Chapter 38 - The Informant in Velvet
Gunfire erupted inside the vault, the deafening cracks echoing off the reinforced steel walls.
David moved with blinding speed. He tackled Sterling to the floor, disarming the older man with a single, brutal strike to the wrist that sent his silver cane spinning across the tiles, while Miller’s federal tactical team overwhelmed Hayes’s corrupt guards on the mezzanine.
Hayes turned to flee through the service tunnel, but a flashbang grenade detonated at his feet, knocking him flat against the marble floor, his ears ringing as federal agents pinned him beneath their boots.
"Secure the perimeter!" Miller shouted, stumbling into the vault, holding his tactical sidearm high. "Director Hayes, you are under arrest for conspiracy, treason, and attempted capital murder!"
I scrambled across the floor, shielding the precious manila envelope with my body as the Marshals secured the remaining shooters.
Sterling lay on the ground, his silver hair disheveled, blood dripping from a cut above his brow, but his cold, aristocratic eyes never left mine.
"You think this is over, girl?" Sterling spat, coughing violently against the dust. "You think you won because a few Marshals breached a basement?"
"You're done, Sterling," I said, standing tall above him, clutching my father's charter against my chest. "Your man in the Department of Justice is in cuffs. Your shell company is frozen. You have nowhere left to run."
Sterling started laughing—a low, raspy, terrifying chuckle that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
"Look at your phone, Sarah," Sterling gasped, pointing a trembling finger toward my coat. "Look at the real-time feeds from Mobile Harbor."
David pulled out his tactical phone, accessing the live Coast Guard maritime radar feeds. His face went instantly pale.
"Sarah..." David whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion I had never heard from him before: sheer dread.
"What is it?" I demanded, rushing to his side.
"The *Leviathan*... it never entered Mobile Harbor," David said, showing me the digital tracking map. "The ship that docked was a decoy vessel broadcasting a cloned transponder signal."
"Where is the real ship?" I asked, looking down at Sterling.
Sterling grinned through his bloody teeth. "The real ship didn't dock in the Gulf, you foolish child. It navigated up the Mississippi two days ago. It’s sitting twenty miles downriver from this very city, at the private industrial terminal your brother leased last month."
My blood ran cold. "The terminal at Cheatham Lock."
May you like
"And Arthur isn't in federal custody anymore," Sterling whispered with venomous satisfaction. "While your little marshal friends were busy breaking down this door, my private extraction team intercepted Arthur’s prison transport van on Interstate 40. Your brother is already on board the *Leviathan*."
***
