Stealth Insurgence, page 41
When nothing happened to threaten him, Jackson stood to his feet and nudged Kennedy aside. “What am I looking at here?”
I can only suppose that the nanomites had “had it” with the limitations of text-on-a-screen communication, because a curious dampening field descended over the area around the President’s desk. I was amazed when the vibrations I usually heard in my ears suddenly shifted to within the dampening field—and I had no idea how the nanomites were doing it.
Mr. President, this diagram represents the most important findings of our research and analysis. For four months, we have investigated and traced monies missing from the most vulnerable departments of your administration.
“Who’s that speaking?” Jackson demanded.
I cleared my throat. “The nanomites are speaking, sir,”
“You told me they were microscopic machines!”
“They are, sir. When they speak to me, they make vibrations in my ear canals. I think they must be sending those same vibrations through your computer’s speakers.”
In a manner of speaking, that is what we are doing, Mr. President, the nanomites responded. As your time is limited, please return your focus to the diagram.
“Yikes! Nano, you do not talk to the President that way!”
They kept going.
Mr. President, you tasked us, above all, with finding fraud or misappropriations in those departments under the Director of National Intelligence. Although it took some time, we have found such evidence—and our investigations are not complete or exhaustive.
What you should know before we explain further is that the mechanisms used to siphon off the funds are complex and require a phalanx of complicit players. Thus, it may prove difficult for the human mind to follow the intricacies of the paths those funds took as they moved through the government, left it, and reached their final destinations.
“Try me,” Jackson said, his mouth curving upward in a dangerous smile. “I want to see it.”
Then we will show you, Mr. President. As we zoom in on this diagram for your benefit, please note how we have highlighted large packets of monies earmarked for eleven special projects within the various departments and agencies under the Director of National Intelligence. Our investigation of each of the eleven highlighted projects noted similar and disturbing commonalities among them. In these eleven projects, we found no physical footprint—that is, no building, office space, or location. The projects possessed no communication mechanisms or hierarchical structure. No personnel drew salaries from the funding of these projects. Lastly, the projects produced no product or outcome to show for their spending.
“Black ops,” Jackson said, nodding his head. “Congress approves the ops, appropriates the funds, and provides oversight of the projects. Checks and balances.”
Yours is the logical assumption, Mr. President. Nevertheless, no congressional approvals, appropriations, or oversight exist for these eleven projects.
“How would you know? The appropriations would run through—” Jackson stopped talking. “Wait. You’ve investigated those appropriation committees, haven’t you?”
Certainly, Mr. President. Our exhaustive investigation has yielded no such approvals, appropriations, or oversight to justify these monies.
“How much . . . how much money are we talking?” Jackson asked.
Two hundred sixty-seven billion dollars, Mr. President.
Jackson sat down. Hard. I knew the feeling. I’d about passed out when the nanomites had shown us the same figure. Two hundred sixty-seven billion dollars?
But the nanomites weren’t even close to finished.
Mr. President, please pay close attention as we guide you through the maze of financial transactions that led us to our conclusions.
A maze it was. I had watched the nanomites run their dog-and-pony show twice. I found my third time through just as enlightening but significantly more disturbing.
The two hundred sixty-seven billion dollars had been broken up and redesignated across nearly all branches of government, with a preponderance through the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. At each required juncture, the movement of funds had been approved by the appropriate signature authorities. The monies were then further segmented and paid out to a myriad of contracting organizations—in the same way Malware, Inc. was paid by the government to provide security training, high-level security protection, and (in my soon-to-be-defunct employment), as research and analysis for the President.
The number of contractors paid this way, however, was astonishing—but what was staggering? How, again, every movement of the monies was properly approved. Even regular and incidental audits conducted by the GAO (Government Accountability Office) had found no hint of malfeasance . . . and yet, the monies funding these contractors had not been budgeted to the departments spending them.
Jackson might not have been a governmental insider before he became president, but he had learned a thing or two while in office about the workings of government. “Who are these contractors? What are their contract deliverables?”
These contracting entities are bogus businesses, elaborately constructed with equally bogus contract deliverables, Mr. President. Each contractor resides within a shell company set up by various US attorneys for various US corporations—corporations that, upon closer look, do not exist.
Kennedy swore under his breath. Jackson said nothing. He was struck dumb.
Mr. President, we will provide you with a file containing much of this information. You may wish to refresh your understanding with it going forward. The file contains a list of the contracting entities and their “deliverables.” It is not the deliverables that you will find most interesting, however. It is the route the money takes from the contractors to their final destinations.
“Show me,” Jackson ordered.
We could show you all contracting companies simultaneously, but you would be unable to follow them. We will trace a single exemplar at this time.
Jackson glanced at his watch. “Hurry it up.”
The nanomites did. They brought forward a single contracting company, ran a line from it to a sidebar that listed a long, completely fake corporate and shell company pedigree, then superimposed another sidebar over the first and listed the contractor’s bank transactions. This was the tough part to follow, but the nanomites traced this single contractor’s funds from bank to bank, crisscrossing the world, until the money, eventually, ended up in a handful of numbered and nameless off-shore accounts, each account receiving tidy little six-digit sums.
This is but one example of how government money moved out of a government department into multiple private accounts, Mr. President. The remainder of what we have found missing to date follows a similar route, but to other accounts.
Jackson growled, “You’re saying all the contractor companies paid from the missing funds have done the same thing? Sent the money to a bunch of numbered accounts? You’re telling me this huge pot of money—two hundred sixty-seven billion dollars—has been stolen from the government and is gone for good? And not one government oversight entity caught onto this scheme?”
Yes, the entire amount was stolen, Mr. President. However we are not saying the money is gone for good or that ‘not one government oversight entity caught onto this scheme.’ Obviously, key personnel with signature authority within those government oversight entities had to have been willing players in the scheme. As far as the location of the money? We have hacked into the supposedly anonymous accounts. We know to whom they belong.
Up on the nanomites’ 3D display, a list of names paid by the exemplar contractor appeared in the sidebar. Nine names in all.
Jackson was beside himself. “I’ll see them in prison!” he roared.
The nanomites expanded the list and highlighted one name: Nora Elizabeth Mellyn.
“No,” Jackson cried. “No, that can’t be true!”
How I hurt for Robert Jackson! He had been betrayed by trusted individuals three times now . . . and this most recent betrayal would not be the last of this day’s devastating revelations.
We are sorry, Mr. President, the nanomites said, somehow infusing their “voice” with a sense of compassion, but you should know that we are not saying the government is riddled with high-level employees “on the take,” whose sole motivation is financial gain. No, the situation is far worse and far more insidious than you can imagine.
As the nanomites paused to let their words sink in, Jackson’s head sank down onto his hands. The nanomites did not speak for several minutes, not until Jackson lifted his head.
“Axel, tell Marcus to push my schedule out another half hour.”
Kennedy didn’t quibble. He took out his cell phone and made the call.
Mr. President, may we continue?
Jackson, more subdued than I’d ever seen him, nodded. “Please.”
Yes, Mr. President. As we intimated, the most concerning aspect of our investigation is not the theft of the funds. We have gone further by investigating, across these many contracting companies, the ties between the individuals who received the monies. In doing so, we uncovered an extensive network of elected officials and bureaucrats within the US government. These individuals are not merely like-minded or of similar ideological views; they are, all of them, actively complicit in the activities of this network. It is because the many individuals across this network are embedded in every aspect of the government’s functions, even within the GAO and the Office of the Inspector General, that they were able to approve the transactions and steal these funds.
Jackson looked up. “How many, Nano?”
Out of more than two million federal employees, approximately one hundred ninety-two thousand individuals comprise this network.
“Dear God,” he whispered, “almost ten percent of our workforce?”
The government is infested with these treasonous elements, Mr. President, and our report worsens. The network within the US government is linked to similar networks within the news media, social media, the corporate world, finance, education, and entertainment. Furthermore, all these various networks parallel analogous networks in at least thirty governments across the world.
Did I hear the nanomites sigh?
Mr. President, we have uncovered, literally and by definition, a vast global conspiracy.
Jackson drew in a sharp breath. “A conspiracy to do what, Nano?”
The short-term objectives of the organization we have designated ‘the Cabal’ are to cripple the leading nations of the world—cripple them socially, economically, and militarily. These objectives are being furthered by planned protests, riots, and a general state of unrest spreading across the US and other countries.
These public demonstrations are hatched and funded by monies siphoned from various governments in manners similar to those we have reported to you. The virus, too, is also their creation, another piece of their plan, designed to disrupt manufacturing, food production, supply chains, and bankrupt businesses, thus ruining established economies. If the economies of the world stall and if citizens are locked in their own homes, the peoples of the world will become totally dependent upon their governments.
“And?”
Eventually the cost of supporting their citizens’ dependencies will topple governments, Mr. President. Then the targeted nations—democratic nations—will fail economically and militarily. Their institutions will crumble. Their politicians will lose the will to fight against such a tide.
You asked the Cabal’s objectives, Mr. President? The information we have uncovered leads us to believe they seek a global community built upon their ideologies. Not a one-world government, but an overarching one-world agency with control over all nations.
I had never seen Jackson look so distraught and alone. “What . . . what do you recommend that I do?”
We were approaching the part I dreaded most, the part Zander and I had resisted.
You must do nothing, Mr. President.
“What? I can’t do nothing! I’m the President—I have taken a sacred oath to defend this nation from all enemies, both foreign and domestic!”
Mr. President, there is nothing within your power that will rid America of this radical faction, this unholy blight. It is too large and too powerful to curtail. They own key people in media, in business, in finance, in law enforcement, and in government.
If you were to act against them? They would kill you—and your death would accelerate their timetable. But before they killed you? They would destroy you—your marriage, your family, your reputation, and your presidency. Then they would kill you.
Jackson’s head fell onto his hands again, and his shoulders shuddered and shook. I averted my eyes, swiping at them as they overflowed. At the same time, I shivered.
The most precarious bit was ahead.
Mr. President, we will help. We wish you to be informed and to have some hope for the immediate future. And . . . we ask your blessing as we do what only we can do.
Jackson ran his large hands, the color of strong coffee, across his face. He struggled mightily to bring himself under control. He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket. Wiped his eyes.
“Explain, please, Nano. What is it you can do?”
Mr. President, we can mount a counterinsurgency.
Chapter 38
I was physically and emotionally drained when our protracted business with President Jackson ended. I crawled into bed and slept until late evening. When I woke up, somewhat rested, I rolled to the edge of our bed and sat up. That was as far as I got, because my brain went right back to the exchange between the nanomites and President Jackson . . . and the nanomites’ plan.
Their revelations to us, to Zander and me last night, had freaked us out. The scope of what they proposed as a “counterinsurgency” had floored us—the same way their plans had blown away President Jackson and Axel Kennedy a few hours ago.
“What . . . specifically, do you mean by ‘counterinsurgency’?” Jackson had been cautious when he asked that question.
We will go after the stolen money first, Mr. President. We will, of course, return the funds to the proper branch of government and monitor them to ensure that they are not purloined again. Wherever the Cabal has hidden the stolen monies, we will find and repossess them.
After a short interval without further interference from us—when those who conducted the theft of these monies and when those who hold the power within the Cabal are perhaps lulled into a sense of complacency—we will go after them personally. Whatever wealth and resources they individually possess, we will remove. We will drain their accounts, sell off their tangible assets, and dispossess them of homes, credit, and reputation. Whatever resources they rely upon, we will take from them.
We will make the conduct of a domestic war against America both organizationally and personally untenable.
Jackson, scarcely daring to breathe, responded. “Let me see if I have this right: You plan to take millions out of the accounts of people ruthless enough to plot a global coup? And you don’t think that would be extremely dangerous? That it would . . .” He licked his lips, and his voice petered out.
“Enrage them?” I supplied. “Provoke them? Cause them to sic their assassins on the ‘thieves’ who dared to pilfer their ill-gotten gain? Set them hunting us with all the might and resources they command?”
“All of the above,” Jackson answered. “As you said, Nano, these are powerful individuals, made more powerful by their unholy alliances with like-minded individuals seeded throughout the government in key positions. Nano, if your data concerning their ruthlessness is correct—and I have no reason to believe otherwise—they will strike out at whomever they suspect, guilty or not. There will be no protection for anyone they target.”
They will most certainly seek those responsible for repossessing “their” money, Mr. President, but they will be unable to trace the movement of the funds or attach responsibility to any party—not to us, not to Zander or Jayda Cruz, not to you. They may suspect you, Mr. President, so you must be quite careful. As long as you maintain a façade of ignorance regarding them—that is, as long as you say nothing and do nothing against them—they will find no suggestion that could convince them otherwise.
That said, you have advanced an intriguing caveat, Mr. President. The Cabal will indeed attempt to trace the movement of the money when it leaves their accounts. They will seek to know how it left and where it went from there. We could leave a faint path of breadcrumbs, a trail that that leads . . . to other collaborators.
“Turn them on each other, you mean?” Jackson asked. He glanced at Kennedy. “I like that idea, don’t you, Axel? Poetic justice and all.”
“I’d like it better if we had them in front of a firing squad, sir.”
Jackson’s hands closed into fists. “As would I.”
Mr. President, we would, of course, also drain funds from specific organizational fronts we have identified. The collaborators use these fronts to fund protests and riots; their aims are to shut down churches and vocal critics. Without money, they cannot pay for such terrorist activities.
At this Jackson’s frown deepened. “Protests and riots aimed at shutting down churches? Are you saying this-this-this global conspiracy, this stinking Cabal, is behind the worldwide church protests and the fires intended to burn them out?”
Yes, Mr. President. The hidden network, in which Nora Mellyn plays a principal part, is concentrating the anger of their disaffected mobs upon what Cabal members view as their most dangerous adversaries: Christians. They are targeting Christian churches that teach and promote a biblical worldview because a biblical worldview is the antithesis of their aims. In their many riots, these organizations are directing their ire toward church leaders such as Zander Cruz and conservative politicians such as yourself who will actively resist them.
