Chapter 6 - The Forged Legacy|
At three o'clock that afternoon, a master engraver from Philadelphia sat at Dante's desk under the glow of the single brass lamp.
On the desk lay three items: the lead replica Isabella had placed in the hidden drawer, the original yellow bronze seal which Dante had recovered from Isabella’s locked vanity case while she was taking a bath, and a third block of bronze.
“Can you match the micro-imperfections?” Dante asked, standing behind the old craftsman.
The engraver looked up through his thick magnifying goggles.
“Matching the hawk carving is simple enough, Mr. Moretti,” the old man explained, his trembling fingers suddenly turning laser-precise as he picked up a fine steel stylus. “But the scratch on the right wing—the one your great-grandfather made in 1906—that requires manual carving.”
“Do it,” Dante commanded. “And install the transponder.”
The engraver nodded. He used a tiny mechanical drill to hollow out a microscopic chamber inside the bronze base of the third seal. Inside the cavity, he placed a custom satellite GPS transmitter no larger than a grain of rice, sealed it with liquid bronze, and polished the surface until the seam vanished completely.
“This transponder operates on a closed military frequency,” Mateo noted, monitoring a tablet screen nearby. “It bypasses standard signal jammers. The moment this seal leaves the premises, we will track its exact location in real-time.”
Dante picked up the newly forged third seal. It weighed exactly four ounces. The scratch on the wing was identical to the original down to the micrometer.
“Now,” Dante murmured, walking toward the hidden drawer. “We put this tracked seal back into the desk.”
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“Why put a tracked version in the desk if she already stole the lead one?” Mateo asked, puzzled.
“Because Isabella is smart,” Dante explained coldly. “She replaced the original with the lead fake to buy herself time. But tonight, before she leaves for her ‘charity dinner’ in Manhattan, she will come back to check if I have noticed the swap. When she sees the seal still sitting in the drawer, she will take her lead replica back and swap it for the tracked one, believing she is stealing the real thing.”
