Pooh Bear nodded, thinking. ‘Jack’s task for us is to find out what the royals are planning to do during and after the Omega Event. This man, it would seem, is integral to those plans. So I have an idea.’

‘And what’s that?’ Lynda asked.

Pooh Bear grinned.

Salzburg, Austria

The Austrian town of Salzburg has a long history that is by turns marvellous and amazing, and hideous and awful.

Mozart was born there.

The Sound of Music was filmed there.

For a thousand years to this day, salt has been mined under and around Salzburg in deep labyrinthine mines that run for miles, hence its name Salzburg, or Salt Castle.

But it also has a darker side.

It is very close to Adolf Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. The nearby Altaussee salt mine was—infamously—used by the Nazis to store billions of dollars’ worth of artwork stolen from museums and collections across Europe. Other mines in the region were used as Nazi weapons facilities and manned by slave labour.

Overlooking the entire Salzburg valley from a perch atop a hill is the Hohensalzburg Fortress.

It is a gigantic medieval castle, with mighty walls and ramparts that cascade down the hill. Constructed in the year 1077, it reputedly sits on its own hidden network of caves and tunnels.

It’s more than that, Sir John Marren thought as his Bombardier private jet came in to land at Salzburg Airport and he saw the fortress out the window.

Over the past fifty years, the tunnels and chambers beneath Hohensalzburg Fortress had been reinforced and modernised to accommodate a large number of royal families and their staffs.

It was the perfect place to ride out the Omega Event and prepare for Sphinx’s plan to reshape the world with the Siren bells after it.

Speaking of the bells, as Marren’s jet touched down on the runway, he saw a few figures lying on the ground near hangars and on the road outside the perimeter fence. Only a handful of cars moved on the streets of Salzburg—the vehicles of royals and their families, arriving.

Marren nodded.

The same Siren bell that had hit Munich and then Vienna had struck Salzburg on the way, precisely for this purpose.

The world did not need to see the many private jets of the secret royal families landing here and gathering at the fortress.

Marren’s jet taxied to a private hangar.

Twenty other jets were already parked around it: the usual Gulfstreams and Bombardiers, but also larger planes, the 737s and A340s of the truly ultra-wealthy.

John Marren felt a little self-conscious.

Here he was, the Master of Coin, the royal banker, arriving in Salzburg in a little fucking Bombardier.