Chapter 58 - The Alpine Gauntlet
The loudspeaker on the helicopter crackled with mechanical authority: "Drop the child and step onto the gravel. You have nowhere to run, Vance."
Daniel didn't drop Mason. Instead, he reached behind the heavy iron spillway door, pulling a handheld surface-to-air flare munition he had stripped from the guard outpost earlier. He didn't fire at the helicopter; he fired directly into the water between the boat slip and the fuel pontoon of the estate's private marina.
The flare struck an exposed diesel fuel slick left behind by the fleeing guests' luxury speedboats.
A wall of yellow and orange flame erupted fifty feet into the air, creating a massive thermal curtain that blinded the helicopter’s infrared targeting sensors. The pilot pulled the cyclic violently, banking hard to avoid the thermal updraft as the minigun fired blind, shredding the rocky shore into dust.
"Run, Daddy! Run!" Mason screamed, his small hands clutching Daniel’s soaked vest.
Daniel scrambled up the rocky embankment toward the winding Alpine perimeter road. Parked on the shoulder, its hazard lights blinking through the rain, was an unmarked matte-gray Audi RS6—the extraction vehicle Markus had promised.
Behind the wheel sat Markus himself, his face grim, a submachine gun resting across his lap.
"Get in! Get in now!" Markus bellowed, kicking the rear passenger door open.
Daniel threw Mason into the back seat, diving in after him and slamming the door just as a volley of high-caliber rounds punched through the rear windshield, shattering the tempered glass into a thousand frosted beads.
Markus dropped the clutch. The Audi launched forward with all-wheel-drive ferocity, the tires screaming as the car rocketed onto the narrow, icy hairpins of the Route de Saint-Cergue, climbing high into the Jura Mountains toward the French border.
"You're bleeding all over my leather, Vance," Markus growled, checking his rearview mirror as the twin headlights of three black armored SUVs appeared behind them, closing the gap at terrifying speed.
"They put a capsule in Mason’s neck," Daniel said, his voice ragged as he cradled his trembling son on the floorboard. "Liquid neurotoxin. Biometric trigger linked to Julian Sterling’s vital signs."
Markus cursed violently, drifting the high-performance wagon around a sheer cliff edge that dropped a thousand feet into the black abyss below. "Then we can't kill Julian, and we can't get out of range. That means if we cross the border, the boy’s heart stops."
Daniel carefully peeled back the dressing on Mason’s neck. Beneath the skin, a faint blue LED glowed through the flesh, pulsing in sync with the boy’s heartbeat.
"Daddy... is it the bad thing again?" Mason asked, his voice shaking, big tears rolling down his dirt-streaked cheeks. "Like the collar?"
Daniel choked back a sob, gently wiping the boy’s face with his torn, calloused thumb. "No, buddy. Not like the collar. No one is ever putting a collar on you again. Daddy’s got you. I promise."
Daniel looked at Markus in the rearview mirror. "We aren't running to the border."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Markus barked, dodging a pit maneuver from the lead Sovereign SUV as heavy metal scraped against metal with a deafening screech of sparks.
May you like
"Turn this car around," Daniel ordered, his eyes blazing with an icy, terrifying certainty. "Julian isn't following us in an SUV. He’s in that command helicopter. If we want that cipher, we take the bird down."
***
