CHIEF JUSTICE ARTHUR M.
STERLING-VANCE,`
`MARK EDWARD VANCE, BRENDA MARIE VANCE, ET AL.`
`CHARGES: CAPITAL HIGH TREASON UNDER ARTICLE THREE, SECTION THREE,`
`PREMEDITATED SABOTAGE OF CLASSIFIED STRATEGIC NUCLEAR DEFENSE ASSETS,`
`PREMEDITATED ATTEMPTED MURDER 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 Major General Michael Grant and Vice Admiral David Mercer, their authority cutting through the freezing mist in synchronized, unblinking discipline.
Behind us walked 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 Master Chancery seal 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:
