Chapter 83: The Frozen Trek
The echoing roar of thirty five starving men died down into a tense, shivering murmur that drifted toward the high ceiling of the Sterling foyer. Harlan Sterling stood upon the fourth riser of the marble staircase, watching the desperate scavengers grip their wooden clubs and tire irons as though crude timber and rusted scrap could breach thirty million dollars of reinforced concrete.
He knew better than anyone in this room that raw fury alone would never break the eastern perimeter.
Blunt wood, fire pokers, and table legs were weapons for street brawls between half frozen vagrants, but Rowan Mercer had guarded his sanctuary with heavy steel gates and high voltage grids. If fifty men charged the main courtyard armed with nothing more than iron bars, the autom
