***
CHAPTER 5: THE RECKONING IN THE ALLEY
09:42 AM.
The narrow alley between the two decaying brick warehouses off Worth Street was sealed off by four matte-black armored tactical BearCats from the United States Marshals Service Special Operations Group.
The freezing November drizzle had turned to slush, coating the rusted fire escapes and the piles of wet cardboard in a layer of gray grease.
In the center of the alley sat the black commercial armored truck, its heavy steel bumper crushed against a concrete loading dock, its reinforced run-flat tires shredded by tactical spike strips.
Inside the vehicle, six private military contractors from **The Valkyrie Trust** were screaming, their faces pale behind the ballistic glass, attempting to ignite thermite grenades to melt their satellite hard drives:
*SCREAMS-PANTING-PANIC.*
My hand-welted leather shoes made a clean, concussive *crunch… tack… crunch* against the frozen slush:
*crunch… tack… crunch.*
I walked down the center of the alley.
Over my tailored suit, I wore my grandfather Arthur Mercer’s twenty-ounce Scottish tweed hacking jacket, its wool heavy and impervious to the winter gale. In my right hand, resting in a titanium carrier, was the four-inch solid-titanium master transponder key:
`KEY IDENTIFIER: MERCER-VANCE-010`
`CLASSIFICATION: STRATEGIC SOVEREIGN ESCROW // TITLE 50 CONTINUITY`
`TITLE: CONDUIT TEN // THE MANHATTAN REDOUBT`
