The Hermetrius Conspiracy Read online

  He saved the best for last. As he opened the FedEx pack he thought ‘maybe this one is from PCH.’ When he saw what was in it, his first thought was ‘maybe this is even better!’ The cover letter was from a Winston Securities whistle blower claiming that large sums of money were paid to several Government officials to get big contracts for six defense contractors, and that the money came from financial firms associated with Winston Securities. If this was true, it could be the opening he needed to finally connect Charles Winston with illegal activities! The package included copies of two contract documents listing the amounts paid by Silicon Systems and MTX Military to prominent politicians. The whistle blower included the contract numbers of three additional payments by defense contractors, and claimed there was another contractor payoff that he couldn’t find documentation for. The best part came at the end of the letter; offshore bank account numbers where five of the payments were deposited and the amounts of the kickback payoffs.

  If Jeb just had the politicians’ names who were tied to these accounts, he could bust this thing wide open. The names must be tied to the numbered offshore accounts, and the letter gave him the account numbers. He had a hacker friend who could get into the bank computers and check the balance in each account. If they matched the kickback amounts for the five contracts, that would confirm that what the whistle blower gave him was true. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the secure number for the hacker. When the phone robot answered, he left his name and the number of one of his burner phones.

  He got the return call ten minutes later and talked to someone who was using a voice disguiser. He explained what he wanted – the balance of five offshore numbered accounts, and the names associated with those accounts. He told him that he needed the information as soon as possible.

  “I can have the account balances by tomorrow but the names will take me a week.”

  “How much with it cost me?”

  “$500 apiece for the account balances and $1,000 each for the names. Deposited into my PayPal account when I let you know I have the information ready to send.”

  “I can handle that. Use my secure email address to contact me. Goodbye.”

  Jeb was well paid, thanks to his Pulitzer, and kept a large balance in a personal account for just this sort of thing. If he went to his editor now for the $2,500 without something more solid he would get turned down. But if he broke it into a two-part story – the first with the contractor names, amounts paid out, and identical amounts in offshore accounts, ending with a teaser about next week’s story with the politicians names included, he was sure his editor would pay the $5,000 to get the names.

  ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t get that date with Jenny because I’ll be working late tonight putting a draft of this story together. Then, when I get the offshore account balances tomorrow, I can just insert a couple more paragraphs and run it up to the editor.’ He opened a new document on his Mac computer and thought about a headline, then typed ‘Government Officials Caught in a Kickback Scandal.’

  Chapter 54

  Two days later Harriet opened the web site for the online edition of the American Reporter Daily and saw the headline. “Guys! Get in here quick! We made the front page!”

  When they had gathered around, Harriet read the story out loud. Jim Norton said “It looks like Collins came through for us. He may be a liberal, but he writes a good story.”

  Lynn pointed out the last paragraph. “He says he will give the names in Part Two, to be printed in next week’s paper. It looks like we hit the jackpot.”

  Jack agreed. “When he reveals the names next week, this is going to hit the fan. We’ll see denials, backpedalling, and all sorts of political gymnastics. So what should we do next, Jim?”

  “It may take Collins too long to stumble into the election conspiracy, so I think I should write another letter outlining the election fraud over the past several years. If he does his homework, he will make the same connection to the source of the funds that Rick did, and expose Winston and his conspiracy. What do you all think?”

  They all agreed with Jim about the next step. Tom had a thought. “We need to understand the consequences of what we’re doing here. If Collins digs up enough to prove that it’s all part of a conspiracy to take over the country in the upcoming election, that could disrupt the primary election process, maybe even delay it.”

  “And that will guarantee a heavily liberal Government for the next several years.” Jack added. “This gets back to my earlier observation that maybe we should just let the conservatives run the country for a term or two to get us back on the road to recovery from the ‘liberalitis’ disease that has swept the country. But with the extremes that Winston has in mind, it would be disastrous if we didn’t stop it.”

  Rick spoke up. “But if it did happen, we could make millions short-selling stocks and mutual funds. Just a thought.”

  “So what do we do now. Hurry up and wait for Collins to publish Part Two?”

  “That, and watch the other media to see if they pick up the story. Let’s check one of the 24- hour news channels and see how long it takes them to cover it.”

  #

  Three days later Harriet opened up the online American Reporter site and couldn’t believe her eyes. The headline was ‘Kickback Scandal Revealed as Hoax.’ This time she read the entire story before calling in the others. “Well, you can all see today’s headline on my screen. I read the details, and it claims that Jeb Collins made up the story about the kickbacks to revive his failing reputation as an investigative reporter. The companies named as paying out the kickbacks have opened up the contract files to Government auditors, and there was no record of the payments. They reported that even the off-shore account numbers were phony. They never existed. The paper apologized to the public and fired Collins.”

  No one spoke for several seconds as they saw their only hope for stopping the conspiracy disappear. Jack broke the silence. “Winston’s money and influences reaches out a lot farther than we thought. He apparently had the connections to discredit the American Reporter story and not only close the offshore accounts, but make it seem like they never existed.”

  Lynn said “Maybe that information is a lie. Jack, why don’t you hack into the Caribbean banks again just to be sure the accounts are closed.”

  “That’s a bad idea, Lynn. I almost got caught before, and this time they will be lying in wait for me to try again.”

  Tom said what everyone was thinking. “This makes everything we have useless. No matter how we try to get the information out now, it’s been discredited as a hoax. Does someone have any other ideas that we can try?”

  Jack sighed. “Let’s sleep on it and get together after breakfast.”

  #

  Jack hooked his computer up to the big screen TV again and turned to address the group. “What we’re going to do this morning is brainstorm possible approaches to stopping Winston’s plans. The rules of brainstorming are simple. You think up stuff, and I write it on the list. No idea is too crazy. Everything goes on the list. No one talks about why this or that won’t work. We’ll go back over the list later and discuss the strong and weak point of each idea. Then we’ll prioritize the list based on a set of criteria to be determined. O.K. Who wants to start it off?”

  Rick had the first idea. “I think we should dig deeper into the elections Winston has been fixing. If we can connect him to the payoffs and blackmail it took to get the ultra-conservatives elected, maybe the Government will go after him for fraud or something.”

  Harriet replied “No, Rick, that could takes us months and we don’t have that kind of time.”

  Jack stepped in. “You just broke brainstorming rule number one, Harriet. No nay saying. Not until we’re done with the list. Who’s next?”

  Jim spoke up. “I think we should attack Winston from within. I know where most of the plans for his various initiatives are kept in the company computer. If my passwords haven’t been shut down, maybe I can get
at that information. Jack would have to hack me into their mainframe computer, but once he gets me in I can download the files we need in an hour or two.”

  “Alright, who is going to give us idea number three?”

  Lynn offered the next one. “Maybe we could use Winston’s techniques against him. Make up some slanderous stories about Senator Roberts and release them just before Super Tuesday. The press wouldn’t have time to discredit them, and it might cause him to lose some of the key primaries.” Jack wrote that on the list.

  Tom had been quiet so far. “In the true spirit of brainstorming, I have to add this one. Maybe we should kill Roberts.”

  That brought a shocked silence. Lynn broke it by pointing out the idea was way out of bounds for this discussion. Jack added it to the list anyway.

  Jack spoke to the silence. “Is there any way we can stop this by attacking Winston? Either his financial empire or his political connections?”

  “It will take some time but you could try to hack into his computer system to plant viruses and worms that will selectively destroy the records and file we chose.”

  “Good, that’s number six. What’s next?”

  Tom offered one more idea. “Would killing Winston stop this runaway train? Remember, this guy had a bomb planted under my car. I would have no problem killing him.”

  Jim said “We can go ahead and reject this one, even though that’s against brainstorming rules. Winston has this whole thing set up so that, if anything happens to him, everything will continue as planned. As much as I would like to consider this possibility, it shouldn’t make the list.”

  They kicked around a few other suggestions, but ended up with the list of six approaches to stopping this disaster. Then they started comparing the pros and cons of each idea. They concluded the first one, having Rick continuing to hunt for proof that Winston was fixing election, should be pursued, but not with the expectation that it would give them enough to stop the conspiracy before Super Tuesday.

  They reached the same conclusion for Jim’s idea of hacking Winston Securities’ mainframe computer. They could learn a lot about Winston’s plans, but it probably wouldn’t give them a way to stop the conspiracy before the Republican primaries.

  Lynn’s idea of creating false information showing that Senator Roberts was involved in some scandalous or illegal behavior had promise, but they would need more than a story leaked to National Enquirer to knock Roberts out of the race. And they had no fabricated photos or documents to support the leak.

  Infecting Winston’s mainframe with viruses and other malicious software would be fun, but Jim assured them that Winston Securities kept two generations of total system backups stored off site, and even he didn’t have access to those computers.

  That left them with Tom’s idea. Everyone turned toward him and waited for him to explain why he proposed it. “Well, it’s the only solution that guarantees Winston’s man won’t get into the White House. Jim already told us that they have a contingency plan to hijack the Republican convention if Roberts doesn’t win enough primaries. So even if we discredited him with fictional accounts of impropriety, they could still get the nomination by paying off or blackmailing selected delegates. The only way to be assured that Roberts can’t be President is to take him out.”

  No one was nodding their head in agreement, even though his logic was inescapable.

  Jack closed the discussion by putting Tom’s idea at the bottom of the priority list as a last ditch solution.

  They broke for lunch, then Jack got them together again. “New topic. What do we do next, as a group or as individuals. Now that everything we know is labeled a hoax, with all the evidence erased, Winston has no reason to want us dead. Although I think we should all lay low, at least until after the November election, we can return to whatever life we want for ourselves after that.”

  Lynn gave an angry retort. “So we should just quit what we’re doing? Give up and slink away?”

  “No, not at all. That’s not what I meant. Even if Winston gets his man into the White House, we will still keep looking for opportunities to uncover the conspiracy that put him there. I can set up a private network that includes only us. We would interact as often as we need to over the network and encrypted phones, then get back together concentrate on a specific issue.”

  “The next part of future planning is what do we do to earn a living. I’m retired and semi-wealthy so I won’t need to work. Harriet and Tom can’t go back to work for the FRA, so you will have to find employment of some kind. Tom, you can finally get back to your family, but do you have any idea what you can do for a living?”

  “I suppose I could work for a private security agency, if I had any connections.”

  “I may be able to help you with that. An old friend of mine who is ex-FBI, Dave Cramer, has his own private security business and he’s been after me to come and work for him. I’m sure if I put in a good word for you, he would hire you.”

  Rick said “Harriet and I have been thinking about this and I think I’ll keep running my real estate firm, but from some remote location. I’ve been training an assistant, and I think he’s ready to handle the day-to-day management.”

  Lynn asked, “So are you going to go back to your home and work from there?”

  “No, I think we’ll rent a place for awhile and then settle down. We may buy the gentleman farmer’s house we used for hideout and move in next year. Jim, what about you?”

  “Winston will do everything he can to get even with me, so I’ll have to stay under cover for the foreseeable future. I have enough money put aside so I can live comfortably wherever I go. Maybe a condo in the Caribbean. I don’t have a family to worry about. Winston kept me too busy to even think about that. But, who knows, I might find someone in the condo next door.”

  “What about you and Lynn?” Harriet asked.

  Jack answered, “We really haven’t given it much thought, other than we will stay together. In case you all haven’t noticed, we are deeply in love. But I have worries that Winston might send someone after us eventually, especially if we disrupt his plan. He hates to lose. ”

  “The next thing you’re wondering about is when will we go our separate ways. I think we should stay together here until after Super Tuesday, and see what the outcome is. We will keep trying out some of the ideas on our list, just to see if we get lucky. And maybe Jeb Collins will keep digging even though he’s been fired. There’s big money in the story if he can get some solid evidence.”

  Tom had an idea. “Do you think we should contact Collins and ask him to join our group? We only sent him part of what we have, and the rest of it would give him more to work with.”

  “Another great idea. Tom, will you call him in the morning and see if he’s receptive to it?”

  “Sure, but before I call I’ll see what I can find out about him. He’s still a liberal and we wouldn’t want him secretly doing a story on us.”

  Jack wrapped things up. “Let’s call it a day. Take the rest of the day off – with pay – and we start on the list in the morning.” That brought some chuckles as they broke up.

  Chapter 55

  Lynn waited until she and Jack were laying side by side in bed before she brought up what had been on her mind since Jack told the group that it was time to break up. She rolled over and snuggled up to his side and asked, “When you told the group that we ‘haven’t given much thought’ to what we’ll do next, did you mean that? I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I know what we’ll do next.”

  “What’s that, sweetheart?”

  “We will find the nearest church, get married, find a motel room, and break our vow of chastity big time. Until then, anticipation makes the heart grow fonder. Isn’t that a quote by some famous poet?”

  They both lay there anticipating for awhile. Then Lynn asked another question. “On the more practical side, where do you think we should settle down?”

  “Well, as much as I would like to go back to my cabi
n in West Virginia, that would be too risky, especially if Winston wants to get even. But I think your place in Telluride would be safe enough.”

  “Really, Jack! Oh, I would be so happy if we could live there. That place feels like part of me and, with the two of us living there as man and wife, it would be even more of a home.”

  “That reminds me of some unfinished business. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  After a few minutes, Jack came back into the bedroom, and got down on one knee, and asked, “Lynn Martin, will you be my wife?” as he held out a beautiful braided gold wire ring.

  “I thought you would never ask! But I need some time to think about it. . . . O.K. I’ve made up my mind. Of course I will marry you, you big sentimentalist. I would have settled for ‘Hey babe, let’s get hitched.’”

  Jack slipped the braided gold ring on her finger. “Where did you get the ring?”

  “I took the gold wire from some high-speed computer cables that I sacrificed for the cause and braided it myself.”

  “It’s lovely, Jack. Truly lovely.”

  She slipped her arms around his neck and gave him the most passionate kiss they had shared so far.

  #

  At breakfast Jack brought up a new idea. “I have been thinking about Lynn’s suggestion of creating a fake scandal to ruin Senator Robert’s reputation. But maybe we can uncover a real scandal. He’s remarried since his first wife’s murder to a socialite, who was probably hand-picked to fill the President’s wifely duties. But if he was cheating on his first wife, there’s a pretty good chance he’s cheating on his new wife. What if we could uncover an actual affair, and get solid evidence – hotel bills, photographs, apartment rental records, clothing and jewelry purchases – anything that the media will accept as proof.”

  Harriet asked the obvious question, “And how are you going to get this information?”

  “Tom, you, and I are trained agents. We know how to go undercover, using a variety of disguises that can change daily if necessary, and maintain 24-hour surveillance on anyone we choose. I propose that we keep Senator Roberts under surveillance to find out who he is having affairs with, where he is meeting her, and if possible, plant some cameras to get video of the lurid details that will guarantee maximum public exposure.”