Chapter 49 - Return to Berth 4
We hit the tarmac of Zurich Airport with tires screeching, crashing directly through the private security gate.
But we were forty seconds too late.
Through the rain-streaked windshield, I watched in agony as the Gulfstream G650 roared down the runway, its twin Rolls-Royce engines screaming as the aircraft lifted into the dark storm clouds, banking west over the Atlantic toward the United States.
"Call the tower! Ground that bird!" Frank yelled into the radio.
"It’s no use," I said, staring up at the disappearing red beacons of the jet. "The flight plan was filed under diplomatic clearance using Julian’s remaining black-level credentials. Swiss air traffic can't touch them."
"Then we take the interceptor," Frank said, turning the car toward the private hangar on the opposite side of the field. "The League’s Dassault Falcon 8X is fueled and ready. We can beat their crossing time by forty-five minutes if we ride the jetstream."
Seven hours later, the gray dawn of Delaware broke over the Atlantic coast.
The Dassault Falcon touched down hard on the cracked, rain-slicked runway of New Castle Airport outside Wilmington. We bypassed customs using federal emergency clearance and transferred directly into two unmarked black Suburbans driven by Frank’s local tactical team.
The city of Wilmington was cold, quiet, and wrapped in thick maritime fog. As our convoy neared the Delaware River, the familiar smell of diesel, salt water, and rusted iron filled the air.
Berth 4.
The very place where Julian Aldrich had dragged me into the rain, where he had laughed at my work boots and thrown twenty-dollar bills at my feet, demanding I crawl like a dog before his corporate peers.
Now, the sprawling shipping terminal was dead silent. The massive gantry cranes stood like colossal steel skeletons against the gray sky. No dockworkers moved. The security shacks were abandoned, their windows smashed, the boom gates twisted off their hinges.
In the center of the open pier, parked directly beside the murky water, sat a lone black Town Car.
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Beside it, her hands tied behind her back with tactical zip-ties, stood Clara.
And standing beside her, holding a suppressed automatic pistol pressed firmly against her temple, was a figure in a heavy navy trench coat.
