by Reed Sprague
I close by asking for immediate action to stop Mr. Peterson from exercising his authority as world dictator. I emphasize that my recommendation for “immediate action” means “any action necessary,” and it means that action must be taken forthwith.
This report is concluded and submitted with my agent seal and my signature.
River N. Warwick, Sr.
— 11:47 P.M., 10 OCTOBER 2024
River’s report was too late, and it wouldn’t have made a difference if it were done sooner. The three members of the USFIA Governing Council intercepted River’s report before it got to Albert. They read the report, read the transcript of Peterson’s mad fit, and listened to the recording. They promptly filed the report, the transcript and the recording, and ordered Albert to ignore River completely. From that point on, River was not allowed to issue an official report to Albert. He was asked by the Council representatives if he retained a copy of the report, its attachment and the recording. River lied and told them that he retained copies of the report and transcript, but that they had the only recording of Peterson’s fit of rage.
The U.N. acted quickly to finalize its decisions. Details were not necessary, and were not offered. Resolutions were presented and passed with lightning–fast speed during Friday, the day after Peterson’s speech. By the end of the day Friday, all resolutions necessary to empower the WWCA were passed. Many resolutions passed unanimously. Peterson was soon to be in full control.
The U.N. General Assembly met together in the Great Hall to ratify all resolutions considered and passed that day. The vote to confirm was brought quickly, and it passed with no dissenting or abstaining votes. It was done now. What began two years ago as a longshot plan to save the world by creating an entirely new worldwide governing body — experts predicted at that time a ninety–eight percent chance of failure — was now a reality.
Generally speaking, the world governing body’s authority was set. Limits on authority, geographic and political boundaries, military power, citizen rights—all these issues and many more were not defined.
One thing was clear: Any country that refused to cooperate with the WWCA risked extermination. The nuclear triggers were the bottom line to WWCA’s power. Little else mattered. WWCA’s power was absolute because it was armed with absolute punitive capabilities.
WWCA proceeded to its tasks at once. Many didn’t realize it, but the entire office park in Houston had been transformed—set up completely for the WWCA’s operations. It was known as WWCA Operations Center. The park’s seventy–five story skyscraper, its jewel in the center of it all, was renamed, simply, The Peterson Building.
All offices had been renovated. Security systems were fully operational. Computer and communications systems were up and running. The entire infrastructure was set, tested and fully operational as well. All functions of the new worldwide government were set even before the U.N. voted.
Peterson moved into his office. The council room was an architectural dream. The best of the best. Peterson’s chair was at the head of the table, but the table had only one place for a head chair. The opposite end of the table from Peterson’s chair was rounded, providing room for two chairs to be set opposite one another, but with no place for another head. The table rounded there almost to a point. At this table there would be but one leader.
Governance was surprisingly simple and straightforward. Peterson led each session. No one spoke unless called upon. Votes were expected to be unanimous. Decisions were to be clear. There was to be no doubt in the minds of any person in the entire world that authority to run the world was vested in the WWCA, and that the authority to run the WWCA was vested in Tyler Peterson.
Decisions were made in the first session. There was no need to wait on matters of military authority, commerce, religion, or economics. The new economic system was adopted. The people of the world would benefit, so long as the people submitted. Submission was the litmus test to determine allegiance. Military service was mandatory. Religion was defined. The world would be much different now.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
12 OCTOBER 2024
Sydney Albert hoped that he could scare River and intimidate him until River relented so that the USFIA could back away from the issue of Peterson and his mad reign. Albert gave it his best shot. “Your report was just slightly over the top, wouldn’t you say, Warwick?” Albert said, with obvious sarcasm. “It was not your place to write such a report, Warwick. You are the observer, the investigator and the reporter, but you are not the judge or jury. Maybe you could at least admit to using hyperbole to make your point? Just maybe?” Albert said, again lacing each word with a strong sarcastic tone.
River passed a note to Albert. It read, “I insist that, in order to continue this conversation, we pass written notes back and forth.”
Albert scribbled a note and passed it to River, “Absolutely.”
“Have you even read my report?”
“No, but I’ve heard enough about it to know that it’s over the top.”
“My report stands as written. It is neither hyperbole nor exaggeration. It is factual, and it was my duty to write it,” River wrote. “The least you could have done was read it before you judged me for it.”
“It’s speculation, Mr. duty–bound, patriotic hero,” Albert scribbled. “Do you realize the situation you’ve put me in? Can’t ignore you, can’t take your advice. Might have to make you appear to be an alarmist. What were you thinking? I’ve got huge pressure on me, Warwick, and you’ve not done anything to alleviate it.”
“Have you read the transcript of Peterson’s meeting with Hall, Samuel and Gualt?” River wrote.
“No.”
“Have you listened to the recording of that meeting?”
“What recording?”
“Do you have two sets of headphones here, in your office?” River wrote.
“Yes.”
River placed the recorder on the table, plugged in the headphones and pressed the Play button. They both listened. Albert was stunned at what he heard. After the recording finished, River handed Albert a copy of the report he was supposed to have received. Albert read it, and then realized that the Governing Council must have decided to go along with Peterson. There could be no other reason they wanted to ignore such an obvious piece of evidence against him. Albert’s bosses had given in. They had decided to join the madman.
A tense silence gripped the room for several seconds. Albert then wrote, “River, you’re going to be surprised to read my next statement: I agree with you. Not just because of the transcript or recording either. Your report is accurate. Damn you for writing it, but it’s true. I’m not upset with you for your accurate observations and thorough investigative work. I’m upset with you because you had the guts to make us all face what I suppose we all knew but would not admit to. Your call for action against Peterson was the right thing to do. Not too bright for either of our careers, but it was the right thing.”
“What do you plan to do?” River wrote.
“I’ve been ordered by the Governing Council to ignore your report. Do you have a safe place to hide your report and the recording of Peterson’s fit of rage?”
“Yes.”
“Hide it—somewhere that no one can find it. Lie if you’re asked about it. Get this straight: Even if a member of the Governing Council asks for it, do not produce it for him. Understand?”
“Yes. I’ve already lied to the Governing Council about it. I told them that I gave them the only copy of the recording.”
“Where did you get the recording to begin with?” Albert wrote.
“Frederic Hernandez.”
“That makes no sense. Hernandez wants to see you bleed to death or something. He wouldn’t cooperate.”
“I know that it makes no sense, but it happened. Hernandez gave me the recording. He’s the one who recorded the meeting.”
“Okay, let’s get the shredder going. We’ll go over to the office supply store and use theirs so we don’t rai
se suspicion here. Let’s go. Then we’ll go talk about a plan—”
“Mr. Albert, you need to take this call,” Albert’s secretary, Sheila, said, interrupting to give him the message.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Congressman Perez.”
“Hold on a minute, Warwick. Don’t leave… I’ll take this call and then we’ll get back to our meeting. Put him through, Sheila.”
Congressman Alex Perez of Florida was the chairman of the U.S. Government Intelligence Oversight Committee. Perez took every word of his committee’s title literally, especially the word “oversight.”
“Sydney, I need to talk to you. Have you got a minute? Can you talk now?”
“Yes, Mr. Congressman, please go ahead.”
“You’ve got a problem. The FBI has informed me that one of your agents needs to be investigated. They’ve wanted to check into him for months. They feel that the investigation has been deliberately stalled. It should have begun well before now. His name is River Warwick. They were running a few routine checks on his records, based on an anonymous tip they received, and they turned up something that has to be checked out. Thank God they called me and let me know what was going on. You know how I hate delays. Let’s get this going. Okay?”
“Mr. Congressman, would you excuse me for just a moment? I have to place you on hold for a few seconds,” Albert said.
“I’ll hold,” Perez replied.
“River, I’ll be quite a while on this call; I’ll call you and we’ll meet again this afternoon, after lunch.”
“Sure, Mr. Albert. I’ll see you then.”
“Sorry, Mr. Congressman, I had a person waiting in my office that I had to dismiss so I could talk with you.”
“I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but it’s been explained to me that the investigation of Warwick turned up convincing evidence of ongoing contact with a foreign agent who is known to try to corrupt American intelligence agents. In other words, he’s known to try to buy off our agents through generous bribes, and he’s also known to extort money from agents who have been compromised.
“The foreign agent’s M.O. is that he finds a personality defect in the agent he’s targeted or a deeply personal problem the agent has — maybe a gambling addiction, high personal debt, materialistic life style, drug or alcohol addiction, or even a sick relative who needs money for treatment — then offers to purchase information. He’s very effective at what he does.
“He makes himself sound convincing, almost nonthreatening. At first he offers the money, he doesn’t ask for the money. His relationships with our agents seem to quickly turn to extortion, though.
“Anyway, it clearly appears that Warwick has been in constant contact with this guy, enough so that we have to authorize and even insist on a full investigation of Warwick. It can’t come from you, Sydney. It has to come from the FBI and from my committee.”
“Let me say, sir, that Warwick has never given me any indication that he—” Albert stopped himself unexpectedly in mid–sentence.
“Go ahead, Sydney, I’m listening,” Alex said.
“Can I get back with you on this?” Albert asked.
“Yes, you can, but please remember that you can speak with no one at all, in any way, about what we just discussed. My committee’s investigation has got to be independent and confidential. Neither you nor Warwick will benefit from loose talk about it.”
“I understand. I do have to check out a few things pertaining to Warwick, though. Then I’ll call you back.”
“Sure. Remember, though, that I’m moving ahead with my committee’s investigation.”
“Understood.”
Albert was beginning to be very much concerned. Did Warwick actually write his report about Peterson to make the case that the world might be taken over by a dictator, just to deflect attention from something he did wrong? What about his report’s obvious truths? Had Warwick ever, even once, given a hint that he would sell out to, or pay off, a foreign agent? Who was this foreign agent? Who was Warwick? Had Albert grown too close to Warwick? Had he and others in the agency placed too much trust in Warwick, their “rising star?”
Questions raced through Albert’s mind. Answers lagged far behind.
Sydney Albert had to be honest with himself that his agency lacked any clear major dramatic public success stories since its inception. The heavily entrenched and very influential, yet unofficial, FBI and CIA public relations crews had made certain that in the last twenty years or so there had been one highly publicized successful investigation after another at their agencies, even though their shortcomings were no secret.
After the fiasco of the 2002 Iraq intelligence reports, both agencies made certain that they took on investigative work that would result in news reports that were dramatic and that shined the media’s spotlights on the successful, world–saving adventures of the two venerable agencies and their all–American agents.
The new kids on the block at the USFIA believed their own stated ideals—noble, but not apt to bring them the title of hero demanded by the media and the public. Few Americans cared about nobility. Everyone, it seemed, cared about dramatic stories of heroes whose selfless, highly professional work resulted in the bad guys going off to jail, or even to their death, while America basked in the secure sunlight of its bright future, glaring just over the horizon.
Albert didn’t need this nobility his agency embraced and settled for. He needed a success story, and he needed a big one. He needed the sun to shine down on his agency, with or without its fortunate son, River Warwick.
“Sheila, please get Warwick and send him in here. I need to see him immediately.”
“Sorry, Mr. Albert, that it took me so long to get here after Sheila called me. I thought we were going to meet after lunch—”
“Sit down, Warwick. I need to talk to you,” a much different Sydney Albert said firmly. “I’ve scanned my office. There are no bugs. We can talk openly.
“I’m sending you over to Saudi Arabia for a special assignment. You will leave in exactly fifteen hours to begin your training. Here’s your brief. As is the norm with cases such as this, you will not be told many of the details until you get there, but I can tell you that I will meet with you at five o’clock tomorrow morning with more details than an agent would normally receive for an assignment such as this. Go back to your office, read the brief, make some notes of questions you might have, and be back in that chair at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“What about our discussion from earlier today?”
“Forget about that for now. You’ve done your job by submitting your report. I’ll take it from here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re not paid to understand. You’re paid to follow orders.”
“I’m paid to do what’s right.”
“What’s right is that you follow my orders. I just gave you one, and not only did you not follow it, you didn’t even realize it was an order. You have a problem making such distinctions, don’t you, Warwick?”
River rose from the chair without saying anything further, picked up the Saudi brief, opened the door and went back to his office. Something was wrong. And for some reason, River believed that it had little to do with his report calling for action against Peterson.
“Why am I being taken off the Peterson investigation?” River asked at the outset of the five a.m. meeting.
“I’ll talk today; and you’ll listen. Understand? We can talk here today. I swept this room again this morning. We’re okay,” Albert said.
“You’re not being taken off the Peterson case. The nut’s got another suitcase bomb. Our boys have discovered that it’s probably in the hands of a terror group in Medina. On top of that nightmare, the Governing Council is considering the possibility that they’re under Peterson’s authority. They haven’t made the decision to place the USFIA under him, but they’re working on it. It will only be a matter of time,” Albert explained. “What I’m telling you i
s that we’re probably on our own. You take your orders from me and from no one else.
“You have no time to do anything except deal with your new assignment in Saudi Arabia. Here’s the problem. The CIA has botched its mission over there so bad that they are being pulled off. They were unable to gain a quick P.R. victory over there, so they just stalled until everyone got sick of waiting. Then they made a huge blunder.
“One of CIA’s agents — who, of course, was supposed to be completely anonymous — decided to criticize the Saudi royal family publicly. What he didn’t know was that the royal family found out through their own intelligence sources who he really was. So when he ran his mouth, they promptly went on their nationalized media outlets and exposed him as an agent for the CIA. And, as you might expect, they also unleashed endless commentators who “proved” that not only was he an agent for the hated CIA, i.e., America, but that he was also a Christian who was proselytizing for the Roman Catholic church.
“In other words, the Saudis won a great victory by exposing the Great Satan and so on. Didn’t receive much press over here after its initial reporting on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post and a few others. No doubt the P.R. machines at the CIA threatened to withhold future stories if the reporting got too detailed or if it went on too long.
“Anyway, here’s the deal. You will pose as an oil futures trader. You will be a member of the Islamic faith. You will infiltrate the radical Wahhabism sect in Medina. The main mosque there is so radical that they are openly planning terror attacks on the world because they believe that America and the world have embraced the policy of appeasement. They believe that the world is weak and will not hold them accountable. Additionally, the Saudis believe that they can use oil as leverage. They believe that the world must allow their radical actions because they control the world’s oil, even in spite of Peterson’s power grab.