Chapter 32 - The Covenant of Blood
The subterranean garage beneath the chalet smelled of damp concrete, gasoline, and old pine needles.
David didn't touch the luxury SUV we had leased in Zurich. Instead, he kicked through a plywood partition at the rear of the cellar, revealing a dark gray, unbadged Audi station wagon covered in a layer of dust.
"Arthur kept escape routes he never told his own board about," David muttered, tossing me a pair of heavy leather gloves and throwing open the rear passenger door. "Reinforced chassis. Run-flat tires. Jamming equipment in the console. Get in the footwell with Lucas. Cover him with that wool blanket."
I didn't ask questions. I scooped Lucas into my arms. He was shaking so violently his teeth were chattering, his small face streaked with tears and dirt from the lawn.
"Mama, are the bad men from Daddy’s house coming back?" he asked, his tiny voice barely higher than a whisper.
Those words struck me like an iron spike through the chest. Even at four years old, his subconscious remembered the dark suits, the cold marble corridors of Arthur Vance’s penthouse, the silent, menacing bodyguards who used to watch him like he was an investment portfolio rather than a child.
"No, sweetheart," I lied smoothly, pressing a kiss to his freezing forehead, pulling the heavy wool blanket entirely over our heads as we curled down into the footwell behind the driver’s seat. "Mama is playing a game with Uncle David. We have to be as quiet as little mice, okay? Not a sound until I say so."
He nodded, pressing his face into the curve of my neck, his small fingers clenching the fabric of my sweater with terrifying strength.
The Audi’s engine didn't roar; it purred to life with a low, hydraulic hum. The overhead steel security door groaned as it retracted.
"Hold on," David said, his voice dropping into a flat, deadly cadence.
The tires shrieked against the concrete. The car surged backward out of the bay, whipped ninety degrees in the snow-dusted alleyway behind the chalet, and launched forward down the narrow mountain trail.
Above us, through the reinforced glass of the rear window, I heard the dull *whump-whump-whump* of low-altitude rotor blades beating against the alpine gusts.
"They have air support?" I gasped, peering out from beneath the edge of the blanket.
"Not military," David replied through gritted teeth, his eyes locked on the treacherous, winding switchbacks descending toward the Austrian border. "Private charter out of Innsbruck. Novikov has billions sitting in unmonitored shadow banks. He owns regional politicians across three cantons. We can't use the highways, Elena. Every toll booth between here and Liechtenstein has automated facial recognition hooked into Swiss border control."
"And Novikov owns the feeds," I deduced, cold logic overtaking the panic in my veins.
"He owns the people who monitor them," David corrected.
The Audi took a hairpin turn at forty miles an hour, the anti-lock brakes vibrating violently through the frame. Lucas gasped, and I squeezed him tighter, murmuring silent prayers against the crown of his head.
"Where are we going, David? We can't outrun a helicopter in a station wagon on mountain roads!"
"We aren't outrunning them on the road," David said, glancing up at the rearview mirror. "There's an old freight transfer terminal five miles outside Feldkirch. Abandoned rail spur used during the Cold War. Arthur had an operational ledger tied to a private rail line that still moves industrial timber across the border into Germany. If we can reach the junction before their ground team cuts the pass, we disappear into the rail network."
Suddenly, the Audi jerked violently sideways.
A heavy, matte-black Mercedes G-Wagon emerged from a blind curve behind us, its bull-bar ramming directly into our rear quarter panel. The impact sent the Audi fishtailing violently toward the sheer cliff drop on the right side of the road.
Lucas screamed.
David slammed the wheel into the skid, tires screaming against black ice, the bumper scraping along the rusted guardrail with a deafening shower of yellow sparks.
Through the rear window, I saw the driver of the G-Wagon—a man with shaved hair, wearing tactical ear protection, cold and methodical. In the passenger seat, another man lowered the tinted window and raised an automatic rifle.
"David! They’re shooting!" I yelled.
"Keep his head down!" David shouted back.
He didn't brake. Instead, David reached into the center console, flipped a toggle switch marked with an emergency bypass icon, and slammed his foot on the accelerator. The Audi surged forward with an unnatural, supercharged boost of torque, pulling three car lengths ahead.
Ahead of us, the mountain road narrowed to a one-lane stone bridge crossing a roaring alpine gorge.
"David, there's another one!" I screamed.
Parked directly across the far end of the stone bridge was a second black SUV, blocking the exit. Men in black winter gear were already stepping out, leveling weapons directly at our windshield.
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We were boxed in. Behind us, the pursuing G-Wagon. Ahead of us, a firing line. Below us, a three-hundred-foot drop into jagged river rocks and icy rapids.
***
