Page 8 of The Atlas Maneuver

In 1945, with the emperor’s blessing, Japan had hidden tons of looted wealth underground across the Philippines, part of an operation known as Golden Lily. All of that wealth had but one ultimate purpose. To enrich the imperial family. Neither the Japanese government, nor its people, would ever see or learn of any of it.

But none of that happened.

Japan lost the war, along with the Philippines. And in 1946 a portion of the gold was unearthed by American intelligence. The rest? Most likely still in the ground. Though some say Ferdinand Marcos obtained chunks of it during his twenty years in power, and that treasure hunters here and there had found even more. But here? In Switzerland? According to what she’d been told, the vault on the other side of the steel door should contain the bulk of what the Americans had retrieved of both the Nazis’ and Yamashita’s gold. Which seemed a misnomer. As the Japanese general had never possessed a speck of ownership over any of it.

She stared at the keypad.

The password had worked so maybe the code was spot-on too.

Six letters. Which she’d memorized.

She tapped the screen.

A red light changed to green, accompanied by a click that signaled the electronic lock had released. Apparently, Koger’s intel had been correct.

She opened the door.

Fluorescent lights in the windowless room flickered to life. The space was about ten meters square with the same shiny steel walls and polished floor as the corridor.

And empty.

Not a thing there.

An alarm sounded.

Loud. Blaring.

CHAPTER 5

KELLYAUSTIN STOOD INSIDE THE BAKERY. SHE’D RETREATED THERE ASthe shooting started, catching only a fleeting glimpse of the car with the window down. Somebody on the street had been firing at the car, but amid the chaos she’d not been able to see who. Nor had she waited around to learn more. Instead, she’d rushed in the opposite direction and darted into the first doorway she’d encountered.

More people followed her inside and she caught the concern on the faces. Which she echoed. Fear had settled in a ball of burning pain right in the pit of her stomach. She’d never contemplated the danger of what she was doing, thinking it all under control. But if the person on the street had not fired, she would have been dead.

She’d left Luxembourg City yesterday on a supposed five-day holiday. Nothing unusual there. She’d taken many over the course of her years with the Bank of St. George. Her title was director of special technology, which meant she’d created and managed some of the most sophisticated computer systems in the world. Though the Bank of St. George prided itself on a deep heritage, the backbone of its modern existence turned on cutting-edge technology.

Most of which she’d created.

She eased her way past the others in the bakery and stepped close to the front windows, keeping to one side. The car was gone.The person shooting from the sidewalk? Nowhere to be seen. Dozens of sirens converged outside. Who had just tried to kill her? The bank? That made no sense. For a variety of reasons.

So who?

Only one culprit came to mind.

A quick scan beyond the window and she saw no more obvious threats. No one was headed her way. No one searching around. She caught a quick glimpse of her own reflection in the plate-glass window. Her face was rattled. How could it not be? Inside the bakery no one appeared threatening. But how good were her instincts? She’d never seen that car coming.

She tried to breathe slower, but each inhale came like a mouthful of broken glass. The sweet scent of fresh bread and chocolate confectionaries filled her nose. One of the reasons she’d chosen Basel for her holiday was for the sweets. She loved them.

Always had.

She’d come a long way from a small town in southern Illinois. Her dad had been blue collar and worked in a tractor factory. Her mother, a housewife, mainly ignored her and focused on her two brothers. To survive she’d immersed herself in sports and computers, both of which allowed an escape from reality and a chance to compete. She spent her teenage years on the lacrosse field, honing her skills and testing limits—or at a computer, teaching herself how to code in Pascal, COBOL, Fortran, Python, and C++. She developed into an impressive athlete. During her sophomore year in high school Big Ten and Pac-12 schools came calling and she eventually realized her dream of playing college lacrosse.

She obtained a degree in computer science and went to work for the United States government, first with the military, then with the National Security Agency. Her life changed forever at age twenty-eight, one Saturday night, when a deer darted out from nowhere and caused the car she was driving to plunge over an embankment. It took an hour to cut her out with the Jaws of Life. During the ensuing emergency surgery she lost twenty-one pints of blood. Her spinal cord had been severely damaged, and shespent two years in a wheelchair. It had taken an intense amount of physical therapy and multiple plastic surgeries to rebuild her face and get her walking again. At one point she actually died on the operating table and experienced some sort of out-of-body phenomenon, floating overhead, perched on the edge of a wall looking down at the surgeons as they worked to save her. The face staring up, her face, had been like a waxen mask, the skin dull and lifeless, her eyes closed and distended. A bright light warmed her right side, and sitting beside her had been an angel.Are you ready to go home?the apparition asked. She’d shaken her head.There’s more I need to do.The angel smiled and vanished. Then she was resuscitated, her heart shocked back into rhythm.

She took two things away from the experience.

First, angels were badass. And second, from that day forward she sought and understood absolute truth. Her superpower. One that had served her well. One that, weeks ago, told her something had to be done.

So she’d called Langley.

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