Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
No one who sat on the Paxis Council was a saint—not even Nanda, though he was probably the closest. We were all wealthy, influential people in our own right. Most of us had a tendency to be ruthless in our day-to-day lives and businesses. Some did things that weren’t altogether legal. And from time to time, council members clashed in the real world.
But when we came together for a tournament, it was an opportunity for us to put all of that aside. To balance the scales and do some good.
The primary rule was that while we were convened, we would use our power to help others, with no thought of personal gain. To do otherwise was to betray the council… which never ended well.
As I watched the board now, information flowed out through a system of taps and game moves, making it clear that Russia was planning something big. From what we could tell from our combined intel, they were smuggling sanctioned chips, autonomous underwater drones, loitering munitions, and nerve agent antidote.
All of this painted a dangerous picture.
Our best guess was that they were planning an attack on undersea communications cables or LNG terminals critical to European natural gas supplies. And by the time we broke for lunch, we had agreed on a course of action in which each of us played to our strengths.
Emil intended to run down the source of the nerve agent through his pharmaceutical contacts. Al-Qadiri would trace the movement of Draković’s missing weapons. Selene would seek updated tracking information on the lost chips. Esteban would get intel from pirate groups in the North Sea. And Draković would reach out to his Russian contacts.
Meanwhile, I was tasked with locating the smuggled cargo.
A few shipping containers on an unknown ship in a vast ocean.
Needles in haystacks were easier to find. And that was if the contraband was being moved on a vessel.
As we exited the game room, my head was pounding, and I could feel my own body vibrating with stress. There was no room for errors here.
Jett was waiting in the hallway as I exited the room, along with a few other assistants. Just seeing him there made my shoulders drop a fraction… which felt dangerous. I had no time for distractions.
I nodded at him and tilted my head toward our suite without saying anything. Thankfully, he took the hint and followed me silently.
“Get me something to eat,” I said, yanking off the button-down shirt that felt like it was strangling me. I moved into my bedroom and dropped the shirt on the floor of the closet before grabbing a clean T-shirt and pulling it on. I looked at the bed longingly, wishing I could have just ten minutes to lie down, but there was too much to be done.
Responsibility chooses the worthy, not the willing.
When I turned back to the main room, I found Jett still staring at me. He quickly blinked and nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he muttered before turning to go.
“Wait,” I called.
He turned back to me, eyebrows raised in question.
The last thing I needed was an attitude problem in my space, but I could hardly blame him for his pique after the way I’d been acting. Being stressed didn’t excuse rudeness.
“Get yourself something, too. And please find me some headache medicine. Then I want you to stay with me while I get some work done. I might need your help.”
Instead of cracking a joke or bouncing his eyebrows, he frowned in concern and nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I sat down at the small table by the open doors overlooking the pool terrace below and the sea beyond. The air was sun-warm and smelled faintly of flowers. It was a strange contrast with the dangerous waters of the North Sea that might be hiding a war’s worth of tech en route to a criminal nation.
The council had agreed the smugglers were likely going to transport their cargo to Russia via sea using one of two likely routes—Skagerrak Strait in the North Sea or the Kiel Canal.
Though Maris Holdings had been working on technology that could scan ships for certain electronic signatures—including the signatures embedded into Selene’s missing chips and Draković’s stolen weapons—those scanners only worked within a very short range. We’d need some intelligence to point us in the right direction, so I already had my people running CCTV footage from nearby ports to figure out which ship or ships could potentially be carrying the cargo.
In the meantime, we’d try to get as many vessels as possible to come through the canal, making them easier to scan. All we had to do was set up somewhere along the banks in an isolated area.
The first email I shot off was to my contact at a NATO inspection agency, reassuring him that the rumors of Maris ships moving contraband via North Sea routes were unequivocally false.