The air inside was slightly warmer, thick with the smell of hydraulic fluid and old grease.

Above me, the high metal rafters buzzed with the vibration of the idling plane outside.

The turboprop engines hummed, a steady, deafening drone.

I paused behind a stack of wooden crates labeled for aircraft parts.

Thirty feet away, near the nose of a white Cessna Citation, stood Grant Carlisle.

He looked haggard, his designer winter coat stained with grease and snow.

He was frantically typing on a ruggedized military-grade laptop resting on a metal workbench.

Next to him, a small portable incinerator bin was already smoking.

He fed a stack of paper ledgers into the flames.

“Hurry up, Grant!” Vanessa’s voice echoed from the office loft above.

“The pilot says we have less than three minutes before the runway clears.”

Grant didn’t look up from his screen.

“I’m wiping the offshore accounts,” he shouted back, his voice cracking with panic.

“If the feds trace these transaction keys, we have nothing left in Zurich.”

I noted the position of the laptop and the smoking bin.