“These were all the young girls you raped.Every last one of them aborted your children.Marilyn had a purpose.She could get into any system, steal information, credit card numbers, names, all of it.In fact, you thought she’d wiped out any record of these women.”
“She told me she had,” he said biting his fingernail.
“She tried.We were better,” said Wyatt.“Where is Marilyn?”
“I don’t know.She was here earlier, angry and running because of all of you.”
“What is she doing hacking into the Pentagon, the DOD, the DOJ, and every other fucking agency in this shithole town?” growled Ben.
“I-I’m not sure what you’re…”Kiel’s fist came down so hard on the top of the old desk, he cracked the wood.A long split from the front to the back.
“What.Is.She.After?” he said slowly and deliberately.
“The nuclear defense systems and codes,” he said calmly.“She intends to auction them off to the highest bidder.There are several that are interested, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“You fucking traitor,” said Ben reaching across the desk.He gripped the old man’s lapels and pulled him over the desk just as his assistant walked into the room.
“Oh!Oh, my.Security!”
“Yes, you call security,” said Ben over his shoulder.“Your boss is about to be arrested.”
Security didn’t have a chance to get into the room.Outside were five federal agents hearing everything that was occurring on the inside.
“We have to find the woman,” said Ben.
“We sent two federal agents out to look for her car, a Lincoln SUV.We haven’t heard anything yet, but we’ll let you know when we do.”
“Thank you,” nodded Kiel.
“You guys are something else,” smirked the agent.“We suspected this asshole for years but no one could pin anything on him.Now we know why.The daughter was erasing everything.”
“Let us know what you find.We’ll check things from our end as well.We’re headed to the Pentagon to help them change the codes in the system and block anyone else from getting in.”
The agent nodded and Ben turned to Wyatt who was talking to AJ and the others.
“They’re going to meet us at the Pentagon,” said Wyatt.“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Hey!Hey, sirs!” someone yelled behind them as they walked down the steps of the capitol building.Wyatt, Kiel, and Ben turned to see Dedmond, the young man from the budgeting office.
“Dedmond.Remember, no sirs,” said Ben.
“You can say that all you want, sir, but it will still be sir,” he grinned.“Word travels fast in the government and we heard you were here arresting Senator Hampton.”
“The FBI has him, but yes, he’s been arrested,” said Kiel.“Why?”
“Every morning I check certain websites for anything that might catch our attention as a financial threat to the office.I have peers that do it in every other department.We have interns, young men and women who are great at this.Today, someone found this on one of those websites but it came from our office, from an intern, who found it in archives,” he said.
“That makes sense, but what does that have to do with this?” asked Wyatt.
“Read this,” he said handing them several papers.“It’s a manifesto of sorts.From a woman.”
“I have watched the world turn into a thin, shiny rectangle you can swipe and tap, and everyone calls it ‘freedom’.Credit cards, they said.Convenience, they said.But I can hear the metal singing in every wallet like a tiny choir of promises—promises made out of air, out of numbers, out of a hunger that never learns the word ‘enough’.
“You don’t buy things anymore; you borrow a future version of yourself and sign your name without asking. And you wake up exhausted, already owing.
“Then came lending—soft as a blanket, sweet as a lullaby—until you realize the blanket is a net and the lullaby is a lock. They call it ‘creditworthiness’, like a priesthood, like a moral grade stamped on your forehead.They measure your obedience with interest rates.They teach you to be grateful for chains because the chains are ‘approved’.I’ve seen people smile while they’re being assessed, scored, harvested; I’ve seen them defend the system that drains them as if it’s a relative they don’t want to embarrass at dinner.
