The Phoenix Agenda: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 6)

by JC Ryan

  “Great work, sheriff. I am proud of you.” Brideaux said, to the immense relief of the sheriff and the bewilderment of the Council Members.

  The councilors were looking at each other in disbelief. They didn’t know this John Brideaux. Next, Brideaux asked his secretary to get hold of Brad Johnston and everyone in the room knew they would soon see the man they knew. Again, they were stunned.

  “Brad, how are you doing? Sorry to trouble you. You are a very busy man, I know. Could you please do me a small favor?” Brideaux’s friendly tone caught Johnston completely off guard.

  When the call had come through and he was told who was on the line, he'd expected that his last moments amongst the living had arrived. He didn’t know what to say and was stuttering. “Ah … uh … well … Mr. President, I am very sorry about this big mess but … ah …”

  “Brad, relax my friend, relax. Nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong. You did an excellent job. You are a real hero.” Brideaux grinned. He liked it that people feared him.

  Johnston regained some of his composure, “What is the favor I can do for you, Mr. President?” he asked as he started to relax.

  “Can you please get me the list of the agents who have disappeared, as well as the list of all their family and friends? I take it you have that handy over there.” Brideaux was still grinning.

  “Yes sir, I have that right here. It will be with you in the next few seconds.” Johnston replied.

  Brideaux called his secretary and asked him to get hold of the manager of the Central Human Control Unit, known as ‘The Beast’.

  A few of the members realized what Brideaux was up to; most of them were however, too scared by his sudden streak of decency to think clearly and were still too puzzled to put two and two together.

  When Anna, the manager of the Central Human Control Unit, arrived, Brideaux spoke to her and Boris, the acting director of BOSS. He remained very calm and collected. “Okay, here is what I want you to do for me. Anna, I want you to patch the screen of the CHCU through to that big screen there.”

  Next, he addressed Boris. “I want you to go with Anna and upload the names of a few people for me into the CHCU. I want the complete list of Anastasia’s superstars. The full list of the Rosslers’ family members and their employees’ family members and, of course, Nigel and Esther Harper, together with the list that Brad Johnston has just sent us. Oh, and I almost forgot, the sheriff of Putnam County and his deputy. I’ll think about Brad Johnston and let you know if I decide to add him and his family’s names to the list. Let me know when you’re done. Oh, I almost forgot the important part. I want you to bring me the CHCU’s control panel as well. Please join us for the party as soon as you’re done.”

  He got on the phone with his secretary again. “I want you to arrange with the chefs to prepare a lot of food and drink. Make sure that we have lots of champagne, vodka, whiskey and wine. We don’t want to run dry. Then arrange for at least twenty young and voluptuous women to join us. We’re planning to have the mother of all orgies in this room tonight.”

  When he’d completed his orders, he looked around the room. “We haven’t had ourselves any fun since the last food riot, which was over a week ago.”

  Almost everyone was smiling. They'd all figured out what their ingenious president had in mind, and most of them couldn’t wait for the party to start.

  “Okay, here's how we’re going to do it. We will have a lotto. We will write down all those names on a piece of paper and throw them in a bucket. I have placed two million Liberty Dollars in the pool. There should be about a thousand people on that final list. Nigel Harper has a million on his head. His wife has two hundred thousand on hers, and each of the six agents who were supposed to guard them has fifty thousand on theirs. The rest of the people on the list will share the remaining half million equally between them. You see, that way, everyone is going to be a winner. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!” He received loud applause when he ended the explanation of the rules of the lotto. The party would be in full swing in an hour.

  Eight hours later, across the globe, more than a thousand people, most of whom were famous and influential, were dead.

  In the large meeting room of the Supreme Council, two councilors, the only ones in the room still on their feet, stood in a far corner looking at the disgusting scene of naked, drunk, drugged bodies scattered across the room in disgust.

  One said quietly to the other, “In the last few weeks, I have reached the conclusion that Sir John Dalberg-Acton was absolutely right. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

  Second War of Independence

  On the Monday morning after the double wedding, Sam welcomed Nigel to the operations team and started talking about the next stage of the rise of the Phoenix.

  “We here at the Rabbit Hole agreed long ago that we will not accept the new world government and have firmly committed ourselves to destroy the tyranny they have brought to this world. By the grace of God, we have been successful at everything we have set out to achieve so far. I suggest we now consider our strategies for the final battle.” With that motion, Sam opened the discussions.

  Daniel was next. “Right in the beginning we made the decision that we have the best chance of winning this fight by outflanking Brideaux with superior technology. So far, it has proven to be the right decision. Our actions haven’t required us to kill anyone, and I would like to see us continue with the same tactics.”

  Sam went around the table and got agreement from everyone. “Good, it seems to me we’re all still on the same page as far as that is concerned then. Let’s now discuss what our next move is and how to do it. Please put all ideas on the table, even if you think it is stupid. Resist the urge not to mention it for that reason. We want to hear everything - nothing is too outlandish for us.”

  Salome spoke up. “Luke was present a few days ago when we had a discussion about the killer nanobots. I am talking about those bots that were used to overpower security forces and nonconformists around the world. Those would probably be the same sort of bots used to kill Nigel’s protection detail the day he and Esther were placed under house arrest. Let's call them the free-roaming bots,” she said. She continued, “We need to find out everything there is to know about them. My suggestion is that we place that on the top of our list of things to do next.”

  “As long as those bots are out there and we don’t have a way to neutralize them, everyone remains at risk. They’re a major hazard to everyone, especially us. They aren’t DNA specific, and they kill indiscriminately every human they encounter," Luke elaborated.

  "We need more trained operatives to help us with undercover operations. When I look at how much we have been able to achieve since we activated Peter and Kelly, I suggest it’s time to consider the activation of the two remaining non-existents. One of them used to live in Austin, Texas and the other in Los Angeles,” Sam proposed.

  Peter and Kelly, who were video conferencing into the meetings every day via the mirror satellite connection, agreed with Sam. Peter suggested they could help to activate those former agents with the aid of Tectus.

  “I suggest we find out how we can get access to the Skywalkers and the Beast. If we get control of those and have neutralized the killer bots Salome mentioned before, we would have almost removed power from Brideaux’s hands.” Daniel added to the list.

  Raj and Roy nodded. “Roy and I have been discussing that very idea for a while now. I think we must get the Tectus hackers to investigate that for us.”

  “Once we can get control of the Skywalkers and the Beast we can send a program update to disable all the chips or maybe just disable the killer and torture bots in the chips. This would render them harmless.” Roy added.

  “That would be ideal!” Sam exclaimed. “Do I understand you two correctly - we can deactivate the bots in the chips and then shut down the Skywalkers and the Beast?”

  “I won’t just shut them down,” Roy laughed. “I
intend to blow them all out of the sky! My trigger finger has been itching for a long time.”

  “Well Roy, nothing would give me greater pleasure than watching you do exactly that,” Sam replied as everyone laughed.

  “Lasers?” Daniel wanted to know.

  Roy nodded. “Yep, I’m thinking we could employ our sky mirrors in a coordinated laser attack against the Skywalkers and take them all out very quickly."

  “Except for Nigel, we’ve all watched those horrible videos of what’s going on in Professor Barbara Cohen’s Science Advisory Panel Headquarters at that plant in China. I would like nothing more than to see that facility and all chip warehouses obliterated.” Rebecca said with hatred in her voice.

  “What are you talking about Rebecca?” Nigel asked.

  “Nigel it is the most repulsive thing I have seen in my entire life, there are no words that can describe what’s going on in that place. Perhaps Sam and Daniel could show you the information we got from the Tectus agents in China. But be forewarned, it is exceedingly upsetting,” she replied.

  Sam and Daniel nodded their agreement with Rebecca’s suggestion to show Nigel the videos.

  “I know it’s too early to make the final decision, but from what I’ve heard so far, it seems we’ll have to follow a big bang approach. By that, I mean everything will have to be prepared and coordinated and then executed at once,” Luke concluded.

  “Yes, we’ll have to get all our ducks in a row before we pull the trigger. The element of surprise is crucial, I think. I have to admit I can’t wait to see the day we take down that slime-ball,” Salome said as she recalled the disgust Brideaux stirred in her the only time she met him.

  “My concern is that after the last carnage and starvation orchestrated by Brideaux and his disciples, many of the people who could have helped us will have been chipped. Although we now know how to remove the chips safely, in some cases we have to think about the possibility that we might not want to remove them or completely deactivate them,” Daniel said.

  Everyone was looking at him for clarification. “Daniel, I’m afraid I’ve lost you there. What do you have in mind?” Sam asked.

  “What I’m trying to say is - now that people can’t move around undetected, and they can't buy or sell, get food or medicine or any services without a chip in their bodies, none of them would be prepared to take the chance to work with us. My idea is that we should find a way to only undermine the killer and torture bots in the chip and leave the rest of it intact. That way, people will still have an active chip, and they’ll be able to get by any scanners, get their food and medicine as usual, without having to worry about being killed or tortured. That’s the only way we are going to get them to work with us.”

  Sam smiled. “Aha, I see what you mean. Good thinking Daniel. That means they really will be ‘undercover’ so to speak.”

  “Yes exactly. Roy and his team should have a look at how to override the current program to disengage the killer and torture bots without having to remove the chip. Of course, when it's done, they'll have to make sure the chip won’t send a message to the Skywalkers and the Beast.”

  Daniel noticed the big grins on Raj and Roy's faces and realized they probably had a solution already. “You two go ahead and make my day. Tell me you already have it or know how to do it.”

  “You want to see a demo?” Raj laughed.

  They explained that they had in fact already developed and tested the program to shut the chip down remotely. The first step in the process was to recall and then deactivate the killer and torture bots. To make the change to keep the rest of the chip active would take them less than an hour to do. The only thing remaining would be to make sure the chip wouldn’t send a message to the Skywalkers, but even if it did, they were sure there would be ways to overcome that problem as well.

  “We can shut it down from close-up or as far away as a mile, even more if we use the spyflies or zingers.” Raj explained.

  By now, everyone was ecstatic. Nigel just shook his head in disbelief. I wish I’d a team like this around me every day when I was president.

  “Coming back to Rebecca’s suggestion, are there any ideas how we could go about destroying the Science Advisory Panel Headquarters and chip warehouses?” Sam asked.

  Peter had an idea. “Well, as you know, I’ve been to one of the warehouses. I’m not sure all of them would be as poorly guarded as the one I saw. Nevertheless, I’ve been wondering if it would be possible to use Roy’s owls to drop explosives on the warehouses. The only issue is that I’m not sure the owls would be able to lift the weight of the explosives we might need.”

  Daniel caught Roy’s eyes and saw the smile breaking across his face. “Peter, I suspect Roy can solve that little problem of yours. I’ll let him explain.”

  Roy was already deep in thought and didn’t hear them.

  “Roy?” Peter asked but got no response. “Earth calling Roy! Roy James! Are you there?”

  Salome elbowed Roy and startled him out of his daydream. “What?”

  “Roy, tell us what you’ve been thinking. Where have you been the last few minutes?” Salome prompted.

  “I have been thinking about nanonukes and chip warehouses,” he replied.

  “Mind telling us exactly what you’ve been thinking?” Daniel laughed.

  “Well, I thought I heard Peter saying something about using the owls to drop bombs on the warehouses. I think there might be a better plan. I could build us some nanonukes, which we could plant at the warehouses. They will be no bigger than a pencil.”

  “Peter, does that solve your problem?” Daniel wanted to know.

  “Yes absolutely.” Peter laughed. “I always wanted to nuke something - now I might get my chance.”

  “Mr. President - ahh sorry … that was force of habit - Nigel - you have been very quiet, any ideas from your side?” Sam looked at his former boss, still finding it odd having to call him by his first name.

  “I’ve been listening to all of you for the past few hours, and I have to say, it’s mind blowing to see you at work. Since the start of this meeting, my already high admiration for the courage and ability of this group has gone up several more levels. I am truly honored to be serving with you.

  “I agree with what Daniel said in the beginning. We won’t overpower them with force - we have to outthink and outwit them. I’m now convinced that’s exactly what is going to happen. It’s going to be as the Bible says, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’” he quoted from the book of Zechariah.

  “While you have been talking, I also thought that we are in a situation very similar to that of our ancestors before the War of Independence. In the same way our forebears declared their independence from tyranny and injustice and took up arms to fight for it - we have declared our desire to be free and independent.

  “A few key phrases from the Declaration of Independence spring to mind – ‘all men are created equal’, ‘unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’.’ Whenever government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government’. ‘Under absolute despotism, it is their right - it is their duty, to throw off such a Government, and to provide new guards for their future security’.

  “We find ourselves in a second War of Independence, this time not only for the liberation of the United States, but the entire world.” Everyone applauded as Nigel ended.

  After this, Sam suggested that they wrap it up for the day. “Raj and Roy will work on Daniel’s suggestion. I’ll brief Peter and Kelly about reactivating the other two agents. Salome and Luke can get in touch with Dennis McMahon and Eric Winchester to make sure we can count on the backing of Tectus.”

  The way out

  The Supreme Council was still in a celebratory mood after the party a few nights ago, when they killed off more than a thousand of the world's nonconforming celebrities, while having a lot of fun in the process. Despite the fact that John Brideau
x and the rest of the councilors were painfully aware the Rosslerites were behind the escapes and still at large, they all believed they got the last laugh when they killed the Harpers and the Rosslerites’ family members.

  The introduction of their new global monetary system was a huge success. In the weeks that followed the initiation of the project, driven by hunger and desperation, the bulk of the remainder of the unchipped received implants. The fact that very few of them did so voluntarily didn't bother the council in the slightest. The few who remained unchipped were those who managed to escape and set up a subsistence lifestyle in remote and hidden places far away from the cities. They would be dealt with soon.

  Professor Barbara Cohen’s birth control program was uploaded to the chips months before the economic changes were announced. The profile of the super human of the future was created and fed to the Beast. It was working its way through the list of people who were not allowed to produce offspring - sterilizing them all by activating the birth control routine in their chips and triggering miscarriages in the pregnant.

  Within a few months, the population growth rate would show a negative trend. Within twenty years, the world population would dwindle to two billion mark - the ideal number that planet earth could sustain, according to the council’s scientists.

  President Brideaux was extremely pleased with the results of the new world economic initiative and Professor Cohen’s contribution to birth control. He thanked and congratulated everyone for their hard work and dedication making those projects such a big success.

  The new director of BIPA, Ashleah Borg, thought that with the successful completion of the chipping program, it was time for the Supreme Council members to start building a good image among the populace. She suggested that a few world trips would help to achieve that. Her submission was met with general approval from the members, and she was given permission to make the necessary arrangements for the trips, including informing the media about the schedule and purpose.