Chapter 62 - THE RED-EYE FLIGHT FROM ZURICH
The blizzard had turned the Long Island Expressway into a treacherous ribbon of white ice, but Julian pushed the armored federal Suburban past ninety miles per hour. Beside him, Arthur Vance sat hunched over a Department of Homeland Security tablet, his bandaged ribs throbbing with every violent jolt of the suspension.
"I pulled the flight manifest for Gulfstream N770SC," Arthur said, his fingers flying across the glowing screen as emergency alerts flashed across the NYPD inter-agency network. "It didn't originate from Zurich's commercial hub. It departed from a private military airstrip in the Swiss Alps, cleared diplomatic immunity through the Panamanian consulate, and touched down at JFK eight minutes ago."
"And the passenger?" Julian asked, his knuckles white around the leather steering wheel, his eyes burning with sleepless fury. "Who is authorized under St. Claire diplomatic protocol?"
Arthur went dead silent for five agonizing seconds, his weathered face bathed in the cold blue light of the monitor. "There’s only one name listed on the primary clearance: Katherine von Brandt. Julian... do you have any idea who that is?"
"The Swiss banking dynasty," Julian answered through gritted teeth, remembering the oil paintings that hung in the St. Claire corporate boardroom. "They financed my father’s first shipping fleet forty years ago. They hold fifty-one percent of the Sovereign Trust’s underlying bearer bonds."
"She’s seventy-two years old, Julian," Arthur said, looking up with eyes filled with dread. "And twenty-four hours before your father faked his death in Maine, Charles transferred twelve offshore shell corporations directly into her maiden name."
At JFK Terminal 4, the VIP private hangar was locked down by men in sterile charcoal suits carrying suppressed submachine guns—men who didn't wear federal badges. As Julian skidded the SUV to a halt against the snowdrift outside the gate, the rear blast doors of the hangar slid open, revealing the sleek black fuselage of the private jet.
Descending the mobile staircase was an elderly woman dressed in a magnificent white ermine coat, her silver hair coiled into an immaculate, aristocratic bun. She walked with an ivory cane tipped in gold, and handcuffed to her left wrist was a carbon-fiber courier briefcase.
She didn't run from the approaching blizzard; she stood at the bottom of the stairs, her sharp, hawk-like eyes piercing through the falling snow until they locked onto Julian’s face.
"You have your father’s jawline, Julian," she called out, her voice cutting through the scream of jet turbines. "And you have the same pathetic, soft-hearted weakness for Eleanor that Charles cured himself of thirty-five years ago."
Julian unholstered his sidearm, stepping directly into the gale-force wind. "Step away from that plane and tell me what you did to my mother."
May you like
The woman laughed, a sound like dry autumn leaves scraping across a tombstone. "Eleanor was your nursemaid, darling. I am the woman who gave birth to you in a private clinic in Geneva, and I’m here to take back every cent you stole."
***
