Chapter 12 - THE DESCENT INTO THE UNDERWORLD
The elevator ride down from the 64th floor was a journey into the abyss.
I stood in the corner,
my eyes fixed on Arthur Vance,
who stood between me and Agent Miller.
The man who had been a ghost was now a king again,
even if his kingdom was built on the terror of a child.
Miller looked like a man who had been hollowed out.
His career,
his integrity,
and the safety of his team had been compromised in a single heartbeat.
"How many of them are there?"
Miller whispered,
his voice barely audible over the hum of the elevator.
"How many of your people are in the Bureau?"
Arthur didn't even look at him.
"Enough to ensure that the Vance name remains untouchable,"
he replied.
"You were a fool to think you could move against me,
Miller."
"I have been a dead man for eight years."
"I have seen the underside of every bank,
every government agency,
and every secret society in this country."
"You play by the rules;
I wrote the rules and then burned the book."
The doors opened into the lobby.
The black sedan was there,
its engine idling,
exhaust plumes rising into the freezing Chicago air.
Two men stood by the car,
wearing suits that cost more than my first house.
They weren't FBI.
They were "cleaners."
Men who existed in the shadows between the law and the lawless.
As we stepped onto the sidewalk,
the wind hit me like a slap.
It was a reminder that the world was still turning,
even as my own world was collapsing.
"Mark,"
Arthur said,
stopping by the car door.
"You’re coming with us."
"Why?"
I asked,
my voice dead.
"Because I need your signature."
"The acquisition isn't dead;
it just needs a new architect."
"The five hundred million needs to move into the new accounts by midnight."
"If it doesn't,
Lily doesn't leave the Greenwich estate."
"She stays there,
in the dark,
until she becomes a ghost just like I did."
I looked at Miller.
He was standing there,
his hand on his holster,
watching as the man he had spent years hunting walked away.
"I have to go,"
I told him.
"I know,"
Miller said,
his eyes full of a helpless rage.
"We’ll follow you."
"If you do,
she dies,"
Arthur said simply.
"Don't be a hero,
Agent."
"Heroes are just people who haven't realized how much they have to lose yet."
I got into the back of the sedan.
The leather was cold.
The windows were tinted so dark that the city outside disappeared.
Arthur sat next to me,
the smell of expensive tobacco and old age clinging to him.
"Where are we going?"
I asked.
"To the airport,"
he said.
"We’re going home,
Mark."
"To Greenwich."
"To finish what we started."
As the car pulled away,
I looked back at the Wacker building.
It looked like a jagged tooth against the sky.
I realized that I was no longer a CEO.
I was no longer a husband.
I was a passenger in a vehicle heading toward the heart of a nightmare.
And the only way to save my daughter was to become exactly what I had spent my life trying not to be.
A criminal.
May you like
A Vance.
A man who could kill a ghost.
