Rocco came in from the stairs. Kelan noticed his knuckles were banged up. He didn’t remember those injuries from their fights in the tunnels. He wondered if he’d been pounding one of the punching bags with unprotected fists.
“This”—Blade waved his hand at the stacks of papers as he searched for the right word—“cabal is big and well organized. And it’s old. Not as old as all the secret societies it’s absorbed, but maybe a hundred and fifty or sixty years old. Seems to have started somewhere in the South, after the Civil War, instigated by wealthy Southerners stung by their losses in the war. They connected with disenfranchised aristocrats in the nineteenth century in Europe and powerbrokers in the Middle East in the twentieth century. It’s now a global organization.”
Kit exchanged a look with Owen.
Rocco joined the discussion. “The cabal’s success is based on their shared interest in power—and the fact that they are a secular group. It appears they care nothing for other member’s religions, only the resources they each bring to the table. Seems since the beginning, they knew their rise to power would come…in time, once their foundation was fully formed. They’ve worked assiduously for generations to make that happen. Each generation, and region, has a governor.”
“Their reach appears to have its tendrils in every world government,” Blade added as he nodded at the stack of papers. “At least, it did twenty-thirty years ago. Some of the ledgers show they absorb funds by any means possible, including sex trafficking; drug and weapons trade; antiquities theft; jewelry heists; blackmail; whatever. Once you’re a cog in their wheel, you never get out. They roll over you if you cease to be of use. The structure they’ve set up lets the higher members of the cabal be exempt from persecution/prosecution. If someone has to take a fall for something the ruling class does, that fall guy can be found or bought.”
Rocco’s face tightened. “The journals seem to indicate that they foment war and disease. Their goal is to reduce world population to less than half a billion people.”
Kit took a long minute to absorb their analysis. He looked at Owen. “The Armageddon Lion’s been telling us about.”
Owen nodded, then started a slow prowl around the conference table. “What are the regions you mentioned?”
Blade called out the list. “Region 1: North America; Region 2: Western Europe; Region 3: Pacific Union; Region 4: Latin America; Region 5: Eastern Europe; Region 6: Western Asia; Region 7: Eastern Asia; Region 8: Southern Asia; Region 9: Middle East; Region 10: Africa. They loosely correspond to focus areas identified by the United Nations, except these were compiled in an Omni World Order manifesto decades earlier.”
“Each region has a governor,” Rocco said.
“Where does King come into play?” Val asked.
Blade shook his head. “Don’t know yet. But this stuff is full of hyped-up names that sound like they came straight from some massively multiplayer online role-playing game world.”
“It’s true,” Rocco said. “The mythology they’ve constructed around their organization reads like a script for a game. The king’s virgin daughter is supposed to marry a warrior who will be the king’s hammer, forcing all the regions under the rule of one emperor.”
“Maybe Bladen was scripting a game,” Owen mused.
“Except that’s what really happened with Fiona,” Kelan reminded them. “It wasn’t a game.”
Rocco shook his head. “It does seem like a game, but there are real names here—many of them correspond to the names in the separate ledger that Bladen kept.”
Blade looked at one of the ledgers. “One of the ledgers lists names of people, their country, region, crimes, and punishments. Bladen’s list is a subset of them. Why or how he picked the subset that he did, we don’t yet know. Perhaps he pulled out the pedophiles. Greer was able to identify payments Bladen was receiving from his subset, so maybe he was skimming off the top of this Omni organization, which might have been why one of his own men killed him.”
“Lobo intercepted several key foreign nationals from some of those regions you mentioned,” Owen said. “We’re trying to unravel how they’re connected to this cabal. Not having much success—they’ve invoked diplomatic immunity or lawyered up.”
“Get us their names so we can cross-reference them against these ledgers,” Rocco said. “We still have a ton of records to get through. We’re a long way from finished with our analysis. And we haven’t even tackled the encrypted documents yet.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Fiona parked next to Rocco’s just outside the old barn at Mandy’s place. Hopefully, he’d heard her car, but just in case, she called out, “Rocco!” as she entered the dark, old barn. He didn’t answer. “Hey, Rocco!” Still not a peep. Maybe he was somewhere else on Mandy’s ranch?
She found stairs at the back of the barn, and started up them. One of the treads was missing. She climbed over it. The upper platform of the barn was not what she was expecting. It was wide open and empty, except for a few pieces of furniture.
Rocco was standing by an open dormer window. “Something I can do for you, Fiona?”
It was peaceful here; she could see why he came here for an escape. Maybe she needed to find herself a spot like this at Ty’s. But, of course, she wasn’t going to be staying long, so it probably didn’t matter.
“I was wondering if we could talk.”
“About what?”
She looked at him. “Darkness.”
He turned from the window and looked at her. “I don’t want to talk about darkness with you. You shouldn’t even see the darkness.”
“I didn’t until King took me. He had both my mom and stepdad killed. He kidnapped Lion—my brother—and still holds him somewhere. He killed a friend of mine the same week he killed my mom. He tried to have me raped. The more his noose closes around me, I see less and less of the light.”
Rocco frowned. “Yeah. I guess fate fucked you over too.”