Chapter 37 - The Key to Geneva
Schellenberg moved with astonishing speed.
With a practiced, fluid motion, he produced a heavy stainless steel security fob from his vest, entered a five-digit emergency code, and stepped backward through the vault threshold into the antechamber. I followed him immediately, not sparing a single backward glance at the woman who had birthed me only to view me as collateral.
"Aurelia!" Sarah’s voice shrilled, cracking against the walls of the cavernous gold repository. "I gave you life! You would have rotted in Eleanor's basement forever if I hadn't orchestrated Richard's ruin! I freed you!"
"You didn't free me," I said, turning to face her through the massive circular doorway. "I freed myself the moment I walked out that front door on Thanksgiving. You just wanted to change the lock on my cage."
"Schellenberg!" she shrieked, scrambling across the floor toward the exit, dragging her injured wrist. "Override! Override code seven-seven-zero!"
"Override rejected, Madame Sterling," Schellenberg said smoothly. "Under Section 9 of the Charter, the Primary Sovereign has ordered an asset containment seal."
He pressed the illuminated red stud on the exterior control console.
The four-foot-thick titanium door hissed, venting another blast of cold nitrogen gas. The massive hydraulic pistons engaged with a low, mechanical rumble. The circular slab of metal began to swing shut, its polished face reflecting the fluorescent lights of the corridor.
Through the narrowing gap, Sarah’s face was twisted into a mask of pure demonic rage. "Eleanor will never tell you where the rest of the accounts are! You think this vault is everything? There are safe houses in St. Moritz, private accounts in Singapore, properties in Monaco! You don't have the codes! Only Eleanor and I have them!"
"Eleanor is an alcoholic broken by her own guilt," I called back through the ten-inch opening. "And you are locked in a vault three hundred feet beneath the ground. I don't need your codes, Sarah. I have the ledger."
The titanium door slammed shut with a concussive thud that rattled the fillings in my teeth. The heavy locking bolts shot home with a succession of heavy, definitive clanks: *one, two, three, four.*
Silence fell over the antechamber. Total, absolute, subterranean silence.
I stood there for a long moment, breathing in the dry, conditioned air. My knuckles were grazed, my coat was covered in stone dust from the shattered ceiling, and inside my chest, an ancient, aching wound had been ripped wide open. The woman who raised me had stolen me. The woman who birthed me had hunted me like an animal.
"Ms. Sterling," Schellenberg said, offering me a pristine linen handkerchief.
I took it, wiping the dust from my hands. "How much air does she have in there?"
"Seventy-two hours," Schellenberg replied without missing a beat. "Sufficient time for the Swiss Federal Banking Commission and the cantonal police to process the arrest warrants for fraud, attempted murder, and corporate espionage. The evidence files you provided from Marcus’s safe have already been submitted to the Attorney General in Bern."
"Good," I said, straightening my spine. "Where is Eleanor?"
Schellenberg checked his gold pocket watch. "Madame Vance was taken into protective custody by our private transport team three hours ago in Connecticut. Per your standing instructions, she was put on a private charter out of Teterboro."
I looked at him, my eyes hard. "Where is the plane heading?"
May you like
"Geneva," Schellenberg replied. "To the estate in Cologny where you were taken from your nursery twenty-six years ago. She will be landing at midnight."
***
