Chapter 224: The Last Team

It circled the sleeping, locked-down city in its cocoon of grim purpose. Leon drove with the patience of a predator, working his way around the police cordons now hardening into place. His knowledge of Geneva's underbelly was their map. The plan was set: cripple the fortress, then dictate terms. But Sabatine knew with cold clarity as he stared at the schematics of the old bank on the tablet that the one truth was they could not do it alone.

The utility cuts, the communications sabotage, creating a credible siege—it took more than two battered men and a driver. They needed eyes, hands, and a distributed presence. They needed a team. And in their burned, compromised world, there was only one place left to look.

"Leon," Sabatine said, breaking the heavy silence. "The 'friend of a friend.' The one whose safe house was compromised. Was he vetted? Really vetted?"

Leon's eyes met him in the rearview mirror. "Before tonight, I'd have staked my life on him. Kaine is just. thorough."

"His loyalty wasn't the flaw," Anton interrupted, his voice hoarse but clear. "His security was. We don't need someone Kaine doesn't know. We need someone he'd never suspect could be loyal to us."

A name hung in the air, unspoken for a moment. Then Sabatine said it. "Jessica."

Anton's head shook at once. "No. She is in London. And a lawyer, besides. I won't drag her into a firefight."

"Not a firefight," Sabatine pressed. "Leverage. Coordination. She has access to Rogers Industries' global security network—the clean part, the part Evelyn couldn't touch. Satellite overwatch, secure global comms, logistical reach. She can be our eye in the sky, our voice to the outside world if this goes wrong. And she can vet, from her end, the only other person we might be able to trust."

Anton said nothing, battling with it. Dragging Jessica deeper would put her in the crosshairs of professional and personal disaster. Yet her face, resolute and unbending on the video call, swam in his memory. If this fails. I will take you both down with me. She was already in it. She had chosen her side.

"Who else?" Anton asked in a whisper.

Sabatine exchanged a look with Leon. "Rico," Leon said. "Rico Nadir. He was in Sabatine's old unit. He does private security consultancy in Marseilles now. Clean record. Hated how Sabatine was hung out to dry. And more importantly," Leon glanced at Sabatine, "he owes you. For Kosovo."

Sabatine’s jaw tightened. A memory, old and painful, flashed behind his eyes-a muddy ditch, overlapping fields of fire, Rico’s panicked voice on the comms. A debt indeed. "He's good. And he's discreet. But contacting him is a risk. If Kaine is monitoring old intelligence channels."

"He won't be monitoring a direct line from the General Counsel of Rogers Industries to a legitimate French security firm requesting an urgent, confidential site survey for a potential Geneva acquisition," Anton said, the idea crystallizing. "Jessica makes the call. She uses her authority, her codes. She brings Rico in, gives him the cover story and the real coordinates. He can be here, with a small, clean team, in a few hours if he pushes it."

Terrifyingly, it expanded the circle. But it also made the impossible plan possible. Rico could do the physical sabotage of the external utilities competently, which was beyond their expertise. He could provide additional perimeter security. And Jessica could coordinate, monitor police bands, and, if the worst happened, be the one to release the evidence packet to the world in order to ensure that Kaine didn't win even if they lost.

It was the final piece. The difference between a suicide run and a calculated, if extreme, operation.

Anton pulled out the burner phone assigned to Jessica. His fingers hovered over the keys. This was it - this was all she wrote. He typed a message in the simple code they had established.

A. Rogers: Requires an Eagle Eye. And a French cleaner for a sensitive site investigation at old Lombard Bank. Urgent. Full discretion. Can you arrange?

The response was quicker than he had anticipated.

J. Abara: Eagle Eye is live. Cleaner on route. ETA 4 hours. What is your status?

She didn't ask any questions. She didn't show fear. She just acted. Anton felt an overwhelming rush of violent gratitude towards the formidable woman.

A. Rogers: Alive. In position. Stand by for sitrep.

He looked at Sabatine."She's in. Rico's coming."

Sabatine let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The plan had bones now. "Then we find a place to hole up until dawn. We rest. We prep. We will meet the final team."

---

Dawn, when it came, was a bloodless affair, the sky the colour of a faded bruise. They had spent the last few hours in the back of a florist's delivery van Leon had "acquired," parked in a silent, upscale neighbourhood far from the crisis zones. The floral scent was cloying, but it masked the smell of their sweat and fear.

They assembled in grey pre-light, gathering their meager arsenal together. Sabatine checked and rechecked his guns. Anton tested the grip on his wrench; the movement pulled painfully at his shoulder. Leon listened to police bands and a silent tracker he'd slapped on Rico's approaching vehicle.

Jessica's voice now came over a secure audio feed, piped into their earpieces: "Eagle Eye is live. I have satellite thermal on the target building. Sixteen distinct heat signatures inside, clustered on sub-level one and the third floor. Two exterior patrols, alternating pattern, ninety-second intervals. No police presence within three blocks. Cleaner is two minutes out."

Her voice was crisp, professional, but Anton heard the thin wire of tension beneath it. She was watching this unfold from a screen in London, powerless to intervene, only to observe and report. It was its own kind of torture.

Two dark grey vans, unmarked, turned onto the street with their headlights off. They coasted to a stop behind the florist's van. The doors glided open, and four men got out. They moved with the loose ease of men who made their living at this sort of work. The man leading was a little over average height, with a shaved head and a beard shot through with early grey. He had calm, dark eyes that took in the scene and settled on Sabatine.

Rico Nadir.

The two old comrades stared at each other for a long minute. A whole decade of history lay between them, shared mud and blood and silent, caustic betrayal, hung in the damp air.

"Stalker," Rico said finally, the voice a low rumble with an accent from Marseilles.

"Nadir," Sabatine said in a matter-of-fact way.

Rico's eyes flashed to Anton, weighing, then to Leon, a brief nod of acknowledgment. "Counsel said you had some sort of vermin problem. Needed a light touch and a teardown done quickly."

"Something like that," Sabatine replied. "The target is the old bank. We need its lights, its ears, and its voice cut. From the outside in. Without them knowing it's an attack until it's too late."

Rico listened as Sabatine outlined the plan-the utility feeds in the service alley, the communications dish on the roof, the need for silent, non-destructive sabotage that would mimic systemic failures, then escalate to a total blackout and comms black hole.

Rico's men-two from his van, lean and focused-unloaded compact toolboxes and specialist equipment. "We can do that," Rico said. "We have resonant frequency generators to burn out specific circuits without tripping breakers. Directional EMP emitters for the comms dish. We can make it look like a cascading grid failure, then a localized solar flare event for the comms. Buys you confusion, then isolation." He looked at Sabatine. "What's the play after we lock the door?"

"We knock," Anton said, stepping forward. His voice carried the authority that had commanded boardrooms, now stripped bare and hardened in the crucible of the night. "We offer the spider a way out of his own web. One time only."

Rico studied him, and a flicker of respect crossed his face. He'd been briefed, but seeing the billionaire, battered and bleeding but standing with a wrench in his hand like a scepter, was different. "Your show," he said simply. "We handle the infrastructure. You handle the negotiation." He glanced at his watch. "We move in five. The satellite window for our thermal masking is thin."

The final team assembled. Sabatine, Anton, Leon. Rico and his two technical specialists. Seven against a fortress. But they had a surprise, and they had Jessica, their goddess in the machine.

"Remember," Jessica's voice came through taut with emotion she could no longer fully suppress. "Thermal signatures show the primary cluster in the central sub-level vault. That's likely to be the command center. Anton, the prototype's signal, if it's unshielded, might be detectable once they power up equipment. I'll guide you."

"Understood, Jessica," Anton whispered. "Thanks."

A pause. "Just come back," she whispered, the lawyerly armour cracking for a single, raw second. "All of you."

The transmission clicked off.

They shared a last look, their faces dim in the van's interior. No heroic speeches. No grand gestures. Just a series of nods—a transfer of resolve. Rico and his men melted away toward the service alley, ghosts with toolboxes.

Sabatine checked his pistol one last time, then met Anton's eyes. The love, the fear, the unwavering partnership-it was all there, in that glance.

Leon started up the engine of the florist van, a low purr in the silent street.

The last team was moving.

At dawn they set out to lay siege to a fortress.

Confidence in a parrot signifies intelligence and trust in its owner.

—-