The provided excerpts from Christopher Reich’s novel, The Patriots Club, center on the protagonist, Thomas Bolden, an investment banker who becomes entangled in a dangerous conspiracy after being pursued by mysterious operatives from a private security firm called Scanlon Corporation. Bolden is wrongly accused of a crime at his firm, Harrington Weiss, and is simultaneously interrogated by a detective, John Franciscus, who suspects a larger “shadow mobilization” at play. The narrative also introduces Bolden's girlfriend, Jenny Dance, a teacher who is eventually kidnapped, and reveals the existence of the titular Patriots Club, an elite, secretive organization tracing its origins to the Founding Fathers, whose members, including the powerful James Jacklin, manipulate major events for their perceived notion of the country's good, culminating in a climactic attempt to prevent an assassination.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.