The Days of Noah: Book One: Conspiracy (6 page)

Rodgers remained calm, though his tone sharpened. “Mr. Parker, I’m sure you don’t want to add resisting arrest to your list of charges. That’s only going to increase your bail.”

Noah ignored the warning. “Answer me! Did you take an oath to protect the Constitution, and do you think arresting me is fulfilling your oath?”

Rodgers clinched his jaw. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. I have a family to feed. If I don’t do it, someone else will. I’ll be the one in the unemployment line, and you’ll still be in jail.”

“Do you think that defense would have held up in Nuremburg?” Noah shot back.

“You calling me a Nazi?” Rodgers drew his Taser.

Noah felt the Taser spikes lodge firmly in his torso just before the voltage from the weapon made the world go black.

CHAPTER 8

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

John 3:19–21

Everett Carroll received a text from the office Monday morning asking him to come in as soon as possible. He skipped the gym and had a granola bar, as opposed to his normal bowl of cereal. He went through the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts rather than stopping at Starbucks on the way to work. He made it to the office parking lot at 7:15 AM.

I’m almost two hours early; that should be good enough
, he thought as he locked the door of his car.

“Everett,” a familiar voice called from behind.

He looked to see Ken Gordon sprinting his way. “Hey.”

Ken caught up with him, and they proceeded to the security checkpoint together. “Did you get a text to rush in?”

“Yes, I guess you did too. I wonder what this is about.”

“Did you watch any news this morning?”

Everett slowed his pace to listen. “No, what happened?”

“Global markets are in a full meltdown.”

“Wonder what that has to do with the Company?”

Ken straightened his tie. “I’d say we’re about to find out.”

Once the two cleared security, the processing agent said, “Everyone in your department is asked to report to briefing room B.”

“Thanks,” Ken said.

They both went straight to the briefing room.

Agent Jones was in the front of the room, standing near a projector screen. “Take a seat. We’ll give the other folks another fifteen minutes before I start the briefing. In the meantime, I’ll stream Fox Business News so you can get the gist of what the meeting is about.”

Jones clicked on the projector. A Fox Business reporter, Stuart Redman, was interviewing the Chair of the SEC.

“Chairman Douglas, do you anticipate closing the markets early today, or do you intend to allow them to open at all?”

The SEC Chairman’s eyes and mouth were downcast, showing his concern. “We’re going to be keeping a close watch on markets. As of this moment, we do plan to allow markets to open at their normal time. We’ve seen these types of heavy losses in early trading before; markets often rebound once the opening bell sounds. The panic is amplified by the low volume in early-morning trading.”

Redman raised his eyebrows. “That sounds very optimistic, especially considering the ruinous losses in the European markets.”

The SEC Chairman attempted to hide his concern by pursing his lip. “There have been dramatic drops in other markets, but American markets often lead recoveries.”

The reporter said, “I know you have a long day ahead of you Chairman Douglas, I’ll let you get back to your job. Thank you for taking time to let us know that the SEC is going to be watching out for us today.”

Douglas gave the obligatory smile. “Thank you, Stuart.”

The ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen showed the global indices, all followed by downward-pointing red indicators. The only green symbols followed platinum, gold, silver, and oil.

Back in the studio, Heather Smith addressed the viewers.

“Fox Business will be with you throughout the day to bring you the latest developments in real time. The only safe havens seem to be Russian and Chinese bonds. Investors are also rushing into gold and oil, but we’ve seen both of those get taken out when liquidity starts to vanish from the markets.

“The BRICS Bank has announced that they will be issuing a statement at 1:00 PM Eastern time. If this is indeed the long anticipated declaration of a gold-backed currency, currency markets around the world will be reeling for weeks to come.

“It is unclear how a new currency will affect the independent currencies of the member nations of the BRICS Bank. However, it is certain that it would be detrimental, if not an absolute death sentence, for the dollar, the euro, and the yen.”

Jones clicked off the live feed, and a graphic animation of a spinning globe appeared on the screen. “Agents, I’m going to cut to the chase. The president of the BRICS Bank intends to announce a new gold-backed currency this afternoon. It would mean the end of the world as we know it. Safeguards have been put in place to try to circumvent this threat to our national interest.

“It is likely that China and Russia will see these measures as a hostile action against them.

“We are anticipating electronic retaliation against stock exchanges, banking systems, and possibly even defense systems. We have done everything we can to limit access to strategic hardware and disable known threats, but there is always the one attack that slips through the cracks.

“Our facility has been asked to back up the NSA until the threat subsides. Some of you will be monitoring computer logs and communication activities of individuals on lists of known intelligence operatives from China, Russia, and other potentially hostile countries. Others of you will be monitoring electronic infrastructure and watching for potential attacks.

“Today is a big day, people. We’ll be bringing in lunch so you can eat at your workstations. We’ll most likely be asking everyone to work late tonight and come back early tomorrow. We are in a level-red operation condition until further notice. I don’t need to remind you who you work for and how important it is that absolutely none of what you see or hear today can ever leave this facility.

“I’ll be on-site today and personally checking to be sure everyone’s system has the access you need to accomplish your mission.

“Go get ’em.”

Ken and Everett walked back toward their cubicles.

Everett was the first to speak. “Safeguards have been put in place to protect our national interest. What was that supposed to mean?”

Ken shook his head. “You’re a little too inquisitive, but it sounds like the CIA is putting the kibosh on the new currency.”

Once at his desk, Everett logged into his computer and retrieved his assignment. He was tasked with monitoring bank accounts and firewalls for Bank of America.

Just before lunch, Agent Jones passed by his desk. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

“Nothing I can detect,” Everett said.

“Good. Call me over if anything comes up.” Jones started to walk away.

“Sir?” Everett said.

Jones stopped walking and turned around. “Yes, Mr. Carroll?”

“I noticed the price of gold was spiking tremendously. Is that something someone should be trying to get a hold of?” Everett wasn’t sure if he was crossing the line, but his inquisitiveness was getting the best of him.

“I wouldn’t be concerned, at least not today.”

Everett nodded and went back to work.

After Jones left, Everett thought about the way Jones had answered him.
At least not today
.

Everett looked at his phone on the desk and noticed something underneath. “A matchbook,” he said beneath his breath.

Everett retrieved the object and opened it to look inside. It appeared to be an ordinary book of matches from McGuire’s Pub. The Irish bar was located just a block from his apartment. He pulled the matches out to see if anything was written inside, but nothing was.

It was obvious that Jones had somehow slipped the matches beneath his phone. Since nothing was written inside, Everett assumed he was expected to go by there after work.

Everett proceeded to watch his screen for telltale signs of cyber-espionage attacks against Bank of America. Lunch was served at noon. The cafeteria was closed, and the workers brought pizza and sodas around to each desk on a cart.

“Thanks,” Everett said as his slices arrived.

The familiar cafeteria worker smiled. “You’re very welcome.”

Everett bit into his first slice.
This is probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten at this facility
, he thought.
If the cafeteria servers didn’t know they worked for a government agency before, I guess they do now. I’m sure they had to go through a much higher level of scrutiny to get a job here. And of course, there is the security screen to pass through every day when they arrive and when they leave. They must know something.

At three o’clock, the cafeteria workers returned with a choice of coffee or energy drink.

Everett selected a Red Bull. “Wow, we’re getting the royal treatment today.”

Everett sipped the cold beverage.
What’s that? Looks like someone is attempting to breach the firewall!

Right away, Everett picked up the phone and called Agent Jones. “Sir, I have what looks like an attack against Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch stock trading server. Are the markets still open, or did the SEC close them early?”

“I’ll be right there. Initiate a counter attack against the source and then sever the hard line connection via a direct shut down of the Internet service provider.”

Everett did as he was instructed. “Okay, but this is going to shut down a huge chunk of the Internet when I shut down the ISP.”

Jones didn’t acknowledge the concern, but was at Everett’s desk in seconds. “I’ll forward this activity to the cyber security team, and they’ll handle it from here.”

Everett watched as Jones took over his keyboard and entered the forwarding address.
[email protected], why does that sound familiar?
He thought,
hand m? Oh yeah, H and M, that’s where Lisa’s friend works. I figured she was a spook.

Everett smiled.
It will be nice to meet someone who works in the intelligence community. That will make it much easier to understand each other’s secrecy regarding work.

Jones finished up. “Good work soldier; carry on. You’ll be finishing up at seven tonight. We’ve got another team from Northrop Grumman taking over at that time. Shifts will be staggered tomorrow, so check your phone to see what time you’re coming in.”

“Great,” Everett said. “See you later . . . I mean see you tomorrow.”

Jones just kept walking away as if he hadn’t heard anything.

Seven o’clock came without any other apparent threats to the systems that Everett was monitoring. An instant message appeared on his screen to let him know that an analyst at Northrop Grumman had assumed his security file. Everett headed for the door.

On the way home, Everett sighed. “What a day! Part of me just wants to go home and crash, but I’m sure Jones is going to let me in on what happened. That’s definitely worth sticking it out for a few more hours.”

Everett scanned the radio for a news station that might be covering the economic events of the day. It wasn’t long before he found the local NPR station. He turned up the volume to catch the rest of the report that was being aired.

“. . . unprecedented sell-off rebounded dramatically after BRICS Bank President Chau issued a statement saying the bank would be postponing their announcement until a later date. Sources inside the emerging-market, trade-settlement bank stated that a systemic failure occurred inside the bank’s main server. The cause of the failure has been accredited to an abnormal level of trading volume and is expected to be resolved soon.

“As all trade between member nations flows through the BRICS Bank, commerce between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa has come to a screeching halt until the server can be brought back on line. It is estimated that the outage could cost the BRICS nations as much as twenty billion dollars US per day.

“The S&P saw the most dramatic rebound. After being down twenty-two percent just before the announcement, the index closed down seven percent. While still calamitous, the losses were only a fraction of what they were at the day’s low.

“Profit taking stepped into the commodities markets. Gold pared its intraday gains to close up ten percent at $3,060. Silver also closed below intraday highs, but still managed to gain fourteen percent for the day. The white metal closed at a new record closing price of $109.

“US treasuries sustained the brunt of the destruction today. The yield on the ten-year bond shot up to twelve percent. This is dismal news for the housing market. Home prices have struggled to gain traction ever since the collapse of the housing 2.0 bubble.

“In the wake of today’s turmoil, talks may resume over merging the Fed, European Central Bank, Bank of International Settlements, IMF, and World Bank with the central banks of Canada, Japan, and England. Several members of the House and Senate affiliated with the Constitutional, Libertarian, and Tea Party Movements of the past decade fought hard against the consolidation of the American central bank with global banking authorities. Those opposing the move cite that such a move would compromise US sovereignty.

“UN Secretary General Angelo Luz has urged President Clay to call an emergency session of Congress to allow the merger or to do it through executive order. Press Secretary Luis Fernandez told reporters that President Clay would consider all options. He added that today’s events brought to light the fragility of our financial system and that a global structure was needed to combat such systemic vulnerabilities.