Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

“He’s badly mistaken if he thinks I won’t hound his ass to the gates of hell and back. But to buy time, I’m authorizing you to make the deposit.”

“Very good, Mr. President. I assumed you’d agree to his condition, and I’ve prearranged everything. One call and the transaction will be completed.”

“And the second ticking clock you were talking about?” Arnie asked.

“The banks I’ve spoken with are fully aware of the scale and scope of this crisis. I’ve received personal assurances from each of them that they won’t act unilaterally but they will only give us until end of business today to work out some kind of a solution.”

“And I’ve reached out to my counterparts at the ECB and the BOJ,” Moorcroft said. “They also agree to abstain from any unilateral action until we can coordinate our response. The question remains, what is it we want to do?”

“How long do we have to fix this thing?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Obviously. But what’s the absolute outer limit of time we have to come up with something?”

“It’s Wednesday,” Hodges said. “If we could come up with some plausible reason for an extended global bank and market holiday through the weekend, we’d be pushing it. I’d say before markets open Monday morning would be the absolute outer limit. And that’s assuming we can get the Russians and Chinese on board.”

Ryan checked his watch. “Just under one hundred and nineteen hours to save the world? No wonder you guys were sweating buckets when we came in.” Ryan rubbed his chin, thinking. “Can your technical people come up with some kind of story about a computer virus that’s playing havoc in the international banking community?”

“That kind of news could cause a panic all on its own,” Hodges warned.

“Not if we say it’s contained, that all records are digitized and in order, and that no one has lost any money. We’ll tell them that in order to purge the system we need to shut it all down. Something along those lines. I’m not a computer guy. It just has to be believable to the average joe to avoid a mass run on the banks and a general panic.”

“We can get the big banks and Wall Street behind this,” Arnie said. “They can make announcements in support of all of this, and they’ll do it because it’s their bacon in the frying pan.”

“Assuming we can convince the whole world to stop banking until next Monday, then what?” Hodges asked. “How do we restore the five-trillion-dollar losses to the banks?”

Ryan smiled.

“That’s the easy part.”

—

“Easy?” Arnie asked. “How?”

“We create our own five-trillion-dollar string of ones and zeros,” Ryan said.

“What? Just create five trillion dollars”—Arnie snapped his fingers—“like that? How is that even possible?”

“Modern money is a kind of fiction. It’s a story we tell ourselves to keep away the scary monsters of our uncertainties,” Ryan said. “Digital money—those ones and zeros on a hard drive—has value because people believe it has value.”

“You’re waxing a little too poetic, boss. Simplify it for a knuckle dragger like me.”

“Currencies like the U.S. dollar used to be based on something tangible, like gold. From 1834 until FDR outlawed the private ownership of gold in April 1933, you could trade in $20.69 American for one ounce of gold, and vice versa. That way you knew that your paper dollars were always worth something of real value.

“Not anymore. It’s all fiat currency. The only thing sustaining the U.S. dollar is the ‘full faith and credit’ of the U.S. government. In other words, psychology.

“Same with every other government using fiat currency, which is all of them. If you trust the government to protect your money, you trust your money. If the government says that digital dollars are safe, then they’re safe.”

Arnie nodded, suddenly seeing the bigger picture. “And if someone steals all the money, it means your government can’t keep the money safe, which means people think that money has lost all of its value, and all economic activity grinds to a halt.”

“It also means we’ve lost the ‘full faith and credit’ of the American people,” Moorcroft added. “And if they lose confidence in our ability to protect them on this most fundamental level—the means to feed and clothe and house their families—then I shudder to think what the political aftermath of that might be.”

“We can avoid all of this if we can prove that those digital dollars really are safe,” Ryan said. “All we have to do is create five trillion new dollars and replace the stolen ones with it.”

Moorcroft frowned. “What about inflation? Interest rates? What about—”

Ryan held up his hand, cutting the chairman off. “I would only do this as a stopgap until we can recover the stolen five trillion. When we get it back, we’ll toss it in the desktop trash can, so to speak, and balance the books.”

“But no government has ever done anything like this before. I’m afraid you’ll open up a Pandora’s box with this precedent,” Arnie said.

“I think you’re forgetting about quantitative easing,” Moorcroft said. “And the other tools in the Federal Reserve’s toolbox. Just as the letter said, we created sixteen trillion dollars ‘out of thin air’ during the banking crisis.”

“But that’s different,” Arnie said. “That was done to stimulate the economy. If Congress thinks they can just start printing ‘free’ money for votes, then all bets are off.”

“They already do. It’s called twenty-three trillion dollars of national debt,” Hodges said. “But at least that took them over two hundred years to figure out.”

Ryan shook his head. “I can’t worry about what politicians might do in the future, Stephen. All I know is that this move will buy us time and may prevent the collapse we’re all afraid of. I think it’s worth the gamble, unless one of you has a better solution.”

Hodges nodded, reluctantly accepting the logic. “Perhaps you’re right, Mr. President. But if word of this gets out to the general public, it will still cause a panic, and a crisis in confidence in global currencies, and still lead to the collapse we’re trying to avoid, even if we promise to restore the five trillion in losses.”

“Agreed.” Ryan turned to the chairman. “Wes?”

The chairman shrugged. “This is a dangerous course of action that poses considerable risks over the long run. But I’m at a loss to offer a superior solution to the immediate crisis. I think it’s the way to proceed.”

“Arnie?”

“Sounds crazy enough to work, boss. But only if you can get everyone involved on the same page by Monday. Frankly, I don’t think that’s going to happen. You’d have a better chance of herding a hundred frightened cats all into the same litter box to take a shit together. And it doesn’t solve your bigger problem.”

“I know. We’ve got to find the bastard who did this or it could happen all over again tomorrow.”

63

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE

Jack knew it was a felony to impersonate a federal agent, even if it was a fake agency like the Department of Homeland Investigations. But he was desperate and it was the only move he could come up with back at the UPS Store. He also felt guilty about lying to the nice UPS lady, especially after she thanked him for his service. But deception was as important a weapon in his business as the Glock 43 in his holster. Thankfully she bought the ruse, otherwise she might have felt compelled to call this Agent Kang and put her on his tail.

Since the FBI had been to Runtso’s “office,” Jack assumed they’d already paid a visit to his home. They’d probably cleared out anything useful. But maybe they missed something that could tell him about Runtso’s work or any connection he might have to Sammler or even Bykov. Something that tied him to Renée would be great, too. Any intel he could find on RAPTURE would be a home run. It was a real long shot but worth the try.