Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series)

by William Wield

  ‘Good, God, ’thought Angus, ‘Alessandro Scaalay, Italian pronunciation, could that be the same as Sandy Scale, head of the City of London cyber police?’

  Wondering if he was allowing his imagination run away with him, he took a deep breath. Still, there was a possibility of that being right was there not? His thoughts raced on. Scale was in on the whole saga from the moment he was told of the Manila bank attacks. He kept popping up at odd moments, the conference in particular. And what was there to prevent him being head of the City of London’s Cyber Crime Unit as a cover for what might be called ‘the family business?’

  Angus needed to find if there was a logical way in which this could be tackled – check out a Scale connection to the Mafia, rule out a connection between Sandy Scale and Alessandro Scale. But where to start?

  In sudden inspiration, he picked up his iPad, went to the ‘maps app’. He typed in ‘Palermo, Sicily’, enlarged the map that came up and began his search.

  Suddenly, he felt that heart-beat in his chest again, stronger than before, because there it was on the Google map, on the outskirts of Palermo, to the south-west, the village of Scale. He enlarged the map further. And there, east and slightly south of Scale, past Rigolizia, was the village of Fontana Lupo – the wolf’s fountain. This was absolutely not evidence; it was what the police would call mere conjecture – still what a hell of a coincidence.

  He rang Morgan, and after exchanging brief pleasantries, Angus said to him, ‘I was thinking about the question of Scale, the Mafia, Palermo and all that, and I looked the names up on the map and found Scale and Lupo near each other just outside Palermo. I know that Lupo means wolf so is common enough for that to be purely coincidental. The only Scale I know, pronounces his name the English way to rhyme with pale and he’s the highly respectable Sandy Scale head of the City of London Cyber Police – so what you might call a dead end. But he would know everything about Athena and is probably very computer savvy, it would clear my conscience if you could do the kind of checks you usually do in such circumstances and rule him out of this for me.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ said Morgan, ‘every little snippet of information helps. I’ll let you know if that comes to anything – come to think of it, I’ll ring you even if your connection Sandy Scale does turn out to be nothing to do with all of this.’

  ‘Many thanks, Detective Inspector Morgan,’ said Angus and rang off.

  It was a shock therefore, two weeks later, when Morgan rang back to say that they had arrested Sandy Scale for the murder of both Guiseppe Lupo and Guido Favero. It appeared that Scale had been in on the hunt for Athena from the start and had soon found that cousinly Mafia from New York, the Lupos, were coming at Athena from a different starting point and were going to ruin his own plans by bringing in the Faveros. Scale’s operation included a cousin of the American lot who he used to keep tabs on them – her name is Mina – short for Giacomina and her surname – Falcone.

  ‘Scale was going to allow them to do his dirty work for him’ said Morgan, ‘and was planning to take over the theft of Athena from Komarov with his own team waiting nearby. Your people put an end to that, however, with your quite extraordinary weapon in those canisters. Scale has confessed to all of it. As soon he saw that a simple theft of Athena from Komarov was not going to happen, he wanted to erase any connections with the whole thing; he couldn’t risk anyone knowing of his involvement and so disposed of the only two people who knew of it, namely Lupo and Favero. Incidentally we’d like to know more about that sticky stuff in the canisters.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, the canisters were supplied from Moscow I believe and have gone back there with the security people I hired briefly. Still, that was quite an investigation of yours – my congratulations,’ said Angus, ‘and it sets my mind at ease so thanks for ringing,’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s an end to it all, then,’ said Morgan, and, with that, was gone.

  An end to it all? wondered Angus. Well, yes, apart from a very rich and vengeful Komarov still on the loose.

  End

  Author’s Note

  Naturally, I hope that you have enjoyed this story. I suspect that few people have the time or inclination to stop and think of how our lives have become so dependent on computers as most of us have other things to worry about life without them. But I hope that this tale has given you a moment’s thought about what would happen if Athena did exist and the wrong kind of people got a hold of it.

  The story is intended of course to entertain you for the hours it has taken you to read it but I hope it may tempt you to find out more about my other two books in the Legacy Series. These recount the lengths the Russians and others will go to get Athena for the enormous power and wealth it could bring them.

  ‘The President’s Fixer’ is a prequel to the Legacy Series and tells of the manoeuvrings to find Athena in order to steal it. And ‘End Game’, second book in the series, tells what happens when one of Russia’s richest oligarch’s manages to clone enough of Athena to be capable of shutting down the likes of power supplies, but has some failings which still make it vulnerable to Athena itself.

  It will do fine for the oligarch’s purposes, however, and he uses it secretly to close down a power grid in rural England; he then immediately comes to its rescue – all to just to appear the saving hero and thereby be given a foothold in the UK power marketplace for a power-supply company which he secretly owns. When this devious plan is seen through and thwarted by the Craithe team, he takes to revenge – using his weapon to make a killing on the financial markets whilst fomenting war between Russia and the West.

  The end game is like a game of chess between Russia and the West but with him in the middle moving the pieces. But the real question is, can he be stopped before world war three ensues?

  To find out more about these books, why not visit my website williamwield.com.

  And one last request, if I may. If you enjoyed this book, perhaps you would be generous with a few minutes of your time by posting a review on Amazon or Smashwords to tell other potential readers about it – many thanks to you if you do that.