Chapter 15 - The Ghost Flight to Zurich
The private charter sat on the tarmac of a dimly lit private airstrip outside Bangor, its twin jet engines whining in the freezing night air like restless beasts. The snow was beginning to fall in thick, lazy flakes, dusting the wings with a thin white crust.
Avery, Reed, and Brock moved silently across the tarmac shadows, their duffel bags slung over their shoulders. They wore plain wool coats over their tactical rigs, blending seamlessly into the freezing Maine night.
“Remember our cover,” Avery whispered as they reached the ladder of the Gulfstream. “We’re corporate security auditors representing an independent maritime insurance syndicate. No military jargon, no tactical hand signals, and absolutely no questions from the flight crew.”
“Got it,” Reed murmured, flashing a passport bearing the name Arthur Vance—no relation to Marcus, but close enough to raise bureaucratic eyebrows if anyone bothered to check too closely.
They boarded the aircraft, stowing their gear in the aft locker before strapping into the plush leather seats of the executive cabin. Moments later, the cabin door sealed shut with a heavy hydraulic thud, and the jet surged forward down the runway, lifting its nose into the dark, snow-choked clouds toward the Atlantic.
As the aircraft leveled off at thirty-five thousand feet, cruising smoothly above the raging storm systems below, Avery unrolled a topographic map of Zurich across the mahogany fold-out table between the seats.
“Our contact in Geneva—an old asset named Nadia who used to run intelligence liaison for the Swiss Federal Police—sent an encrypted burst packet while we were taxiing,” Avery said, pointing a finger at a highlighted district on the map. “She tracked Marcus’s movement. He’s not staying in a downtown hotel. He’s meeting his primary buyer at a private alpine estate located near Lake Lucerne—a fortified chalet known as the Adler’s Nest.”
Brock leaned in closer, studying the complex layout of the estate. “The Adler’s Nest? That place is a fortress. It’s built directly into the granite cliffs above the lake, accessible only by a single private cable car or a heavily guarded mountain switchback road. You can’t infiltrate that place without triggering perimeter sensors from three miles away.”
“Which is why we aren’t going through the perimeter,” Reed said with a cold, humorless grin, tapping the side of his skull. “We go in from above.”
“HALO drop?” Brock gasped, his eyes widening. “At night? Over an alpine peak with zero visibility and high-altitude winds?”
“High-Altitude, Low-Opening,” Avery corrected calmly. “It’s the only way to bypass their ground surveillance grid. We drop three miles out, glide over the ridge, and land on the upper terrace of the chalet while their security detail is focused on the access road.”
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Brock swallowed hard, looking between Avery and Reed. He knew as well as they did that a single miscalculation in wind speed or canopy deployment would slam them directly into the jagged granite rocks of the Swiss Alps at one hundred and twenty miles per hour. But looking at Avery’s unyielding gaze, he realized there was no turning back. They were past the point of hesitation.
“All right,” Brock whispered, adjusting his collar. “Let’s jump.”
