Page 65 of The Atlas Maneuver

“Especially considering that I doubt Citrone even wipes his own ass.”

Their host appeared, dressed in chest-high rubber waders over jeans and a plaid shirt. His head was topped by a black felt hat with a broad flat brim, wrapped by a white headband into which were hooked a few salmon flies.

“Are we goin’ fishing?” Koger asked.

“I thought we might,” the big man said.

Citrone sat at the dining room table and ate while she and Koger, cups of coffee in hand, retreated outside. Air pressure was dropping, the skies fading to a nasty shade of gray. Wind clubbed at the trees. Rain squalls were coming, promising a stiff blow across the water.

“Fishing?” she asked.

Koger shrugged. “He does like it. But I suspect there’s more to it.”

“And, by the way, neither one of you fully explained Operation Neverlight,” she pointed out.

“It’s pretty simple, really. They clean and whitewash. Not a speck of anything to find is to be left behind. It’s supposedly whyI was dealing with Kelly Austin. Bringing her in. Securing what she knows.”

“Then somebody tried to kill her.”

“They used me to set her up. You just can’t get all the rot out of a bad tooth. There are people at Langley that still think killing is the way to go. I made some calls last night. They’re not backing down from Neverlight.”

Which alarmed her. “Does Cotton know?”

Koger nodded. “I called and told him. But he says he has Austin tucked away safe and sound. Here’s the rub. The agency doesn’t want anything about that gold to ever come to light, but they also wouldn’t mind gettin’ it back. And apparently, they don’t care how. So they sent me to do one thing, then others to do another.”

“Why is Kelly Austin so important?”

“She holds the key to everything. I’ve been instructed to stand down, but I don’t follow orders all that good.”

“That’s what Cotton said too.”

“Something is dead up the creek and I intend to find out where the smell is coming from. I’m sure my superiors know me well enough to know that I’m not walkin’ away.”

“Which now makes you a target.”

Koger pointed. “No. It makesusa target.”

An excellent observation.

“Sir Rob is a resourceful guy,” Koger said. “A seasoned professional who is, at the moment, a few steps ahead of us. But he thinks we’re idiots. Okay, let’s act like idiots and see where he leads.”

COTTON HAD LEFTSUZY AT THEGASTHAUS, TELLING HER TO STAY INthe room out of sight. No one knew where she was. Her cell phone was disabled and his, a Magellan Billet–issued unit, was untrackable. He’d somehow lost her passport in all the chaos yesterday. It was probably in the van and, since he hadn’t checked the vehicle out, a quick look seemed in order.

Finally, last night, before they’d both gone to sleep in their separate rooms, Suzy had opened up.

“The CIA and the bank created bitcoin in 2009 for good reason. It made sense to be ready, just in case the world collapsed. After the crisis passed the CIA lost interest in bitcoin. Typical. They have the attention span of a three-year-old. I don’t think they ever saw the potential. But the bank kept going, morphing bitcoin into the phenomenon it is today. One coin is worth, what, fifty grand? Pretty damn good for something that is nothing more than a blip on a computer program. Now the bank is poised to use bitcoin to gain control of a sizable portion of the world’s financial systems.”

“I want to hear that part.”

“More and more countries are adopting bitcoin as their currency and reserve,” she said. “Which was my idea. I thought it a good thing. Why not? The world was ready for a change in value. What the world doesn’t know is that the Bank of St. George can control the value of bitcoin. They can make it go up or down, at will. Bitcoiners love to say how they’re free of governmental regulation and have total anonymity and independence. They do. But both of those traits also make it easy to manipulate.”

“How is that possible? There are twenty million bitcoin out there.”

“It’s actually quite simple. About fifteen percent of those twenty million are gone. Meaning their owners lost the digital keys. Once gone, those coins are no longer in play. They can’t be retrieved without the key. That leaves about fifteen and a half million active coins. At present, the Bank of St. George owns four and a half million of those. That’s nearly a third of the whole pot. Of course, no one knows that since ownership is completely anonymous. Bitcoin pricing is governed by the market. Buying and selling determines the daily value on each exchange. So all the bank has to do is buy and sell its own coins to itself. With every transaction the overall price of bitcoin in the various exchanges isaffected. They can send it up or down, whenever they want. The whole bitcoin market is like penguins on the edge of the ice about to leap into the water. They all bunch up and freeze, waiting for one to take the plunge. Once that happens, they all move until another hesitates, then they stop. There’s little to no independent thinking. It’s a collective mind that simply reacts.”

He recalled reading about countries that had adopted bitcoin. Mainly in Central and South America, though several Eastern European nations were openly flirting with the possibility. According to Suzy the Bank of St. George was actively involved in lobbying those countries to make the change.

“The more nations that switch,” she said, “the more influence the bank possesses. Here’s an example. Venezuela is now on the bitcoin standard. Let’s say one of the bank’s clients wants to invest there, or buy something, and the government is not cooperating to make that happen. There are fees, commissions, and interest to be made by the bank if the transaction happens. So the bank starts buying and selling bitcoin to itself. They control thousands of online wallets, so those transactions are spread out across many different trading exchanges and would raise no alarms. Billions in buy/sells happen every day. But enough activity would affect the price, and if those buys and sells are carefully manipulated, the overall bitcoin market would react up or down, depending on the manipulation. Since the bank is buying and selling to itself, with its own money, it’s losing nothing. They can buy their own coins at lower than current market, which will simply drive the market price down. Or they could do the opposite and raise it. Venezuela would be affected by any rise or drop in price. Its reserves would be affected. The bank, though, assures the Venezuelan government it can remedy the matter, which it does with more buying and selling, and a grateful government returns the favor and takes care of the bank’s client. The bank, in essence, controls the Venezuelan economy, but nobody knows that.”

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