Page 31 of The Atlas Maneuver

She shook her head, frustrated.

The greatest struggles through human history had all been fought over wealth. Sometimes those wars happened on battlefields with armies. Other times they occurred in private, behind closed doors, in courtrooms, legislative chambers, boardrooms, or on the floors of mercantile exchanges. Control the distribution of money and you controlled the world. That singular act conferred immense power and influence.

Which she intended to acquire.

Everything was truly about to change.

“We keep going,” she told Lana. “As planned. But we can’t allow anyone to know we’ve been breached. Make sure your people keep silent. In the meantime, we have to get inside that air-gap server.”

“Have you tried to call her?”

She shook her head. “Her message on the server made things perfectly clear. But I will have her located.”

“That would be wise, as the fastest way, at the moment, to those keys is through Kelly.”

CHAPTER 19

KELLY WORKED HARD TO CONTROL HER PANIC. SHE’D LEFTCOTTON TOgo to the restroom. While washing her hands she’d been accosted by a woman who had a narrow, low forehead, thin mouth, and shoulder-length straight dark hair. At first she’d thought her another patron, but the woman produced a weapon and two men, both Japanese, like her, burst in, one clamping a hand over Kelly’s mouth, the other securing her arms behind her back. She’d resisted, but they forced her from the restroom, the other woman leading the way. She’d managed to bite the hand over her mouth and yell out Cotton’s name right before the door leading out had closed behind them. They’d stuffed her into a car and driven off, but she’d stolen a glance out the back windshield and caught a glimpse of Cotton with a gun.

“What do you want?” she asked in English.

“I have what I want,” the woman said from the front seat.

She did not like the sound of that.

“Did you try to kill me earlier today?”

“You have no value to us dead.”

Encouraging. But of little consolation.

Silence settled inside the car.

No way to escape, nor resist.

So she did the smart thing and sat tight with her mouth shut.

Twenty minutes later the vehicle angled off into a quiet neighborhood, turning eventually into a driveway, the mansion beyond barely visible past a curtain of trees and high shrubs. A painted crest held a commanding position between two enormous pillars that supported an electronic gate. A bronze plaque affixed to one of the stone pillars readJAPANESE CONSULATE.

Which meant she was no longer on Swiss soil.

The car parked and the woman led the way from the BMW inside the building, the two minders in tow. Kelly ended up standing in what was once, surely, a bedchamber, now an office, on the second floor, decorated with glass-fronted cabinets filled with curio objects of fine workmanship, including some impressive jade. On a polished teak table against one wall rested a carved Buddha that sat beneath a colorful Japanese wall hanging. Afternoon sun flooded in through the windows, past the sheers. The two armed men watched over her until, ten minutes later, the woman returned.

“My name is Aiko Ejima,” the woman said, stepping behind a desk clear of clutter.

She ran through her brain the sound of the name.Eye-ko. Eh-jee-mah.She took a stab at connecting the dots. “What are you? PSIA?”

The Public Security Investigation Agency served as an appendage within Japan’s Ministry of Justice and handled national security matters both inside and outside the country. She knew all about it. Created in 1952 to deal with communism within Japan, it currently was staffed by a legion of investigators. Its main focus? Watching the far left and right, as well as the Japanese Communist Party. It also kept a close watch over Koreans. Its Second Department of Investigation was in charge of foreign intelligence and she knew that PSIA investigators were routinely sent abroad, just like the CIA and FSB. Every employee at the Bank of St. George had been repeatedly briefed and warned about them. Any contact had to be immediately reported on threat of instant termination.

“How did you know where to find me?” Kelly asked.

“I know a great deal about you.”

She smirked. “Nice to be appreciated.”

“You’re being quite modest, Ms. Austin… for the creator of bitcoin.”

That statement shocked her. Only a handful of people in the world knew that fact. And none of them would ever utter it publicly.