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.He started to put his feet up onthe desk but remembered what had happened last time."We have moved 987 moreXL SysCorp PC units.""Great.""The IRS tax systems modernization project is three weeks ahead of schedule.""Wonderful."Page 47ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Net-income projections exceed the thirty percent rise anticipated lastquarter.""Super.""And I have decided to blackmail the United States government."Chip almost jumped out of his chair."Say again?""We have maximized our profits through commercial channels.It is time to goto the next level."Chip stared at the intercom."Blackmail is the next level?""Unless you have a more profit-oriented idea.""Why would we do that?""Because we have approximately three hundred thousand XL systems out in thecommercial and governmental spheres, enough to make the plan I set in motionfive years ago feasible.""What plan?""The plan to extort twenty billion dollars from the federal government.""This is all new to me.""Loose lips sink schemes.""I think it's ships, sir.""That reminds me, a shipment of gold bullion is due in the next few days.Seethat it goes into the basement vaults with the rest.""I think the basement vaults are pretty full by now.""Have a new vault installed.""Shouldn't we be investing some of this?""Current analysis of the global stock market indicates it is for the sixthyear highly overvalued.Bank interest is at its lowest point in decades.Bonds, securities and other instruments are also weak.Cash is king.As isgold and precious metals.""Gold in a vault doesn't earn squat," Chip pointed out."Gold in a vault is not at risk.""Let's get back to this extortion thing.""It is foolproof.""Who or what are we using as leverage?""The one driving force in the world today.As it has been every day since thefirst man crawled out of the primordial soup.""Yeah.What's that?""Money.""Money?""We are going to hold money for ransom in order to make money," said thesmooth, disembodied voice."How do we do that?""By going into the banking business.""Why?""Because that is where the money is," said the smooth, disembodied voice.HAROLD SMITH manipulated his new touch-sensitive keyboard like a man whowasn't sure if he was touching reality or a mirage.At first he bore down toohard, stubbing all ten fingers.When he softened his touch, some keysresponded haphazardly.But now he was getting the hang of it.The keys responded perfectly.That was not the problem.It was the systemitself.It seemed to be working properly, but Smith no longer trusted it.In a very real sense, he could not be sure that the glowing amber charactersthat were appearing on the black top of his new desk were trustworthy.It wasunnerving.But he had to try.America needed the Master of Sinanju, and Smith required hard cash to securehis services.So Harold Smith was going to the source.The Federal Emergency Management Agency had been set up by an act of Congressin 1978 to deal with natural emergencies such as floods, hurricanes andearthquakes.It was widely criticized as inefficient, unresponsive andbureaucratically paralyzed.Page 48ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlIn a sense all these charges had some validity to them, although in recentyears a succession of massive natural disasters had focused the harsh glare ofthe public spotlight on FEMA and the agency had been forced to do a betterjob.To cover its poor performance and save it from calls that it be abolished, thetrue nature of FEMA had begun to leak out.Its mandate was in fact to dealwith disaster, but responding to the odd hurricane or inconvenient earthquakewas not its primary mission.FEMA had seen set up to safeguard the command structure of the US.governmentin the event of what was euphemistically called "attack-related nuclearactivities"-i.e., nuclear war.It maintained secret hotels, mountainsidefallout shelters and a fleet of radiation-hardened aircraft and mobilecommunications vans for the sole use of higher government officials from theFirst Family down to the members of Congress.If America were ever subjected to nuclear attack, FEMA was designed to ensurethat no matter how massive the catastrophe, some elements of the US.government command structure would survive to rebuild or order a punishingcounterstrike.In the post-Cold War world, the immediate nuclear threat had diminished.ButFEMA endured, and to justify its existence, it had become more responsive tothe natural disasters that had lately been plaguing the nation.No one in FEMA, from its commissioner to the President, knew that the agencyhad a third mission.Its vast black-budget operating fund was the pool fromwhich CURE, unknown to Congress, drew its annual allotment of the taxpayers'money.Smith needed a emergency transfusion of that fund now.Because it was anemergency, he ordered FEMA to wire the sum of ten million dollars to CURE'saccount in the Grand Cayman Trust.An accounting clerk at a FEMA terminal responded to Smith's typed request.Heassumed the request was coming from an in-house terminal.There was no reasonto believe otherwise.He was working on a secure system to which only thehighest FEMA officials had coded access.Several minutes passed before a message came back.Smith stared at it,disbelief in his blinking gray eyes.GRAND CAYMAN TRUST DOES NOT RESPOND.ONE MINUTE, Smith typed.He dialed the bank.The phone rang and rang.Smith tried another number.Hegot a recorded message.The voice was masculine and matter-of-fact."We regret to inform our customers that the Grand Cayman Trust is temporarilyon holiday.For information on your account status, please write Box 4,Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island.Thank you for your continued patronage.""Impossible," Smith croaked.He logged onto the CURE terminal and brought up a wire-services monitoringprogram and typed the bank's name.The program executed with blinding speed.An amber block of text materialized on the desktop so fast it smacked ofmagic.According to UPI, the Grand Cayman Trust had abruptly shut its doors two hoursinto today's business.The bank board was being tight-lipped about thecircumstances and were granting no interviews.There were no further details.Woodenly Smith returned to the waiting FEMA account clerk.DISREGARD INSTRUCTIONS, he typed, in his shock misspelling a word andneglecting to correct it before transmitting.Grimly Smith shut down his system.He was stymied.He had no backup bank, andthere was no efficient way to set up a new account.Unable to draw funds,trust in his computer system or communicate with the President, he was ashelpless as he felt.Which was very helpless indeed.His Timex continued ticking as he turned in his cracked leather executivechair to stare out the picture window overlooking Long Island Sound.The last of Hurricane Elvis had vanished.The sky was blue, and the sound wasan expanse of cracklefinished sapphire on which returning sailboats werePage 49ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmltacking against a steady breeze.It was an utterly calm day in the history ofthe United States.But a storm was growing.A storm greater than HurricaneElvis.Harold Smith, unimaginative as he was, began to sense it.He did not know whatshape the storm would take or what it was; he only knew that it was gatheringforce somewhere out there.And Smith was almost helpless to deal with it.Almost [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]