The Buried

CHAPTER 43

For the last several days, Helen Cho had embarked on a housecleaning mission. The first casualty was the overnight director on duty when she’d been kidnapped, who’d been recruited by The Wolf. It turned out he wasn’t the only leak in the office. An assistant info tech had been feeding information to another branch of US Intelligence, and an agent doing the same with an independent, ultra-patriotic organization. All three were arrested and would soon be appearing in a secret court.

The acquisition of the silo was an unexpected bonus. With the weapons and the nuclear devices came the woman responsible for Helen’s disappearance. Not wanting to chance losing her in the stateside system, Helen had The Wolf rendered to a secret base in eastern Europe, where the extraction of information about the woman’s business dealings would be performed under less rigorous standards than in the States. As for Ricky Orbits, Helen decided a nice, ten-year stretch in a federal facility would be adequate.

There was no official rebuke of Morse’s actions in connection with the Charles Hayes matter. There were only citations and tributes in the wake of a “requested” early retirement. As for Lyle Clark, Morse’s contact on the board of directors, some people were too powerful to be removed.

Valor, too, had to serve up a sacrificial lamb. Though Scott Bennett had been no more than a go-between, he was called upon to pay the price.

News services carried a story about rumors concerning a well-known lobbyist’s connections to Mexican drug cartels. The connections would one day be proved as false, but the mere mention of the possibility was all that was needed to start the death spiral of his career, and the business he had worked so hard to build disappeared overnight.

Valor understood sacrifice, and appreciated Bennett playing his part. He would be required to live a quieter life, but money would continue to flow his way, and he was promised that one day he would achieve great success again.

Assistant Trade Attaché Komarov had a message waiting for him when he arrived at the embassy instructing him to destroy the codebook hidden behind his filing cabinet. He was further instructed to avoid all contact with Herr Schwartz.

He knew it had to do with the operation a week earlier, but what specifically he had no idea, and didn’t want to find out.

It was over. That’s all that was important. And he couldn’t be happier.

The City of Angels was abuzz with the news of prominent businessman Thomas Rachett’s arrest in connection with a secret sex club he had apparently been running. Each day more tidbits would leak out about other illegal dealings he’d supposedly been involved in, threatening to bring down not only Rachett but several well-known politicians.

The Mole turned out to be even more helpful than Dani could have hoped. Within forty-eight hours of leaving Quinn, she had five sets of IDs, all with different names, and had crossed unmolested into Mexico.

Per the Mole’s suggestion, she had taken a circuitous route to her primary destination, allowing him to ensure she didn’t pick up any unwanted admirers. By the time she stepped off the plane in the Cayman Islands, a whole four days had passed since she had visited the silo.

She was up early that first morning, studying the appropriate page of her father’s notebook. At nine a.m., she put the book away, showered, dressed, and walked the five blocks from her hotel in George Town to the bank where the first account was kept.

The bank president personally handled everything for her, but even with his help it took all morning to finalize the transfer. That afternoon she repeated the process at bank number two.

The next day she was able to fit in three different institutions. And on the seventh day after she left Kansas, she visited the final four.

One would never know from the modest dinner she had that evening that she was now worth nine hundred and forty-eight million dollars. But her wealth would only be temporary. The money wasn’t really hers.

It belonged to the promise.

“There’s a book he keeps in the bottom level,” Marianne had explained. “Bank account numbers and passwords. His failsafe in case he needs to purge his digital copy. If I can’t get it, you have to.”

“I will,” Dani had said, though at that time, she hadn’t known how, if it came to it, she could possibly pull it off.

“And promise me you’ll use the money to help whoever he’s hurt. If I can’t, you’ll be the only one left.”

“I promise.”