Chapter One
Austria's cold winter air blew thick swirls of snow into the open lobby doors of the financial building, where polizei directed the last line of employees one by one through a metal detector before allowing them to leave the building. Frightened and wide-eyed, many shuffled along like cattle, darting glances around the snow covered ground, the stabbing icy air off the river reddening their worried faces.
SWAT lined the parking lot as financial firm employees walked in single file to their respective cars, news crews relentlessly snapping photos. After checking the vehicles, running scanners over and under them, the polizei had cleared ninety percent of the employees, leaving less than twenty employees on floors six and seven inside the Heinemann and Heinemann financial firm.
Death threats didn't drive cars. Did they think the person who sent the threat would be standing out there with hot chocolate congratulating them for making it out alive?
Perhaps that person was in the building smiling down over them, while they jerkily moved toward their cars like scared children on their first day of school. No one could be certain where or if the threats were over.
Threats were personal, never random.
A man's loud voice rang out through the cold air from the bullhorn, directing the last few stragglers past the yellow tape and barricade.
“If you've been cleared, stay behind the yellow tape...”
“—Cross the line and you’ll be taken into custody…”
“—There is an active investigation underway,” the officer announced in a staggered, broken relay of thoughts as commands filtered through the radio clipped on his shoulder.
Local and national news crews crowded the entrance around the gated fence, with their satellite dish laden vans and reporters with wires draped over their shoulders; they attempted to get a glimpse of the person who sent in a death threat.
Little did they know one of their colleagues was missing or maybe one of them did know?
Which one?
After securing the building, SWAT ushered those with level four clearance back inside to retrieve their belongings from security.
A villain never leaves the scene of a crime until the deed is done, or they’re carried out on a stretcher.
Death threats were a part of the norm for a financial firm and today CFO Mikhail Shamochernyi, grandson to Hans Heinemann, had received the third one of his career. The first...from a woman he loved.
