Chapter 12 - The Cornered Vulture
At the top of Pendleton Heights, the grand manor was in an absolute frenzy of panic, destruction, and chaos.
Shredders whirred in the study, spitting out thousands of paper ribbons that piled up on the antique Persian rugs like snow.
Arthur Pendleton stood behind his massive mahogany desk, his face pasty gray, his hands shaking violently as he shoved stacks of bearer bonds into a leather travel bag.
Julian burst through the double doors, his tuxedo ruined, his tie missing, and a deep cut bleeding across his left temple.
"Father, the private airfield is compromised!" Julian screamed, slamming the door shut and locking the heavy brass bolt.
"The pilot called two minutes ago; state police cruisers just blocked the runway with tire spikes!"
"Costa fed the attorney general everything!"
Arthur dropped the leather bag, clutching his chest as a sharp, agonizing stab of pain shot down his left arm.
"That little bitch..." Arthur wheezed, his mouth twisting into a grotesque sneer.
"Nicholas hid the ledger in that damn garnet necklace; I should have choked her mother and ripped it from her neck fifteen years ago!"
"It doesn't matter now!" Julian panicked, grabbing his father’s lapels and shaking him roughly.
"We have sixty million dollars in gold bars stored in the basement vault beneath the harbor warehouse!"
"If we make it to the water, we have the offshore cutter docked at Pier Nine!"
"We can reach international waters before sunrise!"
Arthur pushed his son away with surprising force, his pale eyes burning with the demented fury of a man who refused to surrender his illusion of godhood.
"I am not running like a rat from a dockside thug and his cleaning maid!" Arthur roared, spit flying from his lips.
He reached beneath the desk and pulled out a heavy chrome revolver, laying it on the blotter.
"Call our tactical security squad at the warehouse," Arthur commanded, his breathing ragged.
"Tell them to booby-trap the vault corridors."
"If Costa and the Sterling girl want their father's empire back, they will have to come down to the mud and pry it from my hands."
Outside the leaded glass windows, red and blue emergency flashers illuminated the snowy pine trees lining the estate's serpentine driveway.
Loudspeakers boomed through the mountain storm, cutting through the thunder.
"Arthur Pendleton! This is the State Police Tactical Unit!"
"The property is surrounded! Step out onto the terrace with your hands raised immediately!"
Julian turned white, stepping away from the windows as if the glass were red-hot.
"They're here!" Julian choked out, his voice cracking into a high-pitched sob.
"We’re done, Father! It’s over!"
"Shut your mouth, you sniveling coward!" Arthur snarled, grabbing the leather bag and shoving Julian toward the rear library bookcase.
He reached behind an encyclopedic volume of maritime law, pulling down an iron lever hidden within the wood paneling.
The entire bookcase swung inward with a heavy scrape of masonry, revealing a narrow, stone-paved tunnel sloping sharply downward into the mountain bedrock.
"This passage leads straight to the old coal chutes behind the harbor rail line," Arthur whispered, his teeth bared in a feral grin.
"Let Vance search the house; by the time they figure out where we went, we’ll have the gold loaded onto the cutter."
"And Costa?" Julian asked, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.
"Costa thinks he’s a king," Arthur spat, stepping into the dark cavern.
"He forgets that I built these docks before his father learned to steal cars."
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"I’m going to draw him into Pier Fourteen, and this time, nobody will find the ashes."
The secret door slammed shut, locking with a dull, heavy thud just as the front doors of the mansion were blown off their hinges by federal breach charges.
