Page 28 of The Atlas Maneuver

She grinned. “Cotton only prides himself on getting the job done. Have you heard from him?”

“He has the situation in Basel under control.”

Good to know. “So what arewedoing?”

Koger did not immediately answer and she allowed him the luxury of his thoughts. She could use a little quiet herself, so she stared out the window at the blue water of Lake Geneva. A cloudy overcast day made it impossible to see the Alps far to the south. She’d visited the town of Montreux, which lay ahead nestled to the lake, several times. A few four-star hotels and a variety of fashionable boutiques and pricey restaurants dotted its shoreline. She wished she was there, enjoying a delicious glass of wine and some sharp cheese. Instead, as Cotton would say, she was doingGod-knows-whatfor no discernible reason other than she’d been asked to help.

“I have a big problem,” Koger finally said.

Okay. Maybe this was truth time.

“In 1950 the CIA entrusted the Bank of St. George with the gold recovered in Europe from the Nazis and all of the gold found in the Philippines. An incredible amount. Why do something so stupid? Chalk it up to eighty years ago. Everybody was terrified of communism. So anything and everything was okay in order to fight it. Including totally entrusting billions of dollars in stolen wealth to a tiny, unregulated bunch of civilians in freakin’ Luxembourg. Amazingly, all was okay with that arrangement until about three years ago. Then things began to drastically change.”

“Why then?” she asked.

“We discovered the bank was dipping into the gold and using it to buy bitcoin.”

“You know why it was doing that?”

“I know some, and it’s not good. But Cotton has the person who knows it all.”

Fair enough. “So what just happened here?”

“We pushed. They pushed back. So we’re going to push again.”

She was concerned about thewepart. “I thought I was only in for the one trip to the wine vault.”

“Somebody tried to kill the woman I sent Cotton to watch over. He handled it, like always, and he’s fine. He’s damn good, but if you tell him I ever said that I’ll call you a liar.”

She smiled, but didn’t like hearing that Cotton was in danger. He was a big boy, though, and could handle himself.

“You don’t know me,” Koger said. “And I shudder to think what Malone had to say about me. But I’m a career agent. Twenty-four years on the job, all in the field. Along the way I’ve managed to piss off just about every boss I’ve ever had. It’s an art form to me. I’m really good at it. But recently I managed to do something different. For once I made a friend in high places and was finally offered a desk at Langley, but I turned it down. Instead, they made me head of European operations. Which I like. I can work a few more years in the field and retire out. Then this cluster of a mess dropped into my lap out of nowhere. It hasCAREER-ENDINGstamped all over it. But I don’t care. I have a problem. A big one. And I’m not too proud to say I need your help.”

She heard the hint of desperation in his voice. A guy like Koger would never let anyone see him sweat, so she appreciated his honesty. Okay. “What can I do?”

Koger did not immediately answer and the car kept speeding down the autoroute. The sound of the tires humming on the pavement lulled her. She grabbed her bearings, staring out at the countryside, seeing fields of hay and villages dominated by sharply pitched church steeples in dark red and green. They were now headed more eastward, around the northern shore of the boomerang-shaped lake toward Lausanne.

Away from Geneva and Basel.

“I thought we were going to meet Cotton,” she said.

“Not anymore.”

Koger’s phone buzzed. He found the unit in his pocket, tossed it over, and asked her to answer it on speaker.

She did.

“We have a big problem.”

Cotton.

They both listened to what had just happened in Basel with Kelly Austin.

“She’s gone,” Cotton said.

“Damn. Damn. Damn,” Koger muttered, shaking his head and pounding the steering wheel. “You sure it was the Japanese?”

“I’m only sure that car was assigned to the local consulate.”

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