Chapter 33 - The Viper’s Banquet
In the river clearing below, Celeste Pendelton pulled her coat tighter around her slender frame, watching her mercenaries sweep the tree line with thermal scopes.
"Are you certain the signal died here?" she demanded, turning toward her brother Arthur, who was hunched over the terminal set on the helicopter's deployment table.
"The passive beacon was severed ninety seconds ago," Arthur replied coldly, his fingers dancing across the illuminated keys. "Which means they found it. But they're on foot, Celeste. The Suburban's heat signature cooled down near the abandoned logging cabins two miles up the trail. They're trapped."
Celeste smiled, a cruel, elegant curve of her crimson lips. "Good. Tell the strike team that Valentina Cruz is to be put down immediately. Vance Walker as well. I don't want trials. I don't want testimonies."
"And Matteo?" Arthur asked, glancing up with a chilling lack of emotion.
"Matteo proved his irrelevance the moment he allowed that pathetic woman to point a gun at him in the silo," Celeste said dismissively. "If he's with them, eliminate him. We only need the boy's brainstem intact for the biometrics to sync with the Aegis market launch in Zurich next week."
"You speak as though this belongs entirely to you, sister," Arthur said softly, his voice carrying an undercurrent of venom. "I was the one who designed the remote override that purged Matteo's vault."
Celeste stepped closer, her perfume masking the scent of pine and aviation fuel. "And who authorized the offshore shell accounts that funded your research when the federal ethics committee threatened to strip your credentials, Arthur? You are an engineer. I am the architect of this family's legacy. Remember your place."
Before Arthur could counter, a muffled thump echoed from the perimeter woods fifty yards to the west.
One of the black-clad mercenaries collapsed face-first into the ferns without a sound, a subsonic round passing cleanly through the back of his neck.
Celeste froze. "What was that?"
"Sniper!" the mercenary commander barked, raising his assault rifle. "Defensive perimeter around the VIPs! Now—!"
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A second shot took out the team's communications technician, sending his satellite relay smashing onto the rocky ground.
From the tree line, smoke canisters hissed into life, blanketing the clearing in thick, disorienting gray fog.
