Chapter 88 - Cold Dawn at Winterthur
The funicular hissed to a complete stop against the pneumatic buffers. The doors remained locked. Through the tinted glass of the passenger carriage, I watched the black sedan across the rail yard. The driver didn't get out, but the faint plume of exhaust from the tailpipe indicated the engine was running.
"Do you recognize the plates?" I asked, keeping Lily behind my back.
Clara leaned close to the glass, her eyes narrowing. "Diplomatic tags. Geneva registration. But that’s not syndicate transport. That’s the Federal Intelligence Service. The Swiss authorities."
"Or a syndicate front wearing their clothes," I countered, cocking my sidearm. "We can't trust anyone who knew this private spur existed."
Suddenly, the driver’s door of the sedan opened. A tall woman stepped out into the falling snow, wearing a long charcoal trench coat and no hat. Her gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and her posture was rigid, military. She raised both hands in the air, empty, showing she carried no weapon, and walked slowly toward the train platform.
"Inspector Evelyn Vane-Bauer," Clara breathed, her fingers loosening slightly on her gun.
"Vane?" I stiffened. "Another relative?"
"Your mother's estranged cousin," Clara said, turning to look at me. "She left the family thirty years ago when Marcus began restructuring the estate into a criminal syndicate. She spent three decades inside the Swiss Federal Police building a case against him. She was the one who sent me the original blueprints of the Limmat estate."
The manual exterior override on the train door clicked, and the glass slid open with a puff of warm air.
The woman stepped into the vestibule, bringing the scent of cold pine and wet wool with her. Her sharp blue eyes surveyed the wreckage of our clothes, the blood on my hands, and finally settled on Lily and the infant resting in Clara’s arms.
"So the old monster is finally dead," Evelyn said, her voice dry, low, and completely devoid of sentimentality.
"He's in the river," I said, keeping my weapon pointed at the floorboards, but ready to raise it in a heartbeat. "How did you find this line?"
"I was tracking the virus packet you uploaded from the floral handbag," Evelyn replied, pulling a silver badge and a sealed diplomatic envelope from her coat. "The moment the Swiss sovereign ledger began unravelling, my unit moved to seize the syndicate’s offshore assets in Zurich and Lugano. You've burned down half their financial empire in three hours, Julian."
"And the other half?" Clara asked sharply.
Evelyn’s gaze darkened. "The other half is mobilizing. A private military charter just took off from an airfield in Munich, bound for this sector. Marcus had a fail-safe protocol called the Iron Curtain. If his personal life-sign transponder ceased emitting for more than forty-five minutes, all collateral assets are marked for immediate liquidation."
"Collateral assets," I repeated, cold fury rising in my chest. "They mean Lily."
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"They mean all of you," Evelyn corrected. "Including the child in your arms. Marcus left a bounty that would make small nations tremble. If you stay in Switzerland, you will be hunted through every street in Zurich."
***
