Chapter 12 - Cold Reckoning
Z
The private jet sliced through the midnight turbulence over the Green Mountains of Vermont, its engines screaming against the freezing crosswinds. Outside the cabin window, the sky was pitch black, broken only by the flashing strobe lights on the wingtips.
I sat in the main cabin, wearing a heavy winter parka over my suit, reviewing the real-time satellite telemetry Marcus was projecting onto the cabin table.
"Federal Correctional Institution St. Albans is thirty miles north of the Burlington airfield," Marcus said, pointing his finger at a blinking blue dot on the digital map. "The facility is currently under a localized power blackout. Local authorities reported a transformer explosion twenty minutes ago, but our atmospheric sensors picked up an EMP pulse right before the grid went dark."
"A tactical blackout," Maya said, her fingers flying across her keyboard as she tried to maintain a stable satellite connection with the U.S. Marshals Service. "Victor Vance isn't trying to fight us in court anymore. He’s liquidating his loose ends before his private jet reaches non-extradition airspace in North Africa."
"We aren't waiting for the Marshals," I said, checking the battery on my encrypted satellite phone. "If Nolan dies, the chain of custody for the Swiss banking keys breaks, and the frozen accounts in Zug will be released back to Lyceum's proxy lawyers by Monday morning."
The jet touched down hard on the snow-covered runway at Burlington, its thrust reversers roaring as we skidded to a halt near a waiting fleet of three heavily modified all-wheel-drive SUVs.
We piled into the vehicles without dropping speed. Marcus took the wheel of the lead SUV, hitting the emergency strobe lights as we accelerated onto the deserted, snow-slicked highway heading north toward the Canadian border.
The prison appeared out of the swirling snowstorm like a fortress made of concrete and shadows. The high security lights that usually illuminated the double chain-link perimeter were dark. The heavy steel gates stood wide open, their hydraulic arms severed by plasma torches.
"Two vehicles breached the main courtyard six minutes ago," Marcus reported, pulling his sidearm from its holster and checking the chamber with a sharp, metallic clack. "No perimeter guards visible. They took out the communications tower first."
"Stay in the vehicle, Emma," Maya pleaded, grabbing my wrist as Marcus opened his door into the freezing wind. "This is a tactical hit, not a corporate takeover!"
I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached into the floor console, pulling out a heavy tactical flashlight and an emergency body-armor vest that Marcus had prepped for me.
"Nolan Price gave me the keys to save my family," I said, slipping the vest over my shoulders and pulling the heavy zipper shut. "I am not letting Victor Vance murder him in a dark hallway to cover his own skin."
We moved through the ruined outer gates on foot, our boots crunching against the ice and broken glass. The administrative building smelled of ozone, burnt copper, and gunpowder. The emergency red floor lights flickered weakly, casting long, bloody shadows down the narrow concrete corridors.
Two prison guards were unconscious near the intake desk, bound with zip-ties but alive. Marcus checked their pulses, gave me a quick nod, and pointed toward the lower cellblock stairs.
We descended into the dark basement level where high-value federal witnesses were held before transport.
A sharp gunshot echoed from the end of the hall—a muted, suppressed pop that shattered the quiet of the concrete bunker.
"Move!" Marcus yelled, drawing his weapon and sprinting down the corridor.
We rounded the corner just as a man in dark tactical gear lifted a suppressed pistol toward a steel cell door. Nolan Price was cowering in the corner of the cell, clutching a bloody arm, his eyes wild with pure terror.
Marcus fired twice. The kinetic impact hit the assailant's shoulder, knocking him sideways into the cinderblock wall. The second intruder turned toward us, lifting a submachine gun, but Marcus tackled him into the iron bars of the adjacent cell, knocking the weapon free.
I ran past the struggle, grabbing a heavy iron fire extinguisher from the wall mount, and slammed it with all my strength against the back of the second attacker's knee. He collapsed onto the wet floor with a painful groan.
Marcus secured both men with heavy cable-ties, pulling off their ski masks. They were private security contractors—former foreign military operators with non-descriptive tattoos on their forearms.
Inside the cell, Nolan was shaking violently, his face pale, blood dripping from a surface graze on his forearm onto his prison jumpsuit.
"Emma?" Nolan gasped, staring at me through the iron bars as if I were a ghost. "How... how did you know?"
"Victor Vance cleared his schedule tonight, Nolan," I said, my voice cold and calm as I reached through the bar slot to hand him a clean handkerchief. "He thought he could erase you before the grand jury unsealed the Swiss accounts."
Nolan wiped his arm, his hands trembling so violently he could barely hold the cloth. "He... he sent them to kill me... after everything I did for Hale Capital..."
"He sent them because you are the only person alive who can identify the ultimate beneficial owners of the Lyceum Group," I corrected, leaning close against the cold steel of the door. "And now you are going to tell the U.S. Attorney every single name on that list."
May you like
Nolan looked up at me, tears cutting clean trails through the dirt on his pale cheeks. "If I tell them... they'll come for my family, Emma."
"They won't get the chance," I replied, holding up my phone, which was already connected to a secure video link with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington D.C. "Because by sunrise, there won't be a Lyceum Group left to execute the order."
