Chapter 10 - The Sterling Gambit
The encrypted drive was unlocked at dawn.
Sitting in Eleanor’s private suite, surrounded by Nathaniel, Marcus, and two federal prosecutors sworn to secrecy, Eleanor entered the final eight digits of her biometric passkey.
The screen flashed green: **ACCESS GRANTED.**
A massive directory of documents unfolded across the monitor. Bank account routing numbers, wire transfers, audio recordings, and shipping manifests linking Senator Thomas Sterling to international arms trafficking, corporate bribery, and three unresolved murders.
The lead federal prosecutor, a hard-faced woman named Agent Miller, took off her reading glasses, her hands shaking slightly.
“This isn't just an indictment,” Miller breathed. “This is treason. We have enough here to dismantle the entire Sterling political machine from the root.”
“How fast can you get warrants?” Nathaniel demanded, his hand resting reassuringly on Rose’s shoulder behind the desk.
“Three hours,” Miller replied, closing her laptop. “By noon, federal marshals will be serving arrest warrants at the Sterling estate, his Senate offices in Albany, and Victoria’s penthouse.”
“Make it two hours,” Nathaniel said coldly. “Thomas Sterling is an animal backed into a corner. When an animal knows it’s dead, it bites anything within reach.”
His warning proved prophetic forty-five minutes later.
The sound of shattering glass tore through the eighty-fifth floor.
Rose was in her suite, changing into travel clothes as instructed by Marcus, when the heavy glass doors of her private terrace exploded inward.
Shards of reinforced glass showered the room like a hail of diamonds. Through the gaping hole leaped two men in black tactical gear, armed with submachine guns fitted with suppressors.
Rose reacted instantly, diving behind the heavy mahogany armoire as a hail of silent, subsonic rounds shredded the mattress and shattered the full-length mirrors.
“TARGET IN SIGHT!” one of the men barked into his headset.
Before Rose could scramble toward the hallway door, a stun grenade rolled across the hardwood floor.
*FLASH.*
A blinding white explosion of light and sound slammed into Rose’s senses. Her ears shrieked with a deafening ring, her vision dissolving into pure, searing white. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, completely disoriented, the room spinning violently out of control.
Heavy boots stomped toward her.
A gloved hand grabbed her by the collar of her sweater, hauling her upward. A rag soaked in a sweet, chemical stench was clamped over her mouth and nose.
Chloroform.
Rose fought with every ounce of will she possessed, kicking, scratching with her bandaged fingers, trying to scream Nathaniel’s name. But the darkness was faster, colder, and infinitely heavier.
Her vision went black.
***
Rose awakened to the smell of rain, rust, and aviation fuel.
Cold water dripped onto her face. Her head pounded as if a railroad spike had been driven between her eyes.
She blinked against the gray, stormy daylight.
She was sitting tied to a rusted steel chair in the middle of a massive, derelict aircraft hangar. Rain hammered relentlessly against the corrugated metal roof above. Fifty feet away, the giant sliding doors of the hangar were open to a tarmac swept by wind and torrential rain.
Parked on the runway, its twin turboprop engines idling with a deafening whine, was an unmarked private cargo plane.
Standing ten feet in front of her, holding a snub-nosed revolver, was Victoria Sterling.
Victoria had completely abandoned the veneer of high-society elegance. Her hair was tangled and soaked with rain; her designer trench coat was splattered with mud, and her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and wild with deranged mania.
Beside her stood Senator Thomas Sterling, frantically loading two heavy aluminum briefcases filled with bearer bonds and gold bullion into the back of an SUV.
“Look who’s finally awake,” Victoria mocked, her voice shaking with hysterical laughter. She cocked the hammer of the revolver, taking two steps toward Rose. “The heroic little maid. The savior of the Callaway family.”
Rose tested the ropes around her wrists. They were thick nylon, tied tightly to the iron frame of the chair. Her bandaged palms throbbed with white-hot pain where the rough cord bit into her healing stitches.
“Where is he, Victoria?” Rose asked, keeping her voice low, fighting down the dizziness from the chloroform.
“Nathaniel?” Victoria laughed, a shrill, broken sound that bounced off the metal rafters. “Oh, he’s coming, darling. We used your phone to send him a very special live stream. If he wants you to leave this hangar with a pulse, he has to bring the flash drive and the signed non-prosecution agreement my father drafted.”
“He won't give you the drive,” Rose said, staring straight into Victoria’s deranged eyes. “The feds already have the data. You’re finished, Victoria. The warrants were signed two hours ago.”
*SLAP.*
Victoria swung her arm, striking Rose across the face with the heavy barrel of the revolver.
Pain exploded across Rose’s cheekbone. The taste of copper flooded her mouth, a trickle of crimson running down her chin. She spat the blood onto the concrete floor and looked back up, her gaze unbreakable.
“Shut up!” Victoria screamed, pressing the hot, smoking barrel against Rose’s forehead. “Shut your filthy mouth! You ruined everything! I was going to be the queen of New York! I was going to own Callaway Enterprises! And you… a worthless, pathetic servant… you took it all away!”
“Victoria, stop wasting time!” Senator Sterling roared from the SUV. “The feds have blocked the highway exits! Put a bullet in her head and get on the plane!”
Victoria’s finger tightened on the trigger. Her knuckles turned white.
“Any last words, Cinderella?” Victoria sneered.
Suddenly, the roar of a high-performance engine shattered the sound of the rain.
Through the blinding curtain of storm water on the runway, a black armored SUV burst onto the tarmac at ninety miles an hour.
It didn't slow down.
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It roared through the hangar doors, tires screeching against the wet concrete, drifting sideways with terrifying precision, slamming directly into the side of the Senator’s vehicle with an apocalyptic crunch of metal!
***
