Warren Shusett, the world's most successful investor.
J. D. Cairnton, chairman of the colossal Astronox Pharmaceutical Company.
Jonathan Killian, chairman and CEO of Axon Corp, the vast missile and warship-building conglomerate.
The list went on.
Apart from, the absence of a few retail fortunes—like the Walton family in America, the Albrechts in Germany or the Mattencourts
in France—it could have been a list of the Top Ten Richest People on Earth.
And as Major Benjamin Rosenthal had discovered, they were all men whose fortunes would be considerably enlarged by one thing.
Rosenthal on the screen: ''Their fortunes are based on military action. War. World War II was the foundation of the Quandt steel empire. In the '60s, Randolph Loch was one of the most vocal supporters of the US going to Vietnam. Warfare consumes oil. Warfare consumes steel. Warfare calls for the construction of thousands of new ships, helicopters, guns, bombs, pharmaceutical kits. In a world of big business, global warfare is the biggest business of them all.''
And at another time:
'Look at the "War on Terror". The United States dropped over four thousand bombs on the mountains of Afghanistan, and for what result? They didn 't destroy bridges or supply routes, or military nerve centres. But when four thousand bombs are used, four thousand bombs must be replenished. And that means buying them. And what happened after Afghanistan? Surprise, surprise: another fight was found, this time with Iraq.''
Another cut:
'Do not underestimate the influence these men wield. They make Presidents, and they break them. From Bill Clinton's impeachment to the rise of a former KGB agent named Vladimir Putin to the Presidency of Russia, Majestic-12 always has a say in who sits in the seats of world power and for how long. Even if it doesn't directly bankroll a given President's campaign, it always maintains the ability to bring him down at any given moment.
'To this end Majestic-12 has forged strong links with leading figures in the world's major intelligence agencies. The Director of the CIA: a former business partner of Randolph Loch. The head of MI-6: Cornelius Kopassus's brother-in-law. That Killian fellow has been a regular visitor to the Paris home of the Director of the DGSE.
'After all,' the Mossad agent smiled, 'who knows more about a country's leaders than that country's own intelligence service?'
On the TV screen, Rosenthal became serious:
'More than anything else, though, the war that M-12 loved the most, the war that garnered them more wealth than they ever dreamed of, was the one war that was never actually fought: the US-Soviet Cold War.
'Desert Storm. Bosnia. Somalia. Afghanistan. Iraqi Freedom. They pale in comparison to the absolute goldmine that was the Cold War. For as the US-Soviet arms race continued apace and indirect Cold War clashes occurred in Korea and Vietnam, the members of M-12 amassed fortunes of monstrous proportions.
'But then in 1991 the impossible happened: the Soviet Union collapsed and it all disappeared.
'The Berlin Wall fell and like a dam breaking, American consumerism flooded the globe. And the biggest winners in the globalised world were no longer American military manufacturers. They were American consumer goods retailers: Nike, Coca-Cola, Microsoft. Or European companies like BMW and L'Oreal. I mean, honestly, make-up retailers!
'And so ever since, the members of Majestic-12 have been looking for the one thing that will, without question, restore them to their former glory . . .'
At that moment, with a flourish, Rosenthal extracted another document from one of his files and held it to the camera.
'. .. a new Cold War.'
Book II now held that very same document in his hands.
The TV screen in front of him was paused, the image of Rosenthal frozen.
Book scanned the document. It read:
Source Delivery Sys. lil-H Origin______Target Time
Talbot Shahab-S TN7b 35702.10 00001.bS 11W
5001.00 5231.10
Shahab-S TN7b 35702-10 00420-02 114S
sooi.oo moo.25
Shahab-5 TN7b 35702-10 01312-15 1145
SOOI.OO 53S6-7S
Ambrose Shahab-5 TN7b 26743-05 26743-16 1200
4104-55 4104.b4
Shahab-S TN7b 2A743-05 26231-05 1200
4104-5S 3635-70
Jewel Taep'o-Dong-2 N-fl 23222-b2 23222-70 1215
3745-75 3745-60
Taep'o-Dong-2 N-6 23222-b2 24230-50 1215
3745-75 3533-02
Taep'o-Dong-2 N-6 23222-b2 23157-05 1215
3745-75 4130-52
Hopewell Taep' o-I>ong-2 N-6 11100-00 Ilb22-S0 1230
2327-00 4000-00
Taep'o-Dong-2 N-6 11100-00 11445-60 1230
2327-00 2243-25
Whale Shahab-S TN7b 070M0.MS 07725-05 ISMS
2327-00 2T5fi.bS
Shahab-S TN7b 070M0-MS 07332-bO 12MS
2327-00 3230-SS
Names and numbers leapt out at Book, and at first he couldn't make head or tail of it.
But then, slowly, parts of it began to make sense. He recognised the two most repeated names.
Shahab-5 and Taep'o-Dong-E.
The Shahab-5 and the Taep'o-Dong-2 were missiles.
Long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Shahab-5 was built by Iran. The Taep'o-Dong-2 by North Korea.
If international terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda or Global Jihad were to ever get their hands on missiles that could deliver nuclear strikes against the West, it would be the Shahab and the Taep'o-Dong.
And each of the missiles was nuclear-tipped, as evidenced by the notations: TN-7b and N-fl. The TN-76 was a French-made nuclear warhead; the N-8 was North Korean.
But this list didn't belong to any terrorist organisation.
It belonged to Majestic-12.
And then it hit Book.
Could this be Majestic-12 impersonating a terrorist organisation?
He turned quickly, unpaused the image of Rosenthal on the screen.
The Israeli agent spoke again: 'This new Cold War is an enhanced War against Terrorism. A 50-year War on Terror.
'Majestic-12 are utilising two US projects to execute their plan: one is called "Kormoran", the other "Chameleon". Kormoran encompasses the launch vessels: missile-launching warships disguised as container ships or supertankers. These supertanker shells are built by the Kopassus Shipping Group, while the missile-launch systems are inserted into those shells at Axon plants in Norfolk, Virginia and Guam. These ships—ordinary-looking supertankers
and container ships—can sit in harbours and ports around the world and yet never be noticed. That is Kormoran.
'The "Chameleon" project, however, is far more sinister. Indeed, it is perhaps the most sinister program ever devised by the United States. It centres on the missiles themselves. You see, the missiles mentioned in the document are not pure Shahabs or Taep'o-Dongs.
'Rather, they are US-built clones of those missiles. What you have to understand is that every major missile in the world has its own personal characteristics: flight signature, contrail wake, even the blast signature left after an impact. Chameleon is designed to exploit these differences. It is a deep-black US project under which America is building intercontinental ballistic missiles that mimic the characteristics of ICBMs built by other countries.