Chapter 2 - The Device Under the Damask
The white cloth billowed back, exposing the shadow beneath the heavy mahogany wood.
Sitting on the dark parquet floor, directly between Diana’s four-inch Christian Louboutin heels, was a matte-black Pelican case no larger than a hardcover novel. It was wedged against the crossbar of the table, secured with industrial zip-ties. Two heavy copper leads ran from the casing into the upholstery beneath Diana’s seat cushion.
Mounted atop the black case was a military-grade digital frequency receiver.
And on its digital display, pulsing in radioactive crimson, was an active countdown timer:
**00:07:41.**
**00:07:40.**
**00:07:39.**
Beside the case, taped flat to the inside of the mahogany table apron where Diana’s fingers had been resting just seconds ago, was a suppressed SIG Sauer P365 pistol, its matte slide gleaming with gun oil, a round chambered, the hammer cocked back.
Marcus stared at the machinery of his own assassination for three unbroken seconds.
The banquet hall, sensing the shift in air, began to erupt. Senator Hayes stood up, knocking his chair backward. “Marcus? What is that? What the hell is going on?”
“Nobody move,” Marcus said. His voice was not loud, but it possessed an absolute, chilling authority that pinned every guest to the carpet. He looked up slowly from the bomb to Diana’s face. “Seven minutes. Is that the timer for the charges, or the remote trigger for the penthouse seals?”
Diana took a step back, her back hitting the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the glittering lights of Central Park South. Tears finally broke through her mascara, carving black lines down her flawless porcelain cheeks.
“It’s not just a bomb, Marcus,” she choked out. “If the signal disconnects from my phone, the secondary charges in the service basement blow the building's structural columns. This entire tower drops into the street.”
Marcus didn’t panic. His heart beat with a slow, arctic rhythm. He reached down, scooped little Lily into his arms, and set her gently on the table out of range of any potential tripwires. The little girl clutched her battered rabbit, burying her face into Marcus’s lapel.
“Who gave you the case, Diana?” Marcus asked.
“You think I wanted this?” Diana’s voice cracked into a jagged sob. “You think I spent eight months sleeping next to you, listening to you breathe, planning this? They have Clara, Marcus! They have Clara in the sub-basement!”
Marcus’s entire body went rigid.
Clara. Clara Ellison. His younger sister. The sister who had supposedly died in an offshore sailing accident three years ago off the coast of Monaco—the grief that had hardened Marcus into the ruthless corporate titan he was today.
“Clara is dead,” Marcus said, his voice flat, dangerously cold.
“She’s not dead!” Diana cried, pointing a shaking finger toward the little girl sitting on the table. “Look at her, Marcus! Look at the rabbit! Look at the damn rabbit she’s holding!”
Marcus turned his head slowly toward Lily. His gaze fell upon the worn, hand-stitched velvet rabbit.
His breath caught in his throat.
The velvet was faded blue. The right ear had a clumsy, criss-cross stitch done with golden embroidery thread. He remembered that stitch. He had watched his mother sew that exact golden thread into Clara’s sixth birthday present twenty-four years ago in their summer home in Maine.
Marcus reached out with a trembling hand, touching the frayed ear of the toy. “Where did you get this, Lily?”
Lily looked at him with Clara’s eyes. Exactly Clara’s eyes. Large, crystalline green, with the distinct hazel fleck in the right iris that had run in the Ellison family for five generations.
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“My mommy gave it to me,” Lily whispered, her lower lip trembling. “She’s tied to the pipes downstairs in the dark. She told me to run up the stairs and find Uncle Marcus.”
***
