Chapter 22 - The Rochester Transit
Within two hours of receiving Marcus Vance's courier parcel, the sanctuary’s underground tactical operations bunker was fully operational. United States Attorney Marcus Reed arrived via an unmarked federal helicopter from Chicago, accompanied by Special Agent Miller of the FBI and David Keller.
On the primary tactical monitor, a digital map of the Midwest showed the designated transit corridor between the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, and the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
"Tyler Holloway has been complaining of chronic cardiac arrhythmias for six weeks," Marcus Reed explained, tapping the glowing screen with a stylus. "The prison physician scheduled him for an advanced coronary catheterization at Rochester next Tuesday morning. Under standard federal procedures, he would be transported in a reinforced two-vehicle marshal convoy via Interstate 90."
"And the Panamanian account?" I asked, standing beside Brian, my arms crossed over my dark blazer.
"Marcus Vance’s thumb drive was completely legitimate," Agent Miller confirmed, pulling up the banking trail. "The account in the Isle of Man was opened using a counterfeit birth certificate for Mason, listing Tyler as the sole managing fiduciary. Twelve million dollars in illicit kickbacks from Raymond Vance’s old aviation leasing operations were routed through Shell accounts in Panama City. Tyler used eight hundred thousand dollars of those funds to retain an unlicensed private security team based in northern Indiana."
"Who are the contractors?" Brian asked, his eyes tracking every detail on the screen with the clinical precision of a senior flight commander.
"A rogue outfit calling themselves Iron Gate Logistics," Agent Miller answered. "Former disgraced private security operators operating out of a defunct hangar at the Gary/Chicago International Airport. They procured an unflagged Learjet 35A with extended-range fuel bladders. Their plan was to stage a multi-vehicle collision along a rural stretch of I-90 near Tomah, overwhelm the federal transport van with smoke grenades and high-caliber suppressive fire, extract Tyler, and fly him and any leverage they could seize directly into international airspace."
"They were going to hit the transport van on an open highway," David Keller said, shaking his head in disgust. "Tyler is willing to turn an interstate into a war zone just to run."
"He doesn't just want to run, David," I said, stepping forward. "He wants to take Mason. He knows that without Mason, his life has no leverage, no money, and no future. He thinks he can use my son to bleed Horizon Continental dry from a villa in Caracas."
"What are our orders, Mrs. Sterling-Miller?" Marcus Reed asked, deferring with profound respect to the woman who controlled the largest private transport network in the country. "We can cancel the medical transport right now and lock Tyler in administrative segregation at Oxford for the rest of his twenty-four years."
"No," I replied, my voice steady as an iron bar. "If we cancel the transport, Tyler’s mercenaries will scatter into the wind, the twelve million dollars will remain hidden in foreign accounts, and my family will spend the next twenty years looking over our shoulders. We let the transport proceed."
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Brian turned to me, a razor-thin smirk crossing his handsome, determined features. "A controlled interception."
"Exactly," I said. "We replace the transport van with our own specialized tactical unit. We let Tyler's mercenaries walk directly into the snare. And when Tyler steps out onto that rural highway expecting a getaway car, he will find out that the sky belongs to us."
