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Martiel’s look of astonishment returned, but only for a moment. Then his lips twitched up into a smile, and he began laughing—a dry, mirthless chuckle. After a few seconds of this, he shook his head. “I suppose there’s no point in continuing the charade. Pity. I put a lot of work into it.”
“Sorry. Not sorry.” Stone said. “Seriously, just how stupid do you think I am?”
Martiel was silent for a moment, but then he blinked. “I suppose that was the point. A test if you will. Tell me, when did you figure it out?”
“When Tam said someone called ‘the Immortal’ was behind it all. Choosing an alias that’s an anagram of ‘the Immortal’ is kind of obvious, don’t you think?”
Martiel shrugged. “You’d be surprised how often people miss the little things.”
“I don’t,” Stone replied coolly. “Let’s see if I missed anything else. This little scheme you’ve just explained—crashing the banking system. You’re not trying to prevent it. That’s your plan, right? You murdered people—arranged ‘accidents’ and ‘suicides’—to create job vacancies in key positions at banks that use the Mystic trading platform. You maneuvered your people into those positions. Fellow travelers who subscribe to your paranoid conspiracy vision and want to help you bring down the global plutocracy.”
“There are more of us than you could possibly imagine.”
“I’m pretty imaginative. I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ When one of your people found out that we were sniffing around those mysterious deaths, you realized your plan wasn’t quite as airtight as you thought it was. So you made yourself a target to draw us out, get us to trust you so you could figure out how much we already know. That was a ballsy move. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“Give me some credit, Gavin. I controlled every variable; mitigated the risk. And I knew you wouldn’t let me down. But you are only partially correct. I wasn’t interested in finding out how much you knew, or as it turned out, didn’t know. What I really wanted was you.”
“Me?”
“You’re a celebrity in certain circles. It’s said you possess an intellect equal to my own.”
Stone struggled to keep a straight face. “I assume you meant that as a compliment.”
“I’m actually encouraged by how quickly you saw through my little deception. You’re perfect for the job.”
“Job?”
“I need an independent beta-tester. I want you to do exactly what my virtual mannequin suggested. Challenge the system. Find the vulnerabilities.”
“So you can fix them. Perfect your attack. And why exactly do you think I would want to help you crash the global economy?”
“Oh, come now, Gavin. Your genius isn’t the only thing those people I mentioned talk about. You’re a black hat. An anti-establishmentarian if there ever was one. Frankly, I still can’t wrap my head around the notion of you working with the same government that arrested you without due process and kept you a prisoner in an illegal detention facility. But I know that you’re no fan of the status quo. The system is rotten, and you know it. The banks are holding the entire world hostage, but their power is as phony as...” He gestured at the unmoving figure on the screen. “As that. You know I’m right. It’s time to burst their bubble.”
“And I suppose you’ve got a plan for what happens afterward.”
“I do. And I’d like your input on that, as well.”
“My input? Well, for starters, there’s no outcome that doesn’t result in global chaos and loss of life on an unimaginable scale.”
“The chaos is coming. There’s no stopping it. The fiat money system is a Ponzi scheme, and the collapse is long overdue. The only question is whether the elites and the oligarchs will face the consequences of their duplicity, or build a new empire on the bones of their victims. They’re already preparing for the collapse, gathering private armies to protect them while they hide in their palatial bunkers. We have to strike now. Destroy their imaginary money, and let them face rough justice.”
Martiel—or whatever his name really was—was not wrong about Stone’s antipathy for the state of the world, but he had misjudged the degree of its intensity, just as he had misjudged Stone’s true motives.
There was a reason Stone had not told Tam the truth about Martiel’s identity, a reason he had gone along with the man, allowed himself to be caught in the Immortal’s web, despite the risk.
This was a puzzle. A challenge. And Stone loved a challenge.
“How are you going to do it?”
“Just like I told you. Pay off the debts of the developing world, create a cash surplus in the banks.”
“With what money?” It was a rhetorical question. He was already halfway to working out the answer for himself. “No, the money isn’t important. It’s Mystic. You don’t just need your people in place to authorize large transactions. You need them to create the money out of thin air.”
Martiel grinned and tapped a forefinger to his temple. “It’s a little more complicated than that. The money has to be real...” He laughed. “Well, to the extent that any of it is real.
“We’ll begin with a series of targeted trades that will run contrary to the advice from Mystic. The market will react with confusion. Some stocks will lose value, others will gain, but we’ll be a step ahead of the chaos. The market will dance to our tune. While that’s happening, we’ll be playing the currency markets as well, driving down the value of the dollar. With each cycle, the amount of money we’ll have at our disposal will increase exponentially, even as the value of that money diminishes almost at the same rate. And then before anyone even realizes what’s happening, we’ll take our four trillion dollars of worthless money and dump it on the banks.”
“Sounds like high-tech check kiting,” Stone said.
“I told you, fiat currency is a Ponzi scheme. We’re simply going to turn that scheme against the grifters who have been running the game. All of this will happen in a matter of minutes. The trades are already set up, like dominos, just waiting for a push. That’s the big picture. But the devil, as they say, is in the details.
“It’s all there.” He pointed to the computer. “All set up for a test run. Beat the system if you can.”
Stone kept his gaze on Martiel. “You’re improvising. This wasn’t your original plan, was it?”
Martiel blinked, trying to hide his surprise. “What makes you say that?”
“The red herring. Or should I say, the bronze head? You didn’t want me here, helping you. I was getting too close, so you decided to sideline me with a scavenger hunt.”
Martiel gazed back at him and then offered a wan smile and a guilty shrug. “What can I say? You’re a wild card.”
“What on earth made you think I would be interested in chasing after some old medieval relic?”
“Maybe I thought the incongruity of it all would arouse your curiosity. It doesn’t matter now. You didn’t fall for it. You’re here. Are you in?”
Stone considered the offer, considered his response. “What was all that stuff about Peter Furst? Why bring him into it?”
Before Martiel could answer, however, the door to the small room swung open, and an older man in an immaculate suit swept into the room. His expression was grim, far more so than in the picture Stone had seen.
Martiel kept his eyes on Stone and smiled, this time with more than a little real humor. “Maybe you should ask him.”