Chapter 39 - The Counter-Probate
Thomas Mallerie lunged for the nickel-plated Colt.
He was fast for an old man, driven by the absolute, desperate terror of a titan who sees the abyss opening beneath his throne. His skeletal fingers wrapped around the checkered walnut grip.
*BANG.*
The gunshot in the enclosed concrete bunker was deafening, a concussive hammer that blew the dust from the ceiling conduits and left our ears ringing with a searing, metallic whine.
Thomas didn't shoot me.
Henley had fired first.
Her sub-sonic round took Thomas squarely through the right shoulder, the kinetic impact spinning the frail old man out of the wing chair and slamming him against the metal casing of the mainframe. The Colt clattered across the desk, spinning across the green felt before coming to a rest against my titanium card.
Thomas lay against the server rack, gasping for breath, dark blood soaking rapidly through his camel-hair cardigan. He looked up at Henley, his mouth working silently, forming syllables that died in his throat.
"Asset disclosure confirmed, Mr. Mallerie," Henley said coldly, her pistol still smoking, her arm extended in a rock-steady combat stance. "Your retainer agreement expired the moment you attempted to eliminate the sovereign beneficiary."
I picked up the Colt, dropped the cylinder, emptied the five remaining hollow-point cartridges into my palm, and tossed the empty frame into the bilge water of the dry dock below.
Then, I turned to the master terminal.
The interface was archaic—a green monochrome cathode-ray monitor with a physical mechanical keyboard, connected directly to the underwater data line that ran through the bedrock into the lake basin.
I inserted the silver fob. I inserted the titanium storage card.
The screen flickered, text cascading down the phosphor green display at blinding speed:
*SOVEREIGN BENEFICIARY: JULIAN MALLERIE (BERN-1974-ESTATE)*
*STATUS: EMANCIPATED / UNRESTRICTED*
*EXECUTE COUNTER-PROBATE LIQUIDATION? (Y/N)*
I looked down at Paul, who was still weeping on the floor, broken, his smirk gone forever, reduced to an irrelevant bystander in the ruins of the empire he had tried to steal from me.
I looked at Thomas, clutching his bleeding shoulder, the great architect reduced to a dying rat in his own flooded basement.
"Julian..." Thomas rasped, his voice bubbling with fluid. "Don't... don't hit the key... you don't know who’s behind the secondary curtain... the Bern Accord wasn't mine... I was just... I was just a middleman..."
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"The clerk is waiting, Thomas," I said.
My index finger came down hard on the mechanical *Y* key.
