by Jon Rappoport

July 1, 2021

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President John X retired to the White House residence for the night.

Asleep, he went all the way out, floating above thousands of tiny mirrors in an ocean of surveillance.

He plunged into cloud layers.

“I COULD BE DEAD ALREADY. AM I DEAD? ANYBODY HERE? I’M DEAD, THEREFORE I AM.”

He was suddenly sitting in the cabin of a private jet. On a table, he saw a team of small glass angels, a silver cup, and a framed photo of Al Capone sitting on the toilet in his Palm Springs suite.

And then identity shattered into a thousand pieces. The lights of an enormous city loomed up under him, pulling the fragments down into liquor stores, newspaper racks, alleys, hotel rooms.

A news screen stood out in the black sky. A local anchor, her eyes bright with contempt, relayed the story of a man who had just died falling from an escarpment above the Chicago Loop while attempting to set up a sniper’s nest and kill shoppers in the indoor-outdoor Langland Mall.

A boyish blonde field reporter, standing in front of a McDonald’s, was interviewing a witness, an old man who was sitting in a wheelchair and foaming at the mouth and spitting. He doubled over and a siren went off. A security guard appeared with a riot baton and sent a fork of electricity into his crotch, quieting him.

The news screen disappeared.

Identity now a quiet snowstorm in a deserted wood, falling, falling, falling on the hard earth.

He was back in the cabin of the jet. Burnished lights set high in the walls.

A flight attendant entered with a drink.

She was six feet tall and blonde. That made her a target.

Wealthy and powerful men would seek her out.

Her body was sleek. He examined her left leg from wizardly articulated ankle to thigh, through the slit of her sheath skirt. She strode in heels, one foot placed precisely in front of the other.

She set down the drink on the arm of his chair and looked at her watch.

“We can’t have sex now,” she said. “We’re east of the Rockies.”

“I didn’t realize they had a law,” he said.

“Two hours from now,” she said, “we can negotiate a price.”

“I’m the President,” he said.

She pulled a half-sheet out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him.

“Standard,” she said. “Read and sign.”

It stated: “…I am not attempting to elicit information pursuant to an investigation, case, or sentencing option…”

He signed.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said, “how much protection do you have?”

“Well,” she said, “the LA Mayor has a local contract. He supplies private soldiers when I’m in the city.”

“Have they ever had to go on attack?”

“A Belivar prince once tried to have his men kidnap me between the airport and my hotel. My mercs burned them to the ground on Century Boulevard.”

“I’m…”

“You’re John X,” she said. “I know. The President. I’m Carol.”

She held out her hand. He looked at her long fingers. Her nails were short. No polish. He shook her hand. It was cool. It immediately became warm, as if she could make it happen.

She sat down next to him on the arm of his chair.

“Defendant in a federal trafficking case,” she said. “He claims his cartel, Zuma, struck a prior immunity deal with the CIA. No upper limit on protection.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Are there documents granting that immunity?” she said.

“You think they put that kind of thing in writing?”

“Here it is,” she said. Make the deal with the cartel. The defendants in the Chicago case, their lieutenants, plead guilty and keep their mouths shut. No trial. No testimony. Nothing links the cartel to us. Chicago stays open as a distribution hub. We give the cartel immunity, in exchange for actionable intel on other major traffickers.”

“You’re CIA?”

“Another thing, John. No more cases against scientists for transferring technology to the Chinese. Shut that door.”

She put her hand on his forehead. “NOW WATCH THE MOVIE,” she said.

Bobby Thoms came to him. 25 years ago. The Swan, a bar in the Loop.

The place was jammed with lawyers eating lunch. He sat at a back table, a cup of coffee in front of him. Bobby Thoms. Sitting next to him. In dark soiled clothes, as if he’d stripped them from a corpse in an alley. Pinched face, sunken cheeks. A lawyer’s runner, go-between. Supplier of information.

Bobby moved in close. “Sal Mosca’s bumping his appointment with city treasurer for you. He’ll be here in a minute.”

X reached into his pocket and pulled out a tight roll of bills. Bobby fielded it and slipped it into his pocket.

“There are national security implications in this case, John X. If the shit hits the fan, a lot of people could go down. You have a way out. You, me, Sal, Morris Gold. We can all get well. Permanently.”

John X turned to his left and Sal was sitting next to him. Bull’s-head, dressed in his tan suit. Big chest, big belly, tired face. He’d been swaddled in the bullrushes of Lake Michigan. Dirty feet running on stones, foster homes, small-time collector/protection money, law school at night, muscled his way into city government as a private conduit between prosecutors and defense lawyers on major felonies.

Mosca frowned. “Your case has tricks, John X. As you know, the defendant isn’t just a Congressman’s aide. His family is in banking.

“Immunity,” X said.

“Sky-high,” Mosca said. “And not just in this country. Morris has the details. They’re formidable. You’re prosecuting a young man who’s bulletproof.”

“I’m going to say four witnesses who saw him stab a man he was having sex with in the back room of a bathhouse are blind?”

“We can piece off those witnesses. The victim is recovering. He owns two properties that are underwater. He needs help. The defendant has a wife and a young child. They need a clean future.”

“Morris is on board with this?”

“He would be grateful for your cooperation, John. A few years from now, he’s going to be running for mayor of this fine city. You make the right move now, and we all have bright prospects. Years and decades. This is a moment. Careers can be made.”

“Let’s talk about a higher level, Sal. Who is immune?”

Sal leaned back and grinned.

“Well, X, we are. We could be. There’s no legal market for the kind of protection I’m talking about.”

Then Mosca was standing next to X. He took his arm and walked him into the kitchen. They exited from a side door and climbed a flight of steps. Mosca opened another door on to the roof.

“The shed,” he said.

In the middle of the roof was a wooden structure.

The padlock was open and hanging from a chain. They stepped inside and Mosca turned on a light. X shut the door. Tools were arranged on shelves. An open cabinet was stacked with brooms and shovels and an old shotgun. They sat down on two rickety chairs.

“John X,” he said, “immunity is an Atlas holding up the world. And now he’s watching and spying, to make sure it stays intact. If he’s your friend, the political highway you’re thinking about for yourself is wide open.”

“On the other hand, if I decline to prosecute this case, I’m committing multiple felonies, and I’m owned forever.”

A sheet of slow lightning swam up X’s legs and infiltrated his spine. It nuzzled and burned each bone on the way up.

John X was standing in a courtroom open to the sky. He was behind the prosecutor’s table.

And there was a giant standing before him.

Atlas. His head was barely visible, an imprint. He was radiating nothing. He was a no one.

X waited. He stood and waited.

The silent depersonalized giant standing before him…

Nobody. Nobody at all. Just a clock wound up to monitor and eat time.

…X was back in the cabin of the jet. With Carol.

She was still sitting on the edge of his chair.

“So, John X,” she said. “A point. Are you in transit right now because you died, or are you dreaming?”

“Maybe this is what I did on my summer vacation.”

She smiled.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s negotiate a price.”

“I won the election,” X said. “I’ve already been paid.”

“Don’t you remember, John? I’m your wife,” she said. “We’re on Air Force One.”

He looked out the window. They were passing over Washington. The Monument and the Capitol Dome and the White House were lit up.

“How long can I play this out?” he said.

She shrugged. “Two terms in the Oval. Follow the playbook and you’re golden. Fairways and greens.”

“I AM the President.”

He woke up in the residence.

She wasn’t in bed next to him. He heard the shower running. He turned on the night light.

A few minutes later, she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a white robe.

“You’re up,” she said. “Everything all right?”

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “Suppose I refuse to be part of THEIR story. What happens then?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“I cancel my order. I shut down Chicago as a trafficking hub. The cartel defendants in the case go to trial. All the CIA arrangements are made public. No payoffs. No deals.”

Silence.

“I wouldn’t do that, John. You’d be destroying your Presidency. Even if you wanted to, COULD you do it?”

“I’d probably be dead by next week. I just had a crazy dream. You were in it.”

“What was I doing?”

“Turning the screws on me.”

“What?”

“Reminding me of my obligations.”

“Well,” she said, “that’s legitimate. When we moved into the White House, I had a conversation with Alice. She was packing a few things here in the residence. She told me her husband now and then went into a bit of shock and awe over the power he had. A few wild ideas occurred to him during his Presidency. She had to bring him back to Earth. Part of her job, she said.”

“What made you choose me, Carol? You could have had any man in the world.”

She laughed. “That’s a tired line from an old movie. Because I loved you. And besides, look where it landed me. In bed with the President. A girl doesn’t get that every day. I’d say I was a pretty good judge of character.”

“You were on the money.”

“John, we’ve got a few hours before you have to go downstairs and keep the world from falling apart today. How about we fool around?”

“That’s exactly where I was heading with this conversation.”

“You took a roundabout route.”

“I bore myself easily. I have to vary my lines.”

“Keep people guessing. I’ve learned that from you, Mr. President.”

“Come on. You were born knowing that.”

She took off her robe and stood before him.

“With you, every day is my birthday,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “It is. You’re reborn in your dream of me. That’s what marriage should be.”

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(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

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Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.