Chapter 3 - The Video by the Scaffolding
Dean inserted the encrypted flash drive into the sixty-inch wall monitor.
The high-definition 4K infrared footage illuminated the darkened suite.
At 06:42:18 AM, in the freezing pre-dawn blizzard, a black Lincoln Navigator bearing commercial fleet plates pulled silently into the blind spot beneath the west-wing renovation scaffolding.
The rear door opened.
A woman stepped out into the snow, wrapped in an oversized dark wool coat, her face partially obscured by a heavy woolen scarf. She carried the black infant carrier in both hands, moving with a desperate, staggering limp as she carried the child toward the dumpster.
"Zoom in on her left hand as she places the carrier beneath the drywall," I commanded.
Dean enhanced the digital resolution.
Gleaming beneath the infrared halogen beam on the woman’s left wrist was an antique platinum bracelet set with alternating sapphires and diamonds—the heirloom bracelet I had given to Clara Vance on her twenty-sixth birthday.
"It was Clara," I whispered, my heart slamming against my ribs. "She brought our baby to my gate herself."
"Look at what happens three seconds later, Don Alexander," Dean said, forwarding the timestamp.
As Clara stepped back toward the Lincoln, two men in dark tactical windbreakers stepped from behind the scaffolding. One of them clamped a chloroform-soaked cloth over her mouth, while the other seized her arms, dragging her limp, struggling body into the rear passenger cabin of the SUV before the vehicle accelerated out through the north delivery gate.
"They used the baby as bait," Arthur Ross—the seventy-two-year-old senior corporate counsel who had served my father for forty years—announced as he entered the room, holding an unsealed federal litigation dossier. "They forced Clara to drop the child where the construction crew would find him, intending for the baby to freeze before the morning shift started. Then they abducted Clara to force her to sign an irrevocable custody waiver before a corrupt notary in Gary, Indiana."
Arthur dropped the dossier onto the center table right before Miles Grant’s eyes.
"Here is the execution contract, Miles," Arthur Ross declared, his deep baritone booming like an artillery shell. "Drafted forty-eight hours ago by Grant & Sterling Legal Associates."
Arthur unrolled the certified document:
THE CALUMET MARITIME CONVERSION & HEIR REJECTION COVENANT
PRIMARY ASSET: 65% CONTROLLING EQUITY IN CALUMET LOGISTICS TERMINALS ($180,000,000.00)
TERMS: IN THE EVENT OF THE SUDDEN DECEASE OF INFANT JOHN DOE // CLARA VANCE CONFIRMS NON-PATERNITY UNDER OATH // ALL MARITIME REVENUES VEST UNCONDITIONALLY IN MILES GRANT & JULIAN STERLING.
Miles Grant dropped to his knees on the carpet, his hands clawing at the air, weeping in raw, pathetic terror.
"Alexander... please!" Miles sobbed, his forehead pressing against my boots. "Julian told me Clara was hiding in an apartment in South Bend! He said if we didn't eliminate the child, the Vance trust would reclaim the deepwater berths! I only drafted the paperwork! I didn't order the abduction!"
I looked down at the man who had sat at my dinner table for fifteen years.
"You drafted a death warrant for a four-hour-old child, Miles," I said softly, my voice devoid of mercy.
May you like
I turned to Dean Keller.
"Lock Miles Grant in the subterranean vault beneath Terminal 4," I commanded. "Take his phones, his laptop, and his biometric tokens. Scramble four tactical assault teams to the abandoned freight depot in Gary. And tell the helicopter to spin up on the south lawn."
