The Octopus Deception Read online

  THE OCTOPUS DECEPTION

  Daniel Estulin

  Table of Contents

  CoverImage

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Frontis

  Prologue

  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

  Back Cover

  The Octopus Deception

  Copyright © 2013 Daniel Estulin. All Rights Reserved.

  Presentation Copyright © 2013 Trine Day, LLC

  Published by:

  Trine Day LLC

  PO Box 577

  Walterville, OR 97489

  1-800-556-2012

  www.TrineDay.com

  [email protected]

  Library of Congress Control Number: 9781937584238

  Estulin, Daniel

  The Octopus Deception–1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes index and references.

  Epud (ISBN-13) 978-1-937584-24-5

  Mobi (ISBN-13) 978-1-937584-25-2

  Print (ISBN-13) 978-1-937584-23-8

  1. Casolaro, Simone (Fictitious character) -- Fiction. 2. Asbury, Michael (Fictitious character) -- Fiction. 3. Fitzgerald, Curtis (Fictitious character) -- Fiction. 4. United States. -- Central Intelligence Agency -- Fiction.. I. Estulin, Daniel. II. Title

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Printed in the USA

  Distribution to the Trade by:

  Independent Publishers Group (IPG)

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  312.337.0747

  www.ipgbook.com

  ABC Radio News. This is Carl Jameson. The World Bank has dropped a bombshell on investment markets across the globe today, warning that, despite the recovery hype Washington and Wall Street desperately want us to believe, this great economic crisis is only growing worse.

  The World Bank’s words are simple and straightforward: “The global recession has deepened to levels unfathomable only six months ago.” According to the World Bank, the Gross Domestic Product for the highest in-come developed countries will SHRINK 14.2% this year – and global trade will plunge by a devastating 39.7%.

  In the World Bank’s own words, “Unemployment is at its worst point since the Great Depression, and the total number of people living below the poverty line is set to increase to almost three billion from current estimates of seven hundred million.”

  Meanwhile, in the U.S., the newly re-elected President is being urged by leading voices in Congress to temporarily suspend the Constitution as a result of increasing unrest across the country.

  Prologue

  Night faded slowly, holding its ground. It had rained last night. The snow had started just as the clock struck midnight, as if on cue, and continued steadily and vertically ever since. The dense flakes, like ornamental lace on a veil, curtained the view of the surrounding countryside. The slow dawn of winter picked its way furtively across a copper sky, shimmering on a thin layer of snow that held stubbornly to the asphalt, caressing it gently with fading reflections. The shadows of frosted trees lay on the snow like blue plumes.

  Shawnee, Oklahoma, a not unremarkable town of about 30,000, thirty miles east of Oklahoma City, is the seat of Pottawatomie County. These are Native American tribal names, in keeping with our forefathers’ policy of stealing the land and preserving the colorful name. Like most small but, bustling towns, Shawnee has a vital center, with outlying areas of decay. On a once-popular commercial strip, buildings now lie barren and empty, but a few gas stations, bars, convenience stores, and dilapidated motels maintain a precarious hand-to-mouth existence. Near the edge of the city limits is the Merry Kone Motel, a two-story, 28-room ghost from the 1950s, with neon-lit space-age columns framing a wood-paneled lobby.

  The rooms are drab brown, timeworn; a slight mildew smell emanated from the carpets. Even industrial-strength cleaner could not entirely blot out the odor of decay.

  In room 206 a thirty-something unemployed journalist had passed a fitful night. He was six feet tall, slender neck, with thick, curly hair layered at the back, his eyes an unclouded blue, with slightly protruding ears.

  Danny Casolaro’s dreams grew in vividness and color even as sleep itself began to ebb. “A few more minutes,” he thought to himself. He turned over and tucked his right hand under him, listening to the soothing sounds of bubbling water somewhere in the distance. A beautiful tangerine light had filled the glassed spheres of a huge sand clock. A velvety-orange façade with a small door and a white sign opened, calling him to enter. He squinted to see the name on the brass plate. Nothing. Suddenly, he felt a growing lightness imbue his body. Restlessness dissipated and a wave of utter relaxation suffused him. Another image: 1974. He jumped a puddle … running through a field, alone, beneath the magnificent clouds. Not alone. With Simone. She is holding his hand, the wind playing havoc with her flowing hair. Ouch! He stubbed his toe!

  The hypodermic needle inserted just beneath the big toenail of his left foot blended quickly into his dream. “Come on, we’re going over,” Simone cried, as the two of them flew up, jumping, floating together over the rainbow. “Danny, Danny!” Danny took one more soaring leap – into paradise.

  ***

  The phone rang only once before Henry L. Stilton, Associate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, looked at the display, picked it up and cradled it in his large hand.

  “It’s done,” the voice whispered, repeating the words he had spoken several dozen times over the years.

  “Good,” replied the CIA man. Stilton was tall, gangly and immaculately dressed. His craggy face was marked with a cleft chin and bushy eyebrows. Stilton stood in the center of the room, where the only source of light was the cold rays of the moon streaking down from the night sky. “Did you—?”

  “I have it.” The killer squeezed the handle of an oversized, well-worn suitcase.

  “Bring it. The rest of the money will be transferred to you in the morning.”

  “Merci.”

  Stilton hung up, then immediately called the Boss.

  Chapter 1

  Simone Casolaro entered the lecture hall with great élan. Ninety-five pairs of eyes watched her attentively. Ms. Casolaro’s Renaissance Literature class at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was the most popular academic option on campus, and this was day one
of Winter term.

  She stomped snow from her galoshes and kicked them off, revealing a pair of Roman-style sandals. Then she removed her full-length wool coat, showing off a fine Egyptian cotton dress with a low bosom and high hemline. Appreciative male murmurs rippled through the room as she eyed her troops for a few pregnant moments. Then, abruptly, she began.

  “You will buy Dante’s Divine Comedy today and start reading it at once. Read every word. Don’t skip the “boring bits.” There are no boring bits in Dante. Turn off the television, put your computer to sleep, take the iPod out of your ear. No twittering, texting, tooting, hooting or whatever new App you’re addicted to. Dante is to be smelled, savored, tasted, chewed, and digested, like a juicy Italian sausage.”

  The hall erupted in laughter. Simone was an exceptional performer, with a unique flamboyant style. She felt a passion for her subject and had a knack for the provocative. More important, however, she animated her students’ imaginations, a gift they would carry, and many of them treasure, for the rest of their lives.

  “A hundred years ago,” she began, “Flaubert in a letter to his mistress made the following observation: ‘What a scholar one might be if one knew well enough some half a dozen books.’” She swept the room with her gaze. “Dante’s Divine Comedy is one of those worthy to be included in any short list. Dante’s allegory, however, is highly complex, and we shall examine other levels of meaning, such as the historical, moral, literal, and the anagogical. The development of the art of description throughout the centuries should be treated in terms of vision, of that prodigious eye of individual genius.” She paused for effect, rising to the balls of her feet. “What we call genius is an evanescent quality, gradually yielding a complex spectrum for all to see. In reading and thinking and dreaming, you should notice and absorb the details. Let’s leave generalizations, well-worn clichés, popular trends and social commentary at the door.”

  She strode to the blackboard, quickly drawing an outline of Dante’s face. “Any real work of art is the creation of a new psychic world. A great writer is always a great enchanter, and Dante is a supreme example.”

  A skinny girl in the front row raised her hand. “Professor Casolaro, I was told in my last year’s class that we can learn a lot about people and their culture from reading historical novels. By reading Dante, will we learn about Renaissance Italy?”

  Simone looked at the girl and smiled. She made an expansive movement with her hand. “Can we truly rely on Jane Austen’s picture of England during the Industrial Revolution when all she really knew was a clergyman’s parlor? Those who seek facts about provincial Russia won’t find them in Gogol, who spent most of his life abroad. The truth is that great works of art are, in a way, fairy tales and this trimester we will focus on one of the supreme fairy tales of all time.”

  The stage door on her right was pulled slightly ajar and a man’s head emerged. “I am sorry to disturb you, Professor Casolaro, but could I have a word, please?”

  She looked at the clock. “I can see you in half an hour.”

  The man gave her a heavy look. “I’m afraid it can’t wait.”

  Simone felt a chill. “All right, give me two minutes.”

  He nodded his head and closed the door.

  She turned back to the auditorium. “Although the two great events which made the fifteenth century a turning-point in human history – the invention of printing and the discovery of the New World – were still two centuries in the future, Dante’s era was unique, essentially a period of great men; of free thought and free speech; of brilliant and daring action. Now, you’ll have to excuse me for a moment. Please feel free to twitter and text away, but remember that what should interest us most is not Dante the political activist but rather Dante the great Renaissance artist, his powerful poetic imagination and his peculiar vision of the world he created.”

  Simone exited the hall and confronted the visitor. “What is so important?”

  “Ms. Casolaro,” the man’s voice was calm but strangely flat. “My name is Detective Lyndon Torekull.” Simone swallowed hard, a sudden surge of panic jabbing her in the gut.

  “What, what is it, Detective? Obviously something has happened?”

  “Ms. Casolaro, I am sorry to inform you… we found your brother’s body this morning in a motel in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He appears to have committed suicide.”

  As the blood drained from her head, Simone felt a series of conflicting impacts reverberate through her. Shock, disbelief, grief and, worst of all, guilt. She managed to turn away from Torekull, and re-entered the classroom. Her students looked up curiously from their ubiquitous electronic devices.

  “Class… class dismissed. I have to… go home. You, I mean. Go.” As she left the room in a trance, for a brief moment, her eyes locked on an incongruous shimmer of light gliding up Dante’s left cheek on her chalkboard drawing. Somehow she found herself back in the hall.

  “Ms. Casolaro, from what we understand, you are Danny’s only living relative. I’m sorry, but I must ask you to look at this photograph, if you can?

  She sucked in a long breath. “Yes. All right.”

  Detective Torekull reached into his pocket and held out a 5 by 7 color photo.

  “Is this your brother?”

  Simone forced herself to look. A spasm of horror struck her forehead like a hatchet. She spun away and shielded her eyes with her hand. Her whole body shuddered and she thought she might pass out. Then, the word hit her. Suicide. Never.

  She sucked in a long breath, and looked again. It was Danny, and, oh God, yes, he was dead. No, it wasn’t Danny. It was just a picture of Danny. But he was still… dead. Lying in a bathtub of blood. Both wrists were slashed, with a bottle of Jack Daniels, a dirty inch left in the bottom, clutched in one arm.

  “This photo was taken five hours ago,” the detective said. “Inside his motel room.”

  “He wasn’t a heavy drinker. He was a devoted journalist. He said he was onto a great story. Not suicidal.”

  Two weeks ago, at his apartment in New York, they’d spent a couple of days together. He had told her that he was going to Shawnee. Why Shawnee? Where?

  “It’s the end of the quest. I’m bringing back the head of the Octopus. This is as serious as it gets. The story of a lifetime.” Simone had never seen Danny so focused. The tremble in his voice scared her. “They are all corrupt. It goes to the highest level. I have a couple of contacts there, but they have no way of unmasking the corruption without compromising dozens of assets in parallel operations.

  “Be careful,” Simone had yelled after him. She could hear the echo of Danny’s feet running, no, jumping down the stairs, two steps at a time.

  “Don’t worry, he will be fine, he always is,” she had told herself.

  Now, as her mind reeled, the image of an Octopus, its looming eyes staring implacably, hung like a gallows moon above her grief.

  *****

  Danny was an investigative journalist, three years her junior, politically incorrect, idealistic and incorruptible. In the course of a five-year investigation into what Danny called “a cabal of twenty-plus people who control most of the world’s wealth,” he had made enough enemies to last him several lifetimes. Last year, the Memphis County sheriff ’s department, supposedly looking for drugs, had ransacked his car. He’d spent three weeks in the hospital the previous summer after he was hit with a crowbar by a “burglar,” who was never found and stole nothing; only his handiwork remained – a five-inch scar on the back of Danny’s neck.

  Simone held the color printout with both hands, as if her brother’s life might be saved if she held on hard enough. Could this be some kind of a cruel mistake? Could this naked corpse just be someone resembling Danny? For a moment, she thought she was going to vomit.

  As Simone stared at her brother’s lifeless body, her initial revulsion and shock gave way to a sudden rush of anger. “Who would do this to him?”

  “Ms. Casolaro,” Detective Torekull spoke, “our preli
minary reports suggest that he did this to himself. I am very sorry.”

  She returned the photo to the detective. “Dear God, why?” she murmured.

  The words kept echoing in her head. “Ms. Casolaro, we found your brother’s body this morning in a motel in Shawnee, Oklahoma … In a motel in Shawnee, Oklahoma … Shawnee, Oklahoma.” She clasped her hands again, instinctively, holding them tight.

  “He is all I have… I have been waiting for him to come home for ice cream,” she whispered.

  Torekull awkwardly cleared his throat. “Ms. Casolaro, did Danny tell you why he was going to Shawnee?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t remember.” Her faced twitched. Torekull frowned. She tried to blink away the tears. “No, not really. Something about high-level corruption.”

  Torekull checked his watch. “We found a handwritten note in your brother’s hotel room.” He reached again into his coat pocket and pulled out a faxed copy of what the police had found back in Shawnee. Simone stared at a two-line printed text.

  “Simone, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean this to happen. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I love you. Danny”

  “Who did this to him?” she demanded, looking at him with wounded eyes. “Danny didn’t kill himself. This doesn’t even look like his handwriting.”

  Torekull studied her. Simone’s body was angled and tense, her eyes wide. He shifted his body onto his right leg, and then spoke, choosing his words carefully. “Ms. Casolaro, we traced his last phone call to Langley.” He paused. “The headquarters of the CIA.”

  “You obviously have all the answers, Detective. Why don’t you simply call that person and ask them yourself?”

  He tried another approach. “Ms. Casolaro, if your brother was murdered, as you insist, you will need our help.”

  Simone barely heard him.

  “Thank you, detective. I will keep it in mind.”

  “We will need a signed statement. Would you mind coming to the station?”

  “Of course.”