Chapter 183 - The Covey Hill Descent
The Suburban tore along Route 189, where the asphalt deteriorated into cracked, frost-heaved macadam hemmed in by towering spruce. The vehicle’s heavy suspension groaned against the dips, throwing Emma and Maya from side to side. Julian had wedged himself against the door panel, applying pressure to his shoulder where a stray round had grazed the flesh beneath his tactical vest.
"Mercer," Julian said, his voice flat with rising tension. "If Thomas survived that blast, the Lake Placid police won't even find his tracks. He has three different judicial immunity warrants issued under the 1994 Maritime accord. He’ll have local state troopers redirecting traffic away from the estate within twenty minutes."
"He doesn't have twenty minutes," Mercer answered, staring straight through the sweeping wipers. "The Swiss banking consortium, Banque de l'Hiver, initiated Protocol Nine the second the secondary vault was breeched. At midnight tonight—forty minutes from now—every offshore account linked to the Vance surname will freeze permanently unless Emma presents that cylinder at the consular office in Montreal."
Emma looked down at the cylinder. It was cold, unnervingly heavy, and engraved with a sixteen-character alphanumeric string that began with the letters *VNC-1978-CLAIRE*.
"My aunt Claire," Emma whispered, tracing the raised metal ridges. "Eleanor always told me Claire died of typhoid in a private sanitarium when I was two years old. She said Claire was weak. She said she couldn't handle the family business."
"Claire was the only Vance who refused to sign the bloodline covenant," Mercer said, flicking the headlights to low beams as they approached an unpaved border access road marked with peeling orange reflector tape. "In 1978, your grandfather attempted to collateralize his daughters' futures to secure high-yield industrial loans out of Geneva. Eleanor complied. She married your father, signed the financial deeds, and surrendered her autonomy for a monthly stipend and a seat at the dinner table. But Claire ran."
"Where did she run?" Emma asked, her heart accelerating.
"She didn't run far enough," Mercer said grimly. "Thomas tracked her to a rail depot outside Saint-Armand. She vanished from public record that winter. But before she disappeared, she transferred her fifty-percent voting stake into an irrevocable trust held under the name of her direct matrilineal descendant. Eleanor thought she was the sole survivor. That's why she brought you up under her thumb, Emma. She needed you compliant. She needed you broken. Because the moment you turned twenty-five and produced a legitimate heir, Claire’s half of the trust would automatically bypass Eleanor and vest directly in your daughter."
Maya stirred on Emma’s lap, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve. "Mommy, I'm cold."
Emma wrapped her woolen overcoat around the girl, tucking Maya’s boots beneath her legs. "I know, darling. Just a little longer."
The vehicle abruptly slewed to the left, tires skidding on wet gravel as Mercer threw the steering wheel hard over. They plunged down a steep logging trail known as the Covey Hill Cut—an old bootlegger route straddling the invisible line between Clinton County, New York, and the rural municipality of Havelock, Quebec.
A radio speaker beneath the dashboard cracked to life with static, followed by a frantic, broken voice: *"Sierra-One, this is Post Bravo. We have unidentified rotorcraft inbound from the south-southwest. No transponder. Moving at low altitude below civilian radar. Get off the open road—repeat, get off the—"*
The transmission died in a squeal of feedback.
Through the rear windshield, Julian swore under his breath. Above the tree line, barely two hundred feet up, the sleek, black silhouette of an AgustaWestland helicopter swept across the face of the moon, its searchlight slicing down through the bare branches like a scalpel.
"Hold on!" Mercer yelled, stomping on the accelerator.
The searchlight caught their roof, washing the cabin in blinding, sterile white. The roar of the twin turbine engines drowned out the storm, vibrating through the metal frame, rattling Emma’s teeth in her skull. Maya screamed, burying her face into Emma’s chest.
"They're not trying to stop us!" Julian shouted, craning his neck upward. "They're herding us!"
Before Mercer could swerve, the headlights illuminated an iron cattle gate across the track, backed by three fallen hemlock trunks wrapped in barbed wire. A deliberate barricade.
May you like
"Brace!" Mercer roared.
The impact was deafening. The armored brush guard tore through the iron gate with a screech of shearing metal, but the heavy trunks caught the undercarriage. The Suburban lifted off its front wheels, twisted through the air, and slammed down into the snow-filled ditch on its side, the passenger windows instantly spider-webbing with frost and impact cracks.
