Chapter 14 - Blood in the Nursery
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour by the time my town car vaulted off the highway and tore up the winding private driveway of my residential estate. Through the streaming sheets of water, I could see two sleek black tactical helicopters hovering low overhead, their powerful searchlights sweeping blinding beams across the sprawling slate roof of the mansion.
Before my car had even come to a complete, skidding stop near the grand front steps, the heavy oak doors were blown inward with a dull, concussive boom.
Three armed operatives in matte-black tactical gear and body armor swarmed out of the foyer, their automatic rifles raised, securing the perimeter in absolute, silent synchronization.
I didn't wait for my driver. I threw my door open, scrambled out into the freezing rain, and sprinted up the marble steps, ignoring the water soaking through my silk blouse.
"Clear!" a deep voice barked from the second-floor landing. "Second-floor nursery wing is secure! Hostiles neutralized!"
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I pushed past the tactical operatives stationed in the grand foyer, raced up the grand staircase two steps at a time, and burst through the double doors of the nursery.
The room was bathed in the soft, glowing light of the automated night-light, but the pristine peace of the nursery had been shattered. Splintered wood hung from the reinforced door frame where the intruders had forced entry using a hydraulic breaching tool. Near the plush white wool rug, two men in maintenance uniforms lay motionless on the floor, restrained in heavy plastic flex-cuffs by our private security team.
And standing beside the crib, holding a wide-eyed, completely unharmed Maya in her arms, was Mrs. Gable, weeping tears of profound, trembling relief.
When Mrs. Gable saw me standing breathless in the shattered doorway, she hurried over, gently extending my daughter toward me.
I scooped Maya into my arms, burying my face in her soft, warm neck, pulling her so tight against my chest that my whole body shook. She let out a tiny, confused coo, wrapping her miniature fingers around the lapel of my jacket as if nothing in the world had happened.
"You're safe," I sobbed quietly into her hair, kissing her cheeks over and over again. "Mommy's here. Nobody is ever going to hurt you."
The tactical team commander stepped out from the adjoining bathroom, holding a secure encrypted laptop that had been left behind by one of the intruders. He walked over, offering it to me with a respectful nod.
"We intercepted this device just as they were attempting to wipe the hard drive, Madam Chairwoman," the commander reported crisply. "It’s a direct, unencrypted satellite uplink terminal transmitting live telemetry data back to Alistair Thorne's primary location."
I handed Maya gently back to a weeping, grateful Mrs. Gable, my eyes fixing upon the laptop screen. A blinking GPS coordinate was glowing brightly on the desktop interface, pinpointing an abandoned, high-security maritime warehouse located deep inside the industrial docks of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
So Alistair hadn't fled to Europe. He was sitting in a rat's nest right across the river, watching his little proxy attack unfold in real-time, expecting me to beg for mercy over a secure phone line.
I reached down, pulled my phone from my pocket, and dialed Sarah Sterling's direct line.
"Sarah," I said, my voice dropping into a register of absolute, terrifying ice that made the nearby tactical operatives take an involuntary step backward. "Trace that uplink. Notify the federal marshals, scramble our private security fleet, and clear my calendar for the rest of the day."
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"Elena? What happened? Is Maya alright?" Sarah asked, panic bleeding through her voice.
"Maya is safe," I replied, staring down at the shattered wood of the nursery door. "Now, we are going to go pay a very overdue visit to Alistair Thorne. And this time, there won't be any corporate negotiations."
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