Chapter 4 - The Sanitarium on Lake Zurich
Zurich was a frozen world of white silence and falling snow.
While Sicily had been drowning in autumn rain, the Swiss Alps were locked in a
mid-November blizzard. The temperature on the runway at the private airfield was
minus four degrees Celsius.
A convoy of two customized armored Range Rovers, arranged by Matteo’s Swiss
banking contacts, met us on the tarmac.
We drove along the darkened, pine-lined roads skirting the eastern edge of Lake
Zurich. The lake was a vast sheet of black glass, reflecting the cold, distant
lights of the mountain chalets.
At 11:35 PM, the vehicles slowed, pulling into a dense grove of silver fir trees
overlooking a towering, brutalist structure of reinforced concrete and dark
tinted glass built directly into the granite cliff.
A twelve-foot wrought-iron security gate barred the private road, monitored by
four thermal security cameras.
“Thermal imaging shows six men in the gatehouse, boss,” the driver, an operative
named Luca, reported from the front seat.
“Use the EMP override on the gate relays,” Matteo ordered, pulling a black
tactical vest over his turtleneck. “Non-lethal breaches on the outer sentries if
possible. But once we reach the third floor... free fire on any medical
personnel attempting to administer injections.”
Luca tapped a sequence on a handheld transmitter.
Pop.
The gatehouse lights flickered and died. The magnetic locks on the wrought-iron
gates disengaged with a dull clack.
The Range Rover accelerated smoothly through the snow, gliding up the winding
driveway toward the underground ambulance bay beneath the clinic.
Matteo, Luca, two Swiss operatives, and I slipped out of the vehicle into the
freezing mountain air.
We moved through the service entrance, bypassing the main lobby. The interior of
the clinic smelled of industrial bleach, expensive floor wax, and medical
oxygen. The walls were painted a sterile, lifeless gray, illuminated by soft
recessed LED strips.
We took the service elevator to the third floor: the private neurological
rehabilitation wing.
As the elevator doors slid open, an alarm began to chime softly down the
corridor—not a fire alarm, but the rhythmic, urgent beeping of a medical crash
cart.
Matteo’s head snapped toward the sound.
At the far end of the hallway, outside Room 304, stood two private security
guards in charcoal suits, holding submachine guns at the low-ready position.
Beside them stood a tall, balding man in a white physician’s coat, frantically
drawing a clear liquid into a heavy glass syringe from an amber glass vial.
May you like
Doctor Anton Castiglione.
“Move!” Matteo roared.
