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Peter Furst regarded Stone with a baleful glare, but only for a moment. Then he turned to Martiel. “This is your plan?” he snapped, his faint Germanic accent making the words sound even sharper.
A muscle in Martiel’s cheek twitched, but his smile did not slip. “It is. And you need to let me handle it, as we agreed. You can’t micromanage this, Peter.”
Stone fixed his gaze on Furst. “I see how this works. He’s the brains, and you’re the...” He paused, just long enough to heighten the impact of the last word, which he uttered with all the contempt he could manage. “Money.”
“That’s simplistic,” Martiel said. “But not completely inaccurate. I told you, the money has to be real. We could do a lot of damage with electronic counterfeiting, but not enough. And in the end, they would undo all of it. If this is to work, it has to be a deathblow.”
Stone’s gaze was unwavering, even though Furst refused to meet it. “Do you actually know what this plan of his will do? To your money? Your ship will go down with all the rest.”
To Stone’s surprise, Furst laughed. “He’s not as clever as you made him out to be.” He turned to Stone, finally meeting his stare. “Money. Brains. You think it must be one or the other?”
Stone felt his pulse quicken. Here was a mystery. “So you don’t care about the money. Interesting. What do you care about?”
Martiel intervened quickly. “What difference does it make? We want the same thing. An end to the most monumental con in human history.”
“Motives are important. If you want my help, I need to understand what you’re really getting from all of this. In my experience, wealthy people are interested in only one thing: increasing their wealth.”
“You are not wrong, Mr. Stone,” Furst said. “The greed of the wealthy men is insatiable. Bankers.” He snarled the word like a curse. “They are a cancer, devouring our world. Destroying the natural order.”
“Natural order?”
“You ask what I care about, Mr. Stone? Not money. That is just a means to an end, and now that end is within my grasp. Order. That’s what I care about. There is a natural order in the world. Some are meant to rule, others to be ruled. Some are sheep, and some are—”
“Wolves?”
Furst uttered a short, harsh laugh. “Shepherds, Mr. Stone. But there are wolves, too. Do you know what the difference is? The shepherd cares for his flock, nourishes them, keeps them safe. In return, the sheep give their wool, and yes, from time to time, meat for the table, but the wolf... The wolf gives nothing to the sheep. He only takes.”
“Some would say that’s the true natural order.”
Furst ignored the comment. “Do you know how I got my money?”
“Let me guess. You earned it.”
“I was born in 1945, in a small village in Austria. My father was already dead, killed by a British bomb that destroyed the factory where he was employed. I started life with nothing. I joined Nutria Mills as a salesman, climbed my way to the top of the company, and then carried it on my back to the top of the world. I do not tell you this to impress you, but so you will know what I care about.
“Did you know that the war could have been avoided? In May of 1940, four years before my father was killed, German forces halted their advance at Dunkirk, allowing an evacuation of Allied forces—more than three hundred thousand men. It was a gesture of goodwill to the British, but instead of accepting that olive branch, ending a war that would eventually take tens of millions of lives, Churchill rejected the overture. Do you know why? Because the bankers wanted war.
“Two hundred years ago, the House of Rothschild made its fortune by financing both sides of the Napoleonic Wars. They still control the world today, not with political power, but with the power of credit. With banks.
“All wars are banker wars. They manipulate policy and foment instability until war seems like the only course of action. With one hand they lend money to the governments to buy the machines of war, and with the other, they collect the profits of investments in the industries that sell them. The bankers win every war, no matter who else loses. And they will keep doing it because that is what wolves do.
“I don’t want more money. I don’t need more money. What I want is a return to the natural order. A world without wolves.”
During most of the monologue, Martiel stared at the wall, as if deliberately trying to avoid looking at either of the other two men. Stone wondered if perhaps he found the conspiratorial diatribe a touch embarrassing, but as Furst began to wind down, Martiel spoke up to fill the pause. “We can’t fix it, Gavin. But we can burn it down and start anew.”
“Start anew? What would that look like? Barter system? Or will you push for a return to the gold standard?”
“The banks own all the gold,” Furst said with a snort of derision.
“The value of gold is as illusory and arbitrary as the value of the dollar,” Martiel added. “It has some intrinsic value, but the average person, who cares only about getting paid for the work they do and being able to provide food and shelter for their family, doesn’t care about a piece of shiny metal. But Peter is right. The banks and the oligarchs control the gold supply. The governments will attempt to reinstitute commodity currency which, if left unchecked would simply start the ruinous cycle all over again. That’s when we’ll step in with a 21st Century solution that will cut the banks out of the equation. Peer-to-peer open source virtual money.”
Stone nodded as understanding dawned. “Bitcoin.”
Created in 2009 by a mysterious and as yet unidentified computer programmer using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamora, bitcoin was an unsupported currency system intended not only to simplify business transactions in the digital age, but also to liberate entrepreneurs from the shackles of government sponsored monetary systems. The method for establishing both the value and authenticity of bitcoin was, like everything else in the 21st century, driven by the gig economy, with individual users “mining” bitcoin in a somewhat lucrative game-like system designed to verify transactions and prevent duplication or electronic counterfeiting. Stone had been an early dabbler in bitcoin mining, not because he needed the money, but because the process for mining it involved solving a mathematical puzzle. And of course, because bitcoin was the currency of choice on the deep web.
That was also the chief drawback of bitcoin, at least from a societal perspective. Bitcoin provided criminals with an untraceable and completely pseudonymous method of transacting illegal business—everything from drug and human trafficking to hiring a hitman to kill someone.
But despite the risks and opposition from government entities, bitcoin was already gaining traction as the currency of the future. It was one part of Martiel’s scheme with which Stone found no fault.
“You talk about restoring the natural order of things,” he said. “No matter what you do today, sooner or later...no, scratch that...definitely sooner, those who have more will gain power over those who want more. That’s human nature. You can’t stop it.”
“Then at least we will have given everybody a chance,” Furst said. “Billions of people all over the earth are born into poverty, shackled to the debts of their fathers, the debts of their nations. We will erase those debts. Wipe the slate clean. After that...” He shrugged. “Every man will stand or fall on his own merits.”
Stone had done his best to listen with an open mind, and even agreed with some of the sentiments of the argument, but it wasn’t enough to draw him into their crusade. “Here’s the thing I have trouble with. You killed people. This little scheme of yours is going to cause a lot more needless suffering. And you’re holding me against my will. Or am I misreading the situation?”
“It’s not my intention to harm you,” Martiel said. “But... No, I can’t allow you to leave just yet.”
“That’s what I thought.” Stone paused a beat. “And if I refuse to help you? What will it be? An apparent suicide? Maybe make it look like a mugging?”
Martiel shrugged. “We can execute the plan without your help.”
“And yet you haven’t. You don’t need me. In fact, you tried to send me off on a wild goose chase. So what are you waiting for?”
When Martiel didn’t answer, Stone glanced over at Furst. The latter seemed poised to speak again, but then abruptly reached into a pocket and withdrew a vibrating mobile phone. After a quick glance at the screen, he thumbed the button to receive the call and turned away. “Ja?”
The ensuing conversation was brief and mostly one-sided, with the party on the other end of the line doing most of the talking. Furst spoke only a few times, in barely audible German, before shoving the phone back into his pocket and turning back. He addressed Martiel.
“We will have it soon.”
Martiel frowned. “So in other words, you still don’t have it?”
Stone could not help but notice a change in demeanor on the part of both men. Furst seemed contrite, Martiel irritated, angry even. Did I get this wrong? Stone thought. Who’s calling the shots here?
“They’re in London,” Furst said. “My man is closing in on them. It will be only a matter of a few more hours.”
“Then it will be only a matter of few more hours before we execute,” snapped Martiel.
“You will get it,” Furst hissed. “You have my word.”
Martiel shook his head. “Your word is irrelevant. I will not... I cannot execute the plan until I have it in my hands.”
Stone watched the exchange with curiosity and, as he realized what they were discussing, growing apprehension. “What are you talking about?”
Martiel turned his gaze on Stone, his smile returning with a sardonic edge. “Haven’t you figured it out?”
Stone blinked in disbelief. “I guess not.”
“Peter was right. You’re not as clever as I thought you were.”
“The Brazen Head?” Stone’s pulse wasn’t merely quickening; it was pounding, screaming in his ears. The ground upon which his perception of reality rested had transformed into quicksand, and he was sinking fast. “You’re not serious.”
He wasn’t wrong often, and when he was, he could usually see it, but this?
This made no sense.
Martiel was staring at him, like a predator ready to pounce. “It’s such a delicious riddle, isn’t it? I was disappointed when you decided not to go after it, but your friend, Miss Halsey, has demonstrated remarkable resourcefulness. She managed to acquire it before Mr. Furst’s men could get there.”
They’re in London... My man is closing in on them.
“She’s important to you,” Martiel was saying.
Stone looked up, met the other man’s gaze. “You want my help? Leave my friends alone, and you’ve got it.”
“Your friends have something that I need. Can you convince them to surrender it without violence?”
Furst was incredulous. “You would trust him?”
Martiel’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Peter doesn’t know you like I do. Doesn’t know how you think. But we are up against the clock here, and I can’t wait. Peter’s men will soon catch up to your friends, and when they do, I won’t stop them from doing what needs to be done. But I will give you this one chance. Run the Mystic simulation. Find its weaknesses and fix them, and then I will let you contact your friends to arrange a trade. You for the Brazen Head.”
Furst scowled but said nothing.
“You would do that?” Stone asked. “Why should I trust you?”
“I need it more than I need you, Gavin. And trust goes both ways.”
Stone nodded slowly. “Then I guess we should get started.”