Chapter 80 - The Eye of the Leviathan
Four hours later, the blizzard subsided into a quiet, eerie gray drizzle.
I guided the battered rover onto an abandoned private runway carved out of a pine forest near the border of Montana. The gas gauge was hovering near empty, and the engine was shuddering from the brutal descent through the mountains.
Noah was asleep, his breathing soft and rhythmic in the carrier beside me. The nightmare was over. I had Julian’s encrypted drive, which proved every crime the Blackwood syndicate had ever committed. I had the means to clear my name, disappear under an assumed identity, and give my son the peaceful life he deserved.
Suddenly, the rover’s integrated console flared to life.
The satellite communication system, hardwired into the vehicle's encrypted military network, began to beep rhythmically.
An incoming video feed override flashed across the navigation screen.
My heart seized.
The screen blinked from static to a crystal-clear live transmission. Sitting in the pressurized cabin of a high-altitude military jet, wearing an emergency oxygen mask around her neck and nursing a bandaged shoulder, was Eleanor Vance.
She had survived the halon gas. She had reached the rooftop helipad before the collapse.
She looked directly into the camera, her emerald eyes completely devoid of warmth, filled with an ancient, terrifying resolve.
"Did you really believe it would be that simple, Clara?" Eleanor’s voice crackled through the vehicle's speakers, cold and completely steady. "Did you think cutting the head off the serpent would kill the beast?"
I stared at the screen, paralyzed.
"Julian was nothing," Eleanor continued. "The Blackwood syndicate was merely a regional syndicate. You have no idea what truly moves the levers of this world. Noah’s genetic sequence has already been registered on the global sovereign database. Every intelligence agency, every private contractor, every shadow government from London to Beijing has his biometric profile."
She leaned closer to the lens.
"They believe you abducted the heir to a trillion-dollar bioweapons monopoly. A global Red Notice has just been issued. You are now the most wanted woman on earth."
Before I could tear the cables out of the dashboard, the entire runway suddenly illuminated with blinding, blinding white brilliance.
Massive overhead floodlights snapped on from four towering perimeter posts, washing the rover in daylight.
Above the tree line, the deafening chop of four heavy twin-rotor transport helicopters rattled the windows of the vehicle. Armed snipers hung from open bay doors, their crimson laser sights converging simultaneously on the windshield—and on Noah’s carrier.
A synthesized voice boomed from a mega-loudspeaker in the sky, shaking the earth beneath our tires:
*"VEHICLE OCCUPANT. STEP OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP. THE ARCHITECT AWAITS HER GRANDSON."*
I looked at the lasers painting my chest, then down at Noah, whose eyes slowly fluttered open in the blinding glare.
May you like
I reached slowly beneath the driver's seat, my fingers curling around the cold steel of the hidden submachine gun I had grabbed from the armory.
The battle wasn't over. It was only just beginning.
