Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

Camry in the middle of them was missing. The fresh tread marks left behind indicated that someone had driven off in a hurry.
    Taber kept his eyes peeled for the Camry as he tried thinking like a fugitive cop. I would need somewhere to go to think of my next steps, Taber thought. Somewhere private. Where would Cavanaugh go for private shelter? Where would he go to avoid detection until he could think his way out of the mess he had made for himself?
    Taber turned the wheel at the next intersection and was somewhat disappointed in himself as he stared at the parking garage before him.
    Of course.
    Taber pulled up into the garage’s entrance. Seeing no one in the attendant’s booth, he put the PDA on the dashboard and grabbed the parking ticket as it spit out from the machine. He rolled past the wooden arm as it rose above the car’s roof. His eyes were everywhere, as he grabbed for his SIG Sauer assault rifle from the floorboard behind his seat. The muzzle and silencer were still warm from the shot Taber had taken at Senator Booker Halsey. Taber kept his hand on the muzzle for a bit, reliving every detail of the moment. He could see the explosion of blood on Booker’s chest and the almost comical way the senator’s body crumpled to the ground. Exquisite.
    Taber was still savoring the moment when he positioned the gun in his lap and switched off the safety.
    Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Chapter 42
    Disbelief registered in Danny’s face. “Dexter Walsh. You mean the chairman of the Federal Reserve?”
    Sydney nodded. “The one and the same.”
    “So tell me about Mr. Wonderful.”
    “I will. But first, do you know the history of the Federal Reserve?”
    Danny shook his head. “I was too busy staring at Stacey Jacobs back in Economics class.”
    “Don’t you now wish you were paying attention instead of letting your penis rule your mind?”
    “Yeah, yeah …” Danny rolled his hand, wanting her to keep going.
    “On the night of November 22, 1910, a group of seven very upstanding men,” Sydney couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, “held a secret meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. Six of them represented the international banking families—the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Rothschild family, the Schiffs, the Warburgs, and the Kahns, nearly a quarter of the entire world’s wealth. A seventh man was Rhode Island senator Nelson Aldrich, who was the chairman of the National Monetary Commission. The island was owned by none other than J. P. Morgan himself. These men wanted to devise a plan for banking reform in light of several negative events that showed the weaknesses in America’s banking system at the time.”
    “Negative events?”
    “Panics that caused runs on banks in 1873, 1893, and the big one in 1907.”
    “You’re going to tell me that these panics were engineered by these very guys, aren’t you?”
    Sydney nodded. “The panics were started as rumors of certain banks’ insolvencies by agents of the international bankers. Wouldn’t you agree that even today the best way to advertise is still word-of-mouth?”
    Danny sighed. “Okay, so they start rumors about banks going under, which causes panics, thus making the public scream for banking reform. These bankers then turn around and offer the perfect solution: the Federal Reserve.”
    “The Federal Reserve Act was signed on December 23, 1913.”
    Danny did the math. “That would make President Woodrow Wilson the signer.”
    “A darling of the international bankers, along with several other U.S. presidents over the years. It seems you know your history better than your economics, Danny.”
    “Stacey Jacobs wasn’t in my American History class.” He looked in the rearview mirror again. It was still clear. “But why would an organization that’s part of America want to bankrupt it?”
    “That’s where you’re wrong, Danny. The Federal Reserve is not part of the U.S. government. It’s a private network of banks, which have evolved into multinational corporations, whose major stockholders include a very short list of powerful families.”
    “Let me guess. The Rothschilds, the Morgans, the Rockefellers, and their fellow jet-setting, polo-playing, world-dominating friends.”
    “They not only have their tentacles in the Federal Reserve, they control many of the banking systems across the globe.”
    Danny remembered back to their initial conversation outside the monastery. “Like the aforementioned