Chapter 71 - The Midnight Departure
"What do you mean, frozen?" Evelyn’s voice shattered the stillness, rising into an angry, incredulous shriek. "The Swiss accounts can't be frozen without the physical cipher wheel!"
From the cellar beneath my feet, I heard the faint, metallic clatter of Lind’s telegraph key falling silent. Davies had received the transmission. The federal injunction, supported by thirty-six years of deferred evidence, had just locked Roland Vance’s private reserves across seven European jurisdictions.
Evelyn tore open the lead packet in her hand. The ordinary copper washer tumbled out onto the wet gravel, clinking uselessly against the stone path.
Her head snapped toward the villa door, her eyes blazing with murderous fury. "Kill them!" she shouted to the two men behind her. "Kill them both!"
The men reached inside their rain jackets.
Before either of them could clear their weapons, a thunderous crack echoed from the upper balcony of the villa. The driver of the Mercedes collapsed against the vehicle’s front fender, clutching his shattered shoulder as the sound of Lind’s second rifle shot tore through the misty air.
"Inside, Myrna!" Lind’s voice roared from the upstairs window. "The cellar stairs—now!"
I slammed the heavy oak door, threw the deadbolts into place, and sprinted down the narrow corridor toward the stone entrance of the wine cellar. Outside, automatic gunfire ripped through the wooden panels of the front entrance, splinters exploding into the hall like shrapnel.
I tumbled down the damp stone steps just as the cellar door above me was shattered by a hail of bullets.
In the dim light of the cellar, Lind was already packing a canvas duffel bag. A narrow, arched tunnel—an old smuggler’s passage carved directly into the seaside cliff—stood open behind a row of empty wine casks.
"The passage leads down to the cove," Lind said, shoving a waterproof flashlight into my hands. "There’s a rigid inflatable boat moored under the sea arch. We have twenty minutes before the local harbor police—or Roland’s reinforcements—cut off the bay."
The sound of heavy boots echoed from the top of the cellar stairs.
We plunged into the damp, echoing darkness of the tunnel, the roar of the subterranean surf growing louder with every step. When we emerged onto the rocky ledge above the roaring ocean, the cold Atlantic spray lashed across my face, stinging my eyes.
Tethered to an iron ring in the granite wall was a black Zodiac boat, bobbing violently against the surging black water.
Lind jumped down onto the pontoon, holding out his hand to steady me. "Jump, Myrna! We run for the international shipping lanes!"
I scrambled down onto the wet rubber deck, catching my breath as Lind fired the twin outboard motors. The boat surged forward through the spray, clearing the rocky mouth of the sea arch just as a spotlight swept across the water from the cliffs above.
In the beam of the light, standing at the precipice high above the churning foam, stood a tall, silver-haired figure leaning heavily on a silver-topped walking cane.
May you like
It was not Evelyn.
It was Roland Vance himself, looking down at our retreating boat with cold, unblinking eyes. And as the spotlight followed our wake, my phone—sitting sealed in Lind’s waterproof navigation case—began to glow with an incoming call from an unlisted Geneva number.
