The Helium-3 Conspiracy

by Colin Setterfield

  Sammy ended his conversation with Condor and a screen came up on the laptop indicating that someone was asking to monitor the procedure remotely.

  Sammy indicated that Ensley was to accept the connection. Suddenly, Ensley felt sick. He didn't think he could go through with it, but Sammy stood and pulled a gun from the briefcase on the couch next to him. Sammy pointed the weapon at Ensley and said, "Don't be foolish Malcolm. The time has come. Condor is monitoring the arming of SWANC on his own laptop."

  Malcolm was going to try and make a grab for the gun but Sammy stepped back, out of reach.

  "Do it now, Malcolm. Think of the money!"

  Malcolm hesitated and looked at the monitor of his computer. Then slowly he moved his hand to the keyboard to complete the uploading of the iris scan to the program. All the staff sergeant could think about was the death and destruction that he was about to unleash. A great many people were going to die, including all the heads of state of the G8 countries.

  A red warning light came on attracting his attention.

  *

  Fifty-four hundred miles away, at USCYBERCOM, a sub-unified command of the US military located in Fort Meade, Maryland, two people were hunched over a laptop, intensely watching the monitor. They were hooked into the world wide web cyber monitoring network, a system that, through several super computers, monitors millions of bites of information from computers all over the world.

  It seemed an impossible task that a specific signal from any one of a billion computers, all over the planet, could be picked up and singled out. This one was easy though. The two observers knew exactly where a certain computer would be connecting to—a specific IP address in Mare del Plata, Argentina. Once the signal was received in Argentina, they could pin-point exactly where it emanated from.

  The moment the connection was made, the woman said, "We've got him!"

  **

  A Family Again

  Friday, July 24, 2026

  2:00 p.m.

  Five days had passed since Jake and Camilla had been rescued from Jackson's wine cellar. It had been difficult for Jake to come to terms with the way things had ended. While relieved that her husband was still alive, Colleen had discovered his addiction to cocaine, and she had not been happy about that. One other fact she had come by, however—she was still very much in love with her husband.

  After Rubin Klein had returned them to the Daily Mail office that fateful evening Jake had confessed his need to pick up a package from Mitch's place. Colleen had insisted that Jake come back home with her so that she could make sure he would be all right.

  They had discussed the events and how fortunate Jake had been to escape Jackson's clutches. Everything regarding Valkyrie was left in Klein's hands. He had assured them that Cassie Williamson would take care of everything despite the lateness of the hour.

  It took a few hours, after Jake had shot up his last remaining stash of cocaine, to feel his body and mind respond to the drug. Together, they discussed putting him through detox and getting their lives back together again. An elated Jake put a call through to the Van Buren home, where Kenny was staying to inform him that he was to fly home—they would be a family again.

  Jake and Colleen had spent that first night finding each other. Making love was as an adventure they had both missed, and they fulfilled each other several times before the sun came up. They ignored phone calls and kept the blinds down. It was their time together. A pleasure Jake had dreamed of since their separation.

  On Thursday, July 23 Colleen received a call from Lucy Montrose. They were to appear in the White House press room on the following day at 2:00 p.m.—a meeting had been arranged by the Chief of Staff. Colleen was a little perplexed, but Jake was thrilled.

  "At last we can find out what happened regarding Valkyrie and the OLF. I would love to have an audience with Jackson and tell him what I think of him!" said Jake enthusiastically.

  Neither of them had watched any news since arriving home and were fearful to hear what had happened in the Virgin Islands.

  The White House lawns were splendid in the afternoon sun as Jake and Colleen made their way up the East Wing steps. They had not been in the building since their schooldays, when every school did a tour at some time or another.

  Lucy was waiting at security and warmly shook their hands in greeting. "Come with me. The others are waiting," she said smiling broadly.

  Lucy took them down the various hallways to the Press Briefing Room where they entered from the podium side—the same entrance the press secretary would normally use to brief the press on issues of state.

  As Jake and Colleen entered the room, they saw a group of people sitting in chairs, spread out in a circle. At the center, near the front entrance to the room they recognized Cassie Williamson, White House Chief of Staff. Several chairs had been left vacant opposite Williamson, and he motioned to Jake, Colleen, and Lucy to each take a seat.

  Jake and Colleen looked around at the faces of the people and couldn't believe their eyes. They thought they were dreaming and the dream had just taken on weird proportions. Their jaws dropped and eyes were virtually popping out as Cassie Williamson welcomed them to the meeting.

  On Jake's left sat two very familiar faces, Jeremy Gibson and Kevin Dodd. Both Gibson and Dodd waved a greeting at them while the others all smiled. Williamson saw their confusion and started a slow clap as Colleen and Jake shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Everyone picked up the rhythm of the clap and for five seconds continued until both Jake and Colleen had a glimmer of a smile starting on their faces.

  Jake stared at the rest of the people around him and saw some more familiar faces. Mia Anderson, Deputy Head of the CIA was there, so was Martin Rodriguez, Division Head for Counterterrorism at the FBI and Rubin Klein. Next to Klein sat a couple of people whom Jake had never seen before, a man who looked to be in his forties; a Chinese girl sat beside him. There were two other men with leather jackets, sporting NASA badges on the shoulders, who completed the circle. He was also astounded to see the two CIA agents, Baines and Gladstone, standing at the far end of the room having a conversation—they had both glanced up when Jake, Colleen, and Lucy had entered the room. The two agents moved toward the circle of chairs to take their seats.

  When the clapping died down, Cassie Williamson remained standing and spoke.

  "Folks, may I introduce Jake and Colleen Dobrowski. You have already met my personal secretary, Lucy Montrose." Everyone was staring at Colleen and Jake.

  The Chief of Staff continued, "I want to thank all of you here today for your participation in resolving one of the most important security issues of the age."

  Williamson went on to explain how the OLF, a group of wealthy oil barons with contacts in several of the oil-producing countries, had planned for many years to take control of the world's oil production and supply. The OLF had envisioned the day when oil would be outlawed as a fuel in favor of a new, cleaner source of energy. Their aspiration was not to prevent a new fuel from emerging but to slow down its transition, thereby preserving their wealth and preventing an economic meltdown in the world's economy. Their intentions, unfortunately, were largely self-serving, and lacked the reality of the quickly deteriorating environment.

  "They had recruited some high-ranking government officials in these countries to support their political aspirations. It suffices to say that at least two of their agents were high-ranking officials in the American government. To expose these two officials, we decided to supply the OLF with a few recruits of our own to try to gain an advantage from the inside," he added with a sense of pride.

  Williamson indicated that one of the original OLF agents was the Maryland senator, Arthur Jackson. They had suspected him for some time, but couldn't generate enough evidence against him, until recent events had taken place. The other high-ranking official had become all but invisible. They had known about Jackson from his military days. He had been recruited to the OLF's cause in 2011 by a civilian, known only by the name of
Condor. Jackson had undertaken trips to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Russia, while still in military service. Condor, it seems, had enough influence to obtain these privileges for him.

  Until very recently, Condor's identity had remained a perfect secret and not one of the undercover OLF members had ever met him in person, not even Jackson. Every verbal transaction that Condor made was by using an encrypted phone which was dumped straight after use.

  Williamson paused and then admitted, "But...I'm getting ahead of myself. I am going to ask certain of you to introduce yourselves and briefly share how you became involved. I will then tie it all together at the end."

  The Chief of Staff looked directly at Jeremy Gibson and nodded. Gibson got to his feet and introduced himself.

  "The first inkling I had of the OLF was very recently from our divisional head, Mr. Rodriguez. Four years ago I was busy with my internship and was paired with Special Agent Tony Underwood to investigate Senator Jackson for public corruption. After Tony was found dead in his vehicle, an apparent suicide, Senator Jackson was acquitted of wrongdoing, and I was moved to another job. However, I never stopped looking for the link between Jackson and Tony's death."

  Jeremy explained how Jackson had discovered him during his "illegal investigation," sending two men in pursuit. As it turned out, the agents were CIA agents, working in tandem with Mia Anderson, the Deputy Director of the CIA. Thinking his death might be imminent Jeremy broke into Jake's office and left a note and Underwood's badge.

  "The irony of the entire incident," Jeremy explained, "was the two CIA agents had not been intent on killing me, but rather to inform me of their mission."

  It would appear, according to Jeremy that the two CIA agents, Baines and Gladstone, where working undercover and Jeremy's intervention had threatened to jeopardize a developing plan, hatched by the Deputy Head of the CIA and the White House. They were now concerned for his safety. Jackson had seen Jeremy's face and would be able to recognize him.

  "And so it was decided to fake my death and send me home for a short vacation."

  Jeremy looked over at Jake and Colleen. "Jake, by getting Tony Underwood's badge to Rubin Klein for fingerprinting, provided a step forward in linking Arthur Jackson's involvement to Tony Underwood's death."

  Jake was finally beginning to understand what was going on. There had been a well-orchestrated plan to force Jackson's hand. He and Colleen had unwittingly become involved. There were still many answers hanging in the air, but he guessed these would be forthcoming.

  Jeremy thanked everyone for listening and sat down. Jake nodded at him and smiled. Colleen looked at Jake and squeezed his hand tightly.

  Cassie Williamson thanked Jeremy and nodded to Kevin Dodd who stood to address the group.

  "My background, before several recent successful business ventures, was intelligence gathering during the Iraq War. Special Agent Klein, who like myself, was not originally a part of the plan but intent on looking into Underwood's death, contracted me to follow up on Camilla Jackson, whom he felt might be able to shed some light on Jackson's conversations while at home."

  Kevin Dodd continued his testimony of the succeeding events. "Camilla, who unfortunately could not be with us today, turned out to be a willing snitch on her husband. Before I knew it, my involvement with Camilla was going beyond intelligence gathering. I realized that she was getting too fond of me, and I wanted to call our meetings off. I had hoped that she might have seen evidence of Jackson's involvement with Underwood or anything else out of the ordinary.

  Special Agent Klein wanted me to continue, but I was afraid the affair may come to my wife's attention. She did confirm, however, certain documents that she saw in a desk drawer—documents to do with an involvement with certain oil-producing countries."

  Kevin paused and looked around at the faces. "Because I was not a part of the original plan, Agents Baines and Gladstone picked me up, on Senator Jackson's orders. They took me to his home and Jackson after interrogation, told them to dispose of me. I was terrified."

  Everyone in the room was spellbound. Kevin continued his explanation. "Agents Baines and Gladstone dragged me into the cellar next door to Jackson's office and told me to be quiet. Agent Baines then took out his revolver and fired into an old blanket. He and Gladstone then proceeded to wrap me in a thick industrial plastic, all the while indicating for me to remain still. After that, they removed me from the house and drove me to Langley where I was interviewed by the Deputy Director of the CIA, Miss Anderson." Kevin glanced at Mia Anderson who had a condescending smile on her lips.

  Miss Anderson shared some details of the plan and said that it was needful for me to stay out of the limelight for a while. I was promptly sent to a safe-house in the city where I've stayed ever since. My wife Evelyn was informed that I was in custody and would be released soon. She was not given a reason at the time, but I was able to explain my position when we were finally reunited. Consequently, I will be giving up my intelligence gathering activity in favor of my three businesses.

  Kevin turned to Jake and Colleen. "I know that you might have been led to believe that I was murdered, and it grieves me to think of the trauma you must have endured, but all's well that ends well."

  ∞∞

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Putting it all Together

  Cassie Williamson thanked Kevin for his testimony and nodded at Mia Anderson. She slowly rose to her feet and looked around the room at everybody.

  "I was brought into Mr. Williamson's confidence when he became suspicious that Senator Jackson might be involved in a conspiracy against the United States government."

  Mia paused and glanced at the Chief of Staff before continuing.

  "How I managed to be recruited by Jackson and the group calling themselves the OLF is classified information. I cannot speak of it here. Suffice it to say that Charley Baines and Greg Gladstone did an outstanding job of pretending to be Jackson's strongmen, on loan with my compliments. They reported everything to me, and I reported everything I learned from the occasional meetings with Jackson to the White House."

  Mia cleared her throat and continued to explain that the CIA had been watching Senator Jackson since his trial four years earlier. They were gathering evidence regarding his association with a company called Global Environmental Impact Ltd. The money trail of the funds received by this company had been surreptitiously hidden by a registered cash donation campaign, collecting cash from dozens of sources around the world.

  There were four main collection points in four different countries, all with registered physical addresses, where cash donations were accumulated before being sent to Global Environmental Impact, a registered limited company in New York. GEI paid the funds out as subsidies to a company called Union Air Filters Ltd. who manufactured pollution-control equipment for factories in third-world countries.

  When the CIA investigation reached this point, it became very difficult to verify the transactions with so many third-world countries on the books. A great deal of the money received by Union Air Filters could not be accurately accounted for. We then discovered that UAF Ltd. belonged to the Jackson family.

  Mia looked at Jake and Colleen. "When the Chief of Staff looked at the evidence you were able to obtain confirming Senator Jackson's involvement with these companies and your theory that members of Global Investigation for Climate Change were being paid off to fake environmental reports to Congress, we knew how to finalize our investigation."

  As it turned out, the CIA had investigated the GICC and found that Union Air Filters was paying environmental scientists to produce reports that softened the effect the oil Industry was having on the global environment.

  To finalize her testimony on the matter the Deputy Director added, "Senator Jackson's business was not the main object of our investigation. We were after a bigger fish who went by the code name of Condor. Not one of us involved, had ever seen this person in the flesh and he evaded our search very effectively."

  S
he paused for effect and smiled. "But, finally we did manage to find out his real identity." Mia Anderson thanked everyone who had been involved and sat down.

  Cassie Williamson affirmed Anderson's courage and thanked her for the risk she had run over the last three years as an undercover agent and the part she had played in exposing the OLF. He then looked at Martin Rodriguez and nodded. Rodriguez stood and cleared his throat.

  "I did not play a great role in the proceedings, but as a long-term colleague of Arthur Jackson, I was an obvious choice for seeking recruitment with the OLF. I played along and none of the existing local members ever doubted that I was anything but a loyal contributor to the cause."

  Martin Rodriguez was a pragmatic sort of a person. He called a spade a spade and was a quiet, practical man. Looking around at all the faces of his audience he thought about how to make his testimony short and to the point.

  "I have been following Arthur Jackson's activities since the end of the war in Iraq. We had been members of the same faculty during our university years before I joined the FBI. After the war we met regularly and had a few drinks together. I gained his trust."

  Rodriguez pressed on. "I fed Jackson little bits of information to facilitate the Valkyrie plan with the hope that we would eventually find out Condor's identity. Miss Anderson and I often conferred with each other, sharing our information."

  The Division Head of Counterterrorism brought a hand up to his mouth and coughed lightly, excusing himself then continued, "My main concern was for Sammy."

  Rodriguez glanced over to Sammy Binks who nodded and smiled. "Sammy Binks played a very difficult role in being the person who made things happen—for the OLF's purposes. Sammy and I had long meetings behind closed doors. He was the one who facilitated the hijacking of SWANC, the Cerberus Satellite System. I will with your permission Cassie, let him tell his own story."