Chapter 105

 

 

Calla took three strides to Jack’s terminal and hurtled him off the chair.

“Don’t enter the bid. I know what they are selling,” Calla whispered.

Nash joined them and they cowered to the floor. The voice boomed over the speaker. “One of you has not entered a bid.”

Nash glanced at Calla. The lights in the room extinguished leaving them in the dark.

“Why didn’t we bid?” Jack said.

“Because it is a trap,” Calla said. “The auction is designed to clear the room once the auctioneer has collected funds electronically from all bidders, but they can only do this if the last man standing, you, enters a bid.”

Nash’s eyes rose to attention and he raised his firearm. Their suits had timed out. Tiege burst into the room, raised a weapon and fired at two bulky men who charged into the room after him.

Nash’s aim was sure and accurate as it caught the first man in the leg. Tiege booted the second man in the groin and he stumbled back smashing into the wall.

“This way,” Tiege said. “There are no virtual signals coming in this way and they won’t be able to trace us.”

They raced from the room and clashed fire with three more pursuers that rounded on them at the foot of the staircase. They veered round toward the front of the casino hotel and on to the higher floor as vacationers made their way in. The escape led them out to the back of the hotel. Calla scanned the parking lot. A gunner sprang in their path and Nash kneed him in the gut.

Jack set off at a run followed by his companions until he crouched behind a desert-colored Hummer truck.

His hand crawled to the handle.

Locked.

“Move your hand,” Nash said, and his trigger finger blazed the window. Jack reached over and opened the door as shots fired above his head.

Nash shot Jack a knowing look assessing with a quick glance at the three men making a dash to their position. “We fire on three. Take wimpy on the right and I’ll grab slouchy on the left.”

Calla nudged both men. “Then who gets sloppy in the front?” she said, as she kneed an opponent who flung at them from the front. He crashed to the floor nursing his wounds. Nash slammed a fist in the gut of a second man who came at them.

A quick scan at the parking lot showed more men on the move toward them. Calla studied the cars in the lot, her eyes veering toward the valet station. Her focused gaze pierced through steel and metal. “We have company and we need to grab Mr. Macontly’s car over there.”

Jack glared at her. “Who the heck is Mr. Macontly?”

“No clue, but the only car here registered on that valet terminal with the keys still in the ignition.”

“How do we know which car it is?”

Tiege winced, joining them in a crouch in their position. “Man, you two spend all this time with her and have no clue what she’s capable of. It’s the only car in the parking lot that can be ignited by the owner’s DNA, activated through his phone or fingerprint. The very DNA digital print we used to con your way into the auction. You guys go and I’ll hold them off.”

Calla crawled with the men behind her toward a white Ferrari. “This one.”

She pulled open the door after one nod to the operative and crawled into the front seat. The men scrambled in behind her. Her foot hit the gas and the car squealed off the parking lot.

Bystanders hurled out of her way as Calla sped the Ferrari off the hotel grounds. She crashed through the barrier gate. “Hang on,” she called to the men packed in the passenger seat. “Next stop: Johannesburg.”

Nash smirked, his face almost plastered to the windshield. Once they gained several miles from the hotel, they swapped seats, with Calla crushed on Nash’s lap as Jack took the wheel. Soon they hit rough dusty. Calla shot Jack a quick look, a humorous glint invading his eyes. “Jack, please get us to Tambo International in one piece.”

 

 

 

The Ferrari flew toward O.R. Tambo International Airport’s departure gates in the heart of Kempton park, Gauteng. They were met by a tall woman. “Tiege told me you’d be heading here. I’ve a jet ready that Allegra has organized. She’s parked in terminal B. Jump onto the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link and I’ll deal with the air traffic controllers.”

They boarded a Cessna Citation Encore+ jet. The plane shuddered as it rose off the tarmac.

At cruising altitude Nash reached for a cold bottle of water from the drinks pouch in the leather seats of the luxury cabin.

“What’s wrong?” Calla said.

He drew in a long breath. “It irritates me that I don’t know what they were selling. The price was clocking ten billion. That’s not pocket change. What is Alex involved in?”

“It’s a hunch, but I have two theories,” Calla said. “Here’s the first and the reason Sun City was chosen for the auction. Remember what my father said, this group wants to understand every mystery the world has ever encountered: historic, scientific and technological.”

Jack sank back into his seat. “Must be plans for new satellites or a new generation of artificial intelligence technology.”

“I think it’s a little simpler than that. We were bidding for Kruger’s millions,” Calla said.

Nash choked on a swig of water and his voice exploded louder than he intended. “At 10 billion?”

“It was one of the items on offer, I believe, not the only one.”

“During the Second Anglo-Boer War the South African descendants of the Dutch settlers, the Boers, realized that their capital, Pretoria, would soon be captured by British troops so they swiftly commandeered as much gold as they could from government reserves, banks and mines.”

“What happened?” Jack said.

Calla took a deep breath. “They also minted thousands of new gold coins. A lot of this gold is believed to have traveled with the Boer President, Paul Kruger, as he journeyed eastwards through Middleburg, Machadadorp and Waterfal Boven toward Mozambique.”

“Where was he going?” Jack asked.

“He was escaping the advancing British and left by ship for France on the nineteenth of October in 1900.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “What happened to the gold?”

“It was left behind, hidden somewhere in the bushes of the North-Eastern Transvaal. It has never been officially found although it is a popular ‘scam’ for cons who try and sell the whereabouts of the gold to gullible tourists.”

“Surely this is not worth billions?”

“No, it’s worth 250 million. That’s why we had to stop the bid. The auctioneer doesn’t tell the bidders what they are bidding for. They were being conned.”

Nash leaned in. “Alex is sussing out bidders for those who want it bad and for those whose pockets run deeper than most. Most people wouldn’t bid for something they don’t know, but will bid their lives for something everyone wants.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Calla said.

“The Kruger millions were the lure?” Nash said.

“Yes. They were and my guess is that once Alex has cashed the winning bid only then will she offer them the bigger prize.”

“Which is?” Jack said.

Calla shot him a glare. “Anybody’s guess at this point. Perhaps the blueprints to the PINE project.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Nash said. “You mean the international research experiment. It’s the most expensive science experiment on the planet?”

Calla nodded.

Nash sipped from his bottle and stretched as far as he could in the seat. “The project was originally funded about eight years ago with the agreed cost of $12.8 billion.”

“Where is it? And who is funding it?” Jack asked.

“As an international project, it’s being funded by the European Union, the US, China, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. The European Union is paying forty-five percent of the cost, and the United States is contributing about $2.4 billion.”

Calla undid her seat belt aiming to relax. “Alex is likely to sell the security breaches of the research project to any money-hungry person and possibly try to sell it for more than it’s worth.

“Calla, we didn’t leave with anything,” Nash said.

“Yes, we did. I dug into what most people thought was worth bidding for in that room.”

“Why would such a project be so important to anyone but the government?” Jack added.

“Upon its completion in seven years or so, it will be the largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment in use. It’s being designed to produce five-hundred megawatts of energy output for fifty megawatts of input, making the project extremely useful for efficient energy conservation,” Calla said.

“But surely…” Jack began, then stopped to digest another thought. “As we progress further into the twenty-first century it’s becoming increasingly obvious that high-budget science experiments are on our horizons. The future of science is bright when there’s so much to be invested.”

Calla fell into silence. For the first time in her life, she felt it was one thing that would convince her to pick up a gun.