Chapter 5 - The Interrogation in the Sky
By 4:00 AM, the private Sikorsky helicopter was cutting through the stormy skies over Lake Michigan at one hundred and sixty knots, banking hard to the east toward Massachusetts.
Inside the soundproofed command cabin, Viktor Cole sat strapped to a reinforced steel jump seat, his hands and ankles secured in heavy transport chains.
His face was bruised, blood dripping from his split lip onto his torn tactical vest, his arrogant mercenary demeanor completely disintegrated into raw, cornered dread.
I sat opposite him in a leather armchair, dressed in an impeccably tailored charcoal three-piece suit beneath a heavy black wool overcoat, sipping a cup of black coffee.
Beside me sat Frank Callahan, reviewing the encrypted satellite telemetry on his tablet.
"You have thirty seconds to tell me where Marcus Vance is waiting, Viktor," I said, my voice quiet, flat, and devoid of inflection.
Viktor spat blood onto the rubber floor, trying to summon a mocking sneer. "You're too late, Crowe! Marcus has fifty men at the Vance Maritime Tower in Boston! The probate hearing is scheduled for nine o'clock this morning! The surrogate judge has already been paid five million dollars to certify Clara Lin's forged suicide note and liquidate the trust!"
Frank Callahan opened his tablet, rotating the screen toward Viktor’s face.
"The surrogate judge in Boston was arrested by federal marshals thirty minutes ago, Viktor," Frank said calmly. "After our forensic accountants delivered the wiretap logs showing his offshore accounts in the Bahamas. You are not flying into a corporate victory. You are flying into a federal execution."
Viktor’s face drained of every drop of color. He looked at the satellite display showing four federal tactical convoys surrounding the Boston harbor terminals.
"Marcus... Marcus is on the forty-fifth floor," Viktor choked out, his voice trembling in pure terror. "He has the original trust charters in the wall safe behind his desk. He’s planning to board his private Gulfstream to Zurich the second the assets clear."
I set my coffee cup down with a soft, final click.
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I turned to Dmitri, who stood by the cockpit bulkhead.
"Tell the pilot to land directly on the rooftop helipad of the Vance Maritime Tower," I ordered. "And tell our tactical strike team in Boston to breach the executive floor."
