“We will, but the moment that’s un-hooked, we don’t have access to the data until it’s hooked back up somewhere else. We need that data now.”

  The tech cursed but plugged it back in. It took a few moments for the machine to reboot, then Wagner’s fingers flew over the keyboard. He fished a memory stick from his pocket and plugged it in, then transferred the datafile downloaded from Meitner’s memory stick earlier. He confirmed the data had transferred then shut the computer down and removed the storage device. “Okay, we’re good.”

  The tech started yanking cables and Wagner lifted the computer from the desk and handed it to the much younger subordinate. He turned to the police. “We’ve got it.”

  “Good, then let’s get out of here. Bomb techs have been known to miss things.”

  Wagner gulped and too many muscles relaxed.

  And he thanked God he had gone to the bathroom when he did.

  43 |

  Unknown Location 41,000 feet

  Acton’s head throbbed from when he had been pistol-whipped. He could desperately use an ice pack, but he wasn’t sure if he should ask for one, especially considering none were probably on board. An LED clock mounted at the front of the cabin indicated almost 45 minutes had gone by since they had taken off. If anything had been said by their captors, he hadn’t heard it. Vida sat alone in the back, the half-dozen guards scattered through the cabin. One sat directly across from them, never taking his eyes off his charges, swapping out about every 15 minutes like clockwork.

  Military precision.

  It meant they were properly guarded. No tired eyes, no bored eyes, just 15 minutes of laser focus. They couldn’t get away with anything, but it also meant he had an opportunity to closely examine each of them. They all appeared Middle Eastern, 35 to 45, in excellent shape, clean-shaven with Western-style haircuts. Their suits were mid-range, not cheap, but not bespoke, and their shoes were boots polished to a sheen.

  The man currently guarding them eyed Laura’s legs, and Acton glared at him, clenching his fists. They still weren’t bound, leaving no doubt that hostages had never been part of the plan. But he wasn’t about to punch the guy out for ogling his wife. It could result in something far worse than leering. This was the first person to stare, the first sign of any lack of discipline. If he were to try something, one would hope the others would stop him rather than join in.

  Acton was convinced these were military, or former military. The question was, what country? With them all appearing Middle Eastern, that couldn’t be a coincidence. And unfortunately, it meant an undisciplined military with soldiers who couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing. Good men could do bad things when desperate, but stealing and rape were two completely different things. And even a good soldier turned bad would never commit such an atrocity or stand by while it was done.

  But were these good soldiers?

  Whether they were Iranian, Syrian, or some other military, he couldn’t say, and while he wouldn’t trust them as far as he could throw one of them, just because someone was from a certain country that was your enemy, didn’t mean they were a bad person. It was why no German wanted to be on the Russian front. Get captured by an American, Brit, or Canadian, and you knew you would be appropriately treated. Get captured by a Russian, and you were allowed to be tortured then executed. In the final days of World War II, German civilians were desperate to be on the right side of the line, and that didn’t mean the German side. Soviet troops were raping their way across eastern Germany with the blessing of their officers until Stalin finally put an end to it, though not before concerns were expressed by his civilized allies.

  Right now, Acton had no idea what type of people he was dealing with. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but he couldn’t let his guard down.

  The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a ringing satellite phone. The conversation was one-sided for the most part. The man’s eyes bulged then his cheeks flushed as his jaw clenched. He ended the call and sprang to his feet, marching down the aisle to the back. Shouts erupted and Acton turned his head and peered between the seats. The entire security team was huddled together, and it was apparent they were all getting angry.

  Yet Vida sat in her seat, emotionless, saying nothing.

  Then the first finger was jabbed, the anger directed at her.

  “What’s going on?” whispered Laura.

  “They’re pissed about something, and it looks like they’re directing their anger at Vida.”

  “How’s your head?”

  It still pounded, but he told her a little white lie. “It’s fine. What do you think we should do?”

  “Is there anything we can do? There are half a dozen guns against two sets of fists.”

  He pursed his lips. “All it would take is getting our hands on one gun, then we could shoot out a window.”

  Laura’s eyes shot wide. “What the hell good would that do?”

  “It would force them to land. Right now, we’re still in Europe. Something tells me that’s not our final destination.”

  “Depressurizing the aircraft could get us killed.”

  “And landing outside of Europe is probably going to get us killed too.”

  “And just how do you propose to get a gun?”

  He jerked his head toward the growing argument. “They’re angry now. Distracted. Discipline is failing, so their guard will be down. I suggest you show a little bit more thigh, then when our friend returns, I’ll take him down, get his weapon, and shoot out one of the windows. That will force us to land and give the authorities a chance to save us.”

  “Or they could just execute us.”

  Acton shrugged. “At least we’ll have died doing something.”

  She leaned in and gave him a kiss. “You’re right. I’d rather go down fighting than executed the moment these people think they’re safe.”

  “So, we’re agreed then?”

  Laura hiked up what remained of her dress. “Let’s do this.”

  44 |

  Vienna General Hospital Vienna, Austria

  Meitner stared at the display his team had set up, showing the flight status of Vida’s private charter. Reading entered the room with his son, his eyebrows rising slightly.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you find out the flight number?”

  Meitner batted a hand. “It doesn’t take a genius to find out the flight number of a plane leaving for Athens from the south of the city within the past hour. With that amount of search criteria, the result set is almost always one.”

  Reading grunted. “I suppose so. Any sign of deviation yet?”

  “No, but I would suspect it would be last minute. Has there been any news?”

  “Yes. Apparently, there’s one cellphone tower working inside the dead zone which the powers that be thought was suspicious. Bomb techs were sent and they found an undetonated weapon. The Inspector and his partner are heading over there now. It might give us a clue as to who’s behind this.”

  A phone rang in the corner and one of the techs answered it. “Sir, Mr. Wagner retrieved the data. He’s uploading it now.”

  “Good. Get me Bernie.”

  Reading held up a hand. “I’ll get him. He’s just outside.” He disappeared for a moment then returned with Meitner’s longtime aide.

  “Sir?”

  “Wagner has the data. Do you have your official list?”

  Wagner held up his tablet. “Yes, sir.”

  Meitner’s heart rate monitor picked up slightly. This was the moment of truth. Had the betrayal happened before he handed over the memory stick thus widening the suspect pool dramatically, or had it happened after he handed it over, narrowing it to very few possibilities.

  A paper rolled out of the printer and the tech handed it over to Bernie, who only took a split second to confirm what Meitner was hoping.

  Bernie shook the page. “These are all wrong. Well, I assume they’re all wrong. I’ve seen enough to know this isn’t the list of approved account numbers.”

  Meitner slumped into his pillows, thanking God. So many suspects had just been eliminated, not the least of which was his granddaughter’s husband. Though perhaps that was premature. Just because the accounts hadn’t been changed before the handover, didn’t mean any he suspected weren’t still involved.

  Reading regarded Bernie. “But that doesn’t really tell us anything, does it?”

  Bernie stared at him. “It tells us that the numbers were changed.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t tell us when. All we know for sure is that the numbers on the memory stick don’t match what you thought were on the memory stick. It still could have been changed beforehand.”

  Bernie vehemently shook his head. “No, you’re forgetting that I’m the one who put them on the stick. I verified the accounts and then handed it directly to Mr. Meitner.”

  “And it never left my possession,” confirmed Meitner. “With the account numbers being different, we know it changed between the time I handed it over, and the time they were copied to the machine.”

  Reading smiled. “Then our suspect pool has narrowed down quite a bit. Who would have had it after you handed it over?”

  “The young woman you saw should have taken it directly to Miss Vida, and she would have handed it to Wagner, who was the controller for the Transfer Station.”

  “She didn’t have any security assigned to her, if I remember correctly.”

  Meitner sighed. “An oversight that I now regret. We assumed perimeter security was enough.”

  “It never is if there’s someone on the inside working against you. We need to find her. She could be the key to all of this.”

  Meitner’s eyes bulged. “Wait! We now have all the destination accounts, don’t we?”

  The tech nodded.

  “Get the team on it. I want every one of those banks called to see if we can freeze those accounts.”

  “And forward it to me,” said Reading. “My contacts might have a little more success.”

  Meitner snapped his fingers. “Do that first.”

  Reading’s phone vibrated with the receipt of the account list and he tapped away at it for a moment. He held it up. “Done. Let’s hope we get some back at least.”

  Bernie gasped and everyone turned toward him. “What is it?” asked Meitner.

  Bernie stepped over and handed him the piece of paper. “Do you notice anything strange here?”

  Meitner stared at a jumble of account numbers. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  “Ignore the account numbers, sir. Well, don’t entirely ignore them. Look at the amounts.”

  His eyes darted to the right of the page. Random numbers. He wasn’t sure what his trusted man was referring to. Then his jaw dropped as he spotted the pattern. Half a dozen accounts, all getting one or two million dollars, and then an account would get over half a billion, the pattern sustained. He glanced over at the tech. “Is this the order they would have been done in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Everything was set up to be dramatic. Meitner’s chest tightened at just how dramatic it was. The first two transfers were legit, exactly as had been expected for the test run, but the rest all went into the wrong accounts for minuscule amounts, except every fifth or sixth transaction transferred an enormous amount all into the same account.

  It would explain why the counter on the screen had continually dropped at the expected rate. The counter had been programmed to roll down consistently, not in big increments. His people had explained that audiences got more excited over a constantly decreasing number rather than one that would drop in spurts. It had disguised the half-billion-dollar withdrawals that should have been split over half a dozen charities.

  Reading stood impatiently at the foot of the bed. “What is it? What have you two found?”

  Meitner shook the page. “Almost all of the money went into a single account. Let your people know, just in case they miss it like I did. Forget all the other accounts. It’s this one that’s key.” Reading’s thumbs flew over his keyboard as Meitner turned to his people. “Find out what bank this is and get its president on the phone right now. Find out what jurisdiction it is, and get the president of that damn country on the phone right now. If there’s any chance at stopping the money from being transferred further, we need to act fast.”

  45 |

  CIA Headquarters, Operations Center 3 Langley, Virginia

  “Where is the account located?” asked Leroux.

  “Cayman Islands,” replied Tong.

  “Do we have a tap at that bank?”

  “Limited. A security sweep two weeks ago removed most of our access, and we haven’t been able to get back in for more than a few minutes. They appear to be actively monitoring.”

  Leroux regarded Tong as he scratched his chin. “Two weeks ago, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that account, do we have any information on it?”

  “Only some tombstone information. We can’t access balances or anything anymore.”

  “Please tell me we’ve got a name.”

  “Oh, we’ve got a name. And you’re not going to believe it.”

  Butterflies in his stomach shared in his excitement. “Who?”

  “Jason Harper.”

  Leroux eyed her. “Who the hell is that? Why does it sound familiar?”

  “It’s the husband of one of Meitner’s granddaughters, Holly Meitner. Both granddaughters kept the family name.”

  “So, this really was an inside job conducted by an idiot,” interjected Child. “Who puts their real name on the account?”

  Leroux’s head slowly bobbed. Child was right. It was foolish, and it could only make sense if the person were utterly inept and had no idea what they were doing, or—

  “Could someone be setting him up?” asked Tong, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Definite possibility. When was that account opened?”

  She checked her screen. “Two weeks ago.”

  Leroux chewed his cheek. “Again, two weeks. So, two weeks ago, an account is opened in Harper’s name at a bank that conducts a security sweep at the same time, kicking us out of its servers, a LinkedIn profile is created for Vida, the primary on the project dies in a car accident, and Vida is hired within a couple of days of that. That’s a lot of coincidences.”

  “Too many,” agreed Tong.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Sonya, have someone pull the accident report for the car crash. Get our own forensics experts to go over the file, see if they spot anything unusual. And do a deep dive on Harper. We need to know everything there is to know about him. And find out if we have any specialists in the Caymans or near the Caymans, someone that could get inside and tell us what the hell’s going on with that money.”

  Tong indicated one of the clocks on the wall showing their current time. “It’s pretty late. The bank is going to be closed.”

  Leroux frowned. “We’re going to need someone who can break in and bypass the alarms.”

  Tong worked her station and smiled. “We do have someone, but he’s on vacation.”

  “Who?”

  “Jack.”

  Leroux smiled. “Reach out. Let’s hope he’s not too far into a bottle.”

  46 |

  Vienna, Austria October 2, 1941

  “Happy Birthday!”

  Daniel spun around, his heart hammering at the unexpected greeting from Petra. Behind him, he gently pushed back into place the stone he had pried out only moments before. “Are you sure it’s my birthday?” Of course he knew it was. He was thirteen today. He should be celebrating his bar mitzvah. He should be surrounded by his family and friends, receiving gifts, singing, dancing, eating.

  But he had none of that.

  “You know it’s your birthday, silly.” She jutted her chin toward the wall behind him. “What are you doing there?”

  The blood drained from his face and he prayed she couldn’t see it in the faint light cast by their lamp shining through the door of their hideaway. It was everything he could do to not rapidly shake his head, denying the one secret he had kept. “Nothing.” He held up a stick with a rat on it that he had killed earlier for just this situation. “Just killing a rat.”

  Petra shivered and recoiled. “Oh, I hate those things! If we ever get out of here, I hope to never see another rat again.”

  He lifted the stick a little higher as he rose. “If we don’t get more meat soon, we might have to figure out how to cook these.”

  Petra gagged and turned her head. “Just get it out of my sight.”

  He laughed and stepped down the corridor, tossing the stick with its victim into the slowly running water of the sewage and waste-water system.

  “Come into the room. I’ve got something to show you.”

  “I’ll be there in a second.”

  It had been months since he had met Petra, and a lot had happened. And a lot hadn’t. She had taught him how to survive on the streets, how to get water, how to stay clean, how to feed himself, how to keep an eye out for items that might be of use. And their little collection had grown with all manner of tools, including the lamp that did so much more than the lone candles they had been using.

  When he had first met her, he had assumed they were the same age, but he was mistaken. Her slight frame from barely surviving over months had misled him. They had celebrated her sixteenth birthday not a month ago. She was like his big sister and he loved it. They were making a home now, and thriving for the most part. Over the many months they had accomplished quite a bit. Their bed was now off the floor, and they still shared it rather than making a second. Each night, he’d climb in and place his back to her. She’d join him then wrap her arms around him, and he would close his eyes, imagining it was his mother.

  It was the closest thing to normal he had in his life.

 

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