Page 105 of The Atlas Maneuver

“You sound just like him.”

“And the problem?”

They stopped at the glass doors. Koger tested them. Locked.More plate-glass panels formed walls to either side. Past the glass and into the foyer a reception counter waited. The elevators were around the corner, as was the conference room where she and Townley had met. No one was in sight.

“That’s odd,” Citrone said.

“How so?” Koger asked.

“Someone is always watching the front doors.”

“Not this evening,” Cassiopeia said.

A door opened behind the reception counter and Wells Townley appeared. The stolid, bland-faced little man wore a houndstooth jacket, maroon slacks, and a pale-blue shirt with a bow tie. Townley approached the doors but made no effort to unlock them. Koger motioned for that to happen. Townley shook his head no.

“Okay,” Koger muttered. “Have it your way.”

The big man raised an arm then twirled his pointed index finger round and round. Behind them, from down the street, three white vans motored up and hopped the curb, parking directly in front of the repository in the small cobbled square between the building and the street. Doors opened and a host of armed Swiss military poured out. Men and women. They assumed a position in front of the glass doors, weapons at the ready.

Back at Citrone’s villa Koger had made one call.

To a woman named Trinity Dorner.

He’d explained the situation and asked that President Warner Fox be informed. Intentionally he’d bypassed the CIA, since there was no way to know how far knowledge of Operation Neverlight existed up the chain of command. Dorner, Koger had explained, had been with him and Cotton in Germany, proving invaluable. She was closely connected to the White House and the president in particular. The call had been short and to the point. Twenty minutes later a return call came into Koger’s phone.

From the president of the United States.

They talked for a few moments.

We’re ready, Koger had said at the end.

And apparently that was the case.

Another car hopped the curb and came up beside the vans. From the passenger side a woman emerged, dressed in a smart red business suit.

“Is that Dorner?” she asked.

Koger shook his head. “No. That’s trouble. With a capitalT. I asked Trinity for help and, of all the people in the world, this is who she sent.”

The new woman stopped to talk to one of the uniformed men.

Koger explained that the Financial Market Supervisory Authority was the Swiss governmental body responsible for financial regulation. That included the supervision of banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, and securities dealers, along with any other financial intermediaries and private vaults. It was an independent institution based in Bern, functionally and financially separate from the central federal administration and the Department of Finance, reporting directly to the Swiss parliament.

The authority granted operating licenses for companies and organizations subject to its supervision and made sure every one of them obeyed the law. It could investigate, issue warnings, cancel licenses, even liquidate a company if need be. One particularly testy subject was that of World War II plunder and wealth. Swiss banks had come under repeated fire for harboring Holocaust-obtained wealth. In the 1990s the banks finally agreed to a $1.25 billion settlement. New laws were passed to make it harder for Swiss banks to retain any ill-gotten plunder. The Nazis’ and Yamashita’s gold represented the Holy Grail of plunder and had effectively evaded detection since 1945. All thanks, of course, to the Central Intelligence Agency.

“I’m assuming,” Koger said, “that when the authority was contacted and apprised of the situation its interest was immediately piqued.”

He told her that the authority consisted of a board of directors and an executive board, all headed by a chairperson, the current one walking straight over to them and introducing herself as Kristin Jeanne. She was middle-aged, dark-haired, with a face andexpression that seemed utterly comfortable with armed military personnel standing behind her.

“So good to see you,” Jeanne said to Koger. “Again.”

“Are we good?” he asked her.

“Let’s see. We date for a month, then you haven’t called me in, what, three months? What do you think? Are we good?”

“I get it. I’m sorry. I really am. Things have been a little hectic.”

“Relax, Derrick. I just enjoy watching you sweat. We’re good.” She paused. “We’re always good.”