Chapter 8 - Blood on the Interstate
Julian’s head whipped around, his body instantly going rigid. "What did you say?"
Agent Vance stepped fully into the room, shutting the heavy door behind him. "Ten minutes ago, two unmarked armored SUVs rammed the lead escort vehicle on Route 9. Heavy caliber gunfire. Two state troopers are down. The transport van was breached with thermal charges."
"Did they extract her?" Clara gasped, clutching Julian’s arm.
"No," Vance said, his voice grim as stone. "They didn't come to rescue Victoria Sterling. They came to silence her."
The air left Julian’s lungs. "Is she dead?"
"We don't know," Vance replied, tapping the screen of his tablet and turning it toward Julian.
The screen displayed grainy, real-time drone surveillance footage of the rain-slicked highway. A black armored van sat smoking on its side, surrounded by shattered glass and spent shell casings. Multiple bodies in tactical gear lay motionless on the asphalt.
"Victoria managed to crawl into the woods before the assailants torched the vehicle," Vance explained, zooming in on thermal imaging that showed a lone, stumbling heat signature moving through the dense forest bordering the Hudson River. "She’s wounded. The strike team is currently hunting her on foot. Local SWAT and federal backup are fifteen minutes out, but by the time they establish a perimeter, she’ll either be dead or picked up by an extraction chopper."
"The Obsidian Group," Julian said, the name tasting like ash on his tongue. "She threatened to expose them when you put the cuffs on her. They know she’s a liability."
"Julian," Clara said, her voice trembling but resolute. "If they kill Victoria before she testifies, the entire paper trail dies with her. The offshore accounts, the hitmen who murdered my mother and poisoned your father—none of them will ever face justice. The Obsidian syndicate will simply appoint a new puppet and come after you."
Julian looked at Clara. Even after being nearly drowned, even after bearing the weight of a decade-long conspiracy, there was no fear in her eyes. Only steel.
"Vance," Julian commanded, stepping forward. "Where are the tactical assets stationed right now?"
"We have two choppers grounded at the county airfield due to the storm," Vance said. "My remaining five agents are securing the castle perimeter."
"I don't need five agents," Julian said coldly, walking over to the antique bookshelf behind his father’s desk. He pulled a heavy leather-bound volume of Shakespeare, triggering an audible electronic click. A hidden wall panel slid open, revealing a modern biometric safe. Julian placed his thumb on the scanner.
The safe beeped softly and swung open. Inside lay two customized Heckler & Koch .45 caliber handguns, several loaded magazines, and a set of encrypted tactical radios.
"Julian, wait," Clara breathed. "You can't go out there. They want you dead!"
"They tried to drown my wife in my own home," Julian snarled, slamming a magazine into the receiver of the first handgun with a sharp, lethal metallic click. "They murdered my father. They killed your mother. And now they think they can clean up their mess on my land?"
He racked the slide, chambering a round, and turned to look at Clara.
"The woods on Route 9 sit on the eastern boundary of Sterling Estate," Julian said, his eyes burning with an ancient, aristocratic fury. "My father and I hunted those ridges every winter for fifteen years. I know every ravine, every cave, and every deer trail. Those mercenaries are blind in the dark and the rain. I am not."
Julian strapped a shoulder holster over his soaked dress shirt, grabbed the second handgun, and handed it to Agent Vance.
"You and I are going into those woods, Agent Vance," Julian said. "We secure Victoria alive. We extract her confession on federal record. And then we tear down every bastard who ever dared threaten my family."
"Julian, take me with you," Clara insisted, stepping forward, her eyes wide. "Arthur’s encrypted drive—it has a tracking frequency built into Victoria’s jewelry! Arthur gave Victoria a diamond brooch for their twenty-fifth anniversary. It has an inactive RFID beacon that only this drive can ping!"
Julian paused, looking at the titanium drive in Clara's hand, then at the fierce determination on her face. He knew he couldn't keep her in a gilded cage. She had fought this war alone for five years; she had earned her place on the front line.
"Agent Vance," Julian ordered. "Get the armored SUV from the castle garage. Clara, stay behind me at all times. If I say run, you run."
"I’m not running from them ever again," Clara said firmly.
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Five minutes later, the armored black Cadillac Escalade tore through the wrought-iron gates of Sterling Castle, its high-powered headlights cutting through the torrential rain as it rocketed down the winding mountain road toward the slaughterhouse on Route 9.
***
