Chapter 86 - The Shattered Oligarch
I raised my boot and brought it down hard on the tablet, the reinforced sole of my combat boot crushing the glass screen and shattering the digital uplink into a shower of sparks and dead silicon.
Sterling looked up from the ground, his silver hair disheveled, his tailored suit coated in grime and salt water. The arrogant patrician who had mocked my dreams across my family's dining table was gone. In his place was a terrified, aging criminal staring up at the business end of my service pistol, which I had smoothly unholstered with my good right hand.
"Get up, Julian," I said, the barrel steady as a stone.
"You... you can't touch me, Eleanor!" he stammered, scrambling backward on his hands and knees until his back hit the cold iron base of a mooring bollard. "I know the President! I have dinner with the Secretary of Defense twice a month! Your father... your father begged me to look out for you!"
"My father is a traitor who used his daughter's commission as a cover story for his black-market shell companies," I said, stepping closer until the shadow of my frame fell across his face. "And you are the coward who hid behind his desk while honest sailors died in foreign waters."
Behind him, out in the channel, the black submarine began to thrash its massive screw, churning white foam as its rogue crew realized the command link was dead. It began to submerge, its ballast tanks venting violent plumes of high-pressure air.
"She’s diving!" Miller's voice yelled through the comms. "Captain, the submarine is attempting to break for deep water!"
"Let her try," Admiral Henderson’s voice roared over the base-wide tactical net. "Harbor Defense Battery One—Fire!"
The twin 57mm cannons on the seawall unleashed an ear-splitting barrage. Tracers tore through the salt air, punching into the submarine's sail and shredding its external antennae, optic periscopes, and satellite domes. High-explosive rounds cratered the casing of the deck, rupturing the external dive planes before the vessel could slip beneath the surface. Crippled, blinded, and unable to submerge, the rogue leviathan wallowed helplessly in the middle of the harbor, smoke pouring from its shattered conning tower.
Sirens wailed across the naval station as dozens of military police cruisers and armored personnel carriers finally broke through the outer gates, their red and blue lights painting the gray afternoon in vivid flashes of justice.
Sterling looked from the burning submarine back up to my face, his eyes hollow with the sudden realization that his empire of influence had turned to ashes in less than five minutes.
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"You ruined everything," he whispered, his voice trembling. "Oakwood... the legacy... the fortune..."
"The Navy doesn't care about your Oakwood legacy, Julian," I said, lowering the pistol as Master-at-Arms officers swarmed the pier, pinning Sterling to the ground and ratcheting steel cuffs around his wrists. "We only care about who stands the watch."
