Cole checked his suroundings again. He recognized the interior of the metal container now as that of a C-130 Hercules military transport plane, a four-prop beast used by almost every nation in the world. He had parachuted out of the back of such planes more times than he could count, and the internal architecture was more than familiar to him.
He knew that Germany was one of the only countries in the world that didn’t make use of the Hercules, but the aeroplane’s internal layout told him it was the C-130K, as used by the British RAF. It figured; the Brits still had plenty of military forces in Germany, and Hansard would undoubtedly have been able to pull some strings in order to get him in transportation as soon as possible.
Next, he re-checked how exactly he was being secured. It seemed that the large metal clasps around his wrists and ankles were electromagnets, and he knew there would be no possible way to break free of them.
But there was also no possible way he could let this plane land at Andrews. He would surely be killed within an hour of landing, and Cole could just not allow that to happen.
The information he had discovered was too important to be lost.
98
Hansard’s plan, Cole had discovered, operated on many levels and had been many years in the making. Essentially though, it amounted to profiteering on an unprecedented scale, at the risk of the world descending into nuclear chaos.
It seemed that Hansard, from his position as Head of the DIA’s Department X, had spent time recruiting young up-and-coming politicians, military officers, intelligence agents and businesspeople. He had spent time researching their backgrounds, understanding their motivations, helping their early careers.
Eventually, when he had been given the Mentor role at the JMIC, he had used his contacts to make sure that they had all been seconded to the school at the same time, in the same class.
Here, Hansard spent the next twelve months moulding the men and women under his care, subtly influencing their perceptions and attitudes to the world. It didn’t take much on Hansard’s part — they were almost on his wavelength right from the start, which was why he had selected them in the first place.
By their graduation, the group was a close-knit family unit, with Hansard as their father figure. Since then they had mutually assisted each other up through the levels of Washington power politics, until now each and every one of them occupied important positions within the American political, financial and military infrastructure.
It seemed they were all still loyal to Hansard, willing to follow and support his audacious plan.
The plan itself was already well on its way. Crozier’s attack had already created a situation which had pushed Russia and China together, with America shunned. Hansard and his group hoped such events would create two opposing power blocs, with Russia and China on the one hand, and the United States on the other. The group would now work to exacerbate the situation, encouraging a formal alliance between Russia and China whilst increasing tensions between them and the US.
This new Cold War would lead to massive new defence contracts as conventional military arms would again make a comeback — aircraft carriers, fighter jets, bombers, tanks, artillery. The group knew that these big-ticket items were where the money was made, and the owners of the four big private military contractor companies on the list were standing by with contracts ready to be signed.
From what Cole could make out, the figures were projected at near to two trillion dollars, and each member of Hansard’s group stood to make billions from the deals.
But this wasn’t the most frightening thing about the plan. The elite little club needed those contracts signing, and there was no way to guarantee — no matter how dangerous this new ‘Cold War’ situation looked — that President Abrams would sign them.
Steve Mancini was not part of the core group, but was one of the hundreds of staff who worked loyally for the members. Mancini was Ellen Abrams’ personal Secret Service bodyguard, and Charles Hansard had recruited him to the mission before the agent had even joined the Service.
And tomorrow morning, at 0900 Eastern Standard Time, Steve Mancini would accompany his protectee to the White House Press Briefing Room, ensure she got to the podium in safety, then draw back behind her to keep watch.
And then, when all the cameras were on her, along with the eyes of the entire world, Mancini would pull out his 10mm Sig Sauer pistol and blow Ellen Abrams’ brains out, live on television.
Mancini would almost certainly be killed by the other Secret Service agents — there was nothing in anything that Cole read to indicate that Mancini was expected to survive, at any rate, and Cole wondered for a moment what motivated the man. Why was he willing to sacrifice himself? Maybe it was the thirty million dollars that had been promised to his children.
Planted evidence would later suggest that Mancini had been working for the Russians, and it would then be suggested that the whole thing was a revenge attack for the assassination attempt on Danko, and the whole of the United States would be in uproar. There would be no conclusive evidence — there couldn’t be, otherwise the US would have to declare war on Russia — but everyone would believe that this was the case.
It would further push Russia and China together, and would ingrain a hatred of the two countries in the minds of the American people.
It would also push Richard Jensen into the Presidency, where he would declare a formal start to the new Cold War, with a commensurate build-up of the United States conventional military machine.
And with Richard Jensen, the new President of the United States, being manipulated from behind the scenes, Cole knew with chilling certainty that this would put Vice Admiral Charles Hansard in indirect control of the entire country.
99
Hansard relaxed in his leather armchair, allowing himself just the slightest of hope that his plans might soon come to fruition.
He was a rich man anyway, but the arms deals that would be made over the coming weeks and months would bring him untold billions more. He didn’t need the money of course, but the truth was that money bought power, and that was what he truly craved.
And yet he had no desire to be a famous politician. He had decided early on in his career that he was much happier directing things from behind the scenes, much like a puppet master would have done in the shows he used to watch as a young boy.
From a purely practical point of view, the plan also made sense for the country’s security. The trouble as Hansard saw it — along with all the rest of the Alumni — was that America had no consistency in its present enemy.
Since 9/11, the United States had concentrated almost all of her military and intelligence resources on the War on Terror. Terrorism, however, was not an easy enemy to fight against. Its sheer unpredictability meant that victory was never likely. Terrorists dressed like civilians, lived with civilians, hid behind civilians.
America would never be able to win against such an enemy without creating such massive civilian collateral damage that it would virtually guarantee another generation of anti-American jihadists, thereby ensuring that America would not win at all, but merely prolong the conflict further.
The War on Terror was simply a no-win situation. The oil contracts had already been signed, and with the United States’ Middle Eastern oil routes guaranteed already there was simply no reason to continue with it.
Hansard had been pleased, in fact, when US forces had finally been withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. They were low-level conflicts, with a large emphasis on special forces, reconnaissance and foot soldiers — all of which made for bad publicity when such men and women were killed on the front lines, but none of which generated the sort of revenues that were possible from a conventional conflict.