Chapter 8 - International Waters
The open sea was black and churning under a heavy gale forty nautical miles off the coast. Aboard the eighty-foot luxury yacht The Sovereign, Mateo paced back and forth across the teak deck, nursing a glass of scotch with trembling fingers. Inside the salon, Arthur Vance was furiously typing on an encrypted laptop, liquidating shell company holdings into untraceable cryptocurrency.
"He won't catch us out here," Mateo muttered, trying to convince himself. "The coast guard won't intercept a vessel flagged under Panamanian jurisdiction without state department clearance. By morning, we'll be in international airspace heading for South America."
Arthur looked up from the screen, his face gaunt. "Julian doesn't use the coast guard, you idiot. You completely underestimated him. You told me he was a soft executive living in the shadow of his father's ghost."
"He was!" Mateo shouted, slamming his glass down onto the bar. "He spent ten years playing the respectable philanthropist! How could I know he had ties to Viktor Kovac’s network?"
Suddenly, the roar of twin turbine engines drowned out the storm.
A high-powered military searchlight cleaved through the black rain, illuminating the yacht's deck with blinding white brilliance. Mateo shielded his eyes, looking up into the driving sleet. Hovering thirty feet above the pitching waves was an unmarked black assault helicopter, its downwash flattening the ocean spray into a maelstrom.
"What is that?!" Mateo screamed, terror stripping his voice raw.
Fast-ropes dropped from the helicopter’s side doors onto the yacht's bow and stern. Before the yacht's two hired deckhands could reach for their weapons, four heavily armed figures descended like shadows through the fog.
Mateo turned to sprint toward the lower engine quarters, but a heavy boot slammed into his spine, driving his face hard into the wet teak deck. A knee pressed between his shoulder blades, pinning him instantly.
Footsteps approached slowly through the spray.
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Julian stepped forward, unbothered by the swaying vessel. He was drenched in rain, wearing a tactical assault jacket, his eyes colder than the ocean depths below them. He knelt beside Mateo's ear.
"You should have stayed in the penthouse, little brother," Julian murmured.
