The Plan

The smoke from the flash crash grenade was still looming in the air as the former CEO of America’s Bank, Edward Lewis III, listened intently to the masked man in front of him. His vision was just coming back to him but the ringing in his ears continued and he struggled to listen.

He started to cry again but was brought back to the seriousness of his predicament with a sharp open hand smack to his face.

“Pay attention!” the leader of his masked assailants said to him sternly. The tall assaulter again reiterated that he would not be harmed if he did exactly as he was told, “fuck up and you’re a dead man.”  He believed him.

He fired up his secure computer and logged into his personal bank account. He’d wired this kind of money before and knew that it wouldn’t trip any security algorithms, and guessed these men knew the same.   Five million dollars was wired to an offshore account in Hong Kong.

After his bank received billions from the U.S. government the board gave him a nice bonus, more money than most could spend in two lifetimes.  He wondered, “Why do these men only want five million dollars when they could take ten times that amount? Why not take it all?”

Then he knew the brilliance of their plan.

If he didn’t care about the amount of money, then he had every reason to keep this embarrassing episode to himself, why risk his life going to the authorities.  “If you tell anyone about the specifics of this incident you’ll wish we killed you tonight,” said the tall assaulter.  Edward believed every word he said, the man’s eyes were hard and serious, a kind of look that can’t be faked.

Edward looked over at his mistress lying on the bed; the Thiopental she had been injected with had her in a deep slumber.  He was selfishly grateful that his wife and kids were out of town visiting family right now, although this was not what he had in mind when they left.   He felt a sharp pain in his neck and was unconscious within seconds.

It was noon the next day when he awoke with the headache. He looked over at his girlfriend and she was still out cold. He thought that it all must have been a dream until he checked his online banking transactions. One million dollars was missing from his personal checking account. He briefly started to think about the men’s motive but stopped himself.

He didn’t care, it was only a million, and the important thing was that HE was still alive.

He knew these were serious men, and he was grateful they had spared his life, no doubt in his mind they could have taken it with ease.  They had penetrated multiple layers of security, the best money could buy, and his two house guards were both out cold when he checked on them downstairs.  Apparently they had been injected with the same drug used on him.

He followed his instructions very carefully and nobody was the wiser.

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It had been six months since the diagnoses. Eric, a ten-year US Navy SEAL, found out that his five year-old daughter had cancer while deployed with his Special Activity element in Somalia. “Why Claire, she’s only five years for Christ’s sake?” he thought this to himself often.

To make matters worse, his military healthcare would not cover the recommended treatments made by the specialist he paid for out of pocket.  The hundred thousand he’d saved with his wife Dana was gone in a matter of months, Dana had taken a second job but it was still not enough and the bills kept piling up.

How could he look his daughter in the eyes and not give her the best treatment money could buy?

That’s why he’d agreed to Dave’s plan – to make things right. Dave was GOLF platoon’s OIC (Officer in Charge) and a mustang lieutenant. He was more concerned about doing what was right than playing politics and advancing his career.  He was the kind of officer both enlisted and officers admired. Enlisted admired him because they could easily relate, and officers admired him because he had the respect of his men regardless of his rank.

They would rob from the top 5% and fund his daughter’s treatments. Their ultimate goal was to funnel $20 Million into multiple offshore accounts and then repatriate the money to existing onshore accounts utilizing Bitcoin currency and Secondlife.com.  While at Special Activity, Eric learned that most Iran sponsored terrorists were using Secondlife.com to train and launder money.

It would be easy for them to set up their own secure environment.

They would donate the money to The Trident Foundation and administer the account via proxy.  Their campaign and $20M endowment would ultimately fund future healthcare and education gaps commonly encountered by SOF families.

They would hand pick only the best and most trusted guys in their platoon and form a secret squad (small SOF element). Men they had fought and bled with overseas.  Within a week they had four targets, the first being a well-known adulterous scumbag and the former America’s Bank CEO, Edward Lewis III.

Squad One was about to set things right in the world.

(To be continued…)