"Yes," Vance said, maintaining unflinching eye contact, her tone conveying that any delay would result in an immediate complaint to corporate relations. "I suggest you look at it before the documents inside my portfolio are ruined."
Harrison’s vanity took the bait. He cast a sharp, warning glare at Elena. "Stay right here. Help this gentleman back to his seat, then report to the forward station." He turned briskly toward row 2, muttering under his breath about cabin maintenance.
Elena used the split-second distraction. She bent at the knees in a textbook ergonomic crouch, her linen cloth sweeping down as though gathering discarded litter from the aisle.
Her fingers closed over the dense, cold aluminum edges of the drive before Lind’s shoe could pin it down. She felt the heavy weight of the lead casing—far too heavy for a commercial power bank.
Lind lunged down, his hand snatching for Elena’s wrist. "That belongs to me," he whispered, a vicious edge stripping away his timid facade.
Elena’s grip remained unbreakable. With a tight, precise twist of her forearm, she tucked the drive into the deep, reinforced pocket of her service apron, rising to her full height in one smooth motion.
"I’ll secure it in lost property for you, sir," she whispered back, her voice like ice. "Please return to your seat. The seatbelt sign is about to come on."
Chapter 9: The Mid-Air Standoff
The flight deck chimes sounded twice: two soft, melodic tones that signaled the dimming of the main cabin for the long oceanic transit over the North Atlantic. The ambient lighting faded from warm dusk to a deep, shadowed navy. The majority of the passengers leaned back into their pods, the soft white glow of individual reading lights carving isolated islands of brightness in the gloom.
In the forward galley, Elena stood with her back against the aluminum storage units. Her breath came in quiet, measured intervals. The encrypted drive pressed heavily against her hip through the fabric of her apron.
The galley curtain rustled.
It wasn't Harrison. Richter emerged from the corridor.
He had abandoned his sports coat. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, revealing a corded, muscular neck. The polished veneer of David Sterling was entirely gone, replaced by the lethal economy of movement that characterized an operative backed into a corner.
"You have something that does not belong to you," Richter said, his voice barely audible beneath the rushing ambient air from the air conditioning risers. He did not raise his hands, but his right arm remained tucked close to his side, his thumb hooked into the waistband of his trousers.
"Cabin lost and found is logged upon arrival at Heathrow, Mr. Richter," Elena replied, deliberately using his true surname.
Richter’s eyes narrowed to slits. He stepped past the curtain, cutting off the narrow passage to the cockpit door. "Clever girl. But an attendant doesn't get paid enough to die over corporate trade secrets."
"It's not trade secrets, Klaus," Agent Vance’s voice cut in from the shadows behind him.
Vance stepped out from the secondary service alcove, having circled through the portside aisle. Her service weapon—a compact, suppressed semi-automatic pistol—was kept low, pinned against the seam of her trousers, pointed directly at Richter’s lower spine.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Vance whispered calmly. "Keep your hands where I can see them, or your flight ends on the galley floor."
Richter did not freeze. A seasoned operative, he knew the physical geography of the aircraft worked against a clean shot. With explosive speed, Richter threw his back into Vance, using the tight confines of the galley corridor to jam her weapon arm against the composite bulkhead.
A sharp gasp escaped Vance as the back of her head struck the metal frame of the coffee maker. Richter spun, his left hand locking around Vance’s wrist to divert the muzzle toward the ceiling, while his right elbow drove back toward her solar plexus.
Elena acted without hesitation.
Grabbing the heavy stainless steel coffee carafe from its heating cradle—still half-full of boiling water—she stepped forward and drove the reinforced base directly into Richter’s right clavicle.
The heavy metal struck bone with a sickening crunch. Richter snarled in agony, his balance slipping on the linoleum floor. Elena immediately dropped the pot, hooked her leg behind Richter’s plant foot, and pulled with all her weight, using his momentum against him.
Richter hit the deck hard.
Before he could push himself up, Vance regained her footing, driving her knee directly into the center of his shoulder blades and forcing his face down against the galley floor.
Chapter 10: Intercepted Package
The galley was quiet except for Richter’s strained, ragged breathing. Vance kept her full tactical weight on his thoracic spine, using her free hand to snap heavy-duty zip-cuffs around his wrists, looping them behind his back until the nylon clicked into its tightest notch.
"Secure," Vance breathed, her hair slightly disheveled, but her eyes locked in clinical focus. She reached down into Richter's waistband, pulling free a ceramic-bladed folding knife that would have slipped undetected through pre-flight walk-through scanners. She tossed it onto the upper tray of the prep cart.