Empire

by Brandt Legg

  The first session started ten minutes late, as there had been a NorthBridge attack. They’d crashed the entire computer network of JPMorgan Chase.

  “What a disaster,” Fitz said as he walked in the room, holding his morning Coke.

  “Good morning,” Melissa said cheerfully to the chief of staff.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” Fitz replied with mock grumpiness. “Booker’s sending a message by going after the largest REMie bank.”

  “We don’t know that Booker is calling the shots with NorthBridge,” the president said. “There are at least five leaders, and we know only three of them. We also don’t know how their power-sharing is structured.”

  “True,” Fitz said, “but they chose the sixth largest bank in the world.”

  “That’s because the four largest belong to our friends, the Chinese,” the president replied. “The fifth biggest bank is Mitsubishi in Japan, seven is HSBC in the UK, eighth is BNP in France . . . ”

  “You’ve been studying your banks,” the first lady said with a laugh.

  “I have.” Hudson smiled. “I’m trying to figure out a way to stop the REMies without wiping out the global money supply and shattering the economy in a way that will make the worldwide depression of the 1930s look like the good old days.”

  “The only shot at that,” Melissa began, “is to get China to prop up the money supply.”

  Fitz, who was sitting next to her on the sofa, frowned. “That’s never going to fly. They’ll use the crisis to take over.”

  “Take over what?” she said. “One third of the top twenty-two banks in the world are Chinese. Four are American, and they’re all controlled by the REMies. In fact, all the others are in some way owned, controlled, or compromised by the REMies. So what happens if the REMies are shut down?”

  “Cryptocurrency,” the vice president suggested.

  “Like Bitcoin or digiGOLD?” Fitz asked. “To run the entire global economy?”

  “It might work,” the president said. “Granger Watson has been looking into it.”

  “Smart guy,” Fitz said, raising his eyebrows.

  “The smartest,” the president said. “Okay, now the fun stuff. I plan on proposing that we bring all our troops home.”

  “From where?” Fitz asked.

  “Everywhere,” the president answered. “I’m talking about the 300,000 military personnel serving outside the country. I want to close all the bases—”

  “The Pentagon will love you,” Fitz said sarcastically. “They’re still seething from your decision to stop the drone bombing.”

  Melissa closed her eyes, knowing all too well what sermon was coming.

  “People think I did that because of my near death experience,” the president said, “but it was about the REMies. You want the smoking gun to convince the American people the REMies are in charge? George W. Bush, as a candidate, said he didn’t believe in nation building, unnecessary foreign entanglements. Obama, a total anti-war candidate, won the Nobel peace prize less than nine months after taking office. Trump had spoken against it for years prior to running, he didn’t want anything to do with Afghanistan, and yet they all changed. Each bombed more than the one before. Obama hit seven countries, showering more than fifty thousand bombs just in his last two years, and ten times more drone strikes than Bush. Trump did even more! Why?” The president leaned against the Resolute Desk and hit his fist into his hand. “Why do they betray their beliefs, their promises? I’ll tell you why. Something or someone made them change. These weren’t minor flip-flops to please a large constituency, they were doing what they were told. A REMie had a talk with them.”

  “Preaching to the choir,” Melissa said, trying to get him back on track.

  “Anyway, closing the bases and bringing the troops home will save us hundreds of millions a year,” Hudson said. “And the REMies will hate it.”

  “Congress will never go along with it,” Fitz said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m the commander in chief, and they’ll have lots of other things to worry about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Environmental initiatives,” Melissa said. “The causes of global warming don’t matter, it doesn’t even matter if it’s real. Those debates waste our time. The bottom line is we don’t want to pollute this beautiful planet. No one is in favor of pollution. If we all stop arguing about global warming and just seek to end all pollution, global warming becomes a totally moot point.”

  “I like it,” the vice president said.

  Fitz shook his head in dismay and opened another Coke. “I guess you’ve decided not to seek reelection . . . at least as a Republican.”

  “Way too soon to talk about that,” Hudson said.

  “And we’re just getting started,” Melissa added. “We’re going to launch solar power initiatives to finish off fossil fuels once and for all by heavily taxing them to subsidize the clean alternatives. Plus mandatory recycling, legislation that nothing can be manufactured unless it can be recycled . . . ”

  “Fun,” Fitz said sarcastically. “Why not tax sugar to subsidize healthcare?”

  “Great idea!” Melissa said, pointing to his soda.

  “I was joking!” Fitz moaned.

  “I’m not,” the president said. “We need to address healthcare and the obesity epidemic. The richest nation on earth ought to be able to provide the best healthcare to its citizens, and fund it with a fair tax system.”

  “You do know Washington is a company town?” Fitz said. “You’ll never get away with this stuff.”

  “We will, because the REMies won’t be able to stop us if they’re not in charge anymore. We can give the people what they want.”

  “They don’t all want this.”

  “That’s like saying they don’t all want peace,” the president argued. “But that’s only because the media makes them think war is necessary. Every person on earth wants peace, good health, a chance to build a happy life.”

  “And the REMies have robbed us of that,” the vice president said.

  “Do you have any other radical reforms in mind?” Fitz asked.

  “Taxes,” the president said. “It’s finally time we create a whole new system. Fair and simple. I favor the system developed by University of Wisconsin Professor of Economics, Edgar L. Feig. It’s called the Automated Payments Transaction Tax, or ‘APT.’ It would remove the need for all other sales and income taxes, and impose a single, tiny tax rate on each and every transaction in the economy. The APT tax rate would be three tenths of one percent on each transaction. Look into it. I think it’s brilliant.”

  “Really amazing,” Melissa said. “Check out the website, apttax dot com.”

  “You think you can get all this to fly?” Fitz asked. “You think people were shooting at you before . . . ” Fitz threw his arms up in exasperation.

  “I’m just trying to get us back to where we should have been all along without the REMies,” the president said.

  “Congress will eat you alive.”

  “Especially when I push for a constitutional amendment for term limits for senators and House members.” The president smiled. “Do you know the difference between a career criminal and a career politician?” he asked, repeating a joke Crane had told him.

  “No,” Fitz said, shrugging. “What’s the difference?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The president had recalled seeing Rex on one of his visits to Vonner’s McLean estate, but things were different now. Vonner was dead, Schueller lived in the grand home overlooking the Potomac River, and Rex had become a critical missing piece in the master plan to destroy the REMie empire. Schueller’s estate, as it was now called, seemed the logical place to meet. Security had been added to the other side of the river, which would make an ideal sniper’s nest.

  Rex felt right at home there. In fact, he had lived and worked there, as he had traveled with his former employer. After introductions from Tarka
, the president began with a series of questions about the REMies. Tarka remained mostly silent as Vonner’s former lieutenant fielded Hudson’s inquiries and talked strategy. The humid evening begged for a thunderstorm that wouldn’t come. The three of them walked the cliff overlooking the river as Secret Service agents trailed a fair distance away. The president pressed on the one issue that he felt would prove whether Rex could be trusted or not.

  “Tell me about Covington,” the president asked, looking directly at Rex after stealing a side glance at Tarka.

  “Covington was about to put an irrevocable hit on you,” Rex said, looking at the five small blue dice in his hands rather than at the president.

  “Really? I’m not some Mafia Don,” the president responded. “Who would take that hit?”

  Rex snapped his hand closed around the dice. “You do know Covington was behind the Air Force One attack, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, he had an elite squad of special ops trained for covert missions as part of his role at DNI. There was no oversight, no mission these guys wouldn’t take on, but it still boggles my mind that American servicemen could be compelled to carry out an attack against their commander in chief.”

  “I don’t think you understand the CapWars, and how the soldiers are trained,” Rex said, now rolling a pair of red dice in his left hand.

  “Are you telling me they’re brainwashed?” the president asked.

  “No, in fact, their training is much closer to the truth than what most high school and college students are taught,” Rex said. He put a cigarette between his lips. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Yes, I do,” the president replied.

  Rex stared at him for a minute, surprised. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, put it back into the silver case, and slid it into an inside pocket of his jacket. “The soldiers are taught about the CapWars. Not by name, but they’re educated about the power struggles and shown the true dangers of the world.”

  “Dangers like extremists?”

  “The REMies aren’t worried about the extremists,” Rex said, as if the president had said something foolish. “They create the extremists, that’s easy stuff . . . al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Harem, Hezbollah, Hamas . . . the REMies make them, or at least foster the circumstances that give birth to these kinds of organizations, and then trade off the fear and instability. You’ve heard of SAD?”

  The president nodded. “Scare Agitate Divide.”

  “Right, that’s their standard formula, that and the MADE events, Manipulate-And-Distract-Everyone. It’s so damned easy to distract people. ‘Hey, look a sex scandal, now what about a celebrity divorce, oh let’s argue about which bathroom to use, or what patriotism is.’ Sorry, I digress.” Rex shifted some dice in his coat pocket. “It’s the regular-joes who concern the REMies, the unpredictable masses. Of course, they’ve developed quite a matrix to control the bulk of the population, but increasingly there are those on the fringes who see through the scam, and even more who know something isn’t quite right, but can’t quite figure it out.”

  “So they train these special ops to kill average Americans?” the president asked, still trying to figure out how these soldiers would shoot their own president or their fellow Americans.

  “First, they aren’t all from here,” Rex said, abandoning the translucent red dice for orange ones in another pocket. “Some in the unit are American, but not the kind who vote for you. They’re ones who think their country’s been stolen by some fill-in-the-blank scapegoat. The rest are mercenaries, working for great pay and uncaring about who or what the target is.”

  “Where are they now? Since Covington’s dead, who’s directing them?”

  “I’ve lost track. My guess is someone in the NSA has them on a leash, but ready to deploy.”

  An aide brought out a tray of fresh lemonade. Schueller thanked her.

  “Deploy? To where?”

  “Wherever they’re needed to bring chaos, or silence a critic,” Rex said, smiling as if he’d just picked a rich man’s pocket. “You don’t still seriously believe the president of the United States is the most powerful man in the world?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Hudson said. “But I guess I’m still trying to figure that out for sure, and maybe you two are going to help me get that final answer.”

  Rex looked at Tarka, then out to a stand of large oak trees, then back to the president. “I can already tell you the answer is no. You’re not the most powerful person in the world. Far from it. In fact, you don’t even rank in the top one hundred.”

  Hudson nodded tentatively. He did know his authority was limited, but the myth of the influence of the presidency that he’d grown up with, that history had perpetuated, still held sway with him to some extent, and he needed to find enough power to make it true. “What happened with Covington?”

  “As I said, he was about to have you killed. He also had a plan to simultaneously destabilize several nations around the world, and . . . ” Rex laughed while quickly checking the numbers on the two orange dice in his hand. “Covington was trying to convince some of the REMies to let him be the next president.”

  Hudson stood, aghast, at the arrogance of his late nemesis. “How did you learn this?”

  “That’s what I do,” Rex said. “Vonner, more than any other REMie, appreciated that the real power lies in knowing everything. You’re trying to do the same thing with your Gypsy program.”

  “How do you know about Gypsy?”

  “I live on the DarkNet, Hudson. I’ve been watching your guys watch through Gypsy for some time.”

  Hudson wondered who else knew, but wanted to finish. “Did Vonner or you order Covington’s hit?”

  Rex glanced at his dice. He’d added a gray one to the two orange, then cautiously checked back over his shoulder at the Secret Service Agents. “Vonner didn’t know about it. Vonner was a tough guy, but too careful sometimes. Covington needed to go away. He was much higher up on the totem pole than you. Once he sought authorization to have you killed from a powerful REMie, something had to be done immediately, or you wouldn’t be here talking to me now.”

  “Who was the REMie?”

  “Titus Coyne.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Rex shot him a disappointed look, as if the president had just insulted him. “Coyne wasn’t going to approve the request, but Covington had already decided to do it anyway and deal with the consequences later. You may scoff at the possibility of an irrevocable hit, but there are people in the world who can make things happen, whether it be the death of a president, the resignation of a pope, or the collapse of a major corporation. Nothing is what it seems,” Rex said without any drama or flare. “It’s all a damned illusion. None of us is really free.”

  “Do you know what Vonner’s endgame was?”

  Rex squinted at the president. “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me,” Hudson said. “I’m president because of him. I want to know why.”

  “And you want to know if I can be trusted,” Rex said, looking at the president, and then at Tarka.

  “That, too,” the president admitted.

  “Vonner wanted to break the REMies’ hold. Maybe not as radically as you and I would like to see it shattered, but he was attempting to bring reality into the system. He meant what he told you, at least in a broad sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Vonner believed you could help, the old man thought you were the real deal, but he knew that your boy scout sense could get in the way. He lied to you, and anyone else, when necessary, to achieve his aims, but his heart was in the right place.”

  “And you?” the president asked, sensing there was a lot that Rex was leaving out about Vonner.

  Rex stared at Hudson as if trying to understand the exact meaning of the question, maybe working out his answer. “I’ve seen too much to have kept my heart intact.” Rex pulled out his silver cigarette case, withdrew one of his hand-rolled smokes, and lit it. “Can you trust me? Probably not
. But I’ve saved your life a few times. I’ll likely do it again. But the bottom line, Hudson, is can you do this without me?”

  “Then you’ll join the team?”

  Rex shook his head. “Teams are dangerous things. I’ll work the DarkNet for you, run Vonner Security . . . ” He glanced at Tarka again. “Of course, she’ll do the heavy lifting there. But no team. Just you to me.”

  “Okay,” the president said, reaching out his hand.

  Rex shook it, exchanging a hardened look with Hudson.

  “Out of curiosity,” the president said as their hands slipped apart, “what’s with the dice?”

  “Odds, numbers, patterns, everything in the universe turns on the sequence of multiples of digits . . . ” he answered absently, as if talking to himself.

  Hudson half laughed. “You need to meet the Wizard, maybe even Granger.”

  Rex looked at him questionably.

  “The Wizard is my oldest friend. He runs Gypsy.”

  “The guy in San Francisco?”

  “Right, but I thought he was untraceable.”

  “I don’t know his exact location, but I had it narrowed down to a few square miles before he moved.”

  Hudson smiled, impressed with both the Wizard and Rex.

  “But if I find him,” Rex added, “he’ll be dead within days.”

  “What?” the president asked, instantly alarmed.

  “I’m not the only one on the DarkNet trying to find him. I’m just a day or two ahead of the enemy,” Rex said. “They’ll kill him the second they find him . . . just like they did Zackers and Crane.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  General Imperia and Colonel Dranick walked along the even trails of Long Bridge Park in Arlington, Virginia. The two men, not wanting to attract attention, were not in uniform. Although it was unlikely they’d be recognized, even their security details wore casual clothes. As they waded through the humid air, the pair of military men spoke in hushed tones, occasionally finding their words drowned out by the planes taking off and landing at nearby Reagan National Airport.