Intermezzo Passant (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798218944438)

In 1962, a world-famous actress with a history of marrying successful men, struggles with alcohol and drugs as she flits around the highest social circles. After a well-hidden affair with the President of the United States, she begins to feel abandoned as he chooses to put his political career first and passes her off to his powerful brother. The actress dies in a staged suicide the day before a tell-all press conference. But unbeknownst to the government, her house was bugged, and the wiretap tapes tell a different story. And, even though silenced abruptly, her red diary is missing.

Years later, after leaving a trail of unexplained deaths, the diary resurfaces in the hands a NYC financial genius who makes his billions partly from wise investments and partly from sexual blackmail. With the help of a few intelligence agencies his questionable ventures expand to Europe but unfortunately reach the desk of a man known as The Director.

All we know about the Director is that he got his start in Switzerland, snatching a project out from under the US Government, DARPA's morally questionable LIFELOG program, and turns it into a highly successful social media platform with the help of some US college computer geeks. Now there are more than a billion people on MyDiary, who voluntarily post everything they do each day, who they meet with, where they go, what they eat, what they enjoy. However, MyDiary's software uses predictive modelling, which means that as people post more about themselves, Artificial Intelligence can begin to accurately predict what the rest of their lives will be like, where they'll live and work and how they'll vote. How they will respond to controlled media messaging.

The Director oversees an international network of business and political leaders, making him more powerful than many of the world leaders combined. Through his networks he can control currency, religion, politics and wars. He can make militaries and intelligence agencies do things under false flags. His reach is unlimited.

When the former First Lady disappears in a highly complex aerial hijacking, some think they can persuade a US Senator to change his political stance on a key issue. As the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, his support is critical. During the process, the cabal forces the US President to resign, thus elevating a feeble VP into the office. A man who is easily controlled. A man whose wife and son have other ideas about the White House. Ideas that are substantially more sinister than changing the drapes and the crockery. But can they be counted on to support a rescue mission to get the First Lady back, or are they part of the problem?

An unlikely alliance is formed between the US Senator and a couple of federal agents, and they may be all that stand in the Director's way. Before their investigation can get underway, they first have to identify key officials in the Pentagon and other federal agencies who have already sold out.