Jonathan Taylor - Meyer-Hofmann AG

Get down!

Dragging her down with him, Michael scanned for a threat. Fortunately, there was none, and they found themselves lying in the middle of the entrance hall without any cover.

Get to your feet!

There was no time. A blast went off somewhere behind them, and the club’s main entrance flew open, the shiny black door smashing against the outside wall, letting in a rush of fresh air.

“Police! Drop your weapons!”

Both of them froze, letting their guns fall to the ground and holding their hands over their heads as best they could. Five police officers dressed in blue fatigues and bulletproof jackets surrounded them, pressing them back to the ground and handcuffing their hands behind their backs, neither resisting.

You must get out of the building!

Michael looked around for a threat. Why would Hofmann want to get them out of the building? They will blow it up; they can’t let the authorities find the basement!

“We have to get out, there is a bomb!” Michael screamed it at the officer who seemed to be in charge.

He reacted without delay.

“Where is the bomb?” the policeman asked as he pulled Michael to his feet.

“I don’t know, but they told me they were going to blow up the building.”

The whole group was now moving towards the exit at speed. One of the officers was barking orders into a walk-talky on his chest.

“Clear, clear, clear—we have a bomb!”

As they spoke, the basement was filling with gas, each room connected to a network of pipes that stretched the length and breadth of the building. Charges had been built into the walls at strategic points, the demolition plan dating back to the time when the club was built. The basement would be torched to destroy any documents, then the building would be brought down in such a way that it concertinas, the upper floors filling the basement with rubble, so that it would obliterate any evidence left inside.

The group felt the rumble as they ran, like an earthquake, their surroundings vibrating around them. The burn had begun.

“MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!” the lead policemen shouted as they went.

The charges had been set to cause an implosion, detonating in the bottom middle of the building first, then spreading out towards its sides. This way, the centre falls together and the sides fall inwards. Fortunately for them, the Gallery Street entrance was at the end of the building. The sound of the first charges being set off encouraged the group into an extreme increase in pace, the officers physically carrying their handcuffed prisoners out of the doors. As they hit the night air, the doors and walls of the club were literally moving in the opposite direction. It was a remarkable picture. People moving in one direction, and the building moving in the other. Standing in a first-floor window of the government buildings across the street, Von Klitzing was not able to enjoy the spectacle. He cursed himself.

You should have done it earlier, you fool!

The control centre was built into the second-floor basement at the Meyer-Hofmann facility in Ellmau. Housed in a large auditorium, the double door entrance led to a gallery that held chairs for twenty spectators. In front of them, the auditorium dropped to three banks of desks, each holding eight monitors and keyboards. Built on three levels falling from the gallery at the back of the room to a small stage at the front the room, it was thirty metres from back to front and twenty metres wide. The front and side walls held huge LED screens, which covered their entire surface area and were angled up towards the gallery. The remaining walls and ceiling were coated in a matte black emulsion that sucked any superfluous light from the theatre. Hans Bremen entered the room and looked on in awe. Since taking control of his grandson’s body, he had felt like a time traveller. The last war room he had visited, had received its information via telephone and courier. Model tanks and plastic figures had depicted the battlefield on a simple wooden table. Here, real-time video showed him pictures from Wall Street, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Hong Kong stock markets simultaneously on the left-hand screen. Live tickers running along the bottom of each picture showed him fluctuations in the markets. Helmet and webcams sent pictures via satellite from the Iran training camp on one-half of the right screen, and a distant nuclear power station could be seen on the left side of the same display. The centre LCD brought live pictures of their forces mustering in Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt.

As it should be. The destruction of Israel will take centre stage, Bremen thought.

He knew that in a matter of hours his commanders would start the offensive, and the pictures would change to show their personal battles being fought. The banks of computers were operated by a twenty-four-man team. Each man would be in direct communication with their counterpart in the field. They, in turn, were being monitored by two officers who wandered along the aisles between the men, comparing clipboards with screens and occasionally interacting with the operators.

This was a modern war room. Bremen was confident of their success.

He coughed loudly, and both of the officers hurried to their superior.

“Sir.” The first officer clicked his heels.

“This is Captain Klingel, and I am Captain Bald. All systems are operational and awaiting your command, sir.” Bald wore a crisp dark green uniform adorned with service medals Bremen didn’t recognise. His highly polished boots reflected the little light the room had to offer.

“Captain, this all looks very impressive. I take it, it will all work when the bullets start to fly?” Bremen questioned.

“Yes, sir, everything has been tested for every eventuality, sir. Both myself and Captain Klingel have run similar situation rooms for the German Armed Forces, sir.”

“Good. What is the state of the stock exchange at the moment?”

“No change at this time, sir, but the news of both banks’ difficulties has not yet filtered through to the markets. With your permission, we will start to sell our stock now?”

Bremen nodded, and Bald turned and called across to one of the operators.

“Herr Fink, proceed, please.”

A button click later, and Meyer-Hofmann started to sell over a billion dollars worth of shares on the world’s stock markets.

“Nothing is happening!” Bremen remarked impatiently.

“No, sir. It will take time for the markets to notice. Should we notify the press about the banks’ insolvency?”

“Yes.”

Another nod and another button press later, news stations around the world were being warned of the imminent bankruptcy of two American Banks. Reuters was, as ever, the first to break the news officially. Just forty-five minutes after the anonymous tip, Reuters had published an article online, including quotes from high-ranking officials at the banks involved, admitting they were:

“Experiencing some problems with liquidity.”

The Hang Seng was closed, but the DOW had just opened, and the European markets were coming to the end of their trading days. On the left-hand screen in the control room, red numbers slowly started to appear.

“When do we know if it has worked?” Bremen asked.

“A high single percentage loss on the DOW would be a good sign, double figures and we can be sure,” Bald answered.

“When do our politicians start to make their feelings known?”

“We have the Europeans booked on nightly news shows and the Americans on their midday bulletins.”

“So all we can do is wait?” It was a rhetorical question.

“How about damage limitation in Munich?”

“The Jarvises are still at the police headquarters, but our informants have not as yet been in touch.”