Chapter 707
Eliza’s breath caught in her throat. Dallas stood in the pouring rain, surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed mercenaries, his right hand raised high in the air. The RPG squads had their weapons leveled at the glass building.
“Look at him,” Gideon mocked, stepping closer to the screen. “So full of rage. So beautifully stupid. He has about five minutes of patience left before he drops that hand and commits political suicide.”
He checked his heavy dive watch, his voice dripping with psychotic glee. “Tick tock, Eliza. The clock is running out. Your husband is currently fighting off his own generals just to buy himself enough time to make the biggest mistake of his life.”
Eliza clenched her fists. She refused to look away.
Then the massive screen sparked and went completely black.
The heavy smart-lock mechanisms on the chalet’s front door began to click wildly. The lights overhead flickered and died.
Gideon stopped counting. His brow furrowed. He yanked his backup radio from his belt, but the speaker only emitted a piercing, high-pitched screech of electromagnetic interference.
In the sudden silence, Eliza’s diamond earring crackled to life.
A raspy, ancient European voice spoke directly into her ear — carrying the terrifying, quiet authority of a man who owned governments.
“Mrs. Koch,” The Old Man said. “Your mentor’s distress signal was routed through my network. A commendable effort, but ultimately futile. Your private war is creating a disruption in the market. It is bad for business. Consider this a market correction.”
Before Eliza could process the intervention of the deep-state intelligence broker, the heavy deadbolted door of the chalet popped open with a loud clack. The system had been completely overridden from outside.
Gideon roared in frustration and drew his sidearm, aiming it directly at Eliza’s chest.
He never got to pull the trigger.
The chalet’s fire suppression system — hacked by The Old Man’s network — violently activated. High-pressure nozzles blasted thick, blinding white chemical powder across the entire room.
Gideon coughed, his vision completely obscured by the white cloud.
Eliza didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a heavy solid-brass candlestick from the desk, lunged forward through the powder, and swung it with every ounce of her strength.
The brass connected squarely with the side of Gideon’s head.
He let out a sharp grunt of pain. The gun slipped from his fingers.
Eliza dropped the candlestick and turned to run. At that same moment, a deep, guttural roar cut through the thunder from the driveway — the engine of a massive black Ducati motorcycle, its twin headlights slicing through the storm and the dissipating white cloud. The Old Man’s network had not only opened the doors; it had remotely started her only way out.
Eliza sprinted through the open door and into the freezing, violent storm.
She ran down the wooden dock, her boots slipping on the wet planks. She scrambled onto the heavy bike, her body still screaming from the sedative. Her fingers, weak and trembling, found the throttle. She kicked it into gear, twisted her wrist, and the motorcycle shot up the gravel driveway, leaning hard as she merged onto the slick mountain highway toward Geneva.
At the Citadel plaza, Dallas’s eyes were dead.
.
.
.