“Arthur Vance did not place Daniel in your life eight years ago because he wanted to welcome a surveyor’s granddaughter into the Omaha country-club circle, Clara,” Marcus continued:
“Daniel was an operative. Arthur needed a pliant nephew with an un-indexed civilian identity to marry Arthur Bennett’s sole surviving lineal heir. He needed Daniel to bleed your accounts dry, orchestrate the custody proceedings, and ensure you never examined the deep deed to 44 Shadow Ridge Drive.”
“The Shadow Ridge property sits directly atop Valve Station Nine—the primary surface access hatch and emergency hydraulic ventilation manifold for Conduit Nine.”
“Arthur Vance knew that under the original nineteen-forty-four charter, Conduit Nine was protected by an automated, self-sealing hydrodynamic scuttle protocol.”
“If an unauthorized engineering crew attempted to breach the casing from the surface with diamond drills, the system would register a structural pressure drop and flood forty miles of the tunnel with sixteen million gallons of river water, permanently sealing the cryptographic vault from below.”
