Where had Tyler found this titanium card?
Why was there nearly four million dollars attached to it?
And why had my thirteen-year-old son warned me that Harrison was hunting for it?
I shoved the card into my internal coat pocket, zipped the compartment shut, and hurried across the pedestrian bridge toward the terminal parking garage.
My modest ten-year-old sedan was parked on Level 3.
As I unlocked the driver’s side door, a soft, synchronized click echoed from the shadows behind the concrete support pillar thirty feet away.
I froze.
Through the dim, fluorescent-lit gloom of the parking deck, two men in tailored charcoal overcoats and earpieces stepped into the aisle between the parked SUVs.
They didn’t move like civilian travelers; their shoulders were broad, their postures rigid, their hands resting loosely near their unbuttoned jacket hems.
One of them—a man in his late forties with a broken nose and cold, hooded eyes—lifted a radio receiver to his collar:
“Target is at vehicle station three-four.
She did not board the shuttle.
Secure the ramp.”
My heart hammered against my ribs like an iron mallet.
Those men were not airport police.
They were private corporate security specialists from **Apex Tactical Logistics**—the private executive protection firm Harrison retained to patrol his corporate headquarters in McLean.
They weren’t watching the terminal to ensure Tyler’s safe departure.
They were watching *me*.
Harrison hadn’t trusted Tyler’s farewell.
He had placed surveillance on the departures curb.
I scrambled into my sedan, slammed the heavy door shut, locked the deadbolts, and twisted the ignition key.
The four-cylinder engine coughed to life with a frantic rattle.
I threw the transmission into reverse, the tires squealing across the slick, oil-stained concrete as the two men broke into an aggressive jog toward my rear bumper!
“Mrs.
Cole!
Step out of the vehicle!” the broken-nosed man shouted, reaching into his lapel.
