“Like an invisible elephant?” Honi replied. “And all we can see is a little straw?”
“Yeah.”
“I feel it, too. I just can’t figure out what it is.”
“So far, we have the criminal Phoenix Organization, which has infiltrated the military with General Teague and the two missing nuclear weapons. Senator Thornton is involved on the political side. We know several international central banks are involved in massive money transfers using gold bearer bonds that have been around for the last seventy-five years without being honored, but now, finally, they are. It feels like something huge is taking place, but we’re only seeing bits and pieces of it. The problem is, I don’t know where to look for additional pieces.”
“So we’re back to rule number one — follow the money,” Honi said.
They finished their dinner and returned to B6, area 4.
“Good timing,” Brett said. “Combined display coming up now. I changed the military/corporate color to pink and made all of the money connections in shades of green.”
“Green for money,” Jake said.
“Exactly. Dark green for central banks, like the Federal Reserve, medium green for major international banks, and light green for smaller banks and private accounts. All accounts with known criminal or terrorist connections are now circled in bright green.”
Jake studied the display. “The money flow follows the phone connections. Not exactly, though, because like here, and here, there are extra phone connections. But look, the phone connections and the money come back together.”
“This is huge,” Honi said. “It runs all over the world.”
“Yeah. Maybe we’re getting our first look at part of the elephant.”
“What elephant?” Brett asked.
“A figure of speech,” Jake replied.
“I assumed that. If you can give me more of an idea of exactly what you’re looking for, I can find it faster.”
“I wish I could. We’re looking for the Phoenix Organization. It spans the major governments, militaries, financial institutions and universities around the planet.”
“What do all the governments, militaries, financial institutions and universities have in common?” Brett asked.
“Well, they all have substantial amounts of money flowing to them. Beyond that, I have no idea.”
“Okay, what don’t they have in common? When you put a circle around a group of objects, whatever is inside the circle is what they have in common. Whatever is outside the circle is what they don’t have in common. Either method will define the circle.”
“It will, won’t it,” Jake replied. “Honi, do you have a list of all the companies and universities that are working with DARPA?”
“No, but I know where I can get it.” She pulled her phone and called Major Stafford. After a thirty second conversation, she disconnected. “List will be here in a few minutes.”
“What about defense contractors?” Jake asked.
“That list I have.”
“I can compare the defense contractor list to our new database and see what pops,” Brett said.
“Do that,” Honi said.
“Huh. Only two percent overlap.”
Honi’s phone buzzed. “Text from Stafford. I’m forwarding it to you, Brett.”
“Okay, companies and universities working with DARPA. Amount of overlap is… three percent.”
“So the official military industrial complex is outside the circle,” Jake said. “Universities have different departments. Can we determine which departments are being funded from the money flow?”
Tracy typed. “University funding from our criminal Phoenix Organization is going to… that’s odd.”
“What?”
“I was expecting chemistry, or medical, you know, with a drug connection.”
“So where is it going?”
“Thirty-two percent is going to physics, primarily theoretical quantum physics, twenty-one percent to electrical engineering, three percent to chemical engineering, and get this…fifty percent to materials engineering.”
“What does that come to? Sixty eight percent is going to engineering? What is a world-wide criminal organization doing putting all that money into engineering? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It may,” Honi said. “Look at the screen. The money going into engineering is coming through these corporations, not the government or the military.”
“And what are these corporations? I don’t recognize any of them,” Jake said.
“I’m running them through the database,” Tracy said. “They’re all shell corporations. Five, six, here are some that are seven layers deep. Corporations that own corporations that only own other corporations.”
“Who’s behind it?” Jake asked.
“Six international mega-corporations and eight of the world’s largest banks.”
“Does that list include the Vatican bank?”
“It does.”
“Okay, how much money has gone into these universities?”
“Over what period of time?”
“Can you go back ten years?”
“Sure,” Tracy said. “Over the last ten years…two point eight trillion dollars.”
“Two point eight trillion?” Jake almost shouted. “On engineering?”
“Yes.”
“This money comes through essentially criminal enterprises.” He turned to Honi. “Can you get Ken Bartholomew in here on this? We need what he knows.”
Honi called Pettigrew and made the request. “We’ll know in half an hour.”
“I’m just curious,” Jake said. “Anybody know how much it cost us to put a man on the moon?”
“Twenty-five point four billion dollars,” Tracy said. “But those are 1973 dollars. Today you’d be looking at 200 billion.”
“I just wanted a sense of scale. If we could do the engineering, the building and the testing to put a man on the moon for, in today’s dollars, 200 billion, what are they building for 14 times that amount of money just for the engineering?”
“They’re building something?” Honi said.
“Yes. The man-on-the-moon project was the biggest and most advanced project on the planet at that time. Whatever they’re building is not only huge by comparison, it’s also incredibly advanced.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s what you get for that kind of money in engineering. The next question is who is doing the building and testing, and where? Plus, what are they doing with two nuclear weapons?”
Honi’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen. “We have to go. Stafford just found the plane used to move the hydrogen bomb.”
“Where?”
“Los Angeles.”
CHAPTER 12
The FBI jet landed at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base in Long Beach, California in the late afternoon. A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was waiting for them. The twenty-minute helicopter flight took them just to the north of due east over Anaheim and through the mountain pass to the Corona Municipal Airport. Army soldiers swarmed the small airfield and Jake spotted one of the NEST equipped helicopters working the surrounding neighborhoods.
“This is the plane. The airport reported it abandoned and unregistered this morning,” Stafford said as Jake and Honi walked over to him. “Residual radiation from the B83 is present in the cargo area.”
“How long has it been here?” Jake asked.
“Arrived sometime between midnight and dawn. Maintenance supervisor left at twelve and it wasn’t here then. There’s no control tower, so nobody actually saw the plane land. Landing lights are turned on by accessing a radio frequency from the plane.”
“You think Los Angeles is the target?”
“Three point eight million people inside the blast radius. Second largest city in the country. It would be a logical choice.”