by Jim Magwood
“Yes, they are the ones I was referring to, and I’ve had a few contacts from people who would like to learn some more about them. I haven’t had any official requests to get involved, but I thought I might put out some feelers and see if there’s anything I might find. You and your group haven’t heard anything in any of your investigations?”
“No, I don’t think anyone’s working on anything to do with them, Jacob, and I haven’t heard anyone make mention of them. Do you and I want to do some searching? What’s the interest you have?”
“At this time, nothing special. I had a contact from a newsman—the same one who is writing the stories about the events. He was sent to me, unofficially, by a friend from the CIA. He vouched for him as far as they have checked him out, which was apparently very extensively because of the details he had for his stories. Apparently, the FBI has also checked him, and he appears to be clean. No apparent actual relation with this group. For some reason, he was chosen by the group to tell their stories, but other than that, nothing. My friend said he has been honest with them, and has actually turned over his materials without protest, but they haven’t been able to trace the group through anything he had. My friend didn’t specifically say he, or anyone else he mentioned, were actually trying to find the group, but I would have to assume they are, or someone certainly is. There has been too much vigilante-type terror activity for everyone to just be letting it all go by.”
“I don’t recall the newsman’s name.”
“Baxter. Henry Baxter. Have you ever heard of him?”
“Yes, now that you mention his name. I’ve read a few of his things. What did he want from you?”
“He said he wanted to see if he could get some information on the group itself, or on the supposed victims of the groups activities. He wanted to see if he could determine more about the guilt or innocence of the victims beyond just what this group had sent him.”
“So, have you done any searching yet?”
“No, I was leaving Tel Aviv right after I talked with him, so I decided to wait until I got here. I also wanted to see if you either had anything yourself, or if you might want to get involved with me.”
Roger chuckled. “Well, it’s been a little while since we were involved with that Group from Corvalle. Maybe it’s time for a little more fun?” Then, with a much more serious tone, he asked, “You don’t think there could be any connection between the two, do you? That group was certainly not any fun. Do you think any of them got away and started over?”
“Everything I’ve heard about this vigilante group says they are working on the right side of things. Maybe not in a legal sense, but at least they are apparently going after the evil forces, or influences, in the world and not the good folks. At least, as far as I know.”
“What do you feel about them at this time, Jacob? Are they the good guys? Do you agree with what they’re doing? I haven’t followed them closely, so I don’t know just what they’re up to or how to think about them. I gather they’re doing some illegal things—blowing things up and so on—but apparently just going after the bad guys. Does that make them the good guys, or…?”
“I agree with your analysis, and I don’t know yet how I feel, either. If they are really only going after the evil around us, then…I don’t know. But, if it could get out of hand…?
Right now, I think it would take a lot more understanding to make a determination. If they really are taking over the work of the authorities—the things the world has pulled back from doing anything about—I guess I just don’t know. It’s hard to make myself agree it’s okay to break laws and do damage just because no one else will take care of it. Just because it is supposedly the wrong, or evil, that is being attacked. All I can say right now is I don’t know.”
“Yeah. Quite a puzzle, eh? Shall we do wrong to make things right, or shall we let the wrong take over so we can stand by and be good, or will doing more wrong cause things to escalate, or…?”
“If we were to start an investigation, where do you think we should look first?”
“Me? I’d probably try to put some kind of trace on when and where any of their messages are coming from. See if they’ve sent anything through the ‘net that we might be able to trace. They’ve been sending stuff to this newsman, so I wonder if there have been any other messages or phone calls? But, I would think your CIA friends would have already done that, don’t you?”
“My friend didn’t say they had, but he didn’t say anything at all, really. I would think with you, though, that the NSA would already have gotten involved. If this is really serious, someone would surely have contacted them, or ECHELON, or someone like that, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. There’s not very much that can actually hide anymore, Jacob. If you talk on a phone or send a fax or e-mail message, it’s pretty likely someone could be recording that conversation. If we could key in some kind of date and time of a message, or certain key words, it should be pretty certain we could find something.”
“Well, do you think you would want to start? To get involved? At this time, we would be strictly private—no government backing of any kind. But, if we found something, we could approach my friend or someone and share our findings.
Do you have the time to get involved?”
With a bit of a dreamy look on his face, Roger replied,
“Well, I’ll feel a lot more like getting involved after a good night’s sleep, and perhaps one of Marie’s special backwoods breakfasts. Oh, I remember that last time—she made those biscuits with that special gravy, and the omelets that weighed about two pounds each. Although I’d probably have to sleep for another half day just to burn them off before I could start working. Do you think we could impose on her…?”
“Yes, I do think she could be persuaded. She really does enjoy cooking. So, yes, I believe we should retire and see where we want to start in the morning. I don’t know how long you can stay, but we could use the computer system here and start laying out some parameters, maybe start trying to reach some friends with information for us. Your room is ready for you—second on the right down the hall. I’ll be up early to make coffee, so join me when you waken and we’ll do some planning.”
“That sounds good, Jacob. I’ll go out and take care of the animals, then be back in shortly. And I’ll take Sam into the room with me. He’ll be fine.”
The two men parted for the night, both of them thinking about a moral question they hadn’t faced before: Was what the vigilante group doing acceptable, especially in the face of no one else apparently being able to stop the evil running so rampant? Or, should they be stopped?
CHAPTER 28
“Gentlemen, shall we begin?” Donald Everett, Prime Minister of Great Britain, called the meeting to order after they finished their lunch. They were meeting in the beautiful Empress Hotel on Vancouver Island in Canada for very private discussions on topics that were affecting them all. Staff members had not been invited; security was obviously very tight, but the meeting had been kept quiet; no advance notice had been given to anyone; the media had certainly not been notified. This was not a United Nations meeting by any stretch of the imagination. It was a group of national leaders who knew each other well and had quite common views on events taking place around the world and wanted to work together to solve problems and make economies grow. While they often had diverse views on many subjects, and were known to express their differences in public, they all knew they relied on each other for much of their economic development and for both encouragement and security in a world that often seemed to be falling apart at the seams. The prime minister was quite the senior executive of the group and the others had appointed him to be the unofficial moderator of the meeting, as they had done for the last several meetings. They called themselves, unofficially, The Nine.
“Andre, the last time we were together, we asked you to do a survey of the unofficial flow of money through the world’s banking systems. Because of your own banking system, you have a muc
h closer touch in that area than the rest of us, and we felt we needed to get a handle on illegal funds. We know you won’t be able to give any secret details of any banking systems, but were you able to find any trends involv-ing unofficial or hidden money that we should be aware of and that we might individually be able to then follow up on?”
Andre Becker was the President of the Confederation of Switzerland and was a banker, himself. His family had been in the banking business for generations and owned a bank in Zurich that handled major international accounts as well as several small banks throughout Switzerland and other European countries. He knew things in the banking world that he couldn’t share with anyone else, but he also had information of a general nature that would benefit all of those at this meeting.
“Yes, Donald, I do have quite a bit I can share with you. I have this information packet for each of you if you will pass them around, please. It is very much in summary form, but I do have details supporting each entry that I can give you on a personal basis at a later date if you would so desire.
“I started my review with a list of questions such as, Can we determine how much might be funding various terrorist activities? Can we get any idea of funds that are coming from government sources, getting funneled into personal holding accounts instead of being used for the people as it was intended? And so on.
“As you can see from the first page, I’ve put a very large number at the top. That figure, seventeen billion U.S. dollars, doesn’t seem too large until you see that it is a daily figure.
Daily. It is only an estimate, of course, but it is an approximation of the amount of money that is flowing through our various unofficial, or hidden, banking circles that could be called illegal currency. Currency that in some way is being kept out of the rightful flow of world money, is being stolen and hidden from taxation or it’s proper public use, or is quite likely being funneled to and from illegal activities such as drug running, weapons distribution and, of course, terrorism. Daily.
“This figure is not an every day new amount, but would be the total of funds that are simply flowing through the system. If a billion dollars moved today, and then moved again tomorrow, it would be included in the seventeen billion total, but would not be new money. It would be included every day as long as it kept moving each day. However, the total seventeen billion might be half new and half old, or some other figure, each day, and that is still a lot of money moving through the system which our countries do not have control of, or even good knowledge of. Another point is that this is not money that is simply running through the underground economy. That money is ultimately put back into the system as people re-use it, and as it is not in reality being used for outright illegal purposes, I did not include it.”
“Andre, excuse the interruption, but you said the total could be approximately half and half, new and old money. Do you know if that figure is real?” The question came from John Coleman, Prime Minister of Canada. “And, if it is a correct figure and the system is getting eight and one-half billion dollars of new money daily, why is the total amount not growing?”
“A good and reasonable question, John,” Becker replied.
“Yes, the half and half figure is approximately correct. However, most of the total is usually put back in circulation within a reasonably short time. Very little is simply put in holding accounts and not touched again. That figure might be ten or twenty percent of the total. Most of the rest, though, is transferred through laundering systems so the owner receives credit on the banking books for it, but then it goes back into circulation. A billion of illegal cash, for instance, gets deposited somewhere and becomes a plus on the books. It then might be invested into somewhat legitimate businesses and is now, legally, back into circulation. The original billion, though, came from illegal activities and the original depositor has the credit for it. However, keep in mind the percent that is kept in deposit means that another ten or twenty percent, say two billion of new money, must come in each day in order to keep the average at the seventeen billion total figure.”
Rudolph Heidrich, Chancellor of Germany, spoke up. “If I’m understanding all this correctly, you are saying some eight and one-half billion dollars daily is going into the hidden banking system from new illegal activity. Perhaps two billion of that goes into permanent holding accounts. The balance, another eight and one-half billion plus the new six and one-half billion, continues circulating through banking and investment circles and eventually ends up back in our economies? I don’t know if I said it correctly, but a total of seventeen billion dollars daily, and it does not flow through official hands for accounting, taxation, and so on?”
“Yes, that is a close approximation of the problem, Rudolph. And, to me personally, the concern is not that we are unable to tax those funds, or use them in government, or even personal, activities. The problem is that the majority of these funds go into activities that are against the laws of the land, that work to subvert the legitimate running of our governments and businesses, and that go, many times, into activities that are, or assist, terrorism. If the problem was just that we are losing our taxation amount on the new funds daily, that we could work with. But, to think that some large percent of those funds are going into some type of subversive activities means we have a major criminal, or terrorist, threat that we can’t reach.”
Jeff King, the United States President, asked, “Andre, I know there are all the banking secrecy laws and so on, but is there no way we can enlist the banking community in assisting with this problem? Several of us already have laws requiring notification of certain large deposits, for instance. Could we not get legal restrictions on these type of activities established through the entire banking system?”
“Unfortunately, the simple answer is No. You all know that my country, for instance, does work with your legal agencies on certain types of proven illegal activities, with proper warrants and court approvals, and so on. However, there are too many banks in countries that do not subscribe to international banking laws that simply refuse to help in any way.
And, if you were to close one of these banks, or even a country system, they would simply open again under another name or in another country. It would take a worldwide effort, by everyone, not just a few, to bring these off-the-grid banks under control. You know yourself, Jeffery, the liberal courts refuse to invade privacy laws and won’t consider regulations that would control the system. And, that certain parts of the legal and political communities are highly paid to ensure the courts and political systems stay just that way.”
The President sighed, and said, “So, it appears that we have no way of controlling this part of the world’s problem?”
Donald Everett agreed, “It does sound insurmountable, doesn’t it? It is another one of those problems we all know we have, but cannot do anything about. Anything more on this subject, Andre?”
“I have all the details of what I have presented in the packets you have and am willing to answer any questions, either now or individually at a later time.”
“Anything, gentlemen? If not, then thank you, Andre, and let’s go on with the agenda. Let’s look for a moment at the terrorism problems we are facing. Jeffery, you have had several incidents of a sort of terrorism lately, that large shipping company collapsing, for instance, and the weapons exporter.
Do you have any ideas as to what these incidents might represent? They have also affected several of the rest of us. Any ideas?”
Jeff King sat back for a moment and reflected on what to say. Finally, with somewhat of a puzzled look, he said, “I’ve had my people looking into these things since we’ve had more than a couple come up. We really have no answers at this time, but we do have questions. In a report I got just before coming here, there is now a suspicion that many of these events happening in other countries may be somehow directly related, and that they may all be caused or carried out by one group of supposed vigilantes, or something like that. I know that sounds very Wild West, and all that, b
ut there are threads running through the events that may be leading to a single purpose and group.
“I know that the events have all been very different, but one thing that is common to them is that they’ve all been basically some sort of destructive event against someone or a company that appears to have performed crimes against our countries and our people. Our large shipping company, for instance, was apparently doing many things that were very illegal, and many of the owners and top executives knew that. It’s true that many thousands of workers around the world suffered when the company fell, but the fact still is that the company and it’s top people were apparently involved in several crimes.
Did they deserve to go down the way they did, without court action and so on? No. Not in a civilized country with a proper legal system. But, did they deserve to go down? Yes, of course they did.
“From what we’ve been able to come up with, every one of these incidents, around the world, have been enacted on people or businesses that most of us have suspected to be doing things that were illegal. We just hadn’t been able to get the details and evidence into our courts, or through our political processes and protections. Some of the offenders have been blatant and we all knew about them. Some of them have been surprises, for the most part, but with hints and intimations that have been around for long periods of time. Someone, most likely a private group, just finally decided to take them out.”