9:50 A.M.
UNITED STATES FEDERAL RESERVE
1135 SIXTH AVENUE
NEW YORK CITY
Rokan stepped into the central governors’ room. His eyes saw the wall he’d read about in Winikoff’s journal, which they’d hacked into. Her words, however, didn’t do it justice. It was astonishing.
It is a cylindrical tower of data, bright letters and numbers in yellow, red, green, and white, moving up the center column of data, which is sheer. It is three feet in diameter. It runs from below and then disappears above. It is not connected to the internet but rather is run through a series of high-density cable networks that span the globe, all controlled by the United States. We do not control the cables and infrastructure. Rather, we control what moves along them. It is the real-time interrelationship between the Federal Reserve and other entities, including banks, foreign countries, and even the U.S. government itself. We are the gatekeepers, though we do not pass judgment, we simply move the money. The colors indicate time to the event, that is, the movement of the money. Red means within one minute, green two, and so on. In this room, in that column of light, we four alone manage approximately five trillion dollars. It is a mesmerizing sight and I found myself, for the first month or two, staring at it. It looks like a bouquet of lights, constantly moving, but eventually I learned to see past that and do my job.
Rokan’s mouth went ajar as he stared at the column. He removed his jacket and tie as he sat down behind a wide curvilinear keyboard, his eyes at all times on the center of the room.
He knew he had several hours of work in front of him. To get here was one thing—but the greater challenge was still ahead. He needed to learn how to enter the chessboard—and then destroy it.