Chapter 7: The Mastermind's Gambit
Chapter 7: The Mastermind's Gambit
The jet engines roared as the private Gulfstream sliced through the turbulent dark night sky high above the Atlantic Ocean. Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was tense and quiet.
Clara was asleep on the leather sofa near the back, holding little Grace tightly against her side. Mia sat across from Ethan at the main conference table, monitoring encrypted data streams on her laptop screen.
"Mr. Ethan," Mia whispered, breaking the silence. "Our legal team in Zurich just sent over the records for the St. Moritz Psychiatric Clinic. It’s a high-security, ultra-private facility nestled in the Swiss Alps."
Ethan looked up from his iPad, his face pale from exhaustion but his eyes intense. "Who owns the clinic?"
"It’s registered under a shell corporation called Helios Holdings," Mia replied, tapping the keyboard. "I ran the cross-reference through the leaked Vance accounts. Helios Holdings has received monthly payments from Julian Sterling’s private trust for twenty-eight years."
Ethan leaned back against the plush leather chair, his jaw clenched. "Twenty-eight years... She was locked away in an alpine prison while Julian lived in luxury off her husband's empire."
"There's more," Mia continued, her face darkening. "The clinic logged an emergency patient transfer request three hours ago. A private medical transport helicopter is scheduled to pick up a patient listed as 'Subject H' at 7:00 AM local Swiss time. That's less than two hours after we land!"
"Julian is moving her," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. "He knows the trial in New York will ruin him if she testifies. He’s transferring her to a facility where he can dispose of her permanently."
He stood up and walked to the front of the aircraft, opening the flight deck door. "Captain, how far are we from Geneva?"
"We just began our descent into Geneva International, Mr. Vance," the pilot reported back over his shoulder. "We should be on the tarmac in thirty minutes. But weather reports show a severe snowstorm rolling over the mountain passes toward St. Moritz."
"Can the helicopter fly in that weather?" Ethan asked.
"Commercial charters will be grounded, sir. But a private, high-altitude chopper with a reckless pilot might risk it."
"Then land this plane as fast as you legally can," Ethan ordered sternly. "We take a high-speed vehicle through the pass before the storm seals the road."
Thirty minutes later, the Gulfstream touched down on the snow-dusted runway of Geneva’s private terminal. A black armored Range Rover, arranged in advance by Marcus’s European contacts, was waiting with its engine idling right beside the stairs.
Ethan, Clara, Mia, and two armed private security guards piled into the vehicle. Ethan took the wheel himself, shifting the heavy SUV into gear and tearing out of the airport perimeter toward the snow-covered alpine highway.
The mountain road was treacherous. Winding switchbacks snaked along sheer cliff edges, blinded by driving white snow and howling winds. The headlights barely cut through the thick wall of falling frost, but Ethan kept his foot slammed on the accelerator, navigating the slick asphalt with terrifying precision.
"Ethan, be careful!" Clara called out from the back seat, holding Grace securely in her car seat.
"If we lose ten minutes, we lose her forever!" Ethan replied, spinning the steering wheel sharp to drift the heavy SUV around an icy hairpin turn.
Up ahead, through the curtain of falling snow, the dark gothic towers of the St. Moritz Clinic appeared atop a sheer crag, surrounded by high iron fences and concrete guard posts.
Suddenly, the deep thrumming beat of heavy helicopter blades echoed from the sky above the complex.
"Look!" Mia yelled, pointing through the windshield.
A sleek black twin-engine helicopter was hovering low over the clinic's rooftop pad, its landing lights piercing the white haze. On the roof, three figures in heavy winter coats were wheeling a gurney carrying a blanketed figure toward the open side door of the aircraft.
"They're loading her right now!" Marcus shouted from the passenger seat, racking the slide of his tactical rifle.
Ethan didn't hesitate. Instead of stopping at the security gate, he drove the heavy armored Range Rover straight into the wrought-iron gates at sixty miles per hour!
The gates shattered with a deafening metallic crunch, sparks flying into the night as the heavy vehicle crashed into the courtyard, skidding across the snow and coming to a stop directly at the base of the central stair tower leading up to the roof.
"Marcus, with me!" Ethan roared, kicking his door open into the blizzard. "Clara, stay in the vehicle with Mia! Keep the doors locked!"
Ethan and Marcus charged up the icy exterior stairs, two steps at a time, their heavy boots crunching into the fresh snow.
On the roof, the helicopter’s rotor wash hit them like a wall of freezing hurricane wind, spraying blinding white ice into their faces. A guard in a tactical parka turned, raising an automatic rifle toward Ethan—
BANG!
Marcus fired a single precise shot from his sidearm, hitting the guard’s shoulder and dropping him to the icy roof deck.
The second guard panicked, shoving the gurney aside and running toward the open helicopter door, shouting to the pilot to lift off.
May you like
Ethan sprinted across the slippery roof, vaulting over the gurney and leaping through the air just as the helicopter began to lift off the pad!
He caught the edge of the landing skid with both hands, his body dangling over the three-hundred-foot drop off the edge of the mountain cliff!
