CHAPTER 2: THE RULE OF TIME
The line went quiet after I said it.
"To change the system."
Raquel Murillo didn't speak right away. I imagined her standing there, brow furrowed, one hand on her hip, trying to figure out who the hell she was dealing with. The silence stretched, and I could almost hear her processing it those four words that weren't just a statement. They were a threat. A declaration. A promise.
"This isn't a negotiation," she finally said. "It's a standoff."
I smiled. "Not yet. But we're getting there."
Inside the Royal Mint, Nairobi inspected the printing floor like a surgeon before an operation. The machines groaned to life, gears clicking, plates shifting into position. The smell of ink and metal was sharp in the air.
She pointed at one of the operators. "You. José. You know the specs for the twenty and fifty euro bills?"
He nodded slowly.
"Good. You're going to lead the team. We'll follow your tempo."
"I'm not helping terrorists."
"You're helping yourself," she said, her voice even. "You'll get paid. One million euros. Tax free. But only if you help us print three billion."
"And if I say no?"
She leaned in close. "Then you better hope the others say yes. Because no one likes a martyr who gets everyone killed."
Meanwhile, Berlin had organized the hostages into groups. Security staff were zip-tied and monitored by Helsinki and Oslo. Clerks and press operators were split into categories—useful, maybe useful, and background noise.
He moved among them like a high priest.
"Order," he said, addressing the group. "You need order. And lucky for you... I live for it."
Tokyo rolled her eyes from across the room. "You also live for drama, you lunatic."
He blew her a kiss.
I watched from the second van, laptop open, multiple feeds streaming. The police perimeter was still loose. They hadn't committed to a breach strategy yet. That bought us time.
I adjusted the mic. "Rio, status?"
"Firewall holding. Signals clean. No breach attempts on our loop yet."
"Tokyo?"
"Hallways secured. No movement. Hostages quiet."
"Denver?"
"Dad's digging like a badger. Tunnel's slow, but we're making progress."
"Berlin?"
He laughed into the comms. "I just made a 55-year-old banker wet himself. We're golden."
"Keep it tight. No improvisation."
Flashback: The training compound. Two months before the heist.
We were running a scenario: police breach in under eight minutes.
Berlin shouted, "Positions!"
Everyone scattered.
Denver covered the vault door. Tokyo and Nairobi flanked the hostages. Helsinki and Oslo created a human blockade. Rio failed to scramble the feed in time.
Bang. Bang. Everyone "died."
I stood at the center of the room, arms folded.
"You're not ready."
Tokyo threw her gun on the ground. "You want robots!"
"I want survivors."
Back in real time, Rio tapped into the police drones. Feed shifted.
I watched Raquel pacing behind the mobile HQ table. Her face was calm, but the pacing meant she was unsettled. She kept touching her wrist, a nervous tic I'd noted in surveillance weeks earlier.
She hadn't traced the call yet. But she would. Eventually.
That meant it was time to shift the game.
I placed another call.
To the news network.
"This is a statement from inside the Royal Mint," I said.
And then I delivered the pitch. Direct to camera. Masked voice, distorted. A message designed not just for the cops but for the world.
"We are not thieves. We are not terrorists. We are economists. Visionaries. Architects of a new currency. The government prints money every day to protect the powerful. We're just evening the scale. And for every hostage who helps us... we will pay one million euros. Not in blood. But in ink."
It went live in five minutes.
Inside the Mint, Tokyo watched the broadcast.
Some of the hostages did too. The energy shifted.
People who were terrified hours ago were now doing mental math. A million euros. For following orders? For just printing paper?
Berlin saw it too.
He smiled.
"Hope," he whispered. "Such a beautiful infection."
Then came the complication.
Rio's voice shot through the comms.
"Professor, we've got an anomaly. Someone's moving inside the eastern wing. Wasn't logged in. Not one of ours."
"Identify."
"It's the Mint's deputy director. Arturo Roman."
"Wasn't he locked down with the others?"
"He must've slipped out during the breach. He's near the server room."
"If he gets to the uplink, we're screwed."
"Sending Denver and Oslo."
Inside the corridor, Arturo ran with the clumsy desperation of a man who's watched too many spy movies. He reached the locked server door and started working the keypad with trembling fingers.
He didn't see Oslo coming.
The Serbian slammed him against the wall.
"You stupid bastard," Denver said, grabbing Arturo's collar. "You almost killed all of us."
"I'm saving them!" Arturo yelled.
"No," Denver growled. "You're getting people killed."
He dragged him back to the main hall.
Berlin greeted him like an old friend.
"Arturo, Arturo, Arturo," he said with a grin. "You're going to be such a problem."
He leaned close to Arturo's ear.
"But lucky for you... I love problems."
Outside, Raquel got the news.
"Someone from inside just tried to breach the internal server. We caught a ping."
"Then we've got someone working for us inside," Prieto said.
"No," Raquel murmured. "We have someone trying to play hero. And that always ends badly."