Several shells hit Kurt’s chest plate, knocking him backward. He was fairly certain that at least one shell hit Calista because she screamed and tumbled down the stairs.
Lying on his back, Kurt hit the lower trigger and sent the prongs of the Taser blasting into the man’s neck. He snapped into a prone position as the electricity surged through his body and he began to shake.
Kurt held the trigger and kept the electricity flowing as he got to his feet, ran forward, and kicked the man in the face like he was trying to punt a football out of the stadium. The man’s head snapped back and he lay still.
With the situation in hand, Kurt grabbed the Uzi and dropped back to where Calista had fallen.
“You’ve been hit.”
“My leg,” she said.
Kurt pulled her up onto the landing. She’d taken a bullet to the thigh. It was bleeding, but not enough to suggest it had hit an artery. He took off her belt and wrapped it around her leg as a tourniquet.
“I think it’s broken,” she said. She tried to stand, but even with his help she couldn’t put any weight on it.
“Just go,” she said. “They’ll be coming up here soon enough. You’ll need me to watch your back.”
Kurt hesitated and then handed her the Uzi. He figured she’d earned it at this point.
“Don’t let him live,” she said. “He has no right.”
Without answering, Kurt propped her up against the wall, where she’d have some cover and a good angle to fire at anyone who came her way.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll be back for you.”
“That’s what they all say,” she replied.
He turned and raced up the stairs, finally arriving at the upper landing. A solid-steel door blocked him. It was bolted shut.
Kurt checked his ammo. Seven shells left. He hoped it would be enough.
Stepping back, he opened fire on the lock. The iron projectiles tore it apart like armor-piercing rounds. The door burst open under the onslaught and Kurt rushed in.
He saw two guards, took one of them out, and then dove for cover as the other one started firing.
Scrambling across the floor as the man unleashed a hail of shells, Kurt rolled and fired back. The lethal shot blasted through one of Sebastian’s computers and killed the last of Sebastian’s bodyguards instantly.
Kurt stood and looked for Sienna. He spotted her at the back of the room. Sebastian had her up against his body and was holding a nickel-plated automatic to her temple.
From where he stood, Joe had the advantage of elevation and could both see and hear the battle raging on the compound’s bottom two terraces. Over the headset he heard Lt. Brooks directing his men, probing for a weakness and being pushed back. Across the dark lawns he could see the burning helicopter and red streams of tracer fire converging on the area around it from three directions.
He pressed the talk switch on his headset. “Dragon leader, this is Zavala,” he said. “You’re being surrounded. Suggest you abandon position and move down the hill.”
Pressed up against the rock wall for cover, Lt. Brooks heard the call and sat dumbfounded for a second. None of his men were named Zavala. Then it dawned on him. One of the oceanographers went by that name.
“Zavala, we cannot pull back, we have five men wounded, two critical. There’s no cover lower down. If we don’t hold this wall, we’re dead.”
A burst of static gave way to the smooth-sounding voice of the oceanographer. “I’ll swing around and try to relieve the pressure on your right flank.”
That would certainly help. But there were too many of Brèvard’s men there for one man to take on even if he took them by surprise.
“Negative,” Brooks said. “You’d be facing twenty hostiles. If you really want to help, take out those fifty-caliber guns and that missile site. Our only chance is to get the rest of the men on the ground, but they can’t get within a mile of us as long as those things are active.”
A delay that seemed like forever made Brooks fear Zavala had been taken out, but then his voice came through loud and clear. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Brooks fired over the top of the wall and ducked as some incoming shells blasted chunks out of the top of it.
Lance Corporal William Dalton scrambled over and reinforced the position. “What’s the word, Lieutenant?”
“Help might be on the way,” Brooks replied, “though we’re never going to live it down if we get saved by a marine biologist.”
“At least the word marine is in the title,” Dalton replied.
“Good point,” Brooks said, snapping off a shot and ducking once again. “Good point.”
Moving in a crouch, Joe made his way toward what he assumed was the missile site. But he came across the twin .50 caliber machine guns first.
He saw them track left to right, as if looking for the helicopters in the distance. Putting the railgun to his shoulder, he blasted apart the pivoting tripod mechanism they were mounted on. Hydraulic fluid spewed everywhere and the guns froze in place.
“One fifty-caliber weapon down,” he said. “Good,” Lt. Brooks replied. “See if you can get that missile launcher.”
“I can’t see it,” Joe said.
“Higher up,” Brooks said. “My guess would be the center of that hedge maze.”
Joe looked around. He could see the wall of hedges, but he had no way to reach the entrance. And considering the complexity of the maze, he doubted he could make it quickly to the center.
The rattling sound of the second .50 caliber weapon got Joe’s attention and he had another idea.
Zeroing in on the sound, he cut through an ornamental garden filled with strange flowering bushes. On the far side he saw the second machine-gun emplacement. He raced toward it, but instead of tracking one of the helicopters in the distant sky, the guns whirled around toward him and the barrels began to depress.
Joe figured he’d run out of coolant and was now giving off a heat signature, but he was committed and continued his charge, diving at the base of the tripod and sliding into it as the guns began hammering away, tearing up the ground behind him.
With Joe clinging to the base of the tripod, the clamoring stopped but the guns continued swinging from side to side, hopelessly trying to find a position from which to fire at him. It was no use, Joe was in too close and safely beneath their maximum angle of depression.
With a nod to whoever designed the system, Joe considered his options. Instead of destroying the mechanism that aimed and fired the guns, he began taking it apart.
Both machine guns began hammering away, tearing up the ground behind Joe, but he was beneath their maximum angle of depression. He crawled forward and made it to the tripod. Instead of destroying the mechanism that spun and aimed the weapons, he eased up next to it and began ripping out wires.
Eventually, the weapons stopped rotating.
Putting the railgun down, Joe pulled out his knife and began stripping the wires. Soon enough, he had a half dozen wires stripped to the copper.
“Zavala?” the radio cackled.
“I’m working on it,” Joe said.
“Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better make it quick.”
Trying out different combinations of wires by pressing them together, Joe got the platform to turn in a herky-jerky motion until it was pointed back up at the center of the hedge maze.
Next he managed to elevate the guns. Now he just needed them to fire. He looked toward the trigger assembly. The weapons themselves were standard M2 .50 caliber machine guns. Nothing exotic, but the triggers were covered by a metal housing.
Using the back of the railgun as a club, Joe broke the housing free and got access to the triggers. A simple hydraulic clamp had been set up to pull the triggers remotely. Joe didn’t have time to fiddle with that, so he put his hands around the trigger mechanism and squeezed.
Both weapons began to spit lead. Every fourth shell was a tracer and from those Joe could see his aim was a li
ttle high. He forced the barrels down a fraction and began to fire again. This time the shells found the mark, tearing into the missile battery and shredding it. One missile exploded, another launched and flew outward before quickly nosing over and thudding into the pastureland beyond the walls.
Joe was still firing when he heard Brooks calling the other helicopters. “This is Dragon leader, the LZ is clear. Repeat, the LZ is clear.”
“Dragon Three inbound,” came the first call.
“Dragon Four inbound.”
With help on the way, Joe dropped back to the ground, picked up the railgun, and waited for the Marines to arrive.
In the control room on the top floor of the main house a standoff ensued. Kurt had raised the deadly railgun and zeroed in on Sebastian Brèvard’s head, but Sebastian had pulled himself behind Sienna and cocked the hammer on the shiny automatic that was pressed against her temple.
Considering the accuracy of his weapon, Kurt was certain he could kill Sebastian with a single shot, but the nerves of the body have strange ways of reacting to the death of the mind. If Kurt shot him, Sebastian might go limp instantaneously, or his hand might just as easily twitch, pulling the hair trigger of the pistol and killing Sienna.
The fact that Kurt had only one shell left in the railgun was also a concern.
“Kurt,” Sienna cried, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
He looked Sienna in the eye, willing her to be calm. “It’s going to be all right,” he promised. “He’s going to let you go.”
“Am I?” Sebastian said. “So that you can kill me? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not interested in killing you,” Kurt insisted. “There are plenty of others lined up for that task. If Acosta doesn’t get you, the North Koreans will—or even Than Rang, if he ever gets out of prison. Dead or alive, you’re irrelevant to me at this point. Your plans are ruined. Whatever scheme you’ve been hatching here is going up in flames as we speak.”
“Is that so?” Sebastian replied, his eyebrows arched in an exaggerated look of surprise. “Because—aside from your early arrival—things are going exactly as I’ve intended.”
Kurt stared, not interested in a banal conversation with the man, but he was willing to have one if it led Sebastian to make a mistake.
“You expect me to believe this is all part of some master plan?”
“Come, now,” Sebastian continued. “Surely you’ve realized that we could have killed you on Westgate’s yacht. The discovery of the bodies on the wreck should have told you that. Have you even asked yourself why you were spared?”
Kurt had been considering that question for a while. “You were trying to keep the kidnapping a secret,” he said. “You wanted me to tell the world that Sienna drowned. That way, there would be no investigation.”
“Then why did we send you pictures of Sienna in Iran?” Sebastian asked. “Why lead you to the realization that she was alive after all?”
Kurt couldn’t guess. In fact, he didn’t believe a word of it. But he was running out of time. The battle outside appeared to be going badly, and the sound of gunfire on the landing told him Calista was trying to hold the line.
“Cat got your tongue?” Sebastian asked. “Then I’ll tell you. We needed you to get the ball rolling. To begin the process of reevaluation among your smug leaders. To plant a seed of doubt.”
“It doesn’t matter what you had in mind,” Kurt said, “it’s over. You may have been ahead of us at the start, but we’ve been onto you since Korea. Our people are shutting down the vulnerable networks at this very moment. When the world opens up for business in the morning, Phalanx will be gone. It’s being ripped out of every system it was ever installed on.”
A broad smile crept over Sebastian’s face. There was no falsity to it. Nor did he appear to be smiling in the face of defeat. Indeed, it looked to Kurt as if he’d just delivered Sebastian some glorious news.
“Of course they are,” Sebastian said. “Which is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.”
“You’re lying,” Kurt said.
“Am I?” Sebastian replied. “Ask your lovely friend here if Phalanx has been compromised.”
Kurt refused to play along, so Sebastian turned his attention to Sienna.
“Tell him!”
“He’s telling the truth,” she said. “It’s still secure. Because of the way its artificial intelligence protocols work, Phalanx can’t be hacked. Not even by me.”
Kurt narrowed his gaze. Tears were streaming down Sienna’s face. “Then why go through all this?”
Sebastian answered. “Because I’ve spent three years perfecting the greatest criminal act of all time,” he boasted, “and the sudden appearance of Phalanx nearly ruined it for me. Now, thanks to you, the Westgates, and an abundance of caution, your leaders are removing it for me.”
Kurt saw it now. “And replacing it with the old systems,” he said. “Systems you already know how to hack.”
Sebastian looked like a man who thought himself a genius or even a god. His machines and his men were winning the battle outside, and the best minds in the security business had delivered to him the one thing he couldn’t get for himself. They’d taken down the impenetrable wall of Phalanx and replaced it with what must have been a veritable tunnel that led right to whatever he was after.
“You’re going to rob the world’s banks,” Kurt said, remembering what Montresor had worked on.
“Nothing so crass as theft,” Sebastian replied. “I’m an artist. My crime will have much more style.”
“What crime?” Kurt demanded. “What are you after?”
“It’s the Fed,” Sienna cried out. “He’s planted viruses in the Federal Reserve banks.”
“Shut up,” Sebastian shouted as he tried to keep her from talking by compressing her windpipe with his forearm.
The act caused Kurt to move and almost fire, but Sebastian moved as well, effectively keeping her between them.
“The Fed?” Kurt repeated. “You can’t rob the Fed. That’s even more foolish than robbing a regular bank.”
“If I was going to burglarize it,” Sebastian replied, his words laced with pride and venom.
Kurt decided to prod him. Maybe, just maybe, Sebastian’s ego was like those of many criminals, secretly eager for the world to know how brilliant they were. Certainly, he wouldn’t be the first to boast about and claim his crime.
“If you’re not going to rob the Fed, then what are you after? I assume you’re not going to make a deposit.”
“Actually,” Sebastian said, “in a way I am.”
Kurt held silent.
“Do you have any idea how the Fed creates money?” Sebastian asked.
“Printing press,” Kurt said, thinking of the Brèvard’s family history.
“To a minor extent,” Sebastian acknowledged. “But they have more efficient ways, the most useful of which is the redemption of bonds. When they decide that investors or bondholders deserve to be repaid, they simply go to a computer, type in some numbers, and dollars magically appear in the bondholders’ accounts as their notes are canceled.”
Sebastian grinned. “I’m not going to rob the Fed,” he insisted. “I’m going to use their own programs to create a series of bonds out of thin air and simultaneously create dollars to satisfy the redemption of those bonds. There will be no money missing. No losses to explain or trace. The balance sheet of the Fed will stand exactly as it does now. One side equaling the other. Liabilities equaling reserves. We’re not stealing money. We’re creating it.”
“Do you have any idea how the Fed creates money?” Sebastian asked. “When they decide that investors and bondholders deserve to be repaid, they don’t go to Fort Knox, box up some gold, and ship it out in the mail like they might have done back in the days of the gold standard. They simply go to a computer, type in some numbers, and dollars appear in the accounts of those bondholders as their notes are canceled. I’m not going to rob the Fed,” he added. “I’m going
to use their programs to create a series of bonds out of thin air and simultaneously create dollars to satisfy the redemption of those bonds.”
As Sebastian spoke, his eyes were wild. “There will be no money missing,” he continued, “no losses to explain or trace. The balance sheet of the Federal Reserve will stand exactly as it does now. One side equaling the other. Liabilities equaling reserves. We’re not stealing money. We’re creating it.”
“Of course,” Kurt said. It made sense. “You’re a counterfeiter. Like your ancestors. Just slightly more modern.”
“So you know about them?”
“The Klaar River Gang,” Kurt said.
Sebastian reacted to the name but not with shame. He seemed almost proud to admit it. “My great-grandfather was a brilliant man,” he said. “The notes he created were perfect. They couldn’t be differentiated from the real thing. Not until time affected the dyes. So he had to disappear. And he did. Even with the world looking for him, he disappeared without a trace.”
“By murdering over two hundred people on the Waratah?” Kurt replied. “You’re not artists. You’re thugs and killers.”
“I see you’ve put the puzzle together,” Sebastian acknowledged as if he were complimenting Kurt. “All the more reason for me to leave.”
“You can’t honestly think you’re going to pull this off,” Kurt said. “There are checks and balances in the system, auditors and watchdogs.”
Sebastian dragged Sienna up a step. “Are you that naïve? There are literally billions of transactions every day. Trillions of dollars change hands in a month’s time. Do you think it’s all tallied up by hordes of accountants with green visors above their eyes, toiling away in the government’s back office somewhere? Computer programs do those checks and audits you spoke of. And guess who controls those programs now? I do. The data they spit out will satisfy the few humans that even bother to look past the top and bottom lines, I can assure you of that.”