Page 137 of The Atlas Maneuver

Yet she’d still made this choice of book. Why?

The twenty-eight characters were now engrained in his mind.

But he could not leave this for someone else to discover, and there was no way those police were going to allow him to leave with the book.

So he did the unthinkable—

And tore the page free.

CHAPTER 78

CASSIOPEIA ENTERED THE BANK OFST. GEORGE.

She, Koger, Trinity Dorner, and Kristen Jeanne had traveled the 250 kilometers north by car. She and Koger had spent the night in a Geneva hotel, then reteamed with Trinity and Kristin for breakfast. She’d spoken to Cotton and he’d told her about the massacre in Morocco. Koger and Trinity had made inquiries and learned that the entire governing body of the bank had been killed, including Catherine Gledhill. Most disturbing, Kelly Austin was among the casualties, along with all of the national envoys.

A team of international investigators had been called in to examine and analyze anything that could be uncovered at the bank. They were already on the scene, in the building, interviewing employees who’d been ordered in to work on a Saturday. She was excited to finally see Cotton, who’d told her on a call earlier that he would be there, and she found him in Catherine Gledhill’s office.

She gave him a long hug, which he returned. “Good to see you in one piece.”

He smiled. “Same to you.”

“I’m sorry about Kelly Austin.”

“It was a terrible way to die. She didn’t deserve that.”

Koger entered the office.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” the big man said.

She noticed no arrogance, nicknames, or grandstanding. Instead, his tone sounded sincere.

“And thank you,” Koger said. “I appreciate all that you did.”

“It wasn’t enough. We lost them all.”

Trinity Dorner entered the office. “I told you in Munich we’d see each other again.”

He said, “That you did.”

“I’ve spoken with the president,” Trinity said. “The CIA director has been fired, as have six deputy directors. All were implicated with Operation Neverlight. Everything about that really stupid idea has now been stampedCLASSIFIED. Nobody is going to speak of it to anyone, unless they want to go to prison.”

“And the fact that the CIA engaged in mass murder?” Cotton asked.

“You know the answer to that,” Dorner said. “We can’t afford that heat. We’ll deal with this internally. I promise you, there will be retribution.”

“Citrone had the original map that details where the Japanese hid all the gold across the Philippines,” Koger said.

“Good to know,” Trinity said. “We’ll make a search. But we can only hope that the map’s location died with Citrone. That’s another door from long ago we don’t want to open.”

“We still have a big problem,” Koger said. “This bank controlled a huge amount of bitcoin, which Austin hijacked. We need to retrieve those coins.”

“Why?” Cotton asked. “Let them vanish into the wind.”

“That is an option,” Trinity said. “But we can’t risk someone else gaining control of them. As we have discovered, the damage that could be done from that is immeasurable.”

“Contrary to what the idiots at Langley thought,” Koger said, “bitcoin isn’t going away. You can’t stop it.”

“It can only stop itself,” Cassiopeia had to say.