Chapter 81 - The Runway at Tétouan
The beat-up Peugeot taxi tore along the coastal highway toward Tétouan at breakneck speed, its tires screeching around the switchbacks of the Rif mountains.
Behind us, the sirens of Tangier were swallowed by the hills. In the passenger seat, Lind had his laptop open, monitoring the flight trackers.
"Roland’s jet just cleared Madrid airspace," Lind said, typing rapidly. "He touches down at Zurich Kloten at 17:15. We have less than four hours. The private charter at the Sania Ramel airfield is fueled and ready, but we’re cutting it down to the minute."
"Can the Beechcraft beat him?" I asked, my fingers digging into the worn leather of Arthur’s binder.
"No," Lind said grimly. "A turboprop can't match a Gulfstream’s cruise speed. But Roland can't enter the vault without the physical ledger, and Delacroix won't sign the transfer until the midnight deadline unless Roland presents Arthur's original maritime seal. That buys us until 23:59."
Ten minutes later, the taxi skidded to a halt beside an open hangar at the edge of the Tétouan runway.
The heat shimmering off the tarmac was brutal. Sitting on the apron was a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air, its starboard propeller already slowly rotating, coughing up a haze of blue exhaust.
"Let's go!" Lind shouted, grabbing his bag and shoving a fistful of dirhams into the driver's hands.
We ran across the scorching asphalt toward the plane’s boarding stairs. The smell of aviation fuel was thick in the dry mountain air. The pilot, wearing aviator glasses and a flight headset, was leaning out the cockpit window, signaling frantically for us to hurry.
I reached the bottom of the aluminum stairs, my hand on the handrail, about to pull myself up into the cabin.
Suddenly, the pilot’s eyes widened in sheer terror. He jerked back from the window.
A sharp, metallic *clack* echoed from the dark interior of the cabin.
Out from the shadowed doorway of the aircraft stepped a man in a dark tailored overcoat, stepping slowly down the stairs with the aid of a silver-topped cane. His silver hair caught the glaring African sun.
Roland Vance.
He hadn't flown to Zurich. The flight tracker had been a decoy.
Roland looked down at me from the third step, his cold, gray eyes completely still, a thin, cruel smirk touching his pale lips. Behind him in the cabin, two men in black tactical gear stepped forward, their assault rifles pointed dead at Lind's chest.
"You always did underestimate the family budget, Myrna," Roland said softly, his voice cutting through the thrum of the idling engine. "Now give me Arthur’s ledger, or we leave your bones in the sand."
Before I could speak, the shrill, piercing ring of my satellite phone split the air from inside my jacket.
May you like
It wasn't Geneva.
The caller ID screen flashed with a live video call from New Hampshire—and on the thumbnail, standing in the driveway of my own farmhouse, were the blue uniforms of the state police surrounding my weeping daughter-in-law, while a black SUV with tinted windows rolled quietly toward my front porch.
