“Because the only thing preventing our house of cards from falling is the fact that oil is bought and sold in dollars, American dollars. Take that away and everything goes bye-bye. The dollar collapses, the economy collapses, and civilization follows.”
Harvath was stunned. “And that’s what the Saudis threatened to do? Collapse the dollar?”
Jacobson nodded. “Normally, their intelligence services can’t even rub two sticks together, but this time they came up with one hell of an idea. Think about it. When the United States collapses, Saudi Arabia is going to be at the mercy of its neighbors. Why not work to make sure all of your neighbors are sympathetic to your cause? Let me ask you, in all of the Arab Spring countries that have been overthrown so far, who has risen up to be the new government?”
“The Muslim Brotherhood,” said Harvath.
“Which is loyal to which kinds of Muslims? The Shia Iranians, or the Sunni Saudis?”
“The Sunni Saudis, of course. Iran is Saudi Arabia’s greatest enemy.”
“The Saudis aren’t stupid. In fact, they’re quite cunning. They didn’t bother taking their ultimatum to America’s politicians, who are subject to reelection and the whims of the masses. They went over their heads and straight to the ultimate defender of the dollar, the Federal Reserve.
“What people don’t grasp,” Jacobson continued, “is that empires collapse. Ours will, too, if we don’t do everything we can to keep it alive.”
“And whose idea was it to go after the Fed candidates?” Harvath asked.
“Durkin’s.”
“Why?”
“Chairman Sawyer wasn’t just funding Durkin’s team for the Arab Spring; he was funding a ton of other projects as well. It was a quid pro quo. Durkin made the Arab Spring happen, and in return Sawyer secretly opened the money spigot for him. There was just one problem. He was growing increasingly uncomfortable with how Durkin was doing things.
“The chairman’s tenure was coming to an end, and he was the one who had pushed the Board of Governors and convinced them that the next chairperson should come from outside the Fed. The five candidates were all people he thought could successfully firewall the dollar off from any further Saudi threats and, just as important, would resist Durkin.”
“But Durkin found out about the candidates and had them killed,” said Harvath.
Jacobson nodded.
“And then what? He keeps killing candidates until he gets one he likes?”
“You’re not thinking like Durkin.”
“Elucidate me,” Harvath replied.
“He never set foot on the road to toppling any Muslim government without knowing exactly who he wanted to install at the top.”
“We didn’t get hired to prevent these murders, did we?” Harvath said.
“No. The Federal Reserve needed to be seen to be doing everything they could. Plus, we wanted to have an extra set of eyes and ears as close to the investigation as possible.”
“Who’s we? You and Monroe Lewis?”
There was a look on Jacobson’s face that sent all of the tumblers in Harvath’s mind locking into place. “That’s who Durkin wanted as the new chairman, isn’t it?”
Jacobson simply smiled.
“How were you going to do it?”
“The Federal Reserve has a lot of secrets. There’s one in particular that would be particularly damaging if it was brought to light.”
“You were going to blackmail the Board of Governors into recommending Lewis for the chairmanship?” Harvath asked.
“The governors are unaware of this particular skeleton in the Fed’s closet. Lewis was going to not only bring it to their attention, but offer a rather clever solution to the problem.”
“Which would result in his name being put forward for the chairmanship.”
Jacobson smiled again.
“And you came down here to kill Durkin to tie up loose ends.”
Jacobson’s smile continued.
Harvath studied the man’s face. “What’s in this for you?” he asked. “Why did you go along with it all?”
“The world economy is crumbling. Something very bad, very dark is on the horizon. The chaos and anarchy the United States will face is like nothing history has ever seen. It’s going to be beyond biblical,” he said, pausing for a moment before adding, “The storm’s coming and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. I just want a seat on the Ark.”
“And you didn’t care what you had to do to get it.”
Jacobson smiled once more and Harvath had heard enough. He had trekked far beyond his purview.
Stepping outside the safe house, he activated his satellite phone so that he and the Old Man could talk about it in private. This wasn’t something he could make the call on. The President himself would have to decide what to do next.
CHAPTER 73
WASHINGTON
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
“You can call it whatever you like, George” said the President to his Director of National Intelligence, “but I call it treason. We’re a nation of laws. That’s what makes us a republic. We need to start enforcing those laws and making examples of those who think they’re above them.”
“And the financial system?” the secretary of the Treasury asked.
“We need to allow it to fail. That damn Federal Reserve has done nothing but allow banks to take bigger and bigger risks, and whenever they get in over their heads, it’s the taxpayers and their hard-earned money that is used over and over again to bail them out. That needs to stop.”
“So we remove all restrictions from the financial industry?”
“Hell no,” the President said, rebuking him. “I want a top-to-bottom review in the next seventy-two hours. I want to streamline that entire industry. They’ll succeed or they’ll fail on their own, but they’ll know where the lines are drawn and that they’ll be enforced. No longer will we hold that any business is too big too fail, and I don’t want to hear that any person is too big to jail.
“It is going to be painful, I’ll give you that, but we need to take our medicine now, right now. If we don’t, we’ll never pull out of the nosedive we’re in. Our creditors need to know that not only do we have our house in order, we are also going to begin paying off our debt. For every job that’s been shipped overseas, we’re going to see five more spring up here by this government creating the most pro-business climate in the history of the modern world.”
“And what about the Federal Reserve?” the secretary of the Treasury asked.
“We’re not renewing their charter.”
“We’re not?” the man replied, stunned.
“No. The power to print money was intended for the Congress, not to be outsourced to some banking monopoly masquerading as a government agency. You’ve got twenty-four hours to get back to me with a plan on how we disentangle ourselves from the Fed.”
“But, Mr. President—” the man began.
“No buts. We’ve shut down central banks before in this country. It’s past time we do it again.”
“The shock to the economy could—”
“Be just what this country needs,” replied the President.
They went over a couple of additional items before the President thanked the Treasury secretary for coming and excused him from the balance of the meeting.
Harvath, Ryan, Wise, McGee, and Reed Carlton were all then shown into the Oval Office. It was the first time any of them had met the President. He directed them to the couches in the center of the room and asked them to sit down.
“We saw the secretary of the Treasury on his way out,” said Carlton. “He didn’t look so well.”
“Good,” replied the President. “Have you seen the state of our economy? The man should go to bed every night worrying that tomorrow he’ll be swinging from a lamppost if things don’t get better. I know I do.”
This President had been elected largely based on his common sense and a no-BS approach to problems. He was very charismatic and, unlike many of the slippery politicians in Washington, seemed to not only genuinely care about the condition that the country was in, but also to be truly confident that things could be turned around and that collapse wasn’t inevitable.