Target: Alex Cross (Alex Cross #26) - James Patterson Page 0,97
It’s an exchange for cryptocurrencies in … Singapore.”
“Can you hack that account?” Mahoney demanded.
He cringed a little. “That will take time. Those crypto-exchanges have hired the best in the world to build their security systems.”
“I have faith in you,” Mahoney said. “Alex?”
I was staring off, blinking, trying to see what was bothering me through the fog of fatigue and ignorance. And then I flashed on the inner back cover of that Bible and saw a glimmer of hope.
“Can you call up the Kraken Exchange home page?” I said.
Rawlins did, and I saw more than hope. I saw possibility.
“What are you thinking, Cross?” Carstensen asked.
“Forget following the money,” I said. “Let’s play follow the Bitcoin.”
CHAPTER
95
FOUR HOURS LATER , with the help of Rawlins, Mahoney, Carstensen, and a dozen others assigned to the investigation, I believed I knew who and what was behind the plot to overthrow the U.S. government by assassination.
“Who does that?” FBI director Derek Sanford said, shaking his head after I’d explained my theory to him in the conference room. “Is there no end, no bottom?”
“We can’t prove it beyond a doubt yet, sir,” Carstensen said. “We’ve still got a lot of legwork to do before we know the details. In the meantime, I wish we were still under martial law. It would make things easier.”
Sanford paused, then said, “I can offer you extraordinary powers for now. Mirandize when you have to. Otherwise, do what you need to do.”
I heard his cell phone buzz. The FBI director glanced at the screen, said, “Larkin petitioned the full Supreme Court over the validity of Talbot’s claim to the Oval Office.”
“He’s still flying around?” Mahoney said.
“At his home in Kansas awaiting the court’s decision,” Sanford said. “Whatever. That’s outside our purview. Go make real arrests. When you’ve got the lot of them in custody, I want the perp walk to end all perp walks.”
“What about their homes? Offices?” Mahoney said.
“Search warrants will be executed within the hour. Once that has happened, I’ll contact my Russian counterparts and Interpol. They’ll handle everything outside our jurisdiction. And when it’s appropriate, I’ll personally notify the Secret Service of our intentions.”
After Sanford left the conference room, Carstensen pointed to me and then Mahoney. “You two are coming with me.”
“By car?” Ned asked.
“Helicopter,” she said, heading to the door.
“SWAT?” I asked.
Carstensen paused to check her watch. “What time did you say it started?”
“Seven p.m.”
“I’ll put a full SWAT team on standby,” she said, opening the door. “I’m hoping that given the setting and occasion, our targets will be easy to locate and subdue.”
CHAPTER
96
AT SIX P.M., Kristina Varjan got out the carbon knife Pablo Cruz had given her and slid it up her sleeve, then she slipped through a throng of people packing a long, wide concrete hallway.
The assassin barely noticed them. She was focused. Prepared.
“Coming from the southwest,” she said, her voice picked up by and transmitted from the sensitive Bluetooth mike taped to her throat and hidden beneath her shirt.
“Coming from northwest,” Cruz said over a small earbud.
“Cutting east to west,” Dana Potter said. “I’ll approach up the near staircase.”
“Muscle?” Varjan said.
“Unseen,” Potter said. “But I’m sure it’s there.”
“No blood if possible,” Cruz said.
Varjan did not reply. She’d spotted a woman coming at her through the crowd. She was looking at her phone with a worried scowl on her face and had a VIP pass hanging around her neck on a lanyard.
Putting on sunglasses, Varjan looked down at the VIP pass she held and felt confident. She climbed stairs to a higher floor and ran into a security guard at the top who was looking at his phone. She smiled, then held out her VIP pass.
“The lanyard broke,” she said, acting embarrassed.
The guard appeared bored, waved her on, and went back to staring at his phone. Varjan went around him into a long hallway and saw Cruz coming at her from the far end, also wearing a VIP pass.
Between them stood a big white guy with a military haircut and military bearing. He was leaning with his back to a door. She noted a gun bulge, chest-high, under the suit jacket.
The muscle’s head swiveled, took them both in.
Varjan went by a staircase to her right, saw in her peripheral vision that Potter, the Canadian assassin, was climbing with a VIP badge around his neck.
She smeared an easy smile across her face and acted a little tipsy as she ambled to the security guy.