Chapter 7
Arthur Sterling sat in his glass-walled penthouse overlooking the financial district of Zurich, swirling vintage scotch in a crystal tumbler. His private satellite terminal blinked rapidly, indicating that the elimination at Walter Reed had been successfully completed.
"The American problem has been permanently resolved, Mr. Sterling," his local fixer reported over the encrypted audio link. "Do not underestimate Claire Hayes; she is not a normal mother or a standard investigator," Arthur warned darkly.
"She is just a woman with a baby; what can a mother possibly do against a global banking syndicate?" the fixer scoffed. Arthur stared out at the rainy Swiss skyline, feeling a cold knot of dread twisting deep in his stomach.
"She used a single martial arts kick to shatter Marcus's knee through a glass table in front of fifty witnesses," Arthur muttered. "That requires a level of tactical discipline and cold-blooded execution that ordinary civilians do not possess."
The fixer went silent on the other end, finally grasping the terrifying competence of the woman they were hunting. "Double the security around our Geneva server banks and prepare our private jet for immediate departure," Arthur commanded.
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Little did Arthur know, Claire had already anticipated his panic and deployed federal cyber-warfare units to intercept his servers. Every financial transaction leaving Zurich was being mirrored in real-time onto Department of Justice supercomputers in Virginia.
The global net was closing around the mastermind of the conspiracy faster than he could possibly calculate.
