“Yes sir,” the room answered in near unison.
Chief of Staff Arnessy stayed behind when the others left. “Hate to bother you but there are a couple of housekeeping issues to tend to, sir.”
“Make it quick.”
“The press are clamoring for a conference.”
“For what? They’re all shut down.”
Arnessy shrugged.
“Denied. Have them pick a representative and I’ll give fifteen minutes of face time. What else?”
“Do you remember Doctor Chaim Hilton?”
“The Israeli professor who helped us with our earthquake readiness research in California?”
“Right.”
“Yes, I remember him. Delightful old fellow. What of him?”
“He was kidnapped about a month ago, and his body was found this morning in the Negev desert. I think it would be a good idea for you to make time to call his family.”
“Of course. Any idea why he was kidnapped?”
Arnessy shook his head.
“What a shame. Anything else?”
“No sir, that’s it.”
19
8:45 AM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
Tark and I were the first ones awake. Even Abdul had finally given in and was sprawled across one of the mattresses on the floor in the lounge. We quietly brewed a pot of coffee and headed to the Control Room.
“Matthew, something’s been bothering me and I can’t get it off my mind. Why don’t you believe in God?”
I was still on my first cup of coffee and he caught me off guard. What the hell. “For what it’s worth, I used to believe. I finally saw the evidence that he’s not that different from an imaginary friend that a seven-year-old might conjure up to keep from being lonely. I saw the light, as you Christians might say.” I sat back and waited for the sermon.
“What kind of evidence?”
“My father was a preacher, Tark. He stormed around his pulpit and scared everybody half to death talking about hellfire and brimstone. Then he’d talk about the wonders of God, how he’d never let you down. Jesus was love, he’d never forsake you, nosirree. Just like most people in that little church, I believed what my father said.
“My mother died giving birth to me, so I never knew her. My father explained that while it was painful, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Being an organ donor, her death gave life not only to me but to others, as well. It was a stretch, but it was plausible coming from my father, as everything always was. Dad really was a great father, everything a boy could want, and he was all I had.
Tark was listening to every word, and as much as I hated this subject, for some reason it felt good to be setting him straight on the matter. Who knows, maybe he’d wise up in the process and reconsider the fairy tale, so I continued. “Dad preached Jesus and I believed. I sang in the youth choir. I talked less fortunate friends—ones who got the hell beat out of ‘em by their fathers, ones who were lucky to get a decent meal a day—into coming to church with me. There they learned from my father that they weren’t alone. Jesus was with them. He’d always be with them. It never did quite make sense to me why Jesus would stand by and watch some asshole beat up a kid, but Dad always found a way to twist it around so it made sense.
“When I was thirteen, my father was on his way home from visiting a local nursing home when a drunk in an eighteen-wheeler hit him head on. It was then that it became evident to me that there is no God. If he did exist, then why the hell would he let that happen to my father, one of his own, a man wholly devoted to the cause? The answer of course is that there is no God. There’s only this right here, and we’re in control. Good people, bad people, drunks in eighteen-wheelers. It is what we make it, nothing more. Last I heard, the drunk got religious and became a preacher, if you can believe that one.”
“I assume your father was killed?”
“No, he’s lying in a long-term-care ward in a nursing home, in a coma. As soon as my finances permitted, I had him moved from a state-run hellhole to Alpine Village, the finest facility in the Northwest. I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on every kind of treatment available from the best neurologists in the world. All for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t call it nothing. You’ve tried. What happened to you after your father got hurt?”
“Uncle Seth, my father’s brother, took me in. He didn’t have a pot to piss in, but he took care of me, and we got along pretty well. He didn’t go to church, didn’t judge people, and didn’t sit around waiting on things that were never going to happen. He taught me that we’re responsible for ourselves, period.”
“How’d you get involved in computers?”
“That’s an odd story. Uncle Seth liked to hang out at this local gym where a few wannabe boxers trained. He loved to bet the fights and thought he could get a better insight into who to put his money on by watching them up close. Well, I naturally hung out there with him quite a bit, and wound up taking some martial arts classes over on the other end of the gym. Turns out I had a knack for it, and I moved through the belts pretty quickly; I was pretty advanced by the time I was fifteen.”
He smiled and patted his belly. “Unlike me, looks like you keep yourself in good shape. You still do it?”
“Just enough to stay loose. Anyway, I fell in with a couple of other guys in the class who were pretty rough. The ethic of never using our skills for anything other than sport or self-defense didn’t appeal to them. They were dirt poor and didn’t want to stay that way, and I’d gotten pretty tired of it myself. We started our own little gang, called ourselves Trinity. Pop would’ve loved that if he had ever awakened.”
“We started out small, doing a little shoplifting here and there, selling our wares on the street. We were afraid the merchants were getting wise to us, though, so we changed our approach. There were quite a few gangs roaming the streets, so we’d intentionally invade their turf and start a ruckus. They’d jump us, we’d kick their asses, then take every dime they had right out of their pockets while they laid there. The beauty of it was that we knew they’d never say a word about getting creamed by three guys because their respect would be crap.”
“Good grief, Matthew, didn’t they have guns?”
“Yeah, some did. Guns, knives, knucks, you name it. Youth knows no fear, and none of us ever got shot or stabbed. We took many a gun and knife, sold them on the streets. We were doing pretty well, knocking down a lot of cash. We also had a great time with the girls of the conquered gangs. Not forced, mind you, we weren’t like that. Girls that hang out with gangs are turned on by power, and to the victors go the spoils, including those of the flesh.”
“This is all interesting, Matthew, but I’m still waiting for the computer connection.”
“Bear with me,” I said, “I’m almost there. We picked out a new gang on the other side of town for our next conquest and strolled into their neighborhood. Started talking trash like we always did, but they never would make the first move. So we made it for them. It felt weird the whole time, because they didn’t fight much at all. As soon as I reached in the first leather jacket and pulled out the guy’s wallet, cops poured out of the woodwork. That new gang was a gang of cops. We fell right into the sting, like criminals always will if they push the envelope long enough.
“So there I was, sixteen years old, in jail, charged with strong-arm robbery among other things. I agreed to plead guilty in exchange for them treating me as a juvenile. I got sentenced to three years suspended, but I had to go to a rehabilitation center three times a week. Part of the rehab was learning a skill, and I chose some computer courses. I picked it up pretty quickly, and seventeen years later, here I am.”
“Good to hear you turned your life around, and no one can deny that you’ve made something of yourself, Matthew. That’s quite a story. Does Potella know about your arrest record? That might be part of what’s in his craw, too.”
“Nope, he has it in his head that I’m working wit
h arms-traders, which is pure bunk, but he knows nothing about the travails of my youth.”
Tark shook his head and smiled. “You made your record go away, didn’t you? Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll let this be our little secret, okay?”
“I’d appreciate that, Tark.”
“Not a problem,” he said as he left the room to refill his coffee cup.
I sat there by myself in the Control Room, already hot and soon to be hotter as the merciless sun made its morning climb. I hadn’t planned to blab my background to anyone, much less a Bible-thumper like Jimmy Lee Tarkleton, but it felt good. I had spent my entire adult life fighting to conceal that past, to maintain my entrepreneurial image. Letting go and telling someone the truth felt good, like a dark cloud lifted that I didn’t know was there. And I wasn’t worried about it going any further. Tark said it would be our secret and I believed him. He stuck his head back into the room and said, “Come to the lounge, Matthew. I think you need to hear this.”
The Fox anchor was on the screen, looking haggard and sounding spent. “Fox financial correspondent Bart Brann is here with me now. Bart, with the U.S. already in a state of crisis, how will these foreign market crashes affect us?”
“I finally managed to get a friend in London on the phone a few minutes ago. He’s describing the situation over there as chaotic. The only thing we really have to compare something like this to is the twenty-nine crash, and our current situation is far worse than that.”
“How so?”
“The first infamous Black Thursday crash took place on October 24, 1929, when the New York Stock Exchange went through a selling frenzy that shaved four billion dollars off the value of the exchange. Despite this colossal selloff, news spread much more slowly in those days, and so did the effect of the crash. In more rural areas of the country, where people’s livelihoods were more dependent on their own food and livestock than on external factors, it took as much as a year for the effect of the crash to trickle down and make an impact.
“That’s not the case now as we deal with a brand new Black Thursday. When something happens in the twenty-first century, the world knows about it instantly and people react quickly. Major financial events start feeding on themselves, spiraling into a vicious downward cycle within hours or even minutes. That’s what’s happening. The Nikkei crash began and instantly carried over into the European markets. The news was immediately disseminated to the people in those countries, and panic buying of food and other essential items set in. Sellers knew what was going on and began raising prices, some out of sheer greed, some because they had already gotten word from their suppliers that replenishment goods would come at substantially higher costs. In the same way that the downward spiral of stock prices took place, prices for basic goods were accelerating upward within hours. What we have in the end is hyperinflation on a worldwide scale.”
“Can you give us any examples?”
“Gasoline in England is going for the equivalent of thirty U.S. dollars per gallon. A loaf of bread is fifteen dollars, a gallon of milk nine dollars. And all these prices continue to rise as people pay the prices and sap the dwindling supplies of these goods.”
“What can we expect here at home?”
“It’s going to be worse here because the United States was already in dire straits. Manufacturing is shut down. Deliveries are all but impossible because refueling of trucks can’t take place. Planes have of course been long since grounded. Los Angeles, a major hub of American commerce, is in shambles as they struggle to deal with the horrendous loss of human life. And finally, let’s remember that the power is still off and we don’t know when it will be back on. Parts of the country were back in operation for a brief period, but the power went back off without warning. It’s rough out there.”
“Okay, thanks Bart. We appreciate the update and we’ll no doubt be calling on you again as this crisis continues to develop—”
I turned the volume down on the television set. “There’s a pattern to all this,” I said. “Black Thursday nineteen twenty-nine. Black Thursday now. History repeating itself. There’s something here we’re not catching, hidden clues we aren’t seeing, a method to the madness.”
“Nothing new under the sun,” Tark mumbled.
“What?” I said.
“It’s from Ecclesiastes chapter one, verse nine.”
“What’s the whole verse?” He had triggered a new line of thought. It was vague at the moment, but it was a beginning.
“That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. What are you thinking?”
“It’s a book full of patterns and recurring themes. And you already think the guy is a religious nut. Abdul, I need your help.” I was already on my way out of the lounge, headed to the Control Room.
“Matt Decker, I am pleasing to help you but my Holy Bible knowledge is most poor.”
“Don’t worry about it, just come with me.”
“Yes, Matt Decker.”
20
9:32 AM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
HART COMPLEX
A myriad of cleverly concealed satellite dishes around the grounds of the complex collected and routed information from around the world into the bunker and down to Hart’s private quarters. He sat in the darkened room, scanning through screen after screen of financial data that poured in from Europe, Asia, and Africa.
He planned the events of the previous night for years and it worked to perfection. Plan the trade and trade the plan. Through the use of dozens of cash-laden shell institutions scattered around the world, he had single-handedly triggered a worldwide state of financial meltdown. His sale of hundreds of thousands of shares each of different key corporations started a slide in stock prices that would live in infamy.
He didn’t actually own the shares before selling them, instead using a common trading technique known as selling short. A seller relies on his financial strength to borrow shares to sell, then waits for the price to fall and buys shares on the open market at a lower price. Those shares are then used to pay back the borrowed shares and he reaps the difference between the price he sold at and the lower price at which he bought the shares to cover his obligation.
Through the use of this technique, Abraham Hart had booked just north of thirty billion dollars in profits the night before. More importantly, his crisis, and thereby the scope of his power, had surged beyond the borders of the United States. Others had spent years babbling about a New World Order. He had just installed one, and he was only getting started.
He smiled as he thought about how powerless the mighty United States was against him. His sources–he had them everywhere–were certain that those in charge of the investigation were essentially clueless as to who he was or what lay ahead. The plan was proceeding. Nothing could stop it. No one could stop it. They were in a frenzy, playing catch-up while the clock ticked ever closer to the most awesome display of power in the history of this pathetic world.
9:35 AM CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (LOCAL)
YELLOW CREEK
“Abdul, I need you to pull the system logs from Monday afternoon, the first grid failures,” I said.
I fired up my laptop and went online through the Yellow Creek network. From a commercial standpoint the Internet was dead but the Fox News site was operational and I hoped that they’d have the information I needed. Even though they had gone to a bare-bones text format for the sake of speed, the site was still slow.
Tark, Rowe, and Stocky Potella had followed us into the control room. “What are you looking for?” Rowe said.
“I have a hunch about a pattern. I need a few minutes online to verify it.”
Abdul rattled away on his keyboard and I heard the printer start cranking out logs. Four clicks and six minutes into the surf, I hit pay dirt. They had a simple time line of the crisis events—
“You have urgent mail,” my laptop blared. I clicked into my email program and saw a lone message i
n the inbox. Its subject line paralyzed me:
YOUR FATHER IS NOT LOOKING WELL.
“Sweet Jesus,” Tark said. Rowe and Potella came over and looked on over my shoulder. After about ten seconds I started breathing again and opened the email:
Return-Path:
Delivered-To: x7ijljAweRRv -deckerdigital:[email protected]
X-Envelope-To: [email protected]
X-Originating-IP: [66.156.171.40]
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Change
My Dearest Mr. Decker,
I too have a father who is but a relic of what he once was, much the same as the unfortunate soul who lies in Alpine Village Suite 321 day after silent day. Maybe it would be best for all concerned should he be released from the tentacles of vegetative captivity in which you keep him bound.
I have decided to implement a new rule for our ongoing challenge. You will no longer be allowed to conduct investigation via the Internet. I have provided you with more clues than you deserve. Use them.
I spun my chair around to face Rowe and Potella. “I want protection for my father.”
“Exactly where is Alpine Village?” Rowe said after reading the email.
“Gold Coast, Oregon. Your people won’t have any trouble finding it.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He picked up a telephone and punched in a series of numbers. Moments later he was barking instructions at someone.
Julie Reynolds mouthed a silent “sorry” from her perch in the corner of the room. Even Potella had an unnatural look on his face that could have been construed as at least a pretense of compassion. I rubbed my temples in a vain attempt to chase away the vision of someone holding a pillow over Dad’s face as he lay in his bed, unable to fight or even scream. I finally turned back around to my notebook and started typing.
Seven Unholy Days Page 11