9. The Empty Seat
The Empty Seat
Steve
Victor’s glasses show us Saint-Pierre through his eyes.
The Council’s launch docked twenty minutes ago. Since then, Victor and Adrian have transferred into a black SUV with Charles Beaumont, while Yamamoto and von Kessler left in a second vehicle. Nobody has said where they’re going.
G tracks both vehicles while Felicity works the route against every building and property record she can pull. Angus and his team stay well away under their fishing-trip cover. Until we know where Adrian is being taken, there’s nothing useful they can do without risking exposure.
Jan has Vegas beside me. I have Saint-Pierre.
We can both hear both channels if we need to, but splitting primary command was the right call. Forest doesn’t need me talking over Jan while he prepares to pull Hope out of Fontainebleau, and Victor doesn’t need two voices in his ear while he’s surrounded by people who could kill him.
The SUV slows.
“Steve,” G says.
“I see it.”
Victor turns toward the window as the buildings thin and the road narrows. Ahead, a large stone house sits back from the road, with three black SUVs already parked outside and another pulling in behind it.
“That’s more like it,” Felicity says.
Two men stand near the entrance with a woman in a dark wool coat. Another man is getting out of the arriving SUV.
G starts running faces before anyone introduces them.
“Charles Westbrook,” he says. “Confirmed.”
My attention sharpens. We’ve been building a case against the bastard since Harmony.
Felicity tags the woman next. “Evelyn Lockhart, forty. Douglas Lockhart’s only child.”
“Interesting.”
She doesn’t look thrilled to be there. Arms folded, expression cool, she keeps several feet between herself and Westbrook.
Then G goes still.
“Alexei Rimsky.”
He isn’t alone. Alexei is pushing an older man toward the house in a wheelchair, one hand resting lightly on the handle while the man’s left arm remains motionless against his side.
G starts searching again.
“Mikhail Rimsky. Alexei’s father. Seventy-eight. Chairman of Rimsky Holdings.”
Felicity looks across at him. “Stroke six months ago. Still chairman.”
The older Rimsky says something sharply over his shoulder. Alexei stops the chair immediately.
Whatever the stroke took from him, authority wasn’t part of it.
Beaumont glances toward Adrian. “A few of the others have arrived ahead of us.”
The SUV turns into the drive and stops beside the house. Victor gets out first and scans automatically without making it obvious.
Security is lighter than I thought it would be. Two armed men at the house, another beside the parked vehicles and one near a path disappearing behind the property.
Four.
For people who’ve spent generations buying governments, I suppose paranoia only goes so far when you’re convinced nobody can touch you.
Adrian gets out and Beaumont makes the introductions.
“Lord Rotherham, Charles Westbrook.”
Westbrook shakes Adrian’s hand. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“I’m sure some of it was even accurate.”
A faint smile from Rimsky.
Beaumont gestures toward the wheelchair. “Mikhail Rimsky. His son, Alexei.”
Mikhail peers down his crooked nose at Adrian, giving him a long, sour look.
“Another Englishman.”
Adrian inclines his head politely. “Mr. Rimsky.”
Mikhail’s mouth twists. “We don’t need another Englishman on the Council.”
Adrian gives him a faint smile. “Ah. Thank you for informing me why my presence was required.”
Alexei keeps his expression carefully blank as he turns his father’s wheelchair toward the house.
Evelyn offers Adrian her hand, but her expression suggests she’d rather be anywhere else.
“Lord Rotherham.”
“Ms. Lockhart.”
Her gaze shifts toward Mikhail Rimsky.
“At least one of you knows how to introduce himself without sounding like he owns the place.”
Two more vehicles arrive before the introductions finish. A tall Middle Eastern man steps from one, impeccably dressed despite the cold. From the other comes a broad-shouldered man with silver threaded through his dark hair. Each has one man with him who looks far more like security than a driver.
Beaumont gestures toward them as they approach.
“Khalid Al-Rashid. Dario Salazar.”
G tags both faces immediately.
He grins at his screen. “This is like a lucky dip. They just keep giving us names.”
“Seven families,” Felicity says.
“And counting,” I reply.
Nobody enters the house.
Instead, Westbrook starts toward the path behind it. The others follow, Adrian and Victor falling naturally into the group while the security men remain spread behind them.
The path curves around the property toward a low hill.
Felicity leans closer to her screen squinting through her glasses. “Where the hell are they going?”
Victor turns his head slightly. His glasses catch something dark set into the hillside.
“Hold that.”
G freezes the frame and enlarges it.
A steel door is built directly into the hill.
Victor’s voice comes quietly through my earpiece.
“Fuck me. They’ve got a bunker.”
I stare at the screen.
Every contingency we built for this operation just changed.
Whatever happens beyond that door, Angus can’t simply drive up if things go wrong.
From here on, Victor’s glasses, Adrian’s wire and the decisions we make in this room are the only lifeline they’ve got.
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1440 hours.
Victor’s words come through my earpiece as his glasses catch the steel door built directly into the hillside.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Of course they’ve got a bloody bunker.
Jesus, that changes everything.
Felicity’s fingers move immediately.
“Searching property plans.”
G is already pulling satellite layers over the hill. “Nothing marked underground.”
“Of course there isn’t.”
I bring Angus’s position onto my screen.
He and the advance team are back in town, far enough away that reaching Victor and Adrian would take time even before we factor in whatever security surrounds this place. None of that matters if Victor and Adrian disappear behind reinforced steel with no external access we can identify.
“Angus stays put,” I say.
His answer comes through immediately. “Copy.”
“No movement unless I call it. If they’ve built this place to disappear from maps, they’ll have external surveillance we haven’t found yet.”
“Understood.”
Jan’s voice comes quietly from beside me. “Vegas is steady.”
I nod without looking away from Saint-Pierre.
Forest is still closing the net around Hope. Jan has that side.
This one is mine.
“G, I want every possible entrance, ventilation point, service tunnel, power feed and communications line connected to that hill.”
“Already looking.”
“Felicity, property history. Go back decades if you have to.”
“On it.”
Victor follows Adrian toward the bunker door. Two security men stand beside it. Another is positioned farther up the slope, pretending not to watch the arrivals.
Still light security. Legacy really does believe nobody can touch them here.
Before they reach the entrance, I look at the names already stacking down the right side of the screen.
Eight family representatives before Adrian has even reached the meeting room.
Eight, plus one son.
Charles Beaumont.
Kenji Yamamoto.
Friedrich von Kessler.
Charles Westbrook.
Evelyn Lockhart.
Mikhail and Alexei Rimsky.
Khalid Al-Rashid.
Dario Salazar.
G looks ridiculously pleased with himself.
“This is like Christmas morning.”
Felicity glances across at him. “If Christmas came with international criminal dynasties.”
“Best presents we’ve had all year.”
I almost smile.
Because Charles Westbrook is standing right there in Victor’s live feed, and we’ve spent eighteen months building the case against him.
“Pull Westbrook forward.”
G does. The photograph from our files appears beside Victor’s live image.
Same man.
Older than when some of the surveillance was taken, maybe, but unmistakable.
Harmony’s prosecution package flashes through my head. Witnesses. Financial records. Shell companies. Every piece we’ve collected since the first Westbrook investigation.
And he’s standing there like he’s arrived for a bloody country-club lunch.
Harmony looks up from her screen. “His court date’s in two weeks.”
G snorts. “Hope he enjoys the trip.”
I lean closer to Victor’s feed as the group continues down the path, security spaced loosely around them. Nobody looks nervous. Nobody checks the tree line twice. Nobody behaves like people who believe anyone on this island could possibly threaten them.
Cocky bastards.
The steel door opens.
Victor gives us one last sweep of the outside before stepping through.
For a second the feed darkens, then overhead lighting catches concrete walls and a descending corridor.
The signal holds.
“Still with you,” I tell him.
Victor doesn’t answer. He can’t. But his head dips slightly.
Message received.
I look at the names already filling our board.
Four more family seats remain unaccounted for.
Whatever waits at the bottom of those stairs, HAVEN is finally walking straight into the room we’ve spent eighteen months trying to find.
And Legacy still doesn’t know we’re listening.
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1450 hours.
The bunker opens into something far more polished than the concrete corridor suggested.
Victor follows Adrian to a security station outside a wide underground reception area. Two guards wait beside a table where the arrivals are required to leave phones, wallets, electronics and weapons before entering the meeting.
Adrian places his phone, Beacon and wallet into a numbered tray. Victor does the same, adding his gun before sliding the tray across. Lucky their wallets have been stripped of anything personal or sensitive.
Nobody questions the second phone-like device. Why would they?
Victor keeps his glasses on. Adrian keeps his wire.
And just like that, we’re going inside with them. I breathe a little easier once they’re through.
Victor follows Adrian into the reception area, finished in stone, timber and enough expensive furniture to make me wonder how often these bastards meet beneath a hill in Saint-Pierre.