Slack-jawed, Alex stared at Blunt. “You killed her?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Blunt said before tossing back the rest of his glass. “I can be cold and calculated when I need to be, but that wasn’t necessary in that case.”
“Okay,” Samuels said. “I’m officially interested now.”
Blunt continued. “Well, this government official—who will remain nameless—set up a rendezvous with his mistress in an attempt to smooth things over. He gave the address of a quaint villa on the beach and told her to meet him there the next evening. However, he never showed. But I just so happened to be at the cottage next door out on the porch taking in the waves all by my lonesome. When the mistress came to the realization that she’d been stood up, she wandered onto her back porch and started crying. Of course, I hate to see a woman cry, so I trekked over to her to see if I could comfort her. It wasn’t long before we were doing more than that—and my friend’s secret service detail captured some of the intimate moments on film.”
“You knowingly let them photograph you?” Alex asked.
“Well, I was a gentleman, but I allowed them access long enough to get the suggestive shots my friend needed to make her disappear—well, that and a hefty payout.”
“The things you did for your country,” Hawk said.
Blunt laughed. “The things I did to earn the trust of friends who own places like this, places far off the beaten path where President Michaels would never think to look for us.”
“Is President Michaels really the one we need to be concerned about right now?” Hawk asked. “What about Petrov? Saving Michaels’ life should at least buy us some time. But Petrov seems determined to advance her cause based off all the news I’ve read lately.”
Blunt nodded and sighed. “Petrov is a legitimate concern at this point, and quite possibly a higher priority from a global perspective. But our first mission is to defend our country—and sadly, the biggest threat to America right now is our own president. Michaels has resisted Petrov’s plans so far, but that won’t last long. He is going to ruin our nation if he gets the idea that the U.S. should join all the other nations Petrov has coerced into signing on to her scheme of a one-world currency. It’s going to decimate our economy and weaken our security. The more control we give up, the more vulnerable we become.”
“That much should seem obvious to anyone,” Hawk said. “But it’s as if Petrov has brainwashed all the heads of state.”
“Or blackmailed them,” Alex quipped.
Blunt whipped his head back toward the television as a few phrases caught his ear.
“Turn that up,” he said to Samuels, who was standing closest to the remote on a nearby table.
The Spanish news anchor, Maria Vasquez, recounted the breaking news that just rolled across the wire. With her normal smooth delivery disrupted by the hastily written update, she struggled to disguise her shock, though a pleasant one from her perspective. Her faint smile and subtle nod indicated that the news she was reporting was something she agreed with.
Blunt found the report so troubling that he threw his glass.
“What did she say?” Samuels asked. “I think I missed it.”
“Just watch,” Blunt said, maintaining a steely gaze on the screen.
Vasquez alerted viewers that they would be taken live to a press conference in Beijing. The next image on the screen was the Chinese prime minister explaining his country’s decision to ditch the yen and join the single-currency movement that was gaining steam. He pronounced that China would be early adopters instead of waiting for everything to come online. It would begin within the next couple of months as currency production ramped up. Vasquez interjected how long experts believed it would take for that amount of money to be printed and distributed through the world’s elaborate banking system. Some projections claimed it would take upwards of five years before all the banks would receive enough money to continue doling out cash.
Vasquez then cut away to a quick interview with an economics professor who wrote a recent book on the demise of cash in our society and how no one would carry paper money and coins within the next decade.
“Fascinating,” Blunt said.
“Or terrifying,” Alex added. “If the world takes the bait with Petrov’s proposition, what’s going to back up all this cash? The world is going to be her oyster when it comes to money.”
“Even more disconcerting is how there won’t be a need for cash ten years from now,” Samuels said. “It’ll be like Bitcoin for everyone.”
“The biggest thing to be on guard about is Petrov’s play here,” Hawk said. “Whatever she’s doing, we know it’s not altruistic. Her end game isn’t simply to make banking easier for everyone and to help lift other nations out of abject poverty. I’d bet that what she wants to do is actually quite dire.”
“Hawk’s right,” Blunt said. “Petrov has become a serious threat on the world stage. However, her growing popularity makes her more difficult to dismiss in the public sphere. We’re going to have to fight her from the shadows.”
“So, we’re going after her next?” Hawk asked.
Blunt shook his head. “Never deviate from the course. Michaels is still our top target. If we can stem the tide here, we might be able to demonstrate just how bad of a deal this is for the rest of the world, not to mention how Petrov is quietly wresting power out of the hands of free nations and placing them under her thumb. One day you could be wealthy, but the next you could be practically broke—and all due to the whims of an easily manipulated market.”
Before anyone else could say another word, Blunt’s head snapped back toward the television where Vasquez announced another breaking news.
“We’re going to join another press conference already in progress live from Tokyo,” Vasquez said, “where the Japanese prime minister is speaking to the media
