Chapter 6
The black convoy of three armored SUVs tore through the pouring rain along Route 7, headlights carving tunnels through the dense fog clinging to the Berkshire foothills.
Inside the lead vehicle, Florian sat in the passenger seat, staring through the sweep of the windshield wipers. His cell phone rested on the console, connected to a live audio feed from his operations room in Manhattan.
"Speak to me, Vane," Florian commanded.
"We pulled the records on Pine Ridge," Vane’s voice crackled through the speaker over the rumble of the engine. "The facility isn't just a sanitarium, Boss. It’s a front. The back wing is leased to a private security firm called Blackwood Logistics. Ex-military contractors, high-end corporate extraction teams. Hadrian’s family didn't just hire a corrupt doctor; they hired mercenaries to guard the perimeter."
"How many?"
"At least twelve on site," Vane replied. "And Lindt isn't running alone. He’s escorting a private ambulance. The flight manifest at Pittsfield shows a Gulfstream IV filed for an international flight plan to Zurich, registered to an offshore shell company in the Cayman Islands."
"They're taking her out of the country," Florian said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "Once she’s across international borders under a falsified medical conservatorship, it will take months of legal battles to extradite her. By then, they’ll have pumped her full of enough chemicals to ensure she never testifies."
"We have forty minutes before that plane touches the runway," Vane warned. "If we hit the sanitarium, we miss the ambulance."
"Split the team," Florian ordered without hesitation. "Cross takes six men and levels Pine Ridge. Burn the records. Secure every hard drive, every ledger, every medical file with my daughter’s name on it. If anyone resists, put them in the dirt."
"And you, Boss?"
"I’m taking the ambulance."
Florian ended the call, reached into the glove compartment, and retrieved an automatic pistol. He ejected the magazine, checked the brass casings—nine-millimeter hollow points—and slapped it back into the grip with a sharp, echoing click. He racked the slide, setting the weapon beside his thigh.
"Step on it," Florian told the driver.
The SUV accelerated, the speedometer needle sweeping past ninety miles per hour as the vehicle drifted dangerously around the slick mountain curves.
Twenty miles north, through the rain-slicked darkness, two sets of taillights appeared through the mist: a heavy, unmarked white transport ambulance escorted by a dark Ford Excursion.
The driver glanced at Florian. "There they are, Mr. Ravensmere."
"Do not shoot the ambulance," Florian instructed, his eyes locking onto the vehicles like crosshairs. "Pit the escort vehicle into the guardrail. Take out the engine block of the ambulance with the front bumper. Move."
The heavy SUV surged forward, its reinforced steel push-bar gleaming in the headlights.
The Ford Excursion realized they were being pursued too late. As the black SUV drew alongside, the driver of the Excursion tried to swerve, but Florian’s driver was faster. With a violent jerk of the steering wheel, he executed a textbook PIT maneuver, slamming the heavy push-bar into the rear quarter-panel of the Excursion.
Tires shrieked against the wet asphalt. The Excursion spun out of control, smashed through the wooden guardrail, and rolled down the steep embankment, disappearing into the dark pine forest in an explosion of crushed metal and shattering glass.
The white ambulance accelerated, swerving erratically across both lanes.
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"Ram them," Florian said quietly.
The SUV struck the rear doors of the ambulance with bone-jarring force. The impact buckled the metal, forcing the heavy vehicle sideways until its tires lost traction. The ambulance spun across the center line, slammed into the concrete abutment of an overpass, and ground to a violent, smoking halt.
