Read Chapter 33: A Counter-Offer

The van smelled of diesel, sweat, and copper. Tom lay across the middle seat, Sophie’s jacket pressed hard against his side, the fabric already soaked through. His breathing had gone shallow, each inhale a wet rattle that Marcus tried not to count.

“He needs a hospital,” Sophie said. Not a question.

“He needs surgery,” Marcus corrected. “A hospital will flag the wound, flag us, and we’ll be in a holding cell before the anesthetic wears off.”

The driver—a heavyset man with a Guardian tattoo peeking from his collar—glanced in the rearview. “There’s a safehouse in Rouen. Field medic. Not a surgeon, but he’s stopped bleed-outs before.”

Marcus looked at Tom’s face. Pale as candle wax. Lips tinged blue. The boy’s eyes flickered open, unfocused, searching.

“The drive,” Tom whispered. “Did you—did you get it out?”

“It’s safe,” Marcus said. It was a lie. The drive was in his jacket pocket, but safe was relative when every police unit in Normandy was hunting them.

Sophie’s phone buzzed. She flinched, checked the screen, and her jaw tightened.

“What?” Marcus asked.

“Beaulieu’s sweep just hit the district we were in. Ten minutes after we left.” She pocketed the phone. “They’re widening the perimeter. We’ve got maybe an hour before they seal the coastal roads.”

The van lurched over a pothole. Tom groaned, a sound that was more air than voice. Marcus pressed harder on the wound.

“Le Havre,” he said. “We make the meeting. Vallon’s people can get him treatment.”

“You trust her?” Sophie’s voice was sharp.

“I trust that she wants the algorithm more than she wants us dead. That’s a different kind of trust, but it’s the only kind we can afford right now.”

The safehouse was a shuttered garage behind a butcher’s shop. The medic, a wiry woman named Camille with steady hands and a face that gave away nothing, took one look at Tom and started cutting his shirt away.

“I need light and quiet,” she said. “You two—wait outside.”

Marcus and Sophie stood in the alley, rain beginning to fall in thin, mean sheets. Marcus pulled out his phone. No service. Of course.

“Vallon gave us a number,” he said. “For emergencies.”

Sophie watched him. “You’re going to call the woman who wants to weaponize the algorithm.”

“I’m going to call the woman who can stop a global crash.” He dialed. It rang twice before a voice answered—not Vallon, but a clipped male tenor.

“You’ve reached the office. State your business or be disconnected.”

“This is Marcus Webb. I need to speak to Madeleine Vallon. We had a meeting in Le Havre. Shipyard seven.”

A pause. Then Vallon’s voice, smooth as polished glass. “Mr. Webb. You’re alive. That’s either fortunate or inconvenient, depending on your intentions.”

“My intentions are simple. I want my friend to survive, and I want to stop the flash crash. You want the algorithm. So let’s stop dancing. I’ll bring it to Le Havre, but I need assurances.”

“What kind of assurances?”

“A surgeon. On site. And a guarantee that your people won’t try to put a bullet in my head the moment I hand over the drive.”

Vallon laughed—a cool, measured sound. “The gunfire, Mr. Webb, was never my preference. Beaulieu’s theatricality is a liability. I prefer cleaner solutions.” A beat. “Shipyard seven. Two hours. Bring the drive. I’ll bring a medical team and a truce.”

“And if the police find us first?”

“Then we have a larger problem than trust, don’t we?”

The line went dead.

Marcus lowered the phone. Sophie was staring at him.

“She’s going to betray us,” Sophie said.

“Probably.” Marcus pocketed the phone. “But Tom dies if we don’t get him help, and the world melts down if we don’t stop the crash. So we play her game, and we watch for the knife.”

Camille emerged from the garage, wiping her hands on a rag. Her expression was neutral, but Marcus caught the small shake of her head before she spoke.

“The bullet’s out. I’ve packed the wound and started fluids. He needs real surgery within six hours, or the infection will take him.” She looked at Marcus. “But he’ll be conscious for a while. He’s asking for you.”

Tom was propped on a cot, a blanket pulled to his chin. His eyes were more focused now, but dark circles had carved deep hollows under them.

“You look like shit,” Marcus said.

“You’ve looked better yourself.” Tom attempted a smile, winced. “You called her, didn’t you? Vallon.”

“We have a meeting in Le Havre. She’s bringing a surgeon.”

Tom’s expression went distant. “She’s going to kill us.”

“Probably. But first she needs the drive.” Marcus sat on the edge of the cot. “I need you to stay alive long enough to be a liability to her. She’ll keep you breathing to keep me compliant.”

“That’s a hell of a strategy.” Tom coughed, a wet sound that brought a fleck of blood to his lip. “You have the microchip?”

Marcus touched his jacket pocket. “Still there.”

“And the drive?”

“Also there.”

Tom’s eyes sharpened. “Then you’ve got two keys to a lock that only needs one. You don’t have to give her both.”

Marcus froze. He hadn’t thought of it that way.

“The drive contains the algorithm,” Tom continued, his voice thinning. “The chip can destroy it. If she gets the drive, she gets the code. But if you hand over the chip and keep the drive—” He broke into another cough. “She can’t crack the drive’s encryption without the chip. It’s a quantum-layer cipher. Even her people would need a year to brute-force it.”

“So I give her the chip. She thinks she’s won. But the algorithm stays with us.”

Tom nodded weakly. “A counter-offer. You hold the cards, and she doesn’t know it.”

Marcus shook his head. “She’ll test it. She’ll demand proof.”

“Then give her enough to believe.” Tom’s hand found Marcus’s sleeve. “But don’t give her what can actually hurt us.”

The garage door rattled. Sophie poked her head in. “We’ve got movement. Two vans, heading this direction. Could be Beaulieu’s sweep.”

Marcus stood, checking the window. Through the rain, he could see the vans’ headlights cutting the gloom, slowing as they reached the corner.

“Time’s up,” Sophie said. “We move, or we get boxed in.”

Marcus looked at Tom, then back at Sophie. “We make for Le Havre. Now.”

They got Tom into the van without another word. Camille handed Marcus a field kit—morphine, antiseptic, bandages—and a curt nod. “He’s your problem now. Don’t let him die before the surgeon sees him.”

The van tore through the streets of Rouen, heading west. Tom lay in the back, eyes half shut, his hand resting on his chest where the drive sat in Marcus’s pocket. Sophie watched the rear window.

Twenty minutes out, the radio crackled. A news broadcast, patched through from the van’s old receiver.

“…markets in London and Frankfurt are experiencing unprecedented volatility. The FTSE has fallen four hundred points in the last hour, and the DAX is down nearly six percent. Analysts are calling it a correction, but sources inside the Bank of England are describing the movement as—unprecedented.”

Marcus’s blood went cold.

“The crash,” Sophie whispered. “It’s early.”

He grabbed the radio, twisted the dial. Another station. A frantic trader’s voice.

“—we’re seeing sell orders that aren’t human. The volume is machine-driven, thousands of trades per second. There’s no fundamental reason for this. This isn’t a correction—it’s an attack.”

An attack.

Marcus’s mind raced. Beaulieu’s people. The Baroness’s faction. Someone had found a way to trigger the crash without the full algorithm.

Or the algorithm had been running on a backup server they hadn’t destroyed.

He pulled out his phone. No service. He threw it against the seat in frustration.

“She knows,” Marcus said. “Vallon knows the crash has started. She won’t be waiting in Le Havre with a truce—she’ll be waiting with an army.”

“Then we don’t go,” Sophie said.

Marcus shook his head slowly, watching the rain smear the windows. “We go. If she doesn’t stop the crash, it doesn’t matter what happens to us. Every pension fund on Earth becomes a funeral pyre.”

He glanced down at Tom. The boy was slipping in and out of consciousness, his lips moving soundlessly.

“And if we’re going to stop it,” Marcus said, “we need her to think we brought her the key. So she lets us close enough to find out who actually started the fire.”