandfather’s original solid-gold chronometer—a timepiece that contained an air-gapped, encrypted biometric transponder slaved directly to the SPY-6 radar array of the guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), which was holding a silent combat picket three miles off the Miami coastline.
From the top of the Sovereign Tide’s primary gangway, four armed mercenaries descended in a tight, protective diamond.
Behind them, walking with a slow, measured, patrician cadence, was retired Four-Star General Arthur Caldwell.
He was seventy-six years old, tall, broad-shouldered, with silver-white hair cut in razor-sharp military regulation. He wore an immaculate, bespoke charcoal cashmere overcoat over a three-piece suit, an unlit Cuban cigar held between his fingers, and his cold, predatory blue eyes radiating the supreme, hypnotic arrogance of a man who had manipulated international governments for half a century.
