The remaining crewman near the bow, a man called Galatas, watched the cruiser as it headed away from the Pactolus. It hadn’t been a threat, then, just bad seamanship. Nothing to worry about…
An odd noise, somewhere behind him. He looked around. There was nothing loose on the foredeck, and it hadn’t come from the headsail or its mast; he was experienced enough to know the sounds made by a ship at sail.
It came again, a dull thud. He crossed the foredeck to investigate. Nobody on the starboard walkway. Another muffled bump. He headed past the lounge and down the side deck to a hatch. It was open, but there was nobody inside. So what had made the—
Something stabbed into his calf from behind — and every muscle in his body locked solid in paralysed agony as fifty thousand volts coursed through him.
Galatas fell to the deck. Unable even to scream, he could only watch helplessly through pain-clenched eyes as two wetsuited figures clambered over the railing. One drew a silenced handgun from a large waterproof pouch and aimed it at the crewman’s face. He didn’t need to speak to communicate his intent: make a sound and you die.
The current cut out, Galatas slumping. ‘How many crew?’ demanded the gunman, in English.
Even in his dizzied, nauseous state Galatas still thought to feign ignorance of the language, but the man’s cold expression warned that he would be considered either cooperative or useless — and the latter would not be good for his chances of survival. ‘Eight,’ he gasped.
The second intruder — a woman — produced a gun of her own. ‘If you’re lying, you’ll be the first to die.’
‘We have eight regular crew, and the captain,’ Galatas insisted. That seemed to satisfy the gunman, though the woman was reserving judgement.
Another man, the one who had shot the taser into his leg, climbed over the railing. How they had scaled the yacht’s smooth side without lines the Greek didn’t know, but he had no chance to investigate as the latest arrival secured his hands behind his back with a plastic zip-tie.
The leader donned a headset, speaking quietly into the mic. ‘Everyone’s aboard,’ he told the woman after others responded, then he issued a command. ‘Secure the crew before we move in on Trakas. Use tasers to subdue them, but shoot anyone who’s a threat. Okay,’ he continued, addressing his companions, ‘let’s move.’
The second man forced Galatas through the hatch, the leader and the woman heading aft. Even if he hadn’t still been suffering the after-effects of the electric shock, the zip-tie prevented the Greek from taking any action against his captor. A feeling of shame flooded through him at the realisation of how completely he had failed his boss.
But all was not lost. While he had technically told the invaders the truth — that the Pactolus had eight full-time crew including himself, plus the captain — he had not mentioned the chef, whom Trakas had brought on board for the day specifically to cook for his guests.
And she, like the yacht’s regular crew, was also a trained bodyguard.
‘What humiliation?’ said Lonmore, bewildered. ‘Augustine, what are you talking about?’
Trakas snorted. ‘How typical. When you are safe and secure in your own rich little world, you think you can ignore everything outside it. But when everything is suddenly taken away’ — a glance at Spencer, who nodded knowingly — ‘then you will understand.’
Eddie regarded their luxurious seagoing surroundings. ‘Kept this from the bailiffs, did you?’
‘I still have my wealth,’ the Greek replied. ‘But my country does not! Before the financial crash, the banks and the European Union encouraged Greece to borrow, borrow, borrow — as much money as we wanted. So she borrowed, because we were told that nothing could go wrong.’
‘And then it did,’ said Nina.
‘It did,’ he echoed. ‘The crash came, and suddenly the banks wanted all their money back — with interest. Billions of euros of interest. And the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, which had encouraged my country to borrow in the first place? Now their plan became clear! They would lend us the money we needed to survive, but only if we obeyed their orders. Sell off our assets, destroy our welfare system, let foreign companies take over our infrastructure — turn us into a third-world nation, a puppet of banks and bureaucrats!’
‘But you could have said no,’ Lonmore pointed out. ‘If you’d left the euro, you would have been able to control your own exchange rate, set interest rates—’
‘Do you think I do not know that?’ Trakas barked, slamming his hand on the table again. ‘I pushed for Greece to leave the euro! But the people voted to stay, and our fate was sealed. As long as we are in the eurozone, we cannot control our own economy. We will be in debt for ever, and everything we built will be sold to foreign vultures to pick apart!’
‘Yeah, that’s a bit crap,’ said Eddie. ‘But what’s it got to do with the Crucibles?’
‘It has everything to do with the Crucible, Mr Chase. Do you know how much gold is held by the European Central Bank and the IMF?’
‘Not off the top of my head, no.’
‘But I’m sure you’re going to tell us,’ Nina said.
A sarcastic chuckle. ‘Yes, I am. The ECB has reserves of over five hundred metric tonnes of gold, worth more than twenty billion dollars at today’s rate. The IMF holds almost three thousand tonnes, worth over one hundred and twenty billion dollars!’
‘That’s Dr Evil money,’ said Eddie, impressed.
‘All that gold is used to stabilise the world’s economies. And the Crucible,’ said Trakas, his anger metamorphosing into something close to expectant glee, ‘can make it all worthless. If I choose, I can wipe them out. Not just the global banks, but the other countries that tried to crush Greece under their boots. Germany, France, Italy, all the others. With the Crucible, I can turn their gold into nothing.’
‘But the Crucible makes gold,’ said Eddie, puzzled. ‘Was there a reverse button on it I didn’t notice?’
Nina suddenly realised what Trakas intended. ‘You’re not just going to make gold,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re going to make a lot of gold. Enough to flood the market and drive down the value of their reserves.’
Lonmore gaped at the Greek. ‘But… but that would destroy the entire global economy!’ he stammered. ‘It’d make the 2008 crash look like a blip. You’re talking about causing a worldwide depression!’
‘I am,’ said Trakas, satisfied. ‘But… there is a simple way that I can be persuaded not to do it.’
‘And that way is?’ demanded Nina.
‘I will use the Crucible and a particle accelerator to create gold. The process will be recorded and witnessed to prove it is not fake. Once that is done, the threat of my making more will be enough to force the banks to do what I wish: to wipe out all of Greece’s debts, every last cent. If that does not happen, then I shall release the proof of what I have done to the media, which will terrify and destabilise the markets… and then I shall sell tonne upon tonne upon tonne of gold. Its price will crash.’ He smiled. ‘If they know what is good for them — and they do, they are very clever people —’ the words sounded more insult than compliment, ‘I will not need to do that.’
‘It’ll never work,’ said Lonmore. ‘The US government has the world’s largest gold reserves — they’ll never let anyone hold them to ransom. They’ll stop you, whatever it takes.’