Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

essential services like our military and Medicare.”
    Sydney nodded. “And when America can’t pay—”
    “We’ll be bankrupt.” Danny exhaled. “Jesus.”
    Hearing herself tell the story made doubt creep into Sydney’s mind. It does sound fou, she thought. Crazy. But then she thought back to the monastery’s conference room only hours ago, where she sat staring at the two sentences in the lawsuit that stood out from the rest.
    Payment in U.S. dollars will not be accepted. Payment must be made in gold.
    Sydney had considered the possibilities. With the price of gold already at all time highs, a handful of countries—including Italy, France, Holland, and Germany—had recently sold off small portions of their gold reserves to pay down their national debts. But not since the world abandoned the gold standard had any country demanded gold for any type of payment. And no country had ever parted with all or even close to the majority of their gold reserves.
    Then Knobby’s warning had exploded in Sydney’s head.
    “There will be a single event, something that might even seem inconsequential at the time. But it will happen within a larger context.”
    Danny tugged off the guard’s pants and handed them to Sydney. She finished buttoning up the guard’s shirt. Then she kicked off her shower shoes, unfurled the guard’s pants, and stepped into each pant leg. She buttoned the pants around her waist, and they slid down to her hips. She bent over and began rolling up each pant leg above her ankles.
    “So, let me get this straight. You’re meeting about the lawsuit and then the guards just turn on you and started shooting?”
    “No. I knew the lawsuit didn’t look right. I tabled the meeting so the three of us could consider it by ourselves until the afternoon.”
    “That’s when they tried to kill you.”
    “When I was back in my room, yes.”
    “What about the other two judges?”
    “What about them?”
    “What did they think about the lawsuit?”
    “Joseph Ambrose was as shocked as I was when he saw it. Nathan Broederlam, who headed our meeting, he was the only one who knew …” Suddenly, Sydney stared off into the woods.
    Danny aimed his rifle in the same direction. “What?”
    Sydney continued eyeing the woods, as she recalled the strange turn of events. “Nathan must have sent the guards to my room.” She finally returned her gaze to Danny. “He was the one that presented the lawsuit to us. He was the only one who knew about it beforehand.”
    Danny relaxed. “No offense, Sydney, but all this sounds very circumstantial. I mean, the notion that this lawsuit means the coming collapse of America, that’s just your theory, right?”
    She stood over the guard’s feet and pulled off his socks. She again considered giving Danny the full story. And again, she decided against it. “Is it also my theory that this asshole is trying to kill me? Do you have his theoretical knife in your pocket? Did you hear imaginary gunshots coming from the monastery?”
    “Okay, okay. Just keep your voice down.” Danny surveyed their surroundings again. “You want to explain why you were in your underwear?”
    Sydney already had one foot in one of the socks. “I was in the shower when the guard came into my room. I hid behind the bathroom door, and when he came in, I pushed him through the window and escaped.”
    Danny sighed. “You’re in a meeting to decide the fate of the United States, and you decide to break and take a shower?”
    “I needed to think everything through. I think better in water. There wasn’t a pool so, yes, I took a shower.”
    “Oookay,” Danny replied, drawing out his reply in a smug American tone.
    She had the guard’s boots in her hand and glared at him. “You don’t believe me!”
    “Quiet!” Danny whispered through clenched teeth. Again, he looked around to see if anyone heard her .
    Sydney tried reading Danny’s eyes. Does he really believe me? She thought again about Knobby’s stories on that late spring afternoon in the Land’s End Pub. Her thoughts began to betray her. Had those conspiracy tales infected her perception of what was really happening? What were the odds that she uncovered some unbelievable plot to alter the world as she knew it? Her eyes fell on the guard. She wished that he was conscious so she could get the truth from him.
    What is really going on here?
    “I won’t even attempt to understand the intricacies of international economics,” Danny