Chapter 94 - Signal from the Black Forest
The barge smelled of sulfur, damp coal, and diesel exhaust. As we crawled into the shelter of the recessed cargo hold, three figures stepped from the wheelhouse shadows. They were not corporate hitmen; they wore the faded maritime uniforms of the Rhine-Bodensee River Police, their faces lined with age and weather.
The lead officer, an older man with an iron-grey beard and a scar splitting his left eyebrow, lowered an ancient MP5 submachine gun. His eyes fell upon the titanium cylinder clutched in my bleeding fingers, and then down to the floral handbag resting on Clara's lap.
"Julian Vane," the captain said in gravelly English. "We received the distress ping from the Arnault frequency six minutes ago. You are half an hour later than your late wife promised you would be."
"You knew her?" I asked, struggling to steady my breathing as I helped Evelyn lean against a dry crate of engine parts.
"We knew who she was running from," the captain answered grimly, motioning to a crewman who immediately brought a first-aid kit and heavy woolen blankets. "The Consortium has already seized your family's accounts in Zurich, London, and New York. They have declared your daughter an illegitimate heir and filed an international notice claiming you abducted her."
"They're scrubbing her identity," Clara said, shivering violently under the blanket as she inspected the sleeping babies. "If they erase her record from the Sovereign Ledger, the entire Vane estate reverts to the Regency Trust—which is controlled by the Arnault family."
"They are already one step ahead of you," the captain replied, turning toward a radio console flickering on the bulkhead wall. "Listen."
He adjusted a dial. Through the static of the shortwave receiver came a broadcast on an encrypted diplomatic band. A cold, cultured woman's voice echoed through the metal hull—a voice I recognized with chilling certainty.
It was my mother-in-law, Duchess Margaret Arnault, the undisputed matriarch of the shadow banking dynasty.
*"...to all field directors along the German-Swiss frontier. The package is compromised. The rogue elements have slipped the bridge cordon. Immediate authorization is granted for terminal force. The bloodline claim must be terminated before the dawn session at St. Gallen. Repeat: leave no living claimant."*
May you like
The captain switched off the receiver and turned to me. "St. Gallen is twenty miles south through the forest. That is where the sovereign court meets at seven o'clock this morning to ratify the liquidation of your family. If you are not inside the inner chamber with that charter before the third bell rings, your daughter ceases to exist in the eyes of the law."
***
