I adjusted my footing and heard a slight squishing sound. Glancing down, I saw bits of mud poking out from under my tuxedo shoes. Shifting my gaze, I saw a line of soiled footprints on the rich red wall-to-wall carpeting. Once upon a time, Mom would’ve killed me for such a crime. The thought made me smile.
I walked back to the door. Kicked off my shoes and placed them neatly on the doormat. As my sore toes sank into the cold, thick carpet, I eyed my handiwork.
As a kid, I recalled flying in the front door every day, bouncing around like a stork on one leg and then the other while I removed my shoes. I recalled tossing them onto the mat and then racing off to somewhere else. Later, I’d come back and find my shoes in a general heap. They were always a mess, but somehow they looked like they belonged.
My tuxedo shoes, in contrast, looked like props from a movie set. They didn’t seem to belong on that mat or anywhere else in the apartment.
I nudged one of the shoes, tipping it over. That was a little better. Then I shrugged off the tuxedo jacket and tossed it over the banister, just like I’d done as a kid.
My joints groaned as I scaled the spiral staircase. Upon reaching the fourth floor, I walked down a short hallway.
I saw a series of doors, all wide open. I veered into the first one on my right, just as I had so many times before. Odd smells — mud, sweat, and blood — hit my nostrils and I ground to a halt. In the darkness, I saw my old dressers, posters, trinkets, toys, my queen-sized bed, and…
What the…?
I eyed the bed for a moment. Then I reached to the wall and hit the light switch. A lamp came to life and I saw a woman lying on the bed.
She lay on her side, with her back to me, and tucked under a single sheet. Even so, I knew it was her. I could tell by her chestnut-colored hair. The curve of her torso. The length of her legs.
I swallowed as I gazed upon her corpse. I couldn’t see the bullet hole, but she was clearly a mess. Her hair looked bedraggled and was damp with sweat. I noticed bloodstains and dirt through the thin sheet.
Was this where she’d been all along? Or had Malware dumped her here as some kind of sick joke?
Wait…
I froze. Squinted at the bed.
Was that…?
Beverly’s lithe figure sagged toward me. Her eyes rolled open. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Hey lover,” she said in a sleepy voice. “How’d you find me?”
Chapter 32
“I have them,” Willow said. “Not the originals, of course. But the photographs are excellent.”
“Hang on a second.” A thrill shot down Ben’s spine as he peeked into the Roosevelt Room. A false skylight and numerous lamps provided an abundance of soft light. The sixteen-person conference table was empty.
Ben strode into the room and closed the heavy wood door. The room was named after the two President Roosevelts and decorated accordingly. A landscape portrait of Teddy, depicting him atop a horse during his Rough Rider days, hung above the fireplace mantel. A painting of the other Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, hung on the south wall.
Normally, the Roosevelt Room was used for staff meetings or as a prep space for large delegations. But due to the late hour, it now sat empty, making it the perfect place for a quick, clandestine conversation.
He began to pace across the room, his heart pounding like a drum. This was it. This was the moment. The mystery that had destroyed his father’s life was finally going to be laid to rest. “What do they say?”
“I’m working on it,” she replied.
He inhaled a sharp breath. In 1949, ten specially-engineered dump trucks had vanished in a remote section of the Appalachian Mountains during the dead of winter. And not vanished as in they’d gotten lost on some obscure winding road. One moment, the trucks — commandeered by Justin Reed and his cohorts — were parked quietly in a snow-filled clearing. The next moment, they were gone, vanished into thin air.
In a split-second, the Capitalist Curtain — along with Roy Marvin’s career — was forever derailed. Few events could truly be considered to have changed the course of world history. But that ultra-strange moment in the Appalachians was definitely one of them, despite the fact that few people would ever know about it.
“What’s there to work on?” he asked.
“The original documents weren’t exactly in pristine condition. The ink was faded and the pages were torn and ripped. Plus, Justin’ handwriting is a bear to unscramble, even for my systems. And it looks like he used shorthand in multiple locations. Long story short, it’s going to take a few more hours. But before this weekend is out, I should be able to tell you exactly how he pulled it off.”
Ben pictured his father in his mind. Roy had never told his son about that dark day. But after the man’s death, Ben had found piles upon piles of notes about the missing trucks. He’d pored through the information, amazed and inspired by his father’s audacious, but ill-fated plan to remake the world.
But that didn’t mean the past could be laid to rest. No, that strange moment in 1949 still mattered. Now, more than ever. If the trucks ever came to light, they would threaten all of Ben’s carefully laid plans. That was where his daughter came in. She was working to track them down, to make sure they stayed missing.
So far, she’d done an excellent job of it. She’d used her systems to figure out what Cy’s dad, Drew Reed, had been trying to do shortly before his premature death. She’d tracked down Justin’s safe deposit box using long-forgotten records. She’d staged a riot to occupy the police while manipulating Cy into retrieving the box for her.
“How are things on your end?” Willow asked.
“Fine, thanks to you.”
“Speaking of which, why’d you turn on Terry?”
“She turned on us,” Ben explained. “And threatened to undo the transactions.”
Inspired by his father’s desire to bring about world peace, Ben had come up with his own plan to do the same months earlier. It was incredibly simple, especially given the gigantic amount of debt accumulated by the U.S. government over the years.
At its heart was the Working Group on Capital Markets, a.k.a. the so-called Plunge Protection Team. The PPT, created by President Reagan in 1988, consisted of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Or, in people terms, Terry Horst, Lori Scott, Harold Sanchez, and himself. Over the years, the PPT had gradually soaked up power during times of crisis. Now, it regularly — and illegally — bought massive quantities of individual stocks, index funds, and stock index futures in order to stabilize the marketplace.
Nine months ago, Ben had convinced Horst, Scott, and Sanchez that America’s economy was destined to collapse from excess debt and that it was up to them to soften the blow. It wasn’t a hard sell. All four of them had spent their careers as modern-day Cassandras, warning anyone who would listen that the U.S. economy was in desperate straits.
And so, they decided to bring about a controlled collapse of the American economy. It was inevitable anyway. Really, all they were doing was speeding up the timetable.
America’s undoing would ruin the global economy. In the aftermath, the PPT would work with its overseas counterparts to build a currency system overseen by global governance. Then the long, painful process of recovery could begin. But for Ben, there was a secondary motive beyond helping America through an unavoidable collapse. When the entire world was under one flag, there would be no more nationalism, no more strife. No more war. At long last, all of humanity would be on the same side, ready to face the challenges of tomorrow. Finally, Roy’s dream of world peace would become a reality.