The Eye of Moloch by Glenn Beck

under way.
    Earlier, George Pierce’s men had been assessed individually and assigned an occupational specialty. Any competent gunmen and sharpshooters would be used as such. A few who’d shown the needed technical and language skills were already busy inciting verbal violence and stirring up trouble across the Web, social media, talk radio, and the ham bands. Those thugs with more brawn than brains would be agitators, pickets, and provocateurs for the coming street protests and other direct actions.
    So far everyone but a stubborn few had taken the transition withoutresistance. It wouldn’t seem such a difficult choice to make; their lives would go on essentially as before with the addition of new marching orders, financial support, and some much-needed adjustments in doctrine and leadership. Still, there were holdouts; depending on their value, the remaining dissenters would either be convinced through further inducements or dealt with in other, more permanent ways.
    A man knocked politely at the balcony door and Landers motioned him through. The newcomer had a long, camouflaged duffel slung over his shoulder. The bag was caked with dirt and woodland debris, as though it had been buried for a time.
    “We found this out back in the deep woods”—the man gestured off toward the general area—“and they sent me to bring it right on up to you.”
    Landers dragged the bag’s rusty zipper across partway and looked inside; this might be a useful find indeed. “Has anyone opened this before me?” he asked.
    “No, sir.”
    “Good.” He refastened the bag and pulled the messenger nearer the railing. “Now listen. You take this immediately to that third tent out there; see it?” He pointed, and the man nodded. “Tell the technician in charge to run the prints first, and send the bag back to me with a full toolkit. You stay there and wait for the work to be done. Understand?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Repeat it.”
    He did so, nearly verbatim, which was no small feat given the obvious mental vacancies behind his eyes.
    “Good,” Landers said. “Go get it done.”
    The man gave a sharp salute and set off to do as he was told.
    How refreshing to find a soul so perfectly suited to his simple work. The backbone of any radical uprising is a legion of such loyal ciphers: oblivious, barely competent, and grateful for any subservient role in a grander scheme. They weren’t all imbeciles, not in the literal sense. Somewere professors emeriti, some were anchormen, some stood in the pulpit to shill every Sunday in service to the lesser gods. But from vagrant to vice president, beneath the skin these useful idiots were born from the same ankle-deep end of the gene pool. Give them a slogan and a promise, pin a chintzy tassel on their chest, and they would follow orders without a question or the burden of a moral core.
    “Who’s payin’ for all this?” Olin Simmons asked. Throughout this break from the executive meeting he’d been salivating over the sights of the expanding base like a diabetic at a doughnut store.
    “This?” Landers said. “For the men I report to, as spending goes this is a drop in the ocean. And the wealthy don’t waste; compared to the fortunes to be had when this is over they’re making a very small investment here.”
    “Tell you what, I never would have thought it was all about money.”
    “It’s not—at least not in the way you and I think of money. They each already have more money than a million men could squander in a lifetime. Money, and land, and gold, and works of art—even whole governments—those are all just things to be collected and compared, like the notches on your bedpost. They’re a simple way to keep score so they can prove who’s won in the end.”
    The other man took a step closer and leaned against the railing. “Who are these people, the ones at the top, the ones you work for? You can’t tell me, can you?”
    “I’m sure you’d be disappointed.”
    “Try