Chapter 97 - The Syndicate of Twelve
Elena’s knees buckled as a wave of dizziness hit her. The blood loss was finally catching up to her. Thomas saw it; he gave a sharp nod to the guard by the door, who immediately brought forward a folding medical kit and a bottle of antiseptic.
"Sit," Thomas commanded, softer this time. "Let them tend to that wound before gangrene finishes what Lucian started. We have very little time."
Elena sank into the leather chair opposite him, keeping Maya tucked safely in the crook of her good arm while a medic cut away her soaked sleeve and began swabbing the deep laceration with iodine. The sting was agonizing, but Elena didn't flinch. She kept her eyes locked on the patriarch.
"What is the Leviathan?" Elena asked, gritting her teeth against the pain of the needle piercing her flesh as the medic began stitching. "The submarine that launched from the trench. Maya's voice activated it."
Thomas sipped his tea calmly. "It is not a submarine, Elena. It is a sovereign mobile vault. In nineteen eighty-five, twelve families—the wealthiest industrialists in the world—formed an alliance. The Iron Syndicate. We pooled fifty billion dollars in physical gold, platinum bullion, and bearer bonds to create a shadow reserve outside the jurisdiction of any sovereign nation."
"And the Leviathan is the vault," Elena realized.
"The vault, the warship, and the ultimate leverage," Thomas nodded. "Each family holds one genetic key. When Arthur was born, I encoded his bio-acoustic and retinal data into the master control matrix as the primary fail-safe. When Arthur had a child, that inheritance passed automatically down the bloodline. That is why Eleanor wanted Maya. Without Maya's biometric signature, the Leviathan cannot be docked, opened, or unloaded."
"And what happens if Eleanor gets her hands on the vault?"
"Eleanor doesn't want the money, Elena," Thomas said, his gray eyes darkening. "She wants the second payload inside the hull. The bio-pathogen canisters Arthur was trying to destroy before he died. Eleanor intends to auction the release vectors to the highest bidder in Shanghai next week. The bidding starts at ten billion dollars. If those canisters leave the Leviathan, half of East Asia will be an open cemetery within thirty days."
Maya stirred, letting out a soft whimper. Elena gently stroked her cheek, her heart pounding with cold terror.
Arthur had died not just to save his daughter, but to prevent a global massacre.
"Why are you telling me this?" Elena asked. "You're no saint, Thomas. You built this nightmare."
"Because Eleanor betrayed me twenty-two years ago," Thomas said, his knuckles tightening on his cane until they went white. "She tried to drown me in the Mediterranean. She stole my fleet, she corrupted my sons, and now she is going to destroy everything I built. I cannot enter the Leviathan; my codes were purged years ago. But you can. You and Maya."
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"You want me to board that monster again?" Elena gasped.
"I want you to kill my wife," the old man whispered without a shred of hesitation. "Before she unleashes hell on the world."
