Page 52 of Midnight Secrets

“Yeah.” Joe met his sober dark eyes. “She’s right in the crosshairs.”

8

WASHINGTON, DC

The plan. Phase two started.

Now phase three. And then four and five.

Hector Blake read the file on his computer avidly. It would erase itself in fifteen minutes but as a lawyer he was used to absorbing large amounts of data in short amounts of time. Here, he didn’t have to memorize the details because he wasn’t involved in three of the major events.

For the moment, he was just involved in the Washington Massacre and making sure an obedient weakling became the next president. Considering the target, it made sense to have him in the loop. The other events were described in general terms.

Someone in some ministry somewhere—he suspected China—had a very strong grasp of economics and mass psychology. Five events, maybe more that he wasn’t privy to, guaranteed to bring the behemoth to its knees. The shadowy forces pushing the events were using America’s strength against it, like a jujitsu master fighting a bloated overweight monster. Because many of America’s strengths became weaknesses if you looked at them the right way.

America had very efficient, very fast financial markets and stock markets. They were able to squeeze value from stones, thanks to the quants. But by the same token, when overwhelmed, the system ate itself. The Massacre had tanked the economy, sucking several trillion dollars out of the system. On his way home from his office, Blake counted several soup kitchens, more appearing every week.

His own money was safely abroad. Two billion dollars that no one would ever see but him. He could even access some of it legally since he had an “advance” from a small publishing house no one had ever heard of for his memoirs. And then several million sales of the book would be arranged.

He was thinking of doing that again, just so he could have capital in-country he didn’t have to account for. He’d already made discreet inquiries for a good ghostwriter.

Being rich while everyone else was poor was delicious. Power lay in contrasts. Poor people were obedient, subservient, biddable. Particularly those who had come down in the world. They were so desperate to come back up they never questioned why they’d fallen in the first place.

So step one—impoverish everyone—was done. Trillions of dollars had been sucked out of the economy and sent elsewhere. Blake imagined that there would be a couple of other economic shocks coming down the pipeline.

Then London as president. He’d do anything Blake told him to do.

The step after that, ah. Pure genius. The next step was blinding America and he now understood exactly what he’d been told to do while on the Senate Intelligence Committee and why. He now understood the value of the people he’d placed in strategic positions. He knew there were others, in the NSA, in the DIA, at the Pentagon. Not the FBI, though. The FBI was proving impenetrable and incorruptible.

It was something Blake couldn’t understand. The base salary of a newly minted Special Agent was a little under forty-four thousand dollars. Peanuts. It topped out at about a hundred and thirty thousand for the Director. What some people spent on clothes. How could it be so hard to recruit FBI Special Agents?

But the plan could go forward even without the FBI, who weren’t tasked with foreign intel anyway. By the time anything came to the attention of the FBI, the US would be a giant on its knees. The FBI could even be disbanded. There was Homeland Security anyway—the FBI was a drain on resources America didn’t have.

The file winked off and he knew he would never be able to find it again. But no matter. Blake understood that immensely resourceful and smart people were behind the project and that in five years’ time, maybe less, the United States as he knew it would be gone.

* * *

Portland

They Zoomed Nick. They could do that safely. Joe wasn’t going to say anything overt anyway. Nick was a smart guy, he’d catch on fast.

There he was. Walking along a street in DC. Nick was dressed in civilian clothes, wasn’t on duty. Not decked out in MultiCam camouflage, Kevlar helmet, armed with an HK416 assault rifle.

Metal took point. The two had recently worked together on an op that involved backpack nukes.

Nick smiled. His cell’s camera caught him from below, showing a jutting jaw with a dark five o’clock shadow though it was only fourteen hundred in DC. “Metal! My man! Wassup? How’s Felicity? She hacked into the NSA yet?”

“Nah. She’s working for us now and we keep her in check. Listen, Nick, we need your help.” Metal turned Joe’s monitor around so Nick could see Jacko and Joe.

“Jacko, Metal,” Nick said nodding. He brought the cell closer to his face. “Is that Joe Harris? Hey, man.”

Joe nodded his head and didn’t smile. Nick was no dummy. His smile dropped off his face, too. “Sitrep,” he said quietly.

“Not over an open line.” Joe looked at the camera directly. “It would be nice—it would bereallynice if you could make it to Portland.”

Nick’s black eyebrows drew together. “Soon?”

“Now.”

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