On Easter Sunday, My Daughter Whispered, "Dad... Please Come Get Me"—Nine Minutes Later, Federal Agents Surrounded Her Husband's Mansion / Chapter 11 / 20

Chapter 11 - The Apex PredatorChicago. 9:00 PM.

Silas Thorne stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse, swirling a glass of expensive bourbon. The city of Chicago sprawled out beneath him like a glittering carpet of diamonds. From the 68th floor of the Apex Tower, he felt like a god looking down on mortals.

But tonight, the god was sweating.

It had been twenty-four hours since Griggs and his six-man kill squad had gone dark. No check-ins. No burner phone pings. Just total, radio-silent oblivion.

"Still nothing?" Silas snapped, turning away from the window.

His head of security, a hulking ex-mercenary named Vargas, shook his head. Vargas was polishing an automatic rifle on the leather sofa. "Nothing, boss. The GPS trackers on their vehicles went offline at 0200 hours in Maine. We sent a local associate to do a drive-by of the cabin. It’s empty. No bodies, no blood, no Griggs. Just a ruined front door."

Silas slammed his glass down on the mahogany bar, the crystal shattering and spilling bourbon across the polished wood.

"Six men!" Silas roared. "Six heavily armed professionals do not just vanish into thin air! I want to know who this Arthur Pendelton really is, and I want to know now!"

Vargas pulled out a decrypted tablet. "I reached out to our contacts in Langley. Paid a CIA data-broker fifty grand to run Pendelton's name through the deep-state archives."

"And?"

Vargas swallowed hard. For the first time since Silas had hired him, the massive mercenary looked genuinely terrified.

"The broker returned the money, boss. He said opening Pendelton's file triggered a Pentagon alarm. He said whoever Arthur Pendelton used to be, he belonged to a unit that doesn't officially exist. They were the guys the CIA called when they needed to erase a problem without leaving fingerprints."

Silas felt a cold knot form in his stomach. He had sent a street-level hit squad to kill a tier-one government assassin.

Suddenly, the lights in the penthouse flickered.

Then, the ambient hum of the central air conditioning died. The smooth jazz playing over the hidden speakers cut out in a sharp burst of static.

The entire 68th floor was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

"What the hell was that?!" Silas yelled, his voice echoing in the dark.

"Backup generators should kick in..." Vargas muttered, racking the slide of his rifle.

Ten seconds passed. The backup generators did not kick in.

Somewhere in the darkness, the private elevator chimed.

Ding.

The sound was impossibly loud in the dead silence of the penthouse.

"Vargas! Guard the door!" Silas ordered, drawing a silver pistol from his shoulder holster and backing into his reinforced panic room.

Out in the hallway, Vargas switched on his weapon's tactical flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the marble floors and modern art pieces. He signaled to three other armed guards, who moved in a tactical wedge toward the elevator banks.

"Spread out," Vargas hissed. "Shoot anything that moves."

The elevator doors slid open.

The cab was completely empty.

Vargas frowned, keeping his rifle trained on the empty metal box. "It's a decoy. Check the stairwell!"

Before any of the guards could move, a small, heavy object rolled out from the darkness of the ceiling vents and bounced onto the marble floor.