Chapter 38 - The Ambush at the Stone Wall
The climb up the north ridge was treacherous in the absolute dark, but Dorothy moved with the uncanny, silent rhythm of a woman who had spent half a century traversing mountain slopes. Laurent and Kevin followed behind her, their boots barely making a sound against the damp moss and fallen leaves.
Above them, the silhouette of the ruined 1922 stone chapel loomed against the stars like broken teeth. A pale, flickering light leaked through the empty Gothic archways—the glare of high-intensity lithium work lights.
Rochefort’s men had not wasted time. Dorothy could hear the muffled, high-speed whine of a diamond-tipped concrete drill grinding into stone.
"They’re drilling the crypt floor," Laurent whispered, his mouth inches from Dorothy’s ear. "They think the cache is in the family vault."
"Let them drill," Dorothy whispered back. "The vault beneath that floor was emptied by Gerald in nineteen-forty-six. There’s nothing down there but water and copperheads."
She pointed toward a dry stone wall forty yards ahead—an old boundary fence that marked the edge of Gerald’s property line.
Two men in tactical raincoats were stationed by the chapel’s ruined bell tower, their assault carbines held at the low-ready position. Between them stood Henri de Rochefort, smoking a cigarette, his charcoal coat replaced by a black alpine parka, holding a satellite phone to his ear.
"...yes, the drill is through the second layer," Rochefort was saying into the receiver, his voice echoing slightly in the cold mountain air. "The vault is intact. We will have the original de la Tour registry and the bearer bonds secured before dawn. Once the papers are in hand, signal the magistrate to execute the default judgment against the Miller estate. The widow will have no legal standing to appeal."
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Dorothy turned to Kevin. She didn't speak; she simply nodded.
Kevin raised the heavy brass signal flare, pointed it directly into the low canopy of oak leaves above the bell tower, and pulled the lanyard.
