Chapter 22 - Ambush on Lake Geneva
The searing white beam pinned their dead vessel against the black water like an insect on an autopsy tray. The cold mist of Lake Geneva turned into an ethereal, blinding haze.
Lily let out a sharp cry, instinctively burying her face into Emma’s torso. Emma dropped to her knees on the slippery deck, wrapping both arms around her daughter and pulling her down beneath the reinforced fiberglass gunwale. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the terrifying image of Margaret tied to a chair in New York still burned into the back of her retinas.
Through the deafening roar of twin marine diesel engines, a voice boomed across the water through a loudhailer in accented, harsh French, followed immediately by clipped English: “Vessel adrift, cut all auxiliary power and remain seated with hands visible. Any hostile movement will be engaged with lethal force.”
Emma pressed her hand against Lily’s trembling spine. “Stay down, sweetheart. Close your eyes and don’t look up. Mommy is right here.”
“Mommy, who are those people?” Lily whispered, her teeth chattering violently from the biting alpine air. “Are they the bad men from the phone?”
Emma didn't answer. She reached into her pocket, fingering the cold, faceted edges of Catherine Laurent’s star pendant. If Christian St. Clair wanted this pendant, he clearly didn't intend to let them reach Provence alive if his local operatives could secure it here first.
The heavy gunboat pulled alongside, rocking their small watercraft with violent wakes. Emma braced herself, expecting masked mercenaries to board with automatic weapons. But as the dark silhouette of the second boat loomed over them, the spotlight suddenly tilted upward into the dense fog, and a sharp, familiar voice broke the tension.
“Emma! Keep your heads down!”
It wasn't St. Clair’s hunters. Standing at the prow of the heavy patrol vessel was a man wearing a dark tactical parka, his salt-and-pepper hair whipped by the wind. It was Uncle Daniel, flanked by three men wearing the insignia of the Swiss Federal Judicial Police.
Behind them, on the deck of Daniel’s vessel, two restrained men in black wet-suits lay face down on the grated floor, their suppressed sidearms already confiscated and cataloged.
“Daniel?” Emma choked out, rising slowly while keeping Lily shielded behind her coat.
“St. Clair’s interceptor team tried to scuttle your engine remotely through the harbor’s transponder relay,” Daniel yelled over the idling engines, motioning for his officers to throw heavy docking lines. “We tracked their frequency from the shore station. Grab my hand, Emma! We have less than twenty minutes before French airspace registers their private transport!”
With the help of two tactical officers, Emma hoisted Lily over the gunwale into Daniel’s waiting arms before leaping across the narrow divide of churning water herself. The moment her boots hit the deck of the police launch, Daniel wrapped a heavy wool thermal blanket around both of them.
“Margaret… Richard… Victoria,” Emma stammered, her voice shaking with rage and dread. “Daniel, St. Clair is inside the Vance estate. He broadcasted a live feed. They have them tied up in the drawing room. He has Father’s sealed metal chest.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened until the tendons stood out against his neck. He looked at Lily, whose wide, observant eyes reflected the dark water, and then back at Emma.
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“I know,” Daniel said quietly, ushering them toward the heated cabin below deck. “The silent alarms at the New York estate tripped forty minutes ago. But Christian St. Clair made a grave miscalculation. He thinks he’s holding hostages to trade for a trinket. He doesn't realize that by opening Arthur’s chest, he just initiated the protocol that will destroy him.”
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