Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

Corvus frowned. “I am not Dr. No or Blofeld, Sophia,” he said. “I am not going to waste time telling them my plans before I have them killed.”

Sophia climbed onto the plinth and slunk seductively over to him, running her hands around his waist and placing her chin teasingly on his shoulder. “Oh come on. I know you’re dying to tell somebody . Go on, impress them with your vision of the new world order.” Her voice dropped to a breathy near-whisper. “I know it impressed me.”

Chase made a gagging sound, but Corvus smiled. “Very well. But first, we should get things moving.” He looked down at one of his men at the foot of the plinth. “Have you got our precise location?”

The man checked the screen of a tablet computer. “According to the inertial mapper, we’ve traveled one hundred and seventy-six meters west from the entrance.”

Corvus looked surprised. “That would take us right under the other side of the hill!”

“It’s not a hill,” Nina explained. “The tomb, the labyrinth, all the trials-the builders constructed them first, and then they buried them. The whole hill is man-made-that’s why it doesn’t fit the topography of the region.”

Corvus looked up at the ceiling. “You mean everything above us is artificial?”

“Yeah. As ancient feats of engineering go, it’s not that impressive-all they needed to do was pile up enough rubble. It wasn’t like building the Pyramids. But it’s what was beneath it that was important.”

Corvus addressed the man with the computer again. “Contact the team outside, have them fly to directly above this location. How deep underground are we?”

The man tapped a stylus on the screen, making calculations. “There should be no more than a meter between the ceiling of the tomb and the ground above. Perhaps even less.”

“Easy to blast through, then. We can open a hole in the roof and use the winch platform to lift the gold to the surface.” The billionaire tipped back his head to examine the ceiling again. “Make the arrangements. We will transport as much as the helicopters can carry, then return with more heavy-lift aircraft for the rest.”

“So, Auric, what do you want with the gold?” Chase taunted.

Corvus apparently didn’t understand the Goldfinger reference, but still took up position at the edge of the plinth, staring down at Chase and Nina. Sophia stood behind his left shoulder. “Sophia was correct-I want to establish a new world order. One where men like myself, the elite of humanity, are able to create wealth and exercise our power without hindrance from small-minded bureaucrats and petty populist vote-grubbers. I am going to establish…” He paused, raising his voice grandly. “A new Atlantis.”

Nina and Chase shared a look. “Been, seen, done,” said Nina, unimpressed.

Corvus smirked. “This is not some insane plan to ethnically cleanse the world, Dr. Wilde. What use is a business empire when three-quarters of your potential customers and labor force are dead? No, my Atlantis will be something else. The new capital of the world.”

“Sorry,” said Nina, shaking her head, “but New York’s not gonna give up the title without a fight.”

“London,” Chase corrected her.

“New York!”

“Atlantis,” said Corvus, looking slightly irritated by their distraction, “will rule the world. An entirely new city, a home to the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people-subject to my personal invitation. A city from where their global empires can be run free from interference from governments, free of taxes, free to do business as business should be done.”

“There’s nowhere on earth that’ll let you set up your own little free state on their territory,” Nina pointed out. “Or were you just planning to buy an entire country with all this?” She waved a hand at the treasures around them.

“My Atlantis will be built where the name suggests,” said Corvus. “In the Atlantic. Or, more precisely, beneath it. The technology has already been proved with my home in the Bahamas, and with my underwater hotel in Dubai. It is merely a matter of scaling it up to create a city capable of supporting thousands of people. It will be the coming together of the most powerful group of men in human history.”

“Oh, so you’re not Goldfinger,” said Chase. “You’re Stromberg.”

“It won’t work,” Nina scoffed. “You seriously think the world’s governments are going to let their richest citizens swan off to some self-proclaimed new city-state so they can play Masters of the Universe without paying any taxes? The first visitor you’ll get will be the U.S. Navy, and your housewarming gift will be a ton of depth charges!”

“The independence of Atlantis will be quickly granted by the United Nations,” Corvus said smugly. “I have an incentive. Yuen’s atomic bombs, which now belong to me. Nothing ensures international concessions, particularly from the United States, more quickly than a nuclear deterrent.”

Chase grinned. “Except you’ve only got one bomb. I fucked up the factory in Switzerland.”

“You destroyed the lasers , Chase. Not the factory. The lasers are just components, nothing more. They have already been replaced.”

Chase’s face fell. “Oh. Buggeration and fuckery.”

“So why would the world’s richest men need the treasure from the Tomb of Hercules?” Nina asked.

“As a guarantee of financial independence,” explained Corvus. “The world’s major currencies are now backed by little more than government promises-the days when every paper dollar issued by the U.S. government was matched by a dollar’s worth of gold are long gone. So not only is the entire global economy nothing more than a bubble supported by faith in those currencies, but governments can-and do-use their power over currency and the stock markets to attack corporations. If the Securities and Exchange Commission suspends a company’s stocks, then that company and its shareholders are wiped out in a moment by nothing more than loss of faith, billions of dollars reduced to zero.” He swept out his arms, taking in the unimaginable riches surrounding him. “But all of this… this will be the base for Atlantis’s currency. It will be backed up by physical wealth, by gold, which retains its value even if the world economy collapses.”

Nina looked sickened. “So you find the greatest archaeological treasure in human history, and all you want it for is bullion?” She frowned. “That means you and your billionaire buddies could make yourselves even richer if you deliberately triggered an economic crash by selling all your stocks-the value of your physical assets would increase in relative terms as the markets fell. Then you could use those assets as collateral to buy up the fallen stock at a massively reduced price-it’d be the biggest bear market of all time!”

Chase looked pained. “I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds bad.”

“It is. It’s ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’ taken to the extreme-the only people who wouldn’t be completely destroyed by the crash are Corvus and whoever else he invites to his little undersea kingdom.”

“That will not happen,” said Corvus, shaking his head. “I am a businessman, after all. It is in the interests of myself and those I intend to invite to join me in my new Atlantis to see a healthy and growing world economy from which we can all profit. I would not do such a thing.”

“But I would,” said Sophia from behind him. Surprised, Corvus looked around at her-as a gory bullet hole exploded in his chest.

Nina shrieked as Corvus toppled from the plinth and hit the stone floor face-first. Sophia raised her gun to her lips and blew away the smoke. “I’ve been waiting such a long time to do that. Pompous old bastard.”