Chapter 53 - The Hidden Vault
|
"The Alpine Vault," Audrey repeated, slowly sitting up, ignoring the pain in her side. "Elena, that facility is buried inside a literal mountain. It was built during World War II to survive a nuclear strike. It’s guarded by a private army."
"And it's entirely neutral," I noted, tracing the coordinates on the paper. "They don't care about syndicate wars or global politics. They only care about the physical biometrics of the account holder. Which means Julian Vance can't just buy his way in. He needs the genetic key."
"Which is you," Nicolás realized, standing up from the woodstove.
"Exactly," I nodded, a plan rapidly forming in my mind. "My father couldn't use his own DNA, because the syndicate would just kill him and take his hand. He used mine. I am the physical key to the Viper’s ledger."
This changed everything. We were no longer just running. We had the one piece of leverage that Julian Vance desperately needed. If I could get to the vault first and retrieve the ledger, I could destroy it. I could erase the Viper's entire financial empire with a single match, crippling their organization permanently.
"We have to go to Zurich," I declared, packing the journal into my bag.
"You're a ghost, Elena," Audrey reminded me. "You don't have a passport, and your face is flagged at every major airport in the world right now thanks to Julian's connections."
"We aren't flying commercial," I replied, walking over to an old shortwave radio sitting on the cabin's dusty shelf. I hadn't turned it on in years, but I knew the emergency battery would hold a charge.
May you like
I tuned it to a heavily encrypted frequency, tapping out a series of Morse code signals. It was a blind transmission to an old smuggling contact operating out of Montreal. A man who asked zero questions and only dealt in physical cash.
"We cross the Canadian border tonight," I instructed, checking the load on my pistol. "We secure a cargo flight to Europe. Julian thinks we are hiding, licking our wounds. He won't expect us to hit the vault. We take the offensive."
