Empire Read online

  CapWar EMPIRE

  Brandt Legg

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Epilogue

  A Note From the Author

  About the Author

  Books by Brandt Legg

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  CapWar EMPIRE (CapStone Conspiracy Book Three)

  Published in the United States of America by Laughing Rain

  Copyright © 2018 by Brandt Legg

  All rights reserved.

  Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-935070-32-0

  ISBN-10: 1-935070-32-0

  Cover designed by: Eleni Karoumpali

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. Published in the United States of America.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BrandtLegg.com

  Chapter One

  The nondescript oak door, marked only by a standard government brass placard which simply read “B-4,” was in the basement level of the Pentagon. Most of the 25,000 workers who spent their days toiling away for America’s military inside the world’s largest office building had no idea the room even existed, let alone what it was used for. The massive building contained seventeen miles of hallways—the true corridors of power—and seven floors (five stories above ground, two below). However, the few who ever walked across the reinforced threshold of room B-4, would find a staircase leading down to a deeper level not officially acknowledged.

  Sixty-one-year-old General Imperia pushed his palm print against the reader, which scanned it to give him access. As he descended the wide staircase, he considered the gravity of the situation, the most serious it had ever been in his more than four-decade military career. He took the last steps and now, on the secret eighth level, walked twenty-five feet to a steel reinforced door. Now the biometric recognition system instantly viewed and matched a grid of his facial data points. The door opened.

  Inside he found the only other three people alive who had ever been in the rarely-used room, two of whom were also in their sixties; the other was fifty-five. The four men sat around a large table. Two of them sipped coffee. Only the faint, reliable hum of the vintage ventilation system kept this from being one of the most silent interior spaces on earth.

  The stern expressions on their faces gave a sense of the serious problem they faced. Each of them had achieved the highest rank in his respective military branches—Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. The “B-4 Group” infrequently changed members, in the case of retirement or death. The ultra-classified enclave had been taking place since the 1950s. However, in all those years, this was the first time B-4 was seriously considering removing the president of the United States by military coup d'é·tat, or whatever other means they deemed necessary.

  “Pound stepped over the line,” Imperia said. “Going to China . . . do we have any idea how he convinced the communists to stand down?”

  “Not yet,” the Admiral replied. “Our man at the CIA is working on it.”

  “They may not know,” the Air Force general offered. “What about Colonel Dranick? He was with the president in China.”

  Imperia grimaced. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Regardless,” the Marine Commandant began, “Pound is a loose cannon. He’s defied the recommendations of his Joint Chiefs, Congress, and virtually any voice of reason in his administration, including the Secretaries of Defense and State.”

  “We all know the problem,” Imperia said. “We’re here to find a solution.”

  “Now that the threat of war has subsided,” the Commandant continued gruffly, “the House’s attempts at impeachment will not get far. So it’s up to us.”

  “Is there no other way?” the Admiral asked.

  “He’s dangerous,” Imperia said. “Pound has refused to carry out a declaration of war authorized by Congress. He publicly said he would not fight. We cannot have a pacifist and a coward as commander in chief.”

  “If we indeed orchestrate a coup,” the Commandant said, “who are we putting in as president? Certainly not anti-war Vice President Brown!”

  “No, I think we can get the Speaker on board,” Imperia said. “If we’re going to sell this to the American people, it’s important that we follow the Constitutional line of succession.”

  “Agreed,” the Air Force general said, eager for a short meeting so his extreme claustrophobia would not be discovered.

  The Commandant nodded.

  All eyes turned to the Admiral. The men had just proposed treason. A coup d’état, the seizure of power from civilian rule by the military, was something they never would have spoken of outside their tiny circle. Even within the thick walls of the completely soundproof B-4 room, as the conversation turned to planning the coup, the four men barely spoke abov
e a whisper.

  “Okay,” the Admiral assented. “On the condition that the Speaker of the House is on board.”

  General Imperia stood. The other three followed suit. “Gentlemen, for the first time in the history of our great nation, it has fallen to us, simple soldiers who have served the country our entire lives, to protect her from the enemy within, perhaps the most dangerous threat to our democracy—a weak leader.” He paused and slowly surveyed the faces of his counterparts. “Then we are in agreement. We will remove the president from power.”

  After each man had verbally approved one last time, it became official. The military would assume control of the government. They would each later adjust to the unprecedented magnitude of this decision in their own ways. Nothing in their careers had ever prepared them for this actuality.

  Chapter Two

  At the exact same time, two hundred-thirty miles northeast, eighty-six floors above ground, in downtown Manhattan, another meeting was taking place, this one between representatives of the Federal Reserve Board and Titus Coyne, a fifty-nine-year-old billionaire who’d made his fortune on Wall Street. Coyne, one of the most powerful REMies, was privately credited with engineering the 2008 financial meltdown. Although many REMies had contributed to the economic “disaster,” Coyne had been the mastermind.

  Beginning in the ‘90s, he’d pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall and helped to pass the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted much of the high-risk trading and new financial instruments from regulation. He was already one of the emperors in the empire, and had the best chance at grabbing the CapStone and winning the final CapWar.

  In the newly deregulated environment, he further pushed the limits of the law by leading banks into risky hedge funds and exotic derivatives trading. Coyne created a stew of derivatives, including those backed by an endless stream of mortgages. Banks, hungry for more gains, demanded more mortgages to package, and waded deeper into murky waters by offering interest-only loans to borrowers with poor credit. But his greatest move came in 2004, when he convinced many other REMies to have the Federal Reserve start raising interest rates just as all those subprime adjustable mortgages the banks had sold off to investors were set to jump. His “stew” had indeed become a recipe for disaster.

  Coyne’s shaggy brown and gray hair, tough-guy good looks, and penchant for wearing $60,000 hand-tailored Kiton suits, added to the aura of fear and charm he’d cultivated for decades. His mafia manners, rare smile, and hard-hitting tactics, had made him a legend on the Street, and even among his fellow REMies, who often referred to him as “the shark.” However, although not a banker himself, a better moniker for the shadowy financier would have been “Bankster.” Indeed, Titus Coyne was the definition of the word.

  As the Fed representatives and Coyne sat in the plush boardroom overlooking Central Park, debating the future of the world economy as if they were writing a script for a new movie, they had one problem: the president of the United States. Typically, it didn’t matter who was in the White House, nor which party controlled what branch of government. They all answered to the REMies, “one way or another.”

  “Pound is trouble,” Coyne said. “And now that Vonner’s gone, we have no way to control this clod anymore. He belongs to nobody.” It was the global elite’s worst nightmare, to have a president without a master. Normally they could assassinate him or otherwise removed him from office, which they were working on, but Hudson Pound was proving difficult. In fact, one of their code names for him was “cat.” They were beginning to believe he truly had nine lives.

  “And, it’s worse,” one of the bankers said. “Pound has Vonner’s money, or at least his son does.”

  “His son, Schueller Pound, lives in the White House. He’s so close with his father, the money might as well be in the president’s personal account,” another banker added.

  “That was obviously part of Vonner’s brilliance,” Coyne said. “The president wouldn’t be able to use the funds while in office due to conflict of interest laws.” Coyne looked around the room as if disgusted with everyone there, silently blaming them for the $52 billion in Schueller’s hands, which was actually almost $3 billion more than Coyne had. “Vonner was trying to screw us.” Even as a child, and certainly as a younger man, Coyne despised being crossed, and always made it a priority to get even. Always.

  “He did a damn good job,” another one of the bankers said.

  “Vonner was trying to get the CapStone,” Coyne said bitterly. Everyone in the room knew that Titus Coyne had been vying for the capstone for twenty years. He thought he had it in 2008, but Bastendorff, Vonner, and Booker Lipton had all been playing different angles of the same game and diluted the thrust of Coyne’s power. “But he’s out of the way now, and I think there might be an avenue to use the Pound problem to our advantage.”

  The bankers all understood that by “our advantage,” Coyne meant his own advantage, but they didn’t care because none of them had the means, or even the desire to go for the CapStone themselves. By riding with Coyne, they would all get even richer along the way, no matter the outcome of the CapWar.

  Chapter Three

  Hudson and Melissa, having a rare dinner alone together in the family residence dining room, talked in hushed tones. Hudson laid out the priorities, made easier with Schueller’s massive inheritance from Arlin Vonner.

  “We’ve got a real chance now against Bastendorff and the others,” Hudson said. “I plan on using our new REMie-sized war chest, and every ounce of power I can wring from the presidency, to bring them down.”

  “Ironic,” Melissa said.

  Hudson looked at her questioningly.

  “That Vonner gave you both the power and money to destroy what you were convinced he was trying to use for his own gain.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been wrong enough times to know that sometimes making a mistake is the only way to get it right.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like a regular politician.”

  “It’s not doublespeak,” Hudson said. “Vonner was as corrupt as the rest, but—”

  “I don’t think that’s true, Vonner wanted to change the empire-system.”

  “They all want to change it to something that makes the empire favor themselves, but it would still be a REMie-run world, still the damned empire. Vonner talked of giving the power back to the people, yet he didn’t do anything about it.” He raised his glass of spring water and nodded at her in an unspoken toast.

  “He made you president, wasn’t that a start?”

  “I was another weapon to be used against his rivals. Maybe he’d loosen things a bit, let me do some reforms . . . ” He offered to pour her some wine.

  She shook her head. “Then why leave his money to Schueller?”

  “To screw Bastendorff and Booker one last time.”

  “I don’t think so.” She pushed her plate away and leaned back in the antique chair.

  “Then why?”

  “He believed in you,” she said, popping a few fresh blueberries in her mouth. It was Hudson’s favorite fruit, and he regularly requested it served for dessert.

  Hudson stared at his wife, trying to let her words, which sounded false and foreign, sink in. “I don’t know.”

  “I know you don’t,” she said quietly.

  “We’ve got to end the Federal Reserve system, radically reform the IRS, put Bastendorff, Booker, and all the other REMies in prison—end the empire!” Hudson suddenly ranted. “We have a chance to remake the entire government. We can get back to what the Founding Fathers wanted, a government actually run by the people.”

  “We are the change,” she said, knowing these words always strengthened him.

  “Damn right!” he said. “And not just from a financial standpoint, but we can bring home the three hundred thousand military personnel serving outside the US. Eight hundred bases in one hundred and fifty countries—do you know what that costs? Nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars a year!” />
  “I do know,” she said, holding up the bowl. “Want some blueberries?”

  Hudson smiled and paused. She had heard this countless times before.

  “President Pound, you sound an awful lot like a NorthBridge sympathizer,” Melissa said with a coy smile.

  “If NorthBridge has some good ideas, they’re lost in a pool of blood,” Hudson replied, turning angry. “The path to change is not through violence.”

  “Stopping them and the REMies at the same time—”

  “Is like defeating Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II,” Hudson said. “It can be done.”

  Melissa nodded wearily, her hopes for a quiet evening dissolving yet again.