The Director had made a worthy argument, but joining a team, at least to Jacob, was a big step. He took a few seconds to absorb the information. Jones was right, he was experienced, having been fighting crime since the age of fifteen.
"Director Jones, as long as I am allowed to remain in, and operate from, Los Angeles..." He hesitated for a moment. The remnant of fleeing doubt was still pestering him, but it was't enough to change his mind at this stage. "...Then count me in."
The Paragon of L.A. held out his hand once again, venturing an optimistic smirk in preparation of the Secretary of Defense's reply.
Thirty three seconds after debt eraser.
"Sir, Jacob Grayson just--"The aid was cut short as Julius looked on in disbelief, confused and annoyed at how a hero so altruistic could have just doomed thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of United State Citizen's both at home and abroad. With no security on debt, there would mass uncertainty within the economical world. When one could just "hack" something as grand as this, the world would shake far worse than any alien invasion. This was how a true global recession started. When the very fabric of the world was unraveled. Debt was as much as life these days as was breathing, and no heroics would end that. "Sir, the security council have just ordered a kill order. Mr Grayson is..."
Once again Julius raised a palm, speaking loudly. "No US soldier, agency or partner will kill Grayson. Capture, but not kill." He did not believe the man was a terrorist, despite what the official word was. "Bring the idiot in alive." The wall said, his men knowing not to question a single order. Whoever fired a lethal round to the officially "ex" Equalizer would face consequences.
But at the same time, Julius knew this would not be allowed.
With moves like this, the average American would find themselves in poverty within months. Fixed rate long term home mortgages would become unavailable. Short term mortgages would still be possible, but they'd require a balloon payment at the end or would require enormous monthly payments. Long term bonds used for paying for infrastructure improvements would vanish. Without a long-term prospects in lending because men like Jacob could just "rewrite" the debts, the economy would become much more fragile and prone to panics and thus, everybody suffered. A kind hearted gesture, would lead to more despair than Jacob could ever imagine in a million years..... It's why he was no economist and simply a soldier, whether he saw it like that or not.
This would destroy any possibility of long-term financing of a house and would destroy long term financing of capital improvement projects like roads, bridges, pipelines, schools, factories, would suffer.... Without economical stability, how could an economy cope if within seconds, over a trillion dollars was wiped out? This move from Jacob would already be putting thousands out of jobs and onto the streets.
This would destroy anything resembling a modern economy - happy 4th of July indeed.
"I'm taking lunch."
Without another word the Secretary of Defense left, walking to an elevator within the Triskelion and disabling the recording equipment entirely... He then simply removed his phone and sent a heavily encrypted text to Jacob, knowing the man could teleport to his location from previous talks.
It read.
It's Mad Eyed Moody, come talk.
It was their usual meeting location, a single, private elevator only accessible to the Sec of Defense. Nobody, not even the President could walk in on him without an invitation.
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