Chapter 126 - The Ambush at the Chalet
Before we could advance on the Palace of Nations, we needed our primary material witness: Dr. Jean-Paul Moreau, the retired French surgeon who had delivered the twins alongside Sister Beatrice.
Dr. Moreau had lived in seclusion for eight years in a heavily fortified timber chalet nestled in the alpine foothills of Saint-Cergue, just twenty kilometers north of the Swiss border.
Our three-vehicle convoy wound its way up the snow-packed mountain passes, the pine branches heavy with fresh powder, the morning sun painting the snowfields in blinding, crystalline gold.
Ethan rode in the passenger seat of the lead Land Rover, his tablet tracking Moreau’s biometric security transponder.
"Transponder is offline," Ethan announced suddenly, his tone shifting from calm concentration to razor-sharp tactical alertness. "Local cellular towers in the Saint-Cergue district just dropped their packet routing. Full localized electronic blackout."
"Dominic sent a cleanup crew," Marcus said from the rear, racking the bolt on a tactical carbine.
"Hold the children in the secondary vehicle," I ordered, my voice dropping into the cold, authoritative register that had commanded global conglomerates. "Keep the armored doors sealed. Ethan, we take Moreau alive."
The Land Rover roared around the final hairpin turn, spraying gravel and packed snow against the timber guardrails.
The chalet stood in a clearing surrounded by ancient spruce trees.
The front porch railing was splintered; two black Audi Q7s with darkened windows were idling in the driveway, their exhaust plumes curling into the freezing air.
Three men in tactical gray winter gear were dragging an elderly, white-haired man down the front steps, his arms bound behind him, a black hood half-pulled over his bleeding face.
"Breach!" Ethan roared into his throat mic.
Our Land Rover didn't slow down.
The heavy steel brush guard of our vehicle slammed into the rear quarter-panel of the lead Audi at forty miles an hour, sending the two-ton German SUV spinning across the ice into the snowbank with a deafening screech of crumpled steel and exploding safety glass.
Ethan was out of the door before our wheels had even stopped spinning.
He didn't fire from a distance. He closed the fifteen yards of snow in three explosive strides, using the momentum of his body to tackle the nearest mercenary into the drift, driving his elbow into the man’s temple with a sickening, hollow crack.
The second mercenary raised a short-barreled submachine gun, but Marcus fired a two-round controlled burst from the Land Rover's window, dropping the man into the snow before his finger could find the trigger.
The third shooter—a hulking operative with a tactical scar across his forehead—panicked. He grabbed Dr. Moreau by the collar, pulling the elderly surgeon in front of his chest as a human shield, pressing a suppressed 9mm pistol against Moreau’s temple.
"Drop your weapons!" the man screamed in broken German. "Back off or I paint the snow with his brains!"
Ethan stopped ten paces away.
He didn't lower his carbine. But he took a slow, calculated step to the right, forcing the shooter to adjust his stance, exposing two inches of his helmeted skull behind Dr. Moreau’s white hair.
"You're working for Dominic Sterling, aren't you, son?" Ethan asked, his voice calm, conversational, and completely devoid of human fear.
"I said drop the rifle!" the mercenary shrieked, his breath fogging wildly.
"Dominic’s wire transfers were frozen forty minutes ago by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission," Ethan continued smoothly, taking another microscopic step to the flank. "Your offshore account in Cyprus is currently worth zero euros. You're holding a gun on an eighty-year-old French civilian for a billionaire who can't even afford to pay your bail."
The shooter’s eyes flickered with a microsecond of hesitation. His grip on Moreau’s coat loosened by half an inch.
CRACK.
A single shot cracked from the rear Land Rover's reinforced roof hatch.
The mercenary’s head snapped backward, a dark mist spraying across the pine branches as his body collapsed into the drift like a dropped puppet.
Standing through the roof hatch of our rear vehicle, holding a heavy designated marksman rifle resting against the sandbag mount, was my ten-year-old son, Noah.
Beside him, Sophie was calmly handing him a fresh five-round magazine from the tactical case.
Ethan lowered his carbine, looked up at his son standing in the freezing alpine wind with cold, unblinking focus, and let out a low whistle of pure, awe-struck paternal pride.
"Remind me never to ground that boy, Victoria," Ethan murmured, sprinting forward to cut Dr. Moreau’s bonds.
I stepped out of the vehicle into the snow, looking up at Noah as he smoothly cleared the rifle’s chamber.
"Good shot, sweetheart," I called out.
May you like
Noah looked down, adjusted his glasses with an index finger, and smiled.
"Wind was twelve knots from the northwest, Mom," Noah replied calmly. "I compensated two centimeters for the elevation. The doctor is secure."
