Chapter 14 - The Midnight Chase
Within twenty minutes of securing the master flash drive, Julian’s technical team had decrypted the files and pinpointed Richard Prescott’s exact physical location. He wasn't at the airport yet; he was holed up in a private VIP hangar on the outskirts of the city, waiting for his chartered Gulfstream to refuel before making a run for the international border.
"We have a very narrow window," Julian said as we sprinted across the concrete parking deck toward his matte-black sports car. "If his plane touches down in international airspace before the red notice clears through customs, extraditing him will become a bureaucratic nightmare."
"Then we don't let him reach the tarmac," I said firmly, sliding into the passenger seat and buckling my seatbelt with practiced efficiency.
Julian revved the high-performance engine, the exhaust emitting a deep, throaty roar that echoed off the concrete walls. Tires squealed as he spun the wheel and shot out of the garage into the cool, damp night air. The city lights blurred past us in streaks of neon red and electric blue as Julian pushed the vehicle well past standard highway speeds, weaving effortlessly through late-night traffic with the precision of a professional driver.
My phone buzzed continuously in my lap. It was Haley, tracking our GPS location via an encrypted link we had set up.
*“Please be careful, Myriam. Richard is desperate. There’s no telling what he’ll do if he realizes you're closing in on him,”* her text read.
*“We’ve got this, sweetie. Stay safe at the loft,”* I replied quickly, locking my screen and gripping the door handle as Julian took a sharp ninety-degree turn onto the industrial access road leading directly to the private airfield.
In the distance, past a high chain-link security fence topped with coiled barbed wire, the sleek silhouette of a twin-engine private jet sat gleaming under the harsh floodlights of the tarmac. Its turbines were already whining, spinning at high velocity as the aircraft prepared for takeoff.
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"He's taxiing toward the active runway," Julian said, his eyes narrowed as he sped down the perimeter service road. "Hold on. This is going to get rough."
Julian didn't brake. Instead, he slammed his foot down on the accelerator, veered the car off the paved service road, and plowed directly through a secondary wooden security gate, splintering it into a thousand pieces as we rocketed straight onto the restricted airfield tarmac, cutting off the path of the moving jet.
