Page 41 of One Last Stand

Moose winced, shook his head. “That stupid show.”

“Wait—why?” Shep said. “I mean . . . you were dead. How did you even know?—”

“She carried your picture. In a locket, around her neck. She took it off for the op, but I found it. You were younger, but . . .” He looked over at her. “It was in her belongings, back at our hotel. It wasn’t hard to scan, to age with AI.”

He had nothing. Especially since London appeared stricken.

A picture . . .Wait.He caught her gaze. “From Glacier Peaks Wilderness Camp?”

She swallowed. “I never thought . . .”

He shook his head, not knowing what to do with that information.

“A woman never forgets her first love,” Tomas said. “Right, Laney?”

“We weren’t . . .” Shep started, but saw her expression.

Huh.

And, “Laney?”

“Oh, sorry.London. So cute.”

London looked likeshe’dlike to do violence. “What’s your game here, Tomas? You had to know I wasn’t going to give you the seed code, even if I did give you the bio card. Which, by the way, is destroyed, thanks to the river.”

Something about Tomas’s story, a question that was yet unformed, lodged deep inside Shep. But Tomas answered her before Shep could get his fingers around it.

“I need you, Laney.”

She raised an eyebrow.

He sighed. “Of course the Petrov Bratva found me. And they want their money back.”

“Then let’s hide you again.”

“Yes, well, it’s not that tidy, I’m afraid. See, they know you hid it in Montelena. Which, conveniently, is where your parents are stationed, right? My guess is that is how you got in and were able to set up your wallet.”

Shep knew that look. Tomas had bull’s-eyed it.

“Where?” Flynn said.

London got up, wore the blanket like a cape as she walked to the kitchen. “My mother is the US Ambassador in a very small but very powerful country near Italy and Austria named Montelena. It’s the Switzerland of cryptocurrency.” She grabbed the kettle and filled it with water. “About twenty years ago, Montelena had a terrible earthquake. Took out the capital city. And the king there—they have a constitutional monarchy—rebuilt it into a fortress. Impenetrable, it has its own dedicated, unhackable satellite and is where the billionaires in the world park their crypto.” She spooned chocolate powder into a cup. “Yes, it’s also a hotbed of criminal activity, but Montelena has developed their own crypto tokens, called Cryptex, which are backed by their gold supply, so they’re incorruptible. As is their exchange system. All users’ names are scrambled, all transactions deconstructed and stored on thousands of blockchains. Anything that passes through Montelena as Cryptex is untraceable.” She poured hot water into her mug.

“I don’t know much about cryptocurrency,” said Flynn, “but I know that Bitcoin is traceable.”

London turned, blew on her cocoa. “It is. Which is why so much of it goes through a crypto exchange and is changed into Cryptex. And a Cryptex account can only be accessed by the bio key, which I mentioned before.”

“Hence, why I need my former fiancée’s help to get into the wallet,” Tomas said.

Shep tightened his hold on his cocoa mug. If the man called her that one more time . . .

“Which, of course, is a big, loudnot on your life,” said London. “I’m sorry, Tomas, but Drago and his ilk can’t be given two hundred million dollars.”

Shep’s eyes widened.

“And maybe it’s worth even more now—I don’t know. But . . .”

“They’ll kill me.” Tomas’s voice had softened.

---