Chapter 33 - Flight Path Zero
The windshield wipers beat back the torrential sheets of rain in violent, futile arcs as the SUV roared onto the cracked tarmac of the abandoned county runway.
Jonathan kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other gently resting against Lily’s lap. The little girl had fallen into an exhausted, feverish daze, her cheek pressed against the leather seat, her breathing shallow. The blue light beneath her collar blinked every four seconds now, down from six.
The frequency was increasing.
Ahead, cutting through the swirling mist of the rainstorm, two powerful twin halogen beams ignited from the edge of Hangar 4.
Sitting on the tarmac was a private twin-engine turboprop, its propellers spinning with a deafening, low-frequency hum that vibrated through the frame of Jonathan's car. Standing beneath the shelter of the hangar overhang were three figures in dark civilian tactical gear, umbrellas shielding them from the deluge.
Jonathan slammed the brakes, the SUV skidding to a halt twenty yards away. He turned to Lily, unbuckling her seatbelt with trembling hands. "Lily, look at Daddy. Stay right next to me, sweetheart. Don't look at anything else, just look at my eyes, okay?"
The little girl nodded weakly. "Is Mommy Victoria here? The lady on the phone said she was coming back."
The words felt like a serrated blade through Jonathan’s heart. "No, baby. She isn't your mother. She never was."
He lifted Lily into his arms, keeping his coat wrapped tightly around her to shield the delicate sensor from the torrential downpour, and stepped out into the storm.
As he approached the hangar, the figure in the center stepped forward out of the shadows.
It wasn't Victoria.
It was a tall, silver-haired man wearing an impeccable cashmere trench coat, leaning on a polished black cane with a silver wolf’s-head pommel. Behind him, a young woman in medical scrubs held an open aluminum briefcase that glowed with diagnostic screens.
"Good evening, Jonathan," the older man said, his voice carrying effortlessly over the aircraft engines. "It has been far too long."
Jonathan froze, water streaming down his face. "Arthur Vance."
His estranged uncle. The man who had been cast out of the family empire a decade ago after the board discovered he was running shadow shell companies overseas.
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"Did you really believe your little trophy wife had the intellect to stage a global disappearance alone?" Arthur smiled thinly. "Victoria was merely an investor. I am the architect."
***
