The Retreat

by Gordon Ballantyne

  “Not at this time, ma’am, but you are being investigated in connection with insider trading. We received a tip from a trading company that all your trades were done ahead of the news report about what was happening in the United States,” the Sergeant said.

  “Tell me, Sergeant, did you know what has been happening in the United States these last two years?” the trader asked.

  “We had heard reports, ma’am but none of them had been confirmed,” the Sergeant said.

  “Then it’s not exactly insider information, is it, Sergeant, even you’ve heard about it? We were there and we have been bombed, shot at, had our homes destroyed and fled to Canada. You are welcome to our trades but if you are not charging us with a crime then we will continue about our business.”

  “Are these all your trades?” the Sergeant asked.

  “Yes sir, you have every trade completed by Olympus since we opened two days ago up until you walked in the door. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have work to do,” the trader said. “I really like your hat though, looks kind of like Smokey the bear.”

  Later that morning the crown prosecutor declined to press charges and the traders continued to trade but they did give their boss’ current location and number to the officer.

  A squad of five English bobbies were dispatched to the Royal Bank of Canada offices in London and there was a knock on the door to their suite of offices. Duncan opened it.

  “The Po Po is here, Mitch. Are you decent?” Duncan asked.

  “Please show them in, Duncan,” Mitch called.

  The police officers came into the conference room. “Are you Mr. Fleming and Mr. Mathews?” the officer in charge asked.

  “Yes, we are,” Mitch said defiantly.

  “We need you to come with us down to Scotland Yard to answer some questions. If you’ll both come with us, sirs,” the officer said.

  “I’m afraid I need to decline your offer, officer, unless you have a warrant for my arrest signed by the Corporation of London magistrate. You do have such a warrant don’t you, sir?” Mitch asked innocently.

  “Sir, if you come down to the station, we can get this cleared up. There are some people who would like to speak to you,” the officer insisted.

  “Sorry, officer. I’d like to help and I know you are just doing your job but no warrant, no walk and that is my final answer. I know there are people who would like to see me, I am here and I would gladly sit down with your people but it will be right here in this room,” Mitch insisted.

  “We could take you, sir,” the officer said.

  “There are not enough of you and you strike me as a person who plays by the rules. You know the rules and you know that I know the rules; please go get them and have them bring the Lord Mayor of the Corporation with them and Ambassador Heath as well. Those are the rules of engagement and I know those gentlemen need to speak to me far more than I need to speak to them,” Mitch said.

  The officers left and Devin asked, “Who the hell is coming, Mitch?”

  “The iron bank,” Mitch said.

  “What do they want?” Duncan asked.

  “I hope they want to trade,” Mitch said.

  Three hours later a contingent of twelve dour faced people walked into the conference room. They had prearranged seats and even had placards in their suit pockets that they placed in front of their chairs. Duncan grabbed some cardboard coasters, folded them in half and wrote Mitch, Duncan and Devin on the cards and put them in front of them.

  “What do you want?” the man in the center of the table turned and asked Mitch.

  “I want all Chinese, Russian and the basket of UN countries’ people out of the Unites States,” Mitch said.

  “That won’t happen, Mitch,” said the person to the left of the man in the center. “It has already been decided.”

  Mitch replied, “The Chinese and Russian markets will limit down again tomorrow and they might survive the day after that. They are planned economies so you gentlemen will let them play their games with their markets and currencies until you force them not to. I noticed that the green back was replaced as the world’s reserve currency by basket of currencies from other countries including the yuan and the ruble. I just kicked two legs out from under the stool. Either your IMF friend here could play with the currency or you sir could have the World Bank play with their debt but I know you have looked at the contracts and your analysts have told you that you are boxed in. Now I know that these are option contracts and I don’t want to screw someone like the Central Bank of Iceland out of their money but they ran in front of a freight train to pick up a twenty-dollar bill. You, gentlemen in this room, let the debt balloon get so big because you were happy the trade deficits were going to help the poor and downtrodden but no, here we sit after your gradual unwind while you tossed America to foreign countries like plums.”

  “Mitch, a lot of peasants will die in China and Russia but the World Bank and the IMF will not let that happen. We will just pay your ransom and challenge every contract you have and encourage the counter parties not to pay you. The moment you leave the zone you will be arrested and your gold in Calgary will be seized,” the World Bank President said.

  Mitch looked to the gentleman Lord Mayor who spoke at last. “You will not seek to unwind third party contracts, gentlemen, and the gold is in a government facility.”

  “It’s our facility,” the IMF gentleman said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the sentiment but much of the gold has already been returned to the United States.”

  One of the gentlemen at the end of the table left the room, got on his phone, returned and nodded.

  “The United States is no more, Mitch,” the World Bank President said.

  “I agree, sir,” Mitch replied. “The United States is gone but it still exists on paper. My wife, who is on the line with us here-say hi honey-is currently at the Hague and the International Court and will file bankruptcy papers on behalf of the United States if we cannot come to an agreement.”

  “The President did not sign those,” the IMF President scoffed.

  “No but I did!” Ambassador Heath said confidently.

  The IMF and World Bank leader huddled for a minute while their assistants feverously started working on their computers. There was a lot of arm waving going on.

  “Mitch, you can’t do that, we won’t let that happen,” the World Bank President said.

  The room heard Melanie’s voice come over the intercom. “Mitch, Interpol is here and they are trying to arrest me…I am not a strumpet, you tick turd…Angus don’t…damn…hello officer….yes I’m Melanie Fleming….I’m under arrest?….you can’t arrest me….no you really can’t, I have diplomatic immunity, see, right here…Angus show them your little accreditation folder….yes, you can go now, please take these bleeding officers with you. They are gone, Mitch.”

  Mitch glared at the other side of the table while the Ambassador gleamed from ear to ear. “Checkmate, gentlemen. You have thirty seconds starting now. I was playing this straight and I was willing to negotiate and come to a fair and equitable solution. Here is exactly how this is going to work: The Chinese, Russian and UN troops will leave America and all American war material will be returned. There will be no reparations sought. I will place a hold order on the Ruble and Yuan contracts after tomorrow, they need another day of pain, they’ll still be there but I will not execute them; the US currency gains will pay the T-bill debts wiping them out. Your calculations will tell you that it is set up as a zero-sum game assuming the dollar is allowed to climb to $750 per Euro. The remaining gold will be returned to Idaho and the United States will be wound down and broken up into smaller Nation States. The Country of Idaho and possibly Montana and Wyoming will be placed on the gold standard. At the end of the day, we just want to be left alone. The United States is gone and its people have returned to an agrarian society. Its military has been neutered. There is no good reason why I should not file the bankruptcy papers but that would blow
up the entire financial system; you know it and you know I know it. There are way too many dollars sloshing around the world, even as devalued as it is, there is simply too much volume of it and foreign countries need that value to eventually rise. The world financial system gets healthy and neutral or it dies.”

  “You forgot to mention that you get rich, Mitch. Our forecasts would put you fourth in the world,” the World Bank President said.

  Devin interjected, “I’ve always wanted to be in Forbes.”

  “He isn’t talking people, Devin; he is saying we would be the fourth richest country in the world,” Mitch said.

  “How did we do that?” Devin asked.

  “Any of these gentlemen will tell you, Devin, that he who has all the gold makes all the rules,” Mitch laughed. “Come pick us up, Mel, it’s time to go home.”

  Duncan quietly said, “Mitch they haven’t said yes yet.”

  “They don’t have a choice; they know they don’t have a choice and they know that I know that they don’t have a choice. It’s actually a fair and generous offer,” Mitch said. “Anything else and they are in the woods too searching for rabbits. They don’t call derivatives weapons of mass destruction for nothing.”

  “How are they going to get the Chinese and Russians to leave?” Devin asked.

  “These are the three most powerful people in the world, the schmuck former President of the USA was the fourth. The Chinese and Russians will leave because these three people will tell them to leave and they will do it without hesitation because if they don’t, the politicians will no longer be in power. It would only be a matter of time before the starving peasants had themselves another revolution. It has always been a four-legged stool and now it is only a three-legged stool. The US military was too strong for the bankers to rule the world, now they can,” Mitch explained. “The second the world went off the gold standard these men ruled the globe.”

  They had their agreement in place twelve seconds later. The Iron Bank had spoken.

  Chapter 16

  The citizens of the Retreat, including the Command Group was excited to return to their homes at the Retreat. Two years of war and struggle had taken its toll on the weary warriors. Melanie immediately went to work fumigating their condo to remove all vestiges of the Chinese occupation; she even considered burning the bed mattress but there were no replacements so she went with sterilization. The Retreat had lost almost 30% of its population and issues like land rights, inheritance rules and personal property distribution were problems for the judge to decide. Winter was coming so the fields had to be tended and the greenhouses maintained. Food was the Retreat’s first priority after disposing of all the Chinese immigrants who had dropped dead in all parts of the Retreat from poison. The water system had to be purged as well as all the water towers in the former cities emptied. The General had grand ideas of providing aid, government services and centralized command to coordinate with other States. The Retreat group quickly shut him down.

  “We need to help the people out there, guys,” the General insisted.

  “Leave them alone, General,” Duncan said. “The people of Idaho may organize a government if they choose. Right now their only concern will be food, they will figure it out. The other States will figure it out. Everyone forgets that it wasn’t “The United States” it was “These United States.”

  “We need to reconstitute a government, regulate commerce and have a plan for defense,” the General said.

  “General, you are absolutely welcome to go do those things but I ask you, why do we need a government right now and what is the point of holding elections? Commerce will be bartered and traded since there is no accepted form of currency other than gold and who would invade Idaho after we have beaten gangs, mega gangs and a superpower military?” Mitch said.

  “That is fine to say here at the Retreat, you have everything you need here,” the General said.

  “We have no government, there is not a single elected person here. We put forward an ideal and people have the choice: stay or go. The coming migration in the former America will be a competition of ideas; this is ours,” Duncan explained.

  “How will you deal with immigration without policies and border control? You could be overrun with refugees,” the General said.

  “You cannot put up walls and defend a border to keep people out,” Mitch explained. “It will never work; people yearn to be free. There may be migrant caravans heading this way as we speak although Idaho is not a hot spot of opportunity due to its lack of natural resources, but thanks to hydroelectric power from the Columbia River, we do have an edge on utilities. No, we will find a different way,” Mitch said.

  Immigration became the most hotly debated issue amongst the leaders of the Retreat. They finally adopted a feudal type system and one used when the West was settled as well as the system used by Brigham Young to settle Utah.

  “The Mormons did it right,” Duncan said. “There was a township with a ring of settlements, then another ring of settlements then another ring of townships. We have the towns like Bovill that has already been cleared, we can finish clearing it to a mile square. It already has power and water. We can seed it with a little investment by planting some crops and some livestock and grant a squad some land there with a few houses. We convert the trees to some lumber and settle it with immigrants that want an opportunity. As the first rings get to 75% full, we jump to the 50-mile line. Hell, by the time we get there someone else might have it set up and operational. You have to deal with immigration somewhere other than at your doorstep, by then it is too late. The old America should have purchased townships in other countries, put a wire around it and told everyone the rules. Once a person shows they are a productive member of society and gains the requisite merit badges like say, learning English, then they can choose to move to the land of the big PX as room becomes available. Immigrants from other countries used to flock to this one because it was a nanny state and we gave them free stuff; illegal immigrants will probably be fleeing the former United States now because there is no more free stuff. We can have a loose coalition of Retreats based on the same rules and the same principles without the issue of a centralized government or overarching religion. We would be like the Amish who let other people join if they wanted, to live the Amish way if they choose but without requiring them being Amish.”

  “Are you going to tell them how to set up and organize?” the General asked.

  “Hell no,” Mitch said. “We didn’t corner the market on good ideas. If another group has a better way then so be it; they are free to live the way they choose, period, full stop. You get into trouble when you tell people what they can and can’t do based on your rules and on how you see the world. If a bunch of hippies want to start a commune, grow apples, and dance naked around a lava lamp, then I say good for them, I am happy for them. The founders of this country set up the Federal Government to serve four purposes: a shared defense, a common currency, regulate interstate commerce and to negotiate foreign treaties. The Government had the right to impose taxation to pay for things that were for the common good of all; anything else, not specifically mentioned in those four things was to be addressed by the States. You can blame the Liberals or you can blame the Conservatives all you want for legislating their agenda on the general population but as soon as the people gave some of their freedom to the government in exchange for security then the ball game was over. In early Greek and Roman government, citizens served. The word citizen actually comes from a person named Cincinnatus, we had a city named after him but in ancient times if a politician spent more than they brought in as taxation then the politician had to make up the difference out of their own pocket.”

  “Easy enough for you to say, Mitch. You are wealthy, are you going to use your fortune to open a bank?” the General teased.

  “Hell no, General,” Mitch chided. “It’s not my money, it is Olympus’ money and belongs to its investors and the company. The Retreat gets a share because they
protected it, moved it, then moved it back. The Bible had it right when it spoke, at length, about money lenders. Take away the money, you take away the power and if you take away the power then people can live free. Think about the Bible, it only had ten rules, the rest was about morals and lessons about being a better person.”

  “What about the rule of law?” the General asked.

  “Same thing, General,” Duncan interjected. “Good old fashioned common sense, if you have to write down what those are then you’ve already lost. The founders famously said, “We have a Republic, if we can keep it.” We have room for 5,000 people, if they want to live here then they have to live by the rules of the community. Our community may shrink back down to four people again if some group, somewhere else, come up with a better plan and program. We will be clearing some land down in Bovill, General, you are welcome to go set it up however you choose or you could stay here if you want to. You could head to Boise and try and reconstitute an entire government and State if you wanted, hell we might vote for you but the second anyone wants to take away my freedom there will be a fight and we will win.”

  “Do you have room for an old dog soldier here at the Retreat?” the General asked.

  “We have a nice greenhouse we could let go for a nice price, General, and there are a few widows that have been giving you the up and down and asking questions. Don’t try and go fix the world, General, let it fix itself,” Mitch said.

  Melanie came storming into the conference room and pointed a finger at Mitch. “Do you know what your daughter has been doing while you three have been sat in here doing nothing?”

  “We have been busy, Mel,” Mitch complained.

  “We have work to do, gentlemen, and it isn’t going to do itself. Save the political science philosophy bloviating until the end of the day and do it on your own time,” Mel said with her hands on her hips. “Daylight is wasting.”

  All three quickly stood up and Duncan laughed, “Yes Mom.”