Chapter 28 - The Midnight Exchange at St. Jude's
“Transport’s here,” Clara whispered, blood dripping down her chin. “And they don't answer to me. They answer to the board. The people who financed Vanessa’s servers.”
Thomas grabbed Clara by her collar, hauling her roughly to her feet and wrenching her arms behind her back with zip-ties. “Move! Margaret, we need to regroup with Ethan. If that bird has thermal imaging, they’ll spot him on the open ice within five minutes!”
They dragged Clara out through the back breach, descending the steep, rocky switchback toward the frozen riverbed. Below them, through the naked black birch trees, Margaret could see Ethan sprinting across the frozen expanse of the river, carrying Noah toward the abandoned bell tower of St. Jude’s—a decommissioned 19th-century stone chapel perched on the opposite bank.
A black, unmarked Eurocopter was descending from the low cloud ceiling, its blinding belly-mounted spotlight raking across the frozen river like a scalpel.
“Ethan!” Margaret yelled, but the wind swallowed her cry.
The spotlight locked onto Ethan’s running silhouette.
Inside the chapel courtyard, Ethan reached the heavy iron doors of St. Jude’s, kicking them open and throwing himself inside just as the helicopter hovered fifty feet above the courtyard, its downdraft kicking up a blizzard of powdered snow.
Thomas shoved Clara against the stone wall of the chapel’s cemetery. “Margaret, stay behind this buttress. I’m going to draw their fire.”
“No,” Margaret said, staring at the helicopter. A figure was descending from the skids via a fast-rope line—clad in tactical black gear, but moving with the mechanical, unmistakable gait of a private military asset.
Suddenly, Clara spoke, her voice laced with venomous triumph. “That’s not the extraction team, Mother. That’s the cleaning crew. They aren't here to rescue me. They’re here to liquidate all remaining liabilities—including me, including Ethan, and including the boy.”
Clara turned her battered face toward Margaret, her eyes filled with a sudden, genuine terror. “They don't need Noah alive to get the vocal code. They only need his larynx. They have digital reconstruction software.”
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Margaret’s stomach plummeted into an abyss of cold fury.
***
