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Alex stood restlessly at one of the two main entries to the floor, from which she could see outside the building to Exchange Place and the old headquarters of J. P. Morgan across the street. “Mintz,” she said into her lapel microphone. “Come back.”

To protect against the bad guys listening in, she’d demanded access to a military bandwidth reserved for national emergencies. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was the best they could do at a moment’s notice.

“All clear,” said Mintz, his voice plumped with pride at his newfound status. He was no longer Deadeye in jest. He was the real thing.

Alex checked in with her agents who were patrolling the streets surrounding the Exchange. None had sighted any of the mercenaries whose dossiers she had found in James Salt’s home, or numbers 1 to 23, as she thought of them.

She’d read Palantir’s report and passed it on to Janet McVeigh, along with all she’d learned from Michael Grillo. From there the information had traveled to the police commissioner, the mayor’s office, and of course FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. There was no question that the New York Stock Exchange was the target. The mayor was adamant in his wish that the Exchange remain open for business as usual. The law enforcement authorities agreed, though their reasons had nothing to do with pride, and everything to do with tactics.

It was also decided not to publicly broadcast the nature of the threat. A plan was fielded to block off all vehicular traffic in a 1-square-mile radius of the Exchange building. That, too, was vetoed. Alex pointed out that it was probable that a secondary target had been chosen and mapped out. The idea of an attack against a department store, a government building, or, God forbid, a school by so many heavily armed, battle-hardened mercenaries was too terrible to contemplate.

There was really only one choice, and that was to capture the terrorists. To achieve this, two hundred policemen and FBI agents, most from the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, had been called in, briefed, and assigned a sector to patrol. All wore plain clothes. They were dressed as Wall Street traders, secretaries, tourists, and city workers. All had been provided with photographs of the mercenaries. The last order was the most important: no one was to engage a suspect until being given the green light from Alex. The only visible sign of the beefed-up security was an additional Hercules brigade positioned at the corner of Wall and Broad, but this was hardly out of the ordinary. The New York Stock Exchange was a hard target in the best of times.

As Alex peered out to the street, it appeared to be a normal midweek summer morning.

What could go wrong?

87

Sandy Beaufoy drove the van down Broadway. Traffic was moving nicely. There was a police scanner on the center console. As he neared the drop-off zone, he listened to the usual litany of petty crime, larceny, and traffic mishaps that filled a big-city policeman’s day, be it in Jo’burg or the Big Apple. There was no hint that the police were gearing up for something out of the ordinary. Even so, he was wary, and listened carefully for any euphemism or nuanced turn of phrase. He was almost disappointed that the police were so clueless. There was, after all, no question that the FBI and NYPD knew they were here. Not after the bomb in Darien.

There hadn’t been time to remove all the weapons and munitions from the safe house, so he’d made the decision to booby-trap the place and blow it to kingdom come. The less evidence, the better. The morning radio buzzed with reports of the explosion in the Connecticut town and the death of an FBI agent. If he hadn’t heard from James Salt in over twelve hours, it was to be expected. At this point, it was impossible to communicate without compromising one another. Salt’s master had given him the green light. That was all that mattered. Sandy Beaufoy was a soldier. He followed orders.

The signal turned red at Zuccotti Park. Without prompting, the passenger door slid open and three men jumped out. They separated immediately. Wearing baseball caps and sunglasses, two of them carrying athletic bags, they looked like any other unthreatening Caucasian males. For all intents and purposes, they were invisible.

Beaufoy stopped again a block further on. A second three-man squad alighted in front of Trinity Church. Wall Street began to his left. Barricades prevented cars from entering. The Exchange was 200 feet down the narrow road. As such, there was always a police presence. His eye searched for reinforcements. Several uniformed policemen manned the vehicle barricades across the street. They appeared at ease-jovial, even.

If they only knew what was going to hit them, thought Beaufoy.

He had divided his remaining men into two teams, one infiltrating the target by the Number 5 line of the subway, Wall Street Station. It was common for Transit Police to search rucksacks and bags, no reason needed, so he’d ordered the team to strap their compact H &K submachine guns to their backs and tape their spare cartridges to their calves.

The other team came by car, but from the south. The plan called for the three teams to converge on the Exchange and to open fire only when they reached a distance of 20 feet from the building. From there it was a lightning strike through the entry. A hail of automatic-weapons fire, grenades, and, for the team entering on Exchange Place, a hearty hello from their TOW antitank weapon to see themselves in.

Beaufoy stopped the van a third time at the corner of Morris Street, allowing the final two mercenaries to get out. He turned right at the light and drove 200 yards, then parked illegally. He threw the keys in the sewer. He would not be back. Approaching Broadway, he made a commo check with every member of his team.

“Alpha comeback?”

“Alpha clear.”

“Beta?”

Twenty-two were called. Twenty-two answered.

Beaufoy reached Broadway. He spotted three of his men fanned out along the sidewalk, crossing the street and closing on the target. If he had a shred of sanity remaining, he would be scared out of his wits. It was a suicide mission. No one paid a merc $1 million with $200,000 up front. And yet he wasn’t. He was battle-bright and battle-ready. If this was to be his last day, so be it. He would have it no other way.

Gott mit uns.

Beaufoy ran across the street.

88

The yuan was dying a quick and ugly death.

“You watching the rates?” Marv Shank stood in the doorway, smiling broadly. “We’re up five hundred mil. You were right all along. The Chinese are depreciating. If the yuan keeps dropping, we’re going to have our best quarter ever.”

Astor looked at the screen. The yuan was trading at 6.5 and rising, well above the rate at which he’d purchased his contracts. The dramatic shift had occurred an hour ago, after a picture of Magnus Lee and the Chinese premier exiting a popular restaurant in Beijing was splashed across the Web. The heir apparent had been officially anointed. Lee was outspoken in his support of an export-driven economy. It was simply a matter of putting two and two together.

“Not bad.”

“‘Not bad’? What, are you kidding me? We’re already up a couple hundred mil. It’s stellar. You da man, Bobby.”

“Sure, but, it’s not ours.”

Shank’s smile evaporated. “What do you mean, ‘not ours’?”

“I informed our lenders that the wire transfers they received yesterday to cover our margin call was made in error. I asked that they wire the money back to the originating bank.”