Chapter 17 - The Trap is Set
Richard Sterling was not a man who accepted defeat, and a cornered billionaire is extremely dangerous.
As soon as the banking ledger was seized, my encrypted phone intercepted a frantic communication from his network.
He was fleeing the country, planning to board a private yacht anchored in international waters off the coast of Florida.
I knew that if he reached international waters, extracting him would become a bureaucratic nightmare.
I met with Arthur in a heavily monitored interrogation room at the FBI field office.
I handed him a burner phone and a script I had personally written.
Arthur was to call his father-in-law, claiming he had stolen a backup copy of the ledger from my vehicle.
Arthur’s voice shook as he dialed the number, the speakerphone echoing in the quiet room.
Richard answered on the second ring, his voice dripping with venom and desperation.
Arthur played his part perfectly, begging for ten million dollars and safe passage in exchange for the backup drive.
Richard hesitated, his paranoia battling his desperate need to recover his fortune.
Finally, the billionaire’s greed won out.
Richard agreed to send a helicopter to a private airfield on the edge of the city to pick up Arthur.
I muted the phone and smiled at my brother.
It was the first useful thing Arthur had done in his entire miserable life.
I assembled my elite tactical strike team on the tarmac, loading into heavily armored black helicopters.
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We were not sending Arthur to that airfield.
We were sending the full wrath of the federal government.
