by Brad Thor
The assistant nodded. “It would also provide you an opportunity to lean on them for more information than what Mr. Nasiri has already provided Ms. Ryan.”
“Agreed,” the DNI said. “Which brings us to the other issue we need to deal with.”
“The destabilization team,” Ryan offered.
General Johnson nodded. “Agree or disagree with the politics, the President has been abundantly clear that he supports the Arab Spring. He has also been adamant that we not influence the outcome. He sees this as an organic, democratic process that must be allowed to ‘bloom,’ as he says.”
McGee shook his head.
“Like I said,” the DNI repeated, “agree or disagree with the President’s position, this is his call. That said, there appear to be two potential things happening here. Either Durkin’s old team has reconstituted and is operating on behalf of someone else, or Durkin and others at the CIA are running the team in direct contradiction of the President’s orders. Whatever the answer is, I want to know. And I want to know as soon as possible.”
Ryan looked at him. “How do we make that happen?”
General Johnson turned back to his assistant. “Can we come up with a way to requisition Ms. Ryan away from the CIA for a little bit?”
“Probably. What do you have in mind?”
“I want her to have top cover. I don’t want it to look like this has anything to do with the Jordanians. We need to tie it in with something else she is already working on and peel off some other CIA people to hide her in with. You and Ms. Ryan figure it out and get back to me.”
“Won’t Durkin be suspicious?” Ryan asked.
“That’s a risk we’ll have to run. You and Stu pull something together and I’ll make it happen. Unless there’s somebody else who knows about this team and their inner workings, you’re the best person to move the ball forward. Now, what about extra manpower? What do you think you’ll need?”
Ryan’s eyes drifted to McGee, who put his palms out and said, “Don’t look at me. I’m just some dumb Agency instructor. We don’t get requisitioned by the DNI.”
“No,” Ryan replied, “but guys your age do have health issues—”
“Or marital problems,” the DNI suggested.
“Or an ethics inquiry,” the assistant stated.
McGee realized he was getting roped into this whether he liked it or not. “I guess I’d rather take a hit to my corpus than my character,” he said. “I think I’ll go with health issues.”
“Good,” replied General Johnson. “You two work everything out with Stu and I’ll sign off on it. The tricky part will be getting you funding. We can move a little bit of money around, but we’ll have to be careful.”
“Thank you, sir. The fewer people who know about any of this the better.”
“Understood. Anything else?”
Four sets of eyes took turns looking at each other and when no one had anything else to add, the DNI closed the meeting. “I want this kept absolutely quiet,” he said. “If and when this needs to go to the President, I’ll do it. Until then, we keep this locked down tight. We don’t mention a word of this to anyone.”
* * *
As McGee’s 4Runner pulled out of General Johnson’s driveway, two men in a Ford Explorer waited for him to turn right at the end of the road and begin heading toward the highway before falling in behind.
The man in the passenger seat dialed a phone number back in Virginia. “They just left,” he said. “What do you want us to do?”
“Kill them.”
“You want it to look like an accident?”
He had thought about this long and hard since meeting with Lydia Ryan. “No,” replied Phil Durkin. “We need this to look intentional. Absolutely intentional.”
CHAPTER 19
WASHINGTON
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
The Old Man had taken Harvath to task over his limited knowledge of the Federal Reserve and how it operated. Though he’d tried to hide it, Harvath knew his ignorance had also been on display for Monroe Lewis during their meeting at the Fed’s headquarters. He didn’t like feeling stupid and out of his depth, but he had. Talking with Bill Wise, though, was different.
“They don’t want you to understand anything about what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s purposeful obfuscation and it’s brilliant. They weave a tapestry of BS meant to intimidate people, and it works. Very few Americans have ever really dug into what they are up to.”
Wise was a polymath and Harvath was beginning to understand why the Old Man had set up their meeting. “Why do so many people not like the Federal Reserve?”
Wise took a sip of his drink, deciding where to begin. “First of all, they’re not federal and they don’t have any reserves whatsoever. The Federal Reserve is about as federal as Federal Express. They’re a group of powerful bankers who orchestrated a phony crisis in the early 1900s to convince the American people that the country needed a strong central bank to help regulate the economy and bring Wall Street fat cats to heel. It’s one of the most successful con jobs in history.”
“Apparently, you’re not a fan.”
“I go where the facts take me,” said Wise. “They took the name Federal Reserve for the sole purpose of scamming the American people and making it look like they were part of the government. They’re not only not part of the American government; they aren’t even accountable to the American people. We as citizens can’t toss any of them out or tell any of them what to do. They operate in total secrecy and have never undergone a thorough audit.
“What’s astounding is that since the Fed was created back in 1913, the dollar has lost ninety-six percent of its purchasing power. Because the Fed sets interest rates, we have seen massive bubbles inflated under their policies only to eventually pop and create massive downturns in the economy. In fact, America’s downturns have become longer and much more severe under the Fed.”
“So why do we keep the Fed? Can’t we get rid of it?” Harvath asked.
“America has killed two prior central banks; it could kill this one, too, if it wanted.”
“That’s the key, though, Americans would have to want to. Right?”
“Exactly, and most people have no idea what it is. In fact, let me ask you something. How well do you know your American flag etiquette?”
“Very well,” Harvath replied.
“Are you allowed to fly another flag above the American flag?”
“Of course not. Never.”
“Do you have any cash on you?”
Harvath nodded.
“Do you have any idea what it says on top of our money? Above the words The United States of America?”
Harvath shook his head.
“Take your money out and look. Read to me what it says.”
He removed the cash from his pocket and studied a one-dollar, five-dollar, twenty-dollar, and even one-hundred-dollar bill. “They all say Federal Reserve Note on top.”
“Some say that’s a perfect example of how the Fed sees itself, as being above the United States government. Those notes aren’t even issued by the Treasury Department. They may be printed in the building, but the Treasury has absolutely no say in when they get printed or how many of them get printed. But to keep the charade going those Federal Reserve notes include both the signature of the Treasurer of the United States as well as the signature of the United States Secretary of the Treasury.
“Through its control of our currency, this unelected group of private bankers has driven the United States to the brink of bankruptcy. They’re not only digitizing into existence more than one hundred fifteen million dollars an hour to cover risky loans and trades made by their pals at banks deemed too big to fail, they’re—”
“Wait,” said Harvath. “One hundred and fifteen million? They’re printing that much money every hour?”
“Not printing, digitizing and then depositing that digitized money into the accounts of banks who turn right around and keep making the same ris
ky loans and investments, because no matter how badly they screw up, there’s no downside, no consequences. That’s why the Fed was set up.”
“But if there’s that much more money being created, doesn’t that mean that the existing money supply, the money in my bank account, is increasingly worth less?”
“Give yourself a gold star,” said Wise. “Like I said, the dollar has lost ninety-six percent of its purchasing power since the Fed was initiated. They levy the heaviest and most corrosive taxes of all through their control of the money system, and it’s all about covering the bad bets of their colleagues at the taxpayer’s expense. After all, who do you think ends up with the bill?”
“We do.”
“That’s right. What’s more, the Fed controls what the interest rate will be on your bank accounts, how much interest you’ll pay on your home loan, as well as your car loan and your student loans. They use their digitized money to buy U.S. government bonds so that our government can keep spending and spending and spending, which drives us deeper and deeper into debt. And does the Fed buy those bonds directly from the U.S. government? No, of course not. It uses brokerage firms it’s friendly with in New York, so that those firms get huge commissions.”
“Those firms being the same Wall Street ‘fat cats’ the Fed had promised to rein in, correct?” asked Harvath.
Wise nodded. “It’s an incredible shell game. But what may be of particular interest for your case is that Britain wanted to place the colonies under the influence of the Bank of England. That act was considered so beyond the pale that it is said to have been the final straw that led to the Revolutionary War.”
Despite Harvath’s knowledge of American history, he had never heard that before. It was an amazing revelation.
“While some of the founders like Jefferson were against a central bank,” said Wise, “there were others, like Alexander Hamilton, who were not only for it, but pushed hard to make it happen. In fact, to get southern lawmakers on board, Hamilton agreed to make sure America’s capitol would be moved out of New York City and further south.”
“Which is how we wound up with Washington, D.C?”
“Bingo,” said Wise. “All that over a central bank.”
“You said two previous central banks had been killed. How did we wind up with our current central bank, the Fed?”
“Despite Jefferson’s bitter opposition to central banks as being engines of speculation, manipulation, and financial corruption, President George Washington had signed the first bank’s charter. But when it expired twenty years later, so many people hated it, Congress refused to renew it.
“President James Madison signed the Second Bank of the United States into existence, but when Andrew Jackson took office, he refused to renew its charter. He was a lot like Thomas Jefferson and saw the central bank as an engine for corruption. When the economy got rocky, Jackson wisely pushed for all federal land sales to be transacted in gold or silver. Many banks adopted a similar modus operandi and it started to catch on.
“Some banks, though, were so leveraged, they couldn’t pay their customers when they came looking for their money. This led to waves of bank runs, some of which actually created serious imbalances in the economy. One of the worst ‘bank runs’ led to the creation of the Federal Reserve.”
Harvath noted Wise’s derogatory tone when he used the term bank run. “This is the phony crisis you mentioned?”
He nodded. “Are you familiar with something called the Hegelian dialectic?”
“I am. It’s where a group or an individual creates a problem, knowing full well in advance how people are going to react to it. They then begin agitating for something to be done about the problem, for things to change. Once the masses are then worked up enough and desperate enough for something to be done, the party behind the problem unveils their solution. The people are thrilled to have a plan, any plan, and so demand that it be implemented. They never seem to realize that they’ve been manipulated and that they haven’t really ushered in change, but actually a much worse version of what they had previously, only now in brand-new packaging.”
“That’s exactly what happened with the Fed. A problem was manufactured by a powerful group of people who sat on the sidelines waiting for a panicked citizenry to beg for a solution. Once people started begging loud enough, all this group had to do was set the wheels in motion and make it look like everything was unfolding naturally.
“In this case, it was a group of New York bankers colluding to set up a third central bank that would give them a monopoly over the banking system. Shortly after the New Year in 1907, an article appeared in the New York Times by investment banker Paul Warburg, who cautioned that Americans needed to reinstate a central bank if they wanted to avoid any more terrible bank runs.
“One of Warburg’s banking partners then gave a speech to the New York Chamber of Commerce warning that if the United States didn’t set up a central bank, the country was going to undergo the most severe and far-reaching crash in its history. The sky is falling. The sky is falling. All they needed then was to be proven right. Enter their pal, banker J. P. Morgan.
“Once a slew of side bets were placed that the stock market was going to fall, a run was launched on the stock of a company called United Copper — one of J. P. Morgan’s biggest competitors. Panic took over the market. It was like all of the water being sucked out to sea before a giant tsunami comes ashore. Suddenly, everyone wanted out.
“New York banks friendly to Morgan and Warburg yanked their money, the stock market dropped nearly fifty percent, and New York’s third-largest trust collapsed. From there, the panic spread across the country as citizens rushed to their own banks to pull out all of their money.
“It was an all-out panic and people were screaming for something to be done. Enter once again J. P. Morgan, who pledged his own funds to help stabilize the banking system.
“Rallying other New York bankers to join him, several of whom had helped to exacerbate the panic, Morgan magically stemmed the bleeding and the panic began to subside. But as it did, panic was replaced by a nationwide outcry that something be done so that this kind of thing never happened again.”
“Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?” said Harvath.
Wise smiled. “Precisely. The people blamed the bankers, but the bankers masterfully blamed ‘the system,’ which led to everyone clamoring for the system to be reformed. Congress instantly responded by setting up a special commission. Magically chosen to head the commission was a profiteering, multimillionaire Rhode Island senator who was friends with Morgan and Warburg, as well as being deep in the pockets of the rubber and tobacco industries. His name was Nelson Aldrich.
“As the United States was one of the last major nations without a central bank, Aldrich decided his National Monetary Commission should study the central banks of Europe — and that’s exactly what he and his entourage did, spending almost two years touring Europe, wining and dining at an expense of more than three hundred thousand dollars to the American taxpayers.”
Harvath shook his head. “The politicians were crooks even back then.”
“It gets worse,” said Wise. “After nearly two years of ‘study’ and over three hundred thousand dollars spent, Senator Aldrich hadn’t filed a single report on what he had learned, nor had he offered any solutions for ‘reforming’ America’s banking system.”
“The guy really was a crook.”
Wise held up his hand. “We haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet.”
“It gets worse?” said Harvath.
“Much. And I think it will give you an idea of why someone might be angry enough to want to target and kill people at the Federal Reserve.”
CHAPTER 20
Wise studied Harvath for a moment before speaking. “It was a cold, windy evening in November of 1910, when a group of the most powerful bankers in the United States snuck out of New York City on a top-secret mission. In Hoboken, New Jersey, posing as a duck-hunting party
, they boarded an opulent private railcar bound for an even more opulent, private resort off the Georgia coast called Jekyll Island.”
“Which is where Claire Marcourt’s body was found.”
Wise nodded and continued. “Among the group was Abraham Piatt Andrew, who was assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury; Frank Vanderlip, who was president of the most powerful bank in the country, the National City Bank of New York, which represented the oil interests of the Rockefellers; as well as the aforementioned investment banker who had been publicly calling for the U.S. to adopt a central bank, Paul Warburg.
“An interesting tidbit about Warburg, in addition to drawing an eye-popping salary even by today’s standards of five hundred thousand dollars a year: back in Germany, his family represented the interests of one of the greatest European banking families, the Rothschilds.”
“Nice work and even nicer clients if you can get them,” said Harvath.
“Nothing happens by accident with these people,” said Wise. “Also on board were Benjamin Strong and Henry Davison of J. P. Morgan Company, as well as Charles Norton, the president of J. P. Morgan’s First National Bank of New York. There to greet them all as they boarded was the owner of the mahogany-lined railcar, our pal, Senator Nelson Aldrich. In total, there were six men who were conservatively rumored to represent one-fourth of the world’s wealth.
“With the shades drawn and white-gloved staff seeing to cigars and cocktails for the men of the lustrous private car, the train steamed out of Hoboken south toward Brunswick, Georgia, where they would complete the final leg of their eight-hundred-mile journey by boat to Jekyll Island.
“Lest any of the staff figure out who their passengers were or what they were up to, the powerful men had all agreed to address each other by first names only. Vanderlip and Davison were so cocky, though, they insisted on being called not Frank and Henry, but Orville and Wilbur.”
