She scrolled down the screen and furrowed her brow. “This is bizarre. What’s the connection between all these people?”
“Take a look at one of the other files I opened on there for you. It’s a written document, which appears to be the introduction to his big expose—and the knowledge of which ultimately got him killed.”
Rebecca spent a few minutes in silence perusing the words of her late boyfriend. Blunt could only imagine how haunting they would be for her. When she finished, she looked up with wide eyes.
“You’ve been around Washington a long time and involved with military types,” she said. “What do you make of all this? Had Lee gone insane? I’ve never heard of such an organization.”
Blunt sighed and crossed his arms. “I’ve been really hesitant to poke around on this right now,” he said. “Lee called this group Obsidian, which sounds like something straight out of a conspiracy website. A global shadow agency that conspires to control everything with designs on creating a one world order. If that isn’t the greatest fear of all conspiracy hounds, I don’t know what is.”
“But in the article, Lee suggested that Obsidian is doing more than just controlling governments and countries—they’re squashing and absorbing the ones who don’t comply.”
“I was afraid to even type the word obsidian into the search engine on my computer, but I did attempt to verify some of his claims and cross-reference them with the list of names provided on the spreadsheet.”
“And?” Rebecca asked, her eyes widening.
“They seem to check out. Just do a search for all the individuals the UN currently has sanctions against. There are several key UN ambassadors on the list, and they played varying roles in pushing these sanctions through. All they would have to do is drum up some false charges, verify it with UN inspectors who are in Obsidian’s back pocket, and voila—crippling sanctions.”
“These people are everywhere,” she said, scrolling back through the list.
Blunt nodded. “That’s what I found most fascinating. The UN ties are just the tip of the iceberg. I found leaders from Russia, Germany, England, Australia, China, Italy, and France among others. It’s such a vast network that I’m not sure how you could go about dismantling it. Hell, there are even reporters and editors at prominent news organizations in on this, if Lee’s research is all spot on. And I have no reason to think he isn’t, especially since it’s what led to his demise.”
“Let me write about it,” Rebecca said. “I could do it anonymously through The Skinny’s website.”
Blunt shook his head. “Absolutely not. If these people are half as powerful as we think they are, they’ll figure out that you’re behind it within an hour of it getting posted online. They’ll kill the story and likely you along with it.”
“Once it’s public, they couldn’t do anything to me. Murdering me would just be a tacit admission of guilt. They would be completely exposed and would have far too many tracks to cover if we released all this information.”
Blunt sighed. “I promise you that this would be dismissed as the ramblings of a crazy man. And if you survived—and that’s a big if—you would immediately be branded as a wacko and alienated from your entire profession. Once you escaped the limelight, someone from Obsidian would take you out. Look, this stuff frightens me, but you can’t just go charging up a network so well connected and funded without a systematic way to take them apart and eliminate all the players.”
“So I’m supposed to just sit around and do nothing?” she asked.
“No, I don’t want you to sit around,” Blunt said. “I want you to start building dossiers on each one of these people. Investigate the individuals, not the entire organization. If we have a well-sourced report about what these individuals are up to, both on their own and as part of Obsidian, we could begin to go after them.”
“We?”
“Yes, us—The Phoenix Foundation.”
“What exactly do you do here?”
“Let’s not talk about that right now,” Blunt said. “It’s not really relevant to this conversation. Just know that I have a team who operates internationally and can address situations like this. I’m just telling you for your own peace of mind that this isn’t going to just sit on my desk. We’re going to look into this and verify its veracity—and see what we can do about it.”
“I’ll refrain from publishing anything about this, but can you still get me a copy of the flash drive?”
“What for?” Blunt asked. “This information is what got your boyfriend killed.”
“I just want a copy of it for insurance, you know, just in case I get threatened.”
“I’m not sure it’s the wisest idea,” Blunt said. “If they know you have all this information, they just might murder you right there.”
“Can you do me this one favor please?”
“Okay, fine,” Blunt said, reaching into his desk and producing a flash drive. “I made a backup for myself, but take it. Just, please, don’t ever let it see the light of day, for your own sake.”
She smiled. “I appreciate your help, Mr. Blunt. You know, what people say about you around the Capitol isn’t true. You are a sincere man who believes passionately in what you do.”
Blunt chuckled. “I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
Rebecca stood and headed toward the door. She grabbed the doorknob and stopped. “I’ve got one more question.”
“Fire away.”
“I didn’t see a chain of command on that spreadsheet. Is there someone in charge of Obsidian?”
Blunt swallowed hard and shook his head. “I didn’t see anything in those documents that suggested who it might be.”
“Okay. Thanks. I really do appreciate all you did to get this for me.”
Blunt walked her downstairs, opening the door to let her out the back exit. Once she was out of sight, Blunt leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He hoped she couldn’t tell he was lying.
CHAPTER 24
Varadero, Cuba
SAMUEL GETTY WENT by the codename Elias,
