by Tom Abrahams
Holt knew the beast was always hungry. The more he gave, the more was expected. The news cycle had evolved. Instead of twenty-four hours, it was more like twenty-four minutes. Everything was Breaking! or Developing! or Exclusive! and it was constant. The top story in the morning was below the proverbial fold by noon. By dinnertime, there might not even be a link on the home page.
Much of it wasn’t even news anymore. It was photo galleries and click-bait, teases designed to get unique users to stay on the site and click through as many pages as possible.
Holt lived with the reality because it was the reality. He’d never been anything other than a journalist. He’d take the business in whatever form it existed.
“I’ve got something,” he admitted to the web editor. “A second source on the Sir Spencer angle.” He pressed the accelerator and sped up to keep pace with the vehicles traveling around him.
“What’s the source say?” There was a click and the editor’s voice was suddenly louder and clearer. She’d picked up the receiver. “Is he alive?”
“Yes. According to the source, Sir Spencer is alive.”
“Get me five hundred words ASAP,” she said breathlessly. “This is huge. Who is the source?”
“I don’t know yet.” Holt slowed at a yellow traffic light.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m working on it.” He pressed the brake and stopped.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m still working to identify the source,” Holt explained. He looked up ahead and to the left. There were red and blue lights flashing behind a thicket of oleanders guarding the forensics center. He craned his neck but couldn’t see much through the greenery.
“Can we go with it?” the editor pressed. “Do we need to identify the source?”
“Give me an hour or two.”
The light turned green and Holt pushed the accelerator. The tires squealed as they lost their grip on the pavement.
“I don’t have an—”
Holt pressed the END button on the steering wheel and urged the rental car faster. As he approached the oleanders, his stomach sank. They were wrapped in yellow crime scene tape, blocking his entrance to the parking lot.
He slowed, rubbernecking past the lot. There were uniformed officers and deputies dotting the property, a half dozen marked cars pulled along the building, and a couple of television crews straining to get a view from beyond the yellow tape.
Holt swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and yanked the wheel to the left to jump the curb. He punched the hazard lights on the rental and jumped out, jogging back to the lot at a near run.
The doors to the forensic center were propped open. Uniformed deputies and plainclothed investigators walked in and out of the building, shaking their heads. One of them, a young-looking deputy with a crew cut and pelican neck, bent over at his knees and vomited onto the grass near the building’s entrance. Another deputy, with less hair and a bigger gut, put his hand on the younger one’s back.
Holt waved at one of the sergeants and called for him to come over, but the man shook his head and turned his back. Holt checked his phone and sent another text to Karen.
Are you okay? There’s a crime scene at your office.
He marched over to the pair of television crews and flashed his press identification.
“Hey,” he said to a blonde woman he assumed was a reporter. She was holding a wireless microphone under her arm as she typed away on her phone. “I’m a reporter from DC. I just drove by this. I’m wondering what happened.”
“Multiple homicides,” the woman said without looking up from her phone. “We’re hearing one man and one woman.”
“When did you get here?” Holt asked, turning to look at the open doorway. “You been here long?”
“Ten minutes, maybe,” she said. “The PIO hasn’t given us anything yet.”
“No names yet?”
Instinctively, Holt knew Karen was one of the victims; the acidic ache in his gut told him as much.
The blonde shook her head.
“They’re both county employees,” offered the photographer. The blonde shot him a look and he shrugged. “He’s not the competition.”
“Thanks.” Holt checked his phone again. No response from Karen.
He looked at the organized chaos unfolding in front of him. He’d been to crime scenes before, watched the choreography of it too many times to count. He’d never seen it unfold with a weakness in his knees.
Somehow his sixth sense, his reporter’s intuition, told him he was responsible. Karen was dead, and it was his fault. All of it was too coincidental not to be his fault.
She’d given him information he wasn’t supposed to have, he’d published it, and she’d paid for it.
Sir Spencer. New World Order. Horus. Murder. FBI. Karen. Conspiracy. The Brethren…
They were connected.
If Karen died because of it, he had to be on the list too. He scrolled through his text messages again, stopping at the ones he’d exchanged with Karen before he arrived at his hotel the night before.
i’m here. u?
That was her last message. She was at the hotel. He’d responded immediately.
stuck in traffic. rain. be there in five.
He’d arrived in four minutes. He saw her car and thought he saw her…
Her car…
Holt walked the perimeter of the yellow tape toward the employee parking lot. There were three cars, none of them Karen’s. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
He turned back toward the growing gaggle of television crews, figuring that location was his best bet for information. His phone buzzed against his hip. He looked at the screen and rolled his eyes before answering.
“You hung up on me, Dillinger,” the editor whined.
“I told you to give me an hour.”
“I don’t have an hour,” she harped. “I need something now.”
“Just put up a ‘developing’ banner across the top of the page,” Dillinger suggested. “Tell readers we’ll have new information about a critical story in an hour.”
“Why would—”
“Get one of your web guys to add a countdown clock to the homepage. It’ll get buzz. I promise. Blast an alert through the app. That’ll add to the excitement. I’ll have something to you shortly.”
He didn’t wait for an answer before hanging up. A plainclothed deputy was walking toward the ballooning group of television cameras. Holt counted six as he walked to the impromptu staging area on the edge of the yellow tape facing the door.
The deputy tugged on his belt as he approached. He stood about five feet from the cameras, just beyond the handheld microphones reporters pointed at him. “All right, we’ve only been here about a half hour. Call came in two hours ago when the morning shift showed up for work. All we can tell you right now is that we have two bodies. One male, one female, both deceased. I can’t give you cause of death or identities yet.”
“Motive?” chirped the blonde reporter.
“Don’t know.” The deputy sighed. “We’re in the early stages. I just figured I’d come out and give you something before your noon newscasts. I really don’t have anything else.”
“Where were they found?” asked Holt, catching the deputy as he turned to walk away.
The deputy pursed his lips and adjusted his belt. He looked at Holt and nodded. “They were not together. One of them was near the front of the building. The other was…” He caught himself and his eyes narrowed. “The other was in the back of the building.”
“In the morgue?” asked the blonde.
“I’m not going to answer anything else.” The deputy waved off the reporters and started his walk back to the building.
Holt moved in the same direction as the deputy. He called to him and waved him over, away from the cameras and other reporters. The deputy rolled his eyes but met Holt at the crime scene tape near the cluster of oleanders.
“I don’t have anything
else to add.”
“I’m Dillinger Holt.” Holt offered his hand and flashed his press badge. “I’m a reporter with PlausibleDeniability.info, the website.”
The deputy shook Holt’s hand. “I know the site, but I’m not saying anything else.”
“This isn’t on the record,” Holt said. “It’s not even on background. It’s potentially evidence.”
“How so?”
“Quid pro quo here,” Holt offered. “I need the name of the woman killed. If it’s who I think it is, I have information that could help.”
“It doesn’t work that way, son,” he said. “If you have information and you withhold it, that’s a problem.”
“It’s not relevant unless I know who died.”
The deputy tugged on his belt. His jaw tightened.
Holt gripped the yellow tape in his hands. “I need to know if my friend is in there. This isn’t for reporting.”
“Give me a name,” the deputy relented.
“Karen Corvus.”
The deputy didn’t answer Holt. He didn’t have to say anything. His eyes gave it away with a twitch, his jaw relaxed, and his shoulders drooped. All of it was subtle, nearly imperceptible had Holt not been looking for it.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Dillinger’s eyes welled. He swallowed against a thickening knot in his throat.
The deputy nodded, his eyes looking at his feet.
“Okay.” Holt sucked in a deep, ragged breath. “I owe you then. Take a look at this.” He pulled out his phone and slid open his text messages with Karen. He handed the phone to the deputy.
“This is with Miss Corvus?” The deputy scrolled through the messages.
“Yes.”
“This was last night?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it.” The deputy looked up from the screen. “You were on your way to meet with her, but she stood you up?”
“Not exactly,” Holt explained. “Look at her last text, not the thousand I sent her afterward. She told me she was at my hotel waiting for me.”
“You never saw her?”
“No.”
“She wasn’t at your hotel?”
“No. I thought she was. It was raining and I thought I saw her car. A woman got out of the car and walked toward me. I thought it was Karen until she got closer. It wasn’t her. But the more I think about it, I’m pretty sure the woman wanted me to think it was Karen. I don’t know.”
“Then you kept trying to get ahold of her?”
“Yes. She never replied.”
“What was your relationship with her?”
“We were friends.” Holt shrugged. “Maybe a little more than friends. She was a source on a couple of stories. I think maybe one of those stories might have something to do with this.”
“You know I’m going to need you to come to the office with me,” the deputy advised. “I’m going to need an official statement. If you need an attorney—”
“I don’t need an attorney,” Holt bristled. “I didn’t do anything. I’m trying to help.”
“Whoa!” The deputy took a step back and raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m just giving you the option.”
“I don’t really have time right now,” Holt said. “I’ve got a story to file. I’ve got some calls to make. Can we do this later? My cell phone is on the card.”
“I don’t think so.” The deputy slipped his hand under the yellow tape and raised it above his head. “You need to come with me. Now.”
CHAPTER 31
EL PRAT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
BARCELONA, SPAIN
President Jackson stood at the doorway of Air Force One, waving at the gathering of television and still cameras corralled one hundred yards away. She smiled and then began a measured descent down the steps to the tarmac.
At the bottom of the steps was a contingent of Spanish legislators, the US Consul General assigned to Barcelona, and a few local dignitaries. The president shook each of their hands and then found her place in the backseat of the presidential limousine, a Cadillac affectionately called “The Beast”.
She rubbed her hand on the presidential seal embroidered between the two blue leather seats and then rested it on the burl wood inlay that served as an armrest. She tapped her fingernails for a moment and then picked up the inset black telephone.
“Brandon,” she said to her chief of staff, “are you in the Suburban?”
“No, I’m in the decoy Beast.”
“Who’s with you?” The president slipped on her seat belt as the car jerked forward.
“Matti Harrold, the press secretary, a couple of Secret Service agents.”
“All right,” she said. “When we get to the hotel, I want a quick meeting with the policy folks, our intelligence liaison, you, and me.”
“And Matti?”
“No.”
“She’s your congressional liaison, Madam President,” argued Goodman. “She’s best suited to sell some of the finer points of the package. It’s what she’s been doing for weeks in the House and Senate.”
“She doesn’t need to be in the meeting.” President Jackson cradled the phone in her neck and looked at her fingernails. She needed a manicure. “You can handle that part of the discussion.”
“The talks start tomorrow. I think—”
“I didn’t ask what you think, Brandon. Tell Matti she’s welcome to tour the city or go for a jog or do whatever she wants until the dinner tonight.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes, I’m certain. Just have her keep you posted on what she’s doing and where she’s going.”
“Yes, Madam President.”
President Jackson hung up and reached for a bottle of water. She looked out the window at the clear skies. A motorcycle zoomed past her window and joined the rest of the local police at the front of the motorcade. Their sirens wailed as they merged onto the C-31 highway and headed northeast toward the World Trade Center.
She took another sip of the water and laid her head back against the blue leather and stared blankly out the window. This was the perfect place to carry out the plan.
For so many years, the Brethren had shunned the inclusion of women in the highest levels of their club. They’d made an exception with her. And here, in the city of Gaüdi and Miró, she would prove her worth. She would facilitate the single largest advancement of their cause since the formation of the World Bank in 1944 and the creation of the United Nations a year later.
Not since 1918 and Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points for a New World Order had they been so close. And when Wilson let the world know of his plan, he’d had more resistance from France, the United Kingdom, and Italy than she anticipated during the G12 summit.
Wilson had blindsided the allies with his desire for a borderless, barrier-free economy among nations and a military softening. She’d given her counterparts plenty of advance warning. She told them of the stakes and what was expected of them.
This would be a true shift in the order of things. It wouldn’t be the glasnost “New World Order” promised by George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Instead, it would be what David Rockefeller foretold when he said, “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
She laughed to herself. It would begin with the sharing of intelligence: intelligence gathered electronically on every single citizen. The SECURITY nations would track, record, share, and act on the information they obtained.
Next would be the borderless economy and a borderless military. Eventually, everyone would be subject to the same one world government.
This was what Sir Spencer had promised her during her first weeks in Washington all those years ago. It was his money that had funded Miguel Chapa’s purchase of her husband’s practice. He’d approached Chapa. Chapa went to her husband. Her husband went to her.
“Meet with the man,” her
husband implored. “There’s nothing lost in a simple meeting.”
She’d agreed, and Sir Spencer had cut to the chase.
“Chapa doesn’t have the cash. I do,” he’d said, sipping hot tea in her cramped basement office in the Cannon House Office Building. “I’ll give him the money. I want just a little in return.”
She was rightfully wary. “What?” she asked.
She was to keep him in the fold, allow him to dictate measures of policy, and he would reward her. She would rise quickly through the ranks, become a member of leadership. Sunday talk shows would clamor for her, and she’d be unbeatable at the polls.
The thought of so much power was too much for her to turn down. She’d agreed to the Faustian arrangement. Nearly everything had happened exactly as Sir Spencer promised it would.
Now they had everything in place. The hardest parts, killing an American president and then blowing up the United States Capitol, were accomplished.
What had seemed impossible a year earlier was well in motion now. Within a decade, the world would revolve within the new order of things.
All it would take to gather an irreversible momentum was blowing up Barcelona’s World Trade Center. That would happen in a short twenty-four hours.
PART THREE: ETERNAL FLAME
“They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
—Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States of America
CHAPTER 32
ATATÜRK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
The assassin sat alone inside the terminal of the Istanbul Atatürk Airport. The molded gray metal seats were uncomfortable. She was running out of time.
She’d need to board her flight to Barcelona soon, and her friend was late. He was mere feet from her, but he couldn’t leave his post inside the Türkiye Bankasi, and he told her making the exchange at the bank teller window was too risky.
