Chapter 70 - The Blood in the Alpine Torrent
The flare detonated inside the turbine with a catastrophic thump.
A blinding fireball blossomed beneath the rotor mast. Black smoke and flaming kerosene poured from the Eurocopter's exhaust cowl as the tail rotor lost hydraulic pressure, sending the aircraft spinning wildly out of control in the snowstorm.
"Anthony, you bastard!" Catherine’s voice shrieked over the radio before the feed erupted into static.
The crippled helicopter veered away from the gorge, banking hard toward the southern ridge, trailing a thick spiral of flame before disappearing over the snowy crest, followed seconds later by a muffled, concussive rumble that shook the mountainside.
Below me, the safety net holding Anthony groaned under the shifting weight.
"Miller!" Anthony shouted, his voice faint, swallowed by the canyon winds. He was slipping. The nylon mesh was tearing strand by strand against the jagged sheared edge of the girder. "The child... is he alive?"
"He's breathing!" I yelled down, my fingers burning from the friction of the frost-coated sway cable.
Khloe's fingers locked around my wrist from the ledge above. Her grip was superhuman—the terrifying, primal strength of a mother refusing to let her family die. "I've got you, Mark! Pull! PULL!"
With a savage roar, I kicked against the rock wall, using Khloe's leverage to swing my body upward, scrambling over the frozen edge of the cliff until my boots hit solid ground. I collapsed onto the snowbank, rolling onto my side to protect the baby from my own weight.
I looked back down over the edge.
Anthony met my eyes. For the first time since this nightmare began in that Boston hospital room, there was no arrogance in his gaze. No cruelty. Only the hollow peace of a man who had finally realized the truth of what he had destroyed.
"The vault..." Anthony whispered, his voice carried upward on a thermal updraft. "Geneva... Place de la Fusterie... Account 880-Delta... She put Isabella's name on the deed..."
"Anthony, take my hand!" I shouted, dropping to the ledge, extending my arm.
"Tell Isabella..." Anthony choked out, blood pouring from his lips. "...she was the only thing I didn't steal."
The last nylon strand snapped with a sharp ping.
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Anthony Vance plummeted backwards into the mist, vanishing without a sound into the roaring white water of the Usses River a thousand feet below.
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