Read Online The Eye of Moloch by Glenn Beck - Free Book Online
Authors: Glenn Beck
Tags: Politics
Ads: Link
mission. Once they’re convinced by my continued silence that I’ve failed to usher you into our service, they’ll simply erase us all, myself included, and their plans will then proceed without pause, and without you and me. And one last thing you should know, if it’s crossed your mind to try to coerce me into calling them off. It won’t work, though you’re free to waste our final minutes in the attempt.”
He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. “You see,” Landers said, “if I have to die, this is exactly how I want to do it. Looking into the eyes of a man who’s about to see the wrath of hell rain down on him, and everything he’s built be destroyed, all because he didn’t have the good common sense to choose prosperity instead.”
George Pierce sat quite speechless, and one got the distinct impression this was a state with which he was rather unaccustomed.
Landers had first seen this look in a man’s eyes in the mid-1970s when he was only a fresh recruit. The circumstances of these standard introductory meetings differed, but this look never changed. It was dread mostly, gradually dawning, with the slightest whiff of desperate hope to color in the edges. To stare one’s destiny in the face is a difficult thing—to reach that decision point when a tinhorn tyrant must choose between his own shortsighted ambitions and the many benefits of taking on a smaller role in the bigger picture.
His diplomatic efforts had always been confined to domestic players: party leaders, entrenched career politicians, union officials, rising icons of various social movements, media moguls, pundits and thought leaders, judges and legislators, masters of finance and industry, so-called community organizers of all shapes and sizes, even religious figures if they’d shown the proper appetites for corruption and control.
While Landers worked exclusively within North America, his colleagues had sat across similar tables all around the globe. They’d watched this same moment of truth dawn upon a hundred self-styled luminaries: Hussein, Qaddafi, Chávez, Kim, Duvalier, Mugabe, Karimov, Amin, Shwe, al-Bashir, al-Assad, Mubarak, Thein Sein, Afewerki, Biya, Zenawi, Ahmadinejad, Castro, Assad, Déby, Obiang, Museveni, Lukashenko—as the wheels of progress turned year by year the puppet list grew longer.
There’d been a real piece of work in Gambia who insisted on being addressed as His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh. That hubris was short-lived indeed. Behind closed doors this one now answers simply to Hadji, and he’slearned to accept this private mockery without objection. To such a man the reward for giving up his dignity was worth that small price paid. In return for doing as he was told he got to dress up like a real head of state, parade around in a long limousine, and indulge in his unique perversions with reckless abandon. And, if he continued to play his cards just right, he would also get to die in office of old age.
Obviously not everyone has the right stuff, both to get on board and then to ride to the end of the line. It remained to be seen on which side of the ledger the name of today’s candidate would be written.
“Now then, George,” Landers said, “what will it be? Death in obscurity, or an excellent chance to attain all your goals simply by playing a minor role in mine?”
Outside, that growing storm in the northern sky had nearly arrived and a low roll of thunder filled the silence as Pierce considered what his answer would be. To his credit, his deliberation didn’t last very long.
“What is it that you want me to do?”
Landers smiled, replaced his glasses on his nose, and opened his folder once again. “First, you need to call back the men you’ve sent after Molly Ross. She’s in our thoughts, believe me, but we’re going to let her go for now.”
After a seething moment George Pierce looked up at the guard beside him, who’d long
He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. “You see,” Landers said, “if I have to die, this is exactly how I want to do it. Looking into the eyes of a man who’s about to see the wrath of hell rain down on him, and everything he’s built be destroyed, all because he didn’t have the good common sense to choose prosperity instead.”
George Pierce sat quite speechless, and one got the distinct impression this was a state with which he was rather unaccustomed.
Landers had first seen this look in a man’s eyes in the mid-1970s when he was only a fresh recruit. The circumstances of these standard introductory meetings differed, but this look never changed. It was dread mostly, gradually dawning, with the slightest whiff of desperate hope to color in the edges. To stare one’s destiny in the face is a difficult thing—to reach that decision point when a tinhorn tyrant must choose between his own shortsighted ambitions and the many benefits of taking on a smaller role in the bigger picture.
His diplomatic efforts had always been confined to domestic players: party leaders, entrenched career politicians, union officials, rising icons of various social movements, media moguls, pundits and thought leaders, judges and legislators, masters of finance and industry, so-called community organizers of all shapes and sizes, even religious figures if they’d shown the proper appetites for corruption and control.
While Landers worked exclusively within North America, his colleagues had sat across similar tables all around the globe. They’d watched this same moment of truth dawn upon a hundred self-styled luminaries: Hussein, Qaddafi, Chávez, Kim, Duvalier, Mugabe, Karimov, Amin, Shwe, al-Bashir, al-Assad, Mubarak, Thein Sein, Afewerki, Biya, Zenawi, Ahmadinejad, Castro, Assad, Déby, Obiang, Museveni, Lukashenko—as the wheels of progress turned year by year the puppet list grew longer.
There’d been a real piece of work in Gambia who insisted on being addressed as His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh. That hubris was short-lived indeed. Behind closed doors this one now answers simply to Hadji, and he’slearned to accept this private mockery without objection. To such a man the reward for giving up his dignity was worth that small price paid. In return for doing as he was told he got to dress up like a real head of state, parade around in a long limousine, and indulge in his unique perversions with reckless abandon. And, if he continued to play his cards just right, he would also get to die in office of old age.
Obviously not everyone has the right stuff, both to get on board and then to ride to the end of the line. It remained to be seen on which side of the ledger the name of today’s candidate would be written.
“Now then, George,” Landers said, “what will it be? Death in obscurity, or an excellent chance to attain all your goals simply by playing a minor role in mine?”
Outside, that growing storm in the northern sky had nearly arrived and a low roll of thunder filled the silence as Pierce considered what his answer would be. To his credit, his deliberation didn’t last very long.
“What is it that you want me to do?”
Landers smiled, replaced his glasses on his nose, and opened his folder once again. “First, you need to call back the men you’ve sent after Molly Ross. She’s in our thoughts, believe me, but we’re going to let her go for now.”
After a seething moment George Pierce looked up at the guard beside him, who’d long
Similar Books
