Castle continued, "You wouldn't believe how smug Mozzie sounded when he called me. He's now working alongside the Secretary of State to handle the aftermath of the incident, practically becoming Benjamin's top strategist!"
As the group joked about Mozzie's "peak of life" and "moment in the spotlight," Neal finally arrived at Castle's estate. With his arrival, the atmosphere shifted to business. Neal began to detail his recent covert operations in the New York Stock Exchange, particularly his work on acquiring shares in Sky Airlines and the progress of their plans.
Since everyone present was part of the inner circle, Neal didn't hold back. After taking a sip from a glass on the table, he settled into a relaxed position and began explaining his strategies. Over the past few weeks, Neal had been quietly accumulating shares of Sky Airlines, a company currently building what was rumored to be the world's largest civilian airliner, capable of carrying hundreds of passengers.
This phase of the plan required minimal funds and went smoothly. The reason was simple: although Sky Airlines' stock had surged when news of the aircraft first broke, constant delays in development and repeated postponements of the test flight had led investors and speculators to lose confidence. Over the past months, skepticism about the company's prospects had grown, creating an ideal opportunity for Neal to acquire shares at a bargain.
To further depress the stock price, Neal employed some underhanded tactics. He hired a few "stock experts" known for making dubious claims to badmouth the company publicly. This allowed Neal to execute the group's plan effectively, purchasing a significant number of shares from the open market at a low cost.
The company's own secrecy played into Neal's hands. In reality, the plane was almost complete, and the company was planning to announce the maiden flight in Miami soon, hoping to drive up stock prices and allow smaller shareholders to recoup their investments. However, the lack of transparency regarding the production timeline made it easier for Neal to execute his plan and deliver excellent results.
The next phase, however, couldn't rely solely on Neal. It would involve substantial financial resources and negotiations with the company's numerous small shareholders. With the test flight rumored to be less than three months away, convincing these shareholders to sell their stakes might be challenging, especially once they learned of the impending milestone. This was where Giana, with her commanding presence, was essential.
While coercion was off the table, offering to buy the shares at a premium was perfectly acceptable. Both Giana and Castle had plenty of capital at their disposal but were in need of viable investment channels.
In the coming weeks, Giana and Neal would work together to acquire as many shares as possible from small shareholders. To avoid raising alarms, they planned to operate as two separate entities, ensuring that no single individual or entity acquired more than 5% of the company's stock—this would require disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission, potentially exposing their plans. By leveraging a network of cross-holding companies, they aimed to stay under the radar.
This approach was perfectly legal in the U.S., as long as taxes were paid and the IRS wasn't provoked.
The goal was to finalize the acquisitions before Le Chiffre entered the scene and began his efforts to suppress the company's stock value. If the small shareholders saw resistance against the successful test flight, they might be persuaded to sell their shares out of uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Castle and John divided their responsibilities. John would focus on taking care of the children, while Castle concentrated on finalizing the work on the visual distortion cloaking system that had piqued the interest of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the military. Even if the final version wasn't ready, Castle needed to present a working model for subsonic aircraft, similar to the one demonstrated earlier with drones.
As everyone got to work, Beckett returned home one evening with surprising news.
In her precinct, the 12th, a mysterious vagrant had recently appeared. Initially spotted in New York's subway, this man had been caught on surveillance teaching a group of troublemaking teens a harsh lesson. Soon after, he transformed from a ragged homeless man into a well-dressed individual who had repeatedly intervened at crime scenes, preventing several crimes.
The NYPD wouldn't have noticed many of these incidents if not for the "God's Eye" surveillance system Castle had provided to the precinct. One of the officers monitoring "God's Eye" reported the situation to Beckett, who was baffled to learn of the vigilante's existence in her jurisdiction.
When Castle heard the news, he felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity. This storyline seemed straight out of something he had seen before.
With his system-enhanced memory, it didn't take long for him to recall: wasn't this the beginning of Person of Interest? Could it be that Finch had already developed "The Machine" and found the infamous homeless man, John Reese—a retired CIA operative known as one of the "Three People You Should Never Mess With"?
Castle's curiosity was piqued. If his memory served him right, the billionaire Harold Finch had created "The Machine," a rudimentary artificial intelligence capable of analyzing big data to predict and prevent crimes. By tapping into government databases and surveillance systems, The Machine flagged high-risk individuals who were either potential victims or perpetrators. Finch, driven by a moral compass, hired Reese as his enforcer to address these situations.
While Castle, equipped with JARVIS, found Finch's "Machine" unimpressive compared to advanced AI, it was undeniably groundbreaking in its use of big data analysis—especially in 2011, when such technology was still relatively unknown to the public.
For someone like Beckett, who was aware of JARVIS but had limited understanding of big data, the concept was perplexing. Castle explained the basics of big data analysis and why this vigilante's identity was so elusive, suggesting he might belong to a covert organization with access to sophisticated tools for erasing traces.
Beckett finally understood that this was yet another case involving "computers" and mysteries Castle already seemed to know about.
With newfound interest in the vigilante's identity, Castle decided it was time to investigate Finch and Reese. After all, the implications of Finch's work could be game-changing in more ways than one.
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