Chapter 12 - Evelyn’s Last Stand
The private aviation terminal at Deer Valley Airport smelled of high-octane jet fuel, wet tarmac, and the bitter cold of the mid-morning desert wind.
A sleek, black-and-silver Gulfstream G650 stood on the ramp, its auxiliary power unit whining at a high pitch, its cabin door open with the motorized stairs deployed. Two pilots sat in the cockpit, their heads down, running through the pre-flight checklist with frantic speed.
A black Mercedes-Maybach pulled up to the security gate, bypassed the electronic arm by driving directly through the wooden barrier, and screeched to a halt ten yards from the aircraft's boarding stairs.
Marcus Kane stepped out of the rear seat.
He had abandoned his charcoal cashmere coat; he wore a dark travel jacket, his tie was gone, and his usually immaculate silver hair was disheveled by the rotor wash of a nearby municipal helicopter. In his right hand, he carried a heavy aluminum attache case containing three million dollars in bearer bonds and five diplomatic passports under different aliases.
Behind him, Evelyn Osborn stumbled out of the car, her emerald silk gown now covered in grease and soot, her face a pale, ruined mask of sheer hysteria.
"Marcus, wait for me!" Evelyn shrieked, her high-heeled shoe breaking as she hit the tarmac, sending her sprawling onto her knees. "Don't leave me here! You swore you would get me to Montevideo!"
Kane didn't even turn his head. He sprinted toward the boarding stairs, his eyes fixed on the open cabin door.
"Get out of my way, Evelyn," Kane barked, his melodic courtroom voice entirely replaced by the shrill, frantic desperation of an animal scenting the trap. "Every federal agency in the Southwest is forty seconds behind us! If you can't walk, you stay here!"
"You son of a bitch!" Evelyn screamed, clawing at the asphalt as she dragged herself forward. "My son died for you! Dustin died in that cage because of you!"
Kane reached the third step of the motorized stairs when a deafening mechanical siren sounded from the runway threshold.
Four armored tactical BearCats smashed through the perimeter chain-link fence at sixty miles an hour, their heavy steel rams tearing through the metal like wet tissue paper. They converged on the Gulfstream from three directions, boxing the aircraft in a diamond formation before the pilots could even throttle up the engines.
"Federal task force! Cut the engines! Cut the engines right now!" a voice boomed through an external loudspeaker.
The cockpit windows went dark as the pilots immediately shut down the turbines, throwing their hands up against the glass in clear surrender.
Kane froze on the stairs, his aluminum briefcase slipping from his fingers to hit the tarmac with a dull, heavy clatter, popping open to spill hundred-dollar bills and bearer bonds across the oil-stained concrete in the howling wind.
Commander Samuel Varner stepped out from behind the lead BearCat, his rifle leveled directly at Kane’s chest.
"Step down the stairs, Marcus," Varner commanded. "Hands on your head. Walk down slowly or I will put two rounds through your center mass."
Marcus Kane stood motionless on the stairs for three long seconds. He looked down at the tactical officers, at the rifles pointed at his heart, and then his gaze shifted toward the perimeter gate.
A dark sedan had just pulled through the ruined fence.
Helen Granger stepped out of the car.
She didn't have a weapon drawn. She simply stood beside the driver's door, her hands in her coat pockets, her gray hair whipping across her face in the cold desert wind. She watched him not with anger, not with hatred, but with the cold, scientific detachment of an exterminator watching an insect enter a glass jar.
Slowly, his hands shaking with an ancient, impotent rage, Marcus Kane raised his arms and placed them behind his silver head.
He walked down the stairs, one step at a time, until his expensive leather shoes touched the Arizona tarmac.
Two federal marshals seized his wrists, forcing him face-down onto the concrete, ratcheting heavy steel handcuffs around his arms with brutal efficiency.
Beside him, Evelyn Osborn sat in the dirt, weeping uncontrollably as an officer pulled her arms behind her back, the emerald silk of her dress tearing completely down the spine.
Helen Granger walked across the tarmac until she stood over the fallen titan of the legal underworld.
Kane twisted his neck, his cheek pressed against the cold, gritty asphalt, his eyes burning with venomous hatred.
"You think you’ve won, Helen?" Kane spat, blood from a split lip staining the gray concrete beneath his mouth. "You think you’ve saved your precious little girl? You haven't touched the head of this beast. You’ve only kicked the tail."
Helen looked down at him, her expression completely unchanged.
"I didn't come here to kick the tail, Marcus," Helen whispered. "I came to watch you bleed."
She looked up at Samuel Varner.
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"Take them to Florence," Helen said. "Put them in the deepest hole they have. And make sure they don't give Evelyn a mirror. I wouldn't want her to see what she really looks like."
***
