Chapter 79 - The Long Road Home
The white van bounced violently over a drainage ditch before smoothing out onto the empty, winding highway leading away from Zurich toward the French border. Inside the cabin, the only sound was the heavy, ragged breathing of three operatives who had just stared into the abyss and managed to pull themselves back out by their fingernails.
"Well," Ethan muttered, slamming his laptop shut with a loud, satisfying snap and leaning back against his seat. "I'd say that meeting with Director Vance could have gone a little more smoothly."
"Did the data drop go through?" I asked, pulling off my tactical gloves and tossing them onto the metal floor as I sat down on the bench in the back.
"Every single byte," Ethan grinned, a tired, triumphant smile breaking across his face. "Vance's financial empire, his offshore shell corporations, his illegal black-budget accounts—it's all currently being ingested by every major news outlet and federal oversight committee in Washington, Geneva, and London. By noon today, Arthur Vance won't be running an intelligence agency. He’ll be lucky to afford a public defender."
Elena kept her eyes glued to the rearview mirror, steering the van smoothly through the rolling hills of the Swiss countryside as the morning sun finally burned through the heavy fog, bathing the snow-capped Alpine peaks in brilliant, golden light.
"And what about us?" Elena asked quietly, glancing back toward me. "The moment we cross the Atlantic, Vance's loyalists are going to be hunting for us. We can't exactly go back to our old lives like nothing happened."
"Some lives are harder to leave than others," I replied, staring out the window as the picturesque European villages blurred past us in a rush of green fields and timber-framed houses. "Some of us still have unfinished business waiting at home."
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"Ah, yes," Ethan chuckled, shaking his head. "Mr. Henderson's gazebo."
"Don't underestimate the gazebo," I smiled faintly, leaning my head back against the cold metal wall of the van and closing my eyes for the first time in forty-eight hours. "It's a very contentious issue in Indiana."
