It was the way of things. The principle of cumulative advantage. More power inevitably accrued to the powerful, and more riches to the rich. Sure, occasional revolution was inevitable, but it was generally harmless, if managed well, and there were layers upon layers of more likely targets to absorb any negative consequences, insulating the truly elite from the morass.
Usually.
All of the power, wealth, and control normally gave the Facilitator a deep sense of satisfaction, the feeling of meaningful accomplishment, of having attained the loftiest heights of man, anonymous though he was in all but the tiniest of circles.
But not today.
Today, it just felt like weight. Something had shifted. The world had tilted on its axis. The same sun shone in the sky, but today it portended menace, a mask of hate-filled fusion hurling the worst of all evils: change.
The Facilitator’s eyes returned to the silent television set.
Complete and total meltdown. It was a disaster of unfathomable proportions, probably unrecoverable.
An alarm sounded on his desk. Time for his heart medicine. Getting too old for this. Time to find a successor?
Folly, he knew. Being the Facilitator was a job for life. One didn’t retire from it, though more than one Facilitator had certainly been retired. The sword of Damocles swung dangerously above his head, but he had grown accustomed to its presence. He was an old man, and death no longer fazed him.
But a stock market crash certainly did.
And now, it appeared, the worst imaginable calamity had also happened.
There was no contingency plan.
If he wielded the hammer of the gods, the very fabric of its essence, and the very ether through which it sliced, was surely made of dollars.
And the dollar was dying.
Lesser men would have been ossified long ago by an entrenchment as royal as the Facilitator’s. But not him. He had not won his post atop the Consultancy by accident. He was brilliant, resourceful, determined, and utterly without compunction. A man of decision and action.
An hour ago, seconds after learning of his trusted deputy’s arrest, he had given the order to end the man’s life. Thirty years of friendship and exceptionally profitable business association, but the Facilitator hadn’t flinched, hadn’t even thought about it, had barely registered the enormity.
He just did what needed doing.
That’s what he would do now.
Without question, the game had changed. But he was still its most powerful player.
He picked up the phone. He had work to do.
5
Seattle, Washington
Sabot called his supervisor’s number at the regional Bureau office, but nobody answered. He wasn’t allowed to be late, even a little bit, and the bus situation was a problem.
He didn’t own a car. Had never learned to drive, really. Driving in Queens was like running underwater. Terribly inefficient and seriously aggravating, and he’d never seen the point.
Seattle was agreeably walkable, and public transportation was usually reliable, so he’d never bothered with a car after moving out west, either.
But he owned a bike.
He cursed under his breath as he trudged back home through the rain, already soaked despite the umbrella. The prospect of pedaling through the rain-soaked streets all the way to the regional Bureau office had put him in a foul mood.
That was probably why he never noticed the guy on his apartment stoop, lurking in the shadows, or the other guy, the one who had been following him for the last two blocks.
Sabot shoved his hand into his pocket, pulled out the key, and reached for the lock.
But he never got there. A gloved hand pressed hard over his mouth and neck, pulling him backwards, his legs blocked by something or someone behind him. He felt his head snap backwards, and feared that his neck might break.
The pissed off hackers had finally gotten to him, he thought.
The pavement came up to meet him, cold and soaked, and he felt wetness seep instantly through his clothing. Something sharp jabbed into his shoulder, a burning sensation in its wake, and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly dizzy, as if he might throw up. But he didn’t stay awake long enough for his stomach to follow through on its threat.
He had a crushing headache, and he wanted to keep sleeping, but that voice wouldn’t shut the hell up. It kept calling his name.
And the motion. His head kept jerking around, accompanied by a loud slapping noise each time, but he didn’t know what that was all about. He was sure that he could figure it all out if he opened his eyes, but Sabot really didn’t want to open his eyes. He just wanted to sleep.
Something forced his right eye open, and a vicious light stormed the breach, making his headache even louder and more insistent. “What the hell!” he heard himself say, but it sounded far away and slow and muffled.
Someone sat him upright, and Sabot immediately tried to lay down again. Can’t sleep sitting up.
Smack. Something hit his face with a vengeance, clearing the cobwebs. He opened his eyes. “Who the hell are you?”
Hard eyes searched him. A square jaw, blonde hair, big shoulders, and big teeth. “A friend.” Smoker’s voice. Smoker’s breath, too.
“Don’t seem too friendly to me.”
“Sorry about that. It’ll make sense before too long.”
“Really, man, what is this? I’ve got places to be. I can’t be screwing around, man. I’m on parole.”
The hard eyes softened into a near-smile. “We know, Sabot.”
“Who’s we?”
“Trust me. It’ll all become clear before too long.”
Sabot stood. He remained vertical for a fraction of a second before the narcotic aftereffects took their toll. Then he fell to the floor in a pile.
“You bastards messed me up, man.”
The guy laughed. Sabot heard more laughing coming from somewhere else in the room, but he didn’t see who it came from.
“Maybe it’s best if you just stayed seated, Sabot.” Strong hands lifted him onto a nearby sofa. “We’ll explain our offer, you’ll agree, and we’ll all be on our way in time for The Price is Right.”
Sabot looked carefully at the blonde haired man with the big square jaw and the hard eyes. “How the hell do you know about The Price is Right?”
Another near-grin. “Sabot, we know a great deal about you. Down to your strangely juvenile mid-morning television break.”
“What’s your handle?”
“We’re not hackers,” the man said. “I’m Smith. That’s Jones.” He nodded toward a tall, thick oak of a man standing silently in the corner. Sabot hadn’t seen him before.
“Right,” Sabot said. “And I’m Yankee Freakin’ Doodle.”
“Hardly. I’d say you’re Bronx beaner, through and through.”
“Queens.”
“Same thing.”
“The hell it is. What do you want with me?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because a very powerful man wants something from you.”
“I’m not interested,” Sabot said. “I gotta stay straight, man. I can’t go back in the can.”
“You miss it, don’t you?”
“Prison?”
“Hacking.”
Sabot snorted. “Naw, man, I don’t miss it. What the hell do you think I’m going to say? I’m stayin’ straight, and that’s that. Now let me out of here.”
“When’s the last time you heard from your little brother? Miguel, is it? The one just out of rehab?”
Sabot hardened his stare. “What are you playin’ at, man? You don’t mess with a man’s family. You know who I work for?”
Smith’s square jaw flexed. “As a matter of fact, we do. You report to Special Agent Adkins. Your boss and babysitter.”
Jones handed Smith a phone. Smith handed it to Sabot. “Go on. Say hi.”
It was Special Agent Adkins. “Sorry, man. This showed up with
a lot of momentum,” he said. “Don’t know who’s pulling the strings, but they’re powerful tugs and big strings. You’ll report to these guys until they’re done with you.”
Sabot handed the phone back.
Smith smiled that hard smile again. “Congratulations. You’ve just been hired.” He threw a set of keys on the desk and walked out, Jones in tow.
Sabot rose. His legs were still shaky from the drug they’d used to knock him out. Kidnapped, then hired? Had to be some kind of joke.
If so, then Adkins was in on it, too. Bastard. Must have been hiding a sense of humor all this time. Special Agent Adkins was as buttoned-down Bureau as anyone on the planet. He talked about leveraging capabilities – whatever the hell that meant – and everybody who had something to say about a particular topic was a stakeholder.
Nobody talked like that in Queens. Leverage was what you used to dislocate someone’s pinky, and if a vato needed to know something, you just told him straight up. No fancy words to make shit sound more complicated than it was, to make people think you were smart. Smart did. Smart didn’t talk about it. Nothin’ but the realzz in the hood, yo.
But that was a long time ago and an entire continent away, and in the interstitial eon, Sabot had become accustomed to Adkins’ particular brand of stilted colloquialism and bone-dry personality. Like an ashtray. Didn’t make sense that Adkins would be in on any kind of scheme. His voice on the phone certainly lent legitimacy to what was otherwise a pretty sketchy show. Freaking kidnapped. That was a new one. What would Angie think about that?
Thinking about her reminded Sabot he had someplace to be. Lunch. He looked at his watch and cursed, then made for the door.
Locked.
So was the other door.
He swiped the keys off the table. There were two doors in the room, and the keychain held two keys. Seemed like simple math. He tried the door that Smith and Jones had exited moments earlier. Neither key worked.
“What are you playin’ at, assholes?” Sabot shouted. He didn’t like being locked up. In his experience, it led to unwanted advances from large men.
He tried the first key in the second door. More bad luck.
But the second key and the second lock were made for each other, and the knob twisted with little effort. Good thing, too. Sabot’s blood was up, and he was prepared to get a bit medieval. Lock me up? Bitches got no idea.
He stepped through the door. Dark room, cheap furniture, no windows, no other door, no sign of life. Small, close, warm, humid. A little cramped for a broom closet, Sabot thought, annoyed.
He inhaled.
He smelled a computer.
A new computer. It smelled like home, like possibility, like the world getting ready to lie down at his feet.
It smelled like forbidden fruit. Like a parole violation. Like incarceration.
But damn, it smelled good.
It sat on a small desk, otherwise empty, which faced the door. A new laptop. He could shut down a continent with it. Overthrow kings and douchebags, for no apparent reason.
The blinking light of a cable modem on the floor caught his eye. Like the computer, it beckoned.
They gotta know how hard they’re messing with me right now.
Sabot turned to leave, but something bronze reflected the light on the edge of the desk. One of those fancy name tags, the kind you see on the suits’ desks at the Bureau.
He read the writing: DOMINGO MONDRAGON, BITCOIN COLLECTOR.
What gives? Some kind of mindscrew?
A phone rang, unnecessarily loud in the tiny space, startling him. It was an old-school phone, hanging up on the wall, and it wouldn’t stop ringing.
Finally, sick of the noise, he picked it up. He listened.
“Sabot?”
He recognized the voice. “Adkins?”
“Yeah. Confused yet?”
Very. But Sabot didn’t say anything. He felt like he was being manipulated. He didn’t like the feeling.
“I’m supposed to tell you to google Satoshi,” Adkins said.
“Sa-what?”
“Satoshi.” Adkins spelled it.
“Adkins, are you saying you want me to use this computer?”
“No. But they want you to use that computer. No holds barred. And I’ve been informed that I want what they want.” A small chuckle. “Don’t jizz yourself.”
The line went dead.
6
The Texas Panhandle
Mike Charles drove north into the warm Texoma afternoon. He was known as Boomer in his retired fighter pilot circles. But in the most important circle, he was known as Stalwart.
Mesquite, dust, barbed wire, and an occasional ranch animal moved through his vision. He drove a tiny rental car, barely large enough to accommodate his tall, athletic frame. He chose it for the gas mileage. The trunk was full not of luggage, but of gasoline. Four ten-gallon cans of the stuff. The fumes seeped through the backseat and assaulted Stalwart’s nostrils, and he was occasionally forced to roll down a window. The gas and the wind noise took turns annoying him. The price of revolution. He chuckled to himself.
Forty gallons should more than cover the long trip north to Colorado. Lost Man Lake Ranch was a very long day’s drive away, and Stalwart expected difficulty filling up. Gas stations wanted money in exchange for fuel, after all, and the money thing was going to be a problem for a while.
Until people figured things out, that is.
Stalwart hoped it didn’t take too long. In fact, he was betting on it.
He turned on the radio. The satellite stations weren’t operating, of course, but that was to be expected. He’d played a substantial role in that particular condition. Large enough to be locked away for a very long time, he thought. He hoped things didn’t break that way.
But they certainly could. His not-so-little role had started with one of the most outrageous larcenies in history. He helped steal the machine that ushered in the current chaos.
Stalwart’s brilliant friend used that machine to smoke three communications satellites, two massive fiber optic cable relay stations, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Chicago Board of Trade.
Big day.
Now, Stalwart was left hoping his assumptions about human nature weren’t too far off.
The power isn’t in the symbol. The power is in the agreement. He repeated these words to himself like a mantra.
He hoped the masses would realize it before they tore each other to shreds.
A strident voice brought his mind back to the present. “Stand by for the President of the United States,” the radio announcer said.
“My fellow Americans,” a familiar, stentorian voice began. He sounds like a president, Stalwart thought. Even if he’s a shithead.
“These cherished United States have been the victim of a vicious attack on our liberty, on our values, on our morals, and on our freedom itself.” Overplayed. Predictable.
“Early this morning, terrorists disabled key elements of our communications infrastructure,” the President said. Terrorist. Hmm. Never thought of myself that way, Stalwart thought.
“We believe this attack was carried out within our borders,” the president continued, “by religious extremists.” Religion? Stalwart laughed out loud.
“Today, for the first time since those dark days following the horrific attacks of 9/11…” The President’s voice droned on.
Stalwart sighed audibly. He knew the comparison was inevitable. But it was manipulative. It was a good case in point for why he had chosen to participate in the scheme in the first place. Because we grovel at the feet of the people we empower, begging them with our blind stupidity, indifference, and ignorance, to lie to us and steal from us.
The president’s voice rose. “I have not yet ruled out military action against these pernicious individuals and the organizations that back them. Today, I issue a stern warning to those responsible for this barbarism: The United States of America will hunt you down. We will find you in your dark caves and y
our desert training grounds. We will punish those nations that harbor and shelter you. We will leave no stone unturned. We will bring you to justice.”
Stalwart chuckled, shaking his head. Always fighting the last war. They really have no clue, do they?
“Today,” the president continued, “is indeed a dark day for our nation and its allies. Our trade has been halted. Our banks have suffered setbacks. Important communications assets have been damaged.”
Not damaged. Destroyed. Stalwart smiled.
“But these setbacks are temporary,” POTUS intoned. “They are superficial. In the long run, they are meaningless. The strength of our nation is our people, our resiliency, our resourcefulness, our industry, our intelligence, our education. And, above all, our moral rectitude and our core values of integrity, ingenuity, and industry. We shall stand together, and together we shall rise from this setback.”
He’s half right. The symbols were, indeed, meaningless in and of themselves. Rather, Stalwart thought, they were meaningless when separated from what they represented, which was really the important thing. The agreement between humans. The exchange of value, of life energy, of items of need. This was what really separated humanity from the animals, Stalwart figured. The uniquely human capacity for cooperation.
Currency was the omnipresent symbol of that all-important capacity. It was the life blood of commerce, of society.
And it needed to die. It had been twisted beyond recognition, distorted by those in power into an instrument of oppression. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Plato? Goethe? Stalwart couldn’t remember who said it. But truer words were never spoken, he figured.
Insidiously, the shackles weren’t overt. Really, the whole thing was beautifully and elegantly conceived, and flawlessly executed, Stalwart thought. And it probably wasn’t even designed to screw over almost everyone else on the planet. It was probably just designed to enrich a few already-rich old men.
The Fed. The root of all modern evil. At least in Archive’s view. Stalwart tended to agree. How could one make ephemeral the assets that individuals held safe and dear? Quite easily. Just dilute them. Make them common. Print more. Every new dollar made every old dollar less valuable. You could hide a nickel under your pillow for a few years, but the dark magic of inflation would eventually turn it into a penny.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 144