The fuel truck driver walked up to the wing, looked at the tail number, and shook his head.
"Can't pump, ma'am," the driver announced, tapping his clipboard with a ballpoint pen.
"Excuse me?" I said, taking two steps toward him.
"Got an administrative fuel-stop notice on this tail number twenty minutes ago," the driver said, holding out a printed dispatch sheet. "Originating from our regional distribution hub in Newark. Account is flagged for immediate commercial credit suspension. No aviation fuel is to be dispensed to any aircraft registered to Alden Meridian or Pierce Aero until further notice."
The signature at the bottom of the fuel-stop order was clear as day:
Approved by: Dominic Sterling, Chairman, Regional Aviation Logistics Consortium.
Arthur Vance let out a low, bitter laugh. "The squeeze is on, Vivian. Dominic just turned off our kerosene across the entire Eastern seaboard. If our planes can't fuel, our corporate fleet is paralyzed."
I looked at the fuel truck driver, then at the massive, dark wings of the Global 6000 resting quietly in the rain.
"Driver," I said softly, stepping directly into his personal space.
The man blinked, intimidated by the quiet, unyielding authority radiating from my eyes. "Yes, ma'am?"
"This aircraft is currently impounded as an active federal evidence transport under Title Eighteen of the United States Code," I said, gesturing to Special Agent Miller and his team of armed federal investigators. "If you refuse to fuel a government-secured asset during an active national security interdiction, Agent Miller will place you under arrest for felony obstruction of justice before your pen touches that clipboard."
The driver looked at Miller's gold badge, looked at the armed federal marshals standing behind him, and swallowed hard.
"Hook up the hose," the driver said, scrambling backward toward his truck.
I turned back to Arthur Vance, my pulse steady as granite.
"Dominic Sterling thinks he can starve my company out with commercial fuel holds," I said, pulling out my phone. "Let's see how much fuel he has to burn when the New York State Attorney General unseals his offshore clinical books."
Chapter 13 - The Mother
By 5:30 AM, the first pale, gray light of dawn was beginning to bleed through the heavy clouds above Teterboro.
We had flown back from Atlantic City aboard tail N842AM under a temporary federal ferry permit, landing on our home runway just as the morning ground crews were arriving for their shifts. The aircraft was taxied directly into the secure engineering bay of the north hangar, the heavy steel doors sliding shut behind us, locking the evidence safely inside our corporate perimeter.
I sat at the mahogany conference table in my private executive office on the second floor, drinking a fresh cup of black coffee.
My wool coat was hung on the brass coat rack, my hair brushed back into a neat, severe chignon. On the desk sat the leather-bound Bahamian registers, alongside the forty-two million dollar mortgage default notice Arthur had downloaded from the Zurich portal.
A soft knock sounded at the frosted glass door.
Nora stepped inside, her face tight with suppressed disgust. "Vivian. You have visitors in the executive reception lounge."
"Who, Nora?"
"Beatrice Pierce," Nora answered, her lip curling slightly. "And Dominic Sterling’s senior managing counsel, a man named Roger Vance."
"Another Vance?" Arthur Vance chuckled dryly from the leather sofa in the corner. "The legal profession is entirely overrun by our surname."
"Send them in, Nora," I said, setting my coffee cup down with a quiet, deliberate click. "And make sure the audio recording system in the ceiling is active."
The door swung wide.
Beatrice Pierce walked into the room like an empress entering an occupied province.
She wore an ankle-length sable fur coat, a three-strand pearl necklace, and oversized designer sunglasses that she did not remove despite the dim morning light. Her silver hair was coiffed into an immovable helmet, her jaw set in that haughty, insufferable arrogance that had defined every family dinner for nine years.
Behind her walked Roger Vance—a slick, fifty-year-old corporate litigator in a bespoke navy pinstripe suit, carrying a slender crocodile-leather briefcase.
Beatrice didn't look at Arthur. She didn't look at the corporate aviation awards lining the walls.
She walked straight to my desk, pulled off her black leather gloves one finger at a time, and dropped them directly onto my blotter.
"Vivian," Beatrice said, her voice dripping with poisonous, condescending pity. "Look at you. Up at the crack of dawn, smelling of jet fuel and cheap coffee. You always were more comfortable with the grease monkeys than with high society."
"Beatrice," I replied, not rising from my chair. "You have sixty seconds to state your business before airport security escorts you through the cargo turnstile."
Beatrice scoffed, turning to Roger Vance. "Tell her, Roger. Tell this stubborn little girl what happens when she humiliates my son in public."
Roger Vance opened his crocodile briefcase, extracting an original vellum document stamped with a red corporate seal.
"Mrs. Pierce," Roger Vance began with silky, rehearsed deference. "I represent Swiss Horizon Escrow and Vanguard Meridian Partners. At eight o'clock this morning, we will file a formal praecipe for writ of entry with the Bergen County Sheriff's Office."
He placed the paper on the center of my desk.
"This is the forty-eight-hour notice of immediate commercial repossession," Vance stated. "Due to your failure to cure the forty-two million dollar mortgage default on this terminal facility, all real property, hangar leases, and fixed base operations will transition to Vanguard Meridian at noon on Tuesday."