MOONSHOT: A Dystopian Neo-Noir Thriller (Vince Foster Book 1) by Austin Windsor

Author:Austin Windsor [Windsor, Austin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Windsor
Published: 2024-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

It was easy to cross into the United Republic of England and Wales. The government there encouraged the inward movement of Londoners in the hopes that it would stimulate their stagnant economy. They even turned a blind eye to the rampant bribery committed by said Londoners as they trafficked drugs, weapons, illicit money, and people across the border. The system in place may as well have been official. Vince pulled up to the inspection, showed the guards his pistol, and they named a price. He paid it and drove away without hassle.

Although Vince had been born in London while it was still the capital of what was then the United Kingdom, he did not identify himself as anything other than a Londoner. Even to that title he felt no powerful affiliation. But he found it less embarrassing than to associate with the dilapidated nation he found himself driving through. One which had once been so great, but now lay in a permanent state of stagnation and disrepair.

Blenheim Palace remained majestic despite the dreary grey blanketing the sky. Vince had been before, as a child, on a sunnier day. Of course, then he was able to freely traverse the grounds. Now, the gates were shut, and he only caught a fleeting glance as he drove along the adjacent main road in search of a location from which he could covertly begin his reconnaissance.

He found parking in the neighbouring town of Woodstock, an arrangement of stone houses several hundred years old which blended into the clouds above and through their monotonous beauty somehow evoked an unsettling melancholy.

There weren’t many people around, but those that were bore expressions accentuating this very inexplicable emotion with which Vince found himself suddenly awash. He shook his head as if to physically disperse the sensation and meandered to the back of his car where he retrieved a drone from the boot and set about activating it and letting it into the air.

He sat back into the driver’s seat and tuned into the drone’s controls through his neural chip, hoping dearly that any security forces guarding the oligarch’s grounds wouldn’t be spooked by it. The devices that were so commonplace in the world’s metropolises were utterly absent in the English countryside, and the model Vince operated was by no means inconspicuous.

Lifting up into the air over the empty town, Vince navigated the drone around the northern end of the estate and over the river before heading south towards a dense patch of trees. He dropped towards the ground and used the estate’s sprawling gardens to stay as concealed as he possibly could in his approach to the mansion.

He failed almost immediately in his attempt to remain unnoticed. Several gardeners milling about the intertwining gravel pathways spotted the sizable drone as it progressed through the grounds, chatting unsurely to one another. Vince accelerated the drone and abandoned stealth as he soared up and into an open window, only fitting with a few centimetres to spare.

The person occupying the

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