CHAPTER 17: The Geneva Protocol

The helicopter cabin fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The only sound was the steady hum of the turbine engines and the rushing wind outside the window.
My father stared blankly at the dead screen, his hands trembling slightly in his lap. The formidable, untouchable man who had built an international empire and survived decades in the shadows suddenly looked old, tired, and broken.
"We need to land," I said, my voice cutting cleanly through the silence. I stood up, my posture rigid, every trace of the shock I had felt moments before crystallizing into a cold, focused determination.
My father looked up slowly, his eyes clouded with exhaustion. "Land where, Elena? She owns the accounts, the properties, the safehouses. Every door we try to open from here on out will already be locked."
"Not every door," I replied, pulling Marcus’s silver pocket watch from my coat pocket and tossing it onto the console in front of him.
My father stared at the watch, confused. "What is this?"
"Marcus didn't give me this watch to lead us to the Joshua Tree bunker," I said, stepping closer to the cockpit door and signaling the pilot to alter course. "He gave it to me because he knew my sister was still alive. He knew she had the primary decryption keys to the Swiss servers."
My father picked up the watch, his fingers tracing the engraved initials on the back. J.S.
"It's not J.S.," my father whispered suddenly, his eyes widening in a sudden flash of realization. "It's J.S. Junior... your sister's initials."
"Marcus was protecting her all along, wasn't he?" I asked, my voice laced with a bitter irony. "He didn't just clean up your messes, Dad. He helped her build an empire right underneath your nose, waiting for the exact moment we would destroy ourselves."
The pilot's voice interrupted over the intercom. "Mrs. Beckett, we've just received an automated flight plan override from an unknown satellite relay. The autopilot has locked our coordinates."
"Locked them to where?" my father demanded, leaning toward the cockpit door.
"Geneva," the pilot replied, his voice tense with confusion. "And we're coming in hot—landing directly on the roof of the central bank tower."
I looked out the window as the mountains parted beneath us, revealing the sprawling, pristine skyline of Geneva in the distance. A single black helicopter was already circling high above the banking district, waiting for our arrival.
As we descended through the cloud cover, my phone buzzed in my hand once more.
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A new message flashed across the screen from an unknown international number:
Welcome to Switzerland, sister. The board is set. Let's see who makes the first move.