Chapter 94 - Fire on the Bernese Ridge
Before we could cross the Rhine, the shadow of Victoria’s mercenaries caught our wake.
The subterranean rail system ended in a decommissioned freight depot hidden in a dense pine forest near the Black Forest perimeter. The moment the armored rail car hissed to a halt inside the damp concrete hangar, the motion sensors along the perimeter fence tripped simultaneously.
*Red strobe. Silent alarms. Seven heat signatures moving through the trees.*
"Ambush team," Julian whispered, shoving a tactical submachine gun into my hands and checking the slide of his own weapon. "They knew about the old rail line. Richard didn't believe you were dead for a second. That bastard was bluffing on the radio."
"He knows my voice," I said, racking the slide with a clean, practiced motion that would have terrified the socialites who watched me pour tea on Beacon Hill three years ago. "He knows I don't bluff."
"Genevieve, stay in the reinforced car," Julian commanded.
"Don't patronize me, boy," the old matriarch snapped, pulling an exquisite, mother-of-pearl handled Walther PPK from her inner coat pocket. "I was shooting Russian operatives in Vienna before your father learned to walk. Just keep them off my flank."
The heavy corrugated metal doors of the freight hangar buckled under the blast of a breaching charge.
*BOOM.*
The shockwave blew inward, sending shards of twisted zinc clattering across the concrete floor. Through the cloud of smoke and burning cordite, four operatives in unmarked black tactical gear poured through the gap, their weapon-mounted lasers cutting through the darkness like crimson needles.
"Vance security!" the lead operator barked. "Target is the female with the ledger! Fire on—"
Julian didn't give him the chance to finish. He leaned out from behind a concrete stanchion and fired three controlled double-taps. The lead mercenary crumpled instantly, his body dropping into the gravel with a dull thud.
The remaining three operators fanned out, opening suppressive fire that chewed into the rail car’s steel plating. Sparks sprayed into the air like incandescent rain.
I dropped to one knee behind a stack of weathered rail ties, brought my weapon up, aligned the red dot sight on the center mass of an operative moving along the eastern catwalk, and squeezed the trigger twice.
The recoil kicked firmly against my shoulder. The mercenary gasped, staggered backward against the rail railing, and fell twenty feet to the concrete floor, motionless.
"Target down!" I called out, my pulse hammering in my temples, not with fear, but with an exhilarating, freezing clarity.
"Two more on the left!" Genevieve's voice was crisp.
The old woman stepped out from behind the steel hatch with terrifying nonchalance, raised her small pistol with one steady hand, and fired once. A mercenary advancing behind a forklift took the round directly through the throat, collapsing in a spray of dark arterial blood.
The last surviving operator realized the slaughter had inverted. He turned to sprint back toward the breached hangar door, but Julian moved like a panther, closing the distance in three strides, tackling the man to the ground, and disarming him with a sickening crack of bone.
Julian drove his knee into the man’s sternum, pressing the barrel of his pistol against the mercenary’s temple. "Who authorized the kill order?"
The mercenary spat blood, groaning in agony. "The... the mother. Victoria Vance. She’s at the Grand Ducal Hotel in Luxembourg... she said fifty million for the girl's head."
"And Richard?" I asked, stepping out of the shadows, the barrel of my gun pointed at the man’s eyes.
"Richard... he was nervous," the man choked out, staring up at me as if looking at an apparition. "He said if we didn't kill you before dawn, she was going to feed him to the wolves. He’s terrified of her."
"He should be," I whispered.
Julian struck the mercenary with the butt of his weapon, rendering him instantly unconscious.
Julian turned to me, his chest heaving, his face smeared with soot. "We have an armored SUV hidden in the depot’s maintenance bay. Three hours to Luxembourg if we run every checkpoint on the autobahn."
May you like
"Then let's drive fast," I said, stepping over the fallen bodies without a second glance. "The morning session opens in less than four hours, and I have an appointment with my former mother-in-law."
***
