Land of Promise

by James Wesley, Rawles

  The Ilemi Constitution mandated a 100% reserve requirement for all silver, gold, and platinum bank deposits. The only proviso was that, were there a banking or credit crisis, banks could at their discretion repay customer withdrawals in silver or gold in any coin or bar form, not just Ilemi Silmos with a hardener.

  Harry Heston made good on his promise to establish a mint and a vault storage company. But then he went a step further and built a walk-in banking facility in Solus Christus called Heston Bank. It was unlike banks in other countries. This was a traditional warehouse bank in the 19th century tradition. His bank had teller windows like other banks, but his tellers only minimally handled paper currency, credit card, and e-banking transactions. Instead of creating money out of thin air and “banking” electronic digits, every deposit at the Heston Bank involved physical precious metals with a one-to-one exchange. Deposits had to be in Ilemi precious metals coins, commonly recognized bullion equivalent coins, or bullion bars. This meant that anyone bringing deposits of electronic or paper currency from other nations converted their currency and bought Ilemi Silmos, Gilmos, or Pilmos for deposit. Withdrawals were in “like kind.” Conversions from various forms of bullion into Ilemi coinage were made for a small fee.

  Heston’s style of banking was in direct contradiction to the fraudulent fractional reserve banking practices in most other countries. The Heston Bank paid no interest, but instead charged its customers an annual vault storage fee to provide bonded and very secure true banking. And because Heston Bank had one-to-one storage and exchange, it pledged that would not ever loan money, at interest. Much to Heston’s amusement, this policy was criticized by American and European bankers, but was quietly praised by bankers in Islamic nations, where charging interest was banned. Reading a critique of his bank in The Economist prompted Heston to write an editorial for The Ilemi Daily blog. In this piece, Debt Slavers Revile Genuine Warehouse Banking, Harry Heston wrote:

  It is amazing to see Western bankers twist their logic to find any reason to condemn what we do at Heston Bank. If we are indeed ‘tying up capital’ and ‘abusing’ our customers by charging them vault storage fees, as they claim, then why are so many billions of NEuros flowing into Heston Bank each year? If what we are doing is so ‘backward,’ then why are so many depositors who live overseas not only paying our ‘draconian’ fees, but also first paying the equivalent of 500,000 NEuros for Ilemi citizenship, just to qualify to make deposits at our bank? The hypocrisy of the London, Paris, and New York banksters is mystifying. There they sit, at their so-called ‘banks’ perpetuating debt and indebtedness and spreading multi-generational misery. Meanwhile, they criticize me for providing a genuine, honest service to my customers. Their Empire of Debt needs to be exposed for what it really is: a gigantic fraud that robs their customers and enriches themselves through the power of compounding interest. They create debts that mathematically can never be repaid, and they amass so much power that national governments now fully kowtow to them. These are the 21st century emperors without clothes. These are the emperors who have deviously perfected their own form of corrupt government: The Kleptocracy.

  The banksters have even had the temerity to corrupt the meaning of the term ‘warehouse bank.’ To them, a warehouse bank is just an account at a regular commercial bank where all their clients’ funds in make-believe currencies are pooled or commingled to conceal the client’s ownership of those funds. But I have a news flash for them: That is not warehouse banking. True warehouse banking has just returned to the world stage, and the scales will be tipping with every day that brings more deposits into fair and honest banks.

  Taking in electronic currency and handing out specie meant that Heston Bank was constantly shuttling precious metals into the country. Most of this was done with a Gulfstream 750 flying to and from Johannesburg, South Africa’s banking center. All of the nation’s Big Four banks -- Standard Bank of South Africa, Nedbank, FirstRand Bank (doing business as First National Bank, and most commonly known by the initials FNB), and Absa Bank (the operating name of Barclay’s Africa Group Limited) refused to do business with Heston Bank. This was ostensibly because Heston refused to divulge information about their customers, but the larger issue was that they did not want to jeopardize their banking relationships with the Islamic world. These were valuable customers, including many wealthy Thirdists who liked banking in South Africa because their deposits there were low profile and earned interest (“riba”), contrary to Sharia law. The Big Four banks also all had strong internationalist ties, and in some cases the majority of their stock was held by foreign parent banks. But the Ilemis did have a good instrument and currency-clearing relationship with Capitec Bank, which was locally chartered and unfettered by foreign ties. Capitec had a reputation as a truly independent bank since gaining notoriety as the banker for the African National Congress Party before Apartheid was dismantled.

  South African banks were also bound by a national cash reporting law, but it was weak, with exemptions for Sovereign States. The Heston Bank just barely qualified for the sovereign bank exemption as the sole banking institution associated with the Ilemi Republic government.

  By the time the new nation celebrated its first anniversary of independence, there were 18 Pilatus Moths in the country, all purchased with funds provided by Harry Heston’s Isher Trading Company. Twelve of these were eventually re-purchased by individual Ilemi citizens. Three other Moths were purchased by the Ilemi government for use by the IRDF Cadre. The other three sat cocooned in the spacious Isher Trading Company warehouse.

  Most of the Pilatus Moths came from brokers in Europe. Just two came directly from the Pilatus company. These were trade-in planes from New Zealand, after that nation decided to switch to Moth UAVs.

  Only one Ilemi Moth bought in the first year was a UAV variant. Almost immediately after arriving in the Republic, modifications to the Moths began. Except for that windowless UAV variant, the Moths were fitted with camouflage sectional RAM window covers that were locally fabricated. These could be attached with Velcro either inside or outside the Moth’s bulbous canopies. When used outside, these granted the Moths better camouflage from ground or air observation when the planes were tied down outside the hangar. And when parts of these covers were used inside, they reduced the planes’ RCS to grant improved stealth capability, albeit with reduced visibility for the pilot and co-pilot.

  Several Moths were retrofitted with retractable 30mm chin turrets. These Rheinmetall RMK30 turrets were surplussed by the German government once they were dropped from the Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopter program. The turrets were an excellent design, but a political decision was made to standardize with a French-built 30mm cannon. Somehow, 27 of the used turrets ended up in the hands of a Tunisian arms broker. After a tip from Rick Akins, Harry Heston bought all of them, speculating that they would have good resale value. As usual, Harry wasn’t wrong.

  Finding a supply of the caseless 30 × 250 mm ammunition for the RMK30 cannons required going through two intermediary nations, but eventually a large supply was obtained by Rick Akins, acting as agent for Harry Heston’s Isher Trading Company.

  Just one of the piloted Cadre Moths was set up as a long-endurance VHF Relay aircraft. This plane was equipped with extra fuel tanks at the plane’s center of gravity, a sleeping cot atop the fuel tanks, a compact chemical toilet, extra rations, an electric ration heater, and a 20-liter drinking water dispenser. The plane was also retrofitted with a radar warning receiver (RWR), a laser warning receiver (LWR), and a rack of VHF radio repeaters. If cell phone service were ever disrupted a relay aircraft would need to stay aloft in Ilemi airspace for up to 20 hours at a time. There it could do some high-altitude loitering at a low cruise speed while flying semi-random patterns programmed into the Moth’s autopilot.

  This plane was jokingly called “The Missile Magnet” by IRDF Cadre pilots, since flying for so many hours in a racetrack pattern at 38,000 feet was unlikely to go unnoticed by enemy air defense units. T
hey would have preferred to create the VHF relay out of Moth UAV, but the Isher Trading agents couldn’t find one available on the secondary market and new ones were unaffordable. With both the range tank and the relief pilot cot available, the plane could also double as a long-range air ambulance.

  All Moths were given multi-layer RAM coatings; once the Ilemis had a small fleet of Moths, they qualified to purchase, directly from Pilatus, replacement engines, various spare parts, specialized tools, A&P repair fixtures, and RAM coatings. The RAM coatings were applied in five layers: A gray base Jaumann Shell layer, then a rough layer which had split-ring resonators (SRRs) suspended in the paint. These tiny aluminum loops were open-ended, throwing radar off in random directions, so that the plane would present a smaller radar return. Next, there were two self-leveling layers to re-smooth the surface, and finally a semi-rough layer of camouflage RAM in six different colors. The undersides of the planes got a slightly bluish gray coat, but their sides and upper surfaces were in a mottled-color camouflage pattern that predominated in browns and greens. This same camouflage pattern was also soon adopted for all IRDF ground vehicles, storage CONEXes and fuel tanks.

  Since neither the Ilemi government nor the IRDF had an aircraft registry, the planes’ only exterior identification markings were three digit alphanumerics -- letter, number, letter -- with the prefix IFC for Ilemi Flying Club. The markings were 50 centimeters tall on the wings and 30 centimeters tall on the fuselages, the minimum legal dimensions under ICAO standards. Most Ilemi private aircraft owners and the IRDF cadre mudged a bit by using paint colors for the club registry markings that only had slight contrast with the background color. These were similar to the U.S. Air Force and Navy’s “dark gray on gray” ident markings that had been used since the 1980s.

  Chapter 19: Si Vis Pacem

  “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1941

  Solus Christus, The Ilemi Republic -- May, Four Years After Declaration of the Caliphate

  Mark Mtume asked Colonel Petrus Kamwi to meet him for a strategy session while he was on one of his stops in Solus Christus. Kamwi met him in one of the large IRDF tents being used until completion of the first underground barracks. It was late in the afternoon, the temperature was in the mid-90s, and light rain was falling, making a pattering noise as raindrops hit the tent. Kamwi was wearing his hydration pack, as was his habit, whenever he was out and about.

  The month of May was well into the rainy season, so much of their field work was conducted in the rain. The NCOs would often comment, “Think of this as character building, trainees.”

  Mark asked, “How do we put the Ilemi Republic Defense Force on an equal footing with larger forces attempting to raid or invade us? We’ll need a lot of firepower, but our budget is limited. And because it is very likely that there will be arms embargoes, we need to be able to use older-generation equipment that can “slip through the cracks.” If we try to buy the latest and greatest missile system, then that door is likely to get slammed shut in our face. So what will give us decent range, lots of firepower, good accuracy, at an affordable price, and also be available in abundance on the global arms market -- meaning interchangeable ammunition available in multiple countries?”

  Without hesitating, Kamwi replied, “Mortars -- big ones, I’m talking 120mm or the old United States 4.2”, what is commonly called a Four-Deuce. Nearly all Western countries have moved on to sophisticated ground-to-ground missile systems or advanced technology in artillery, such as base-bleed or rocket-assisted shells. But in the Third World, mortars are still the queen of battle. Most countries have standardized with three mortar sizes: 60mm for light infantry, 81mm or 82 mm for organic fire support of most wheeled and tracked units, and 120mm for heavy support. But the old American 4.2-inch M30 is excellent, and because it is rifled, it is very accurate. The 4.2” mortar has a range of nearly seven kilometers.”

  “Excellent.”

  Kamwi took a sip from his hydration pack tube, and continued. “Many countries have made their 4.2-inch mortars obsolete and either switched to missile systems or 120mm mortars. So Four-Deuce mortar tubes and baseplates can be bought for scrap metal prices -- and I mean that literally. And there are truly tons of 4.2mm mortar rounds in deep war reserves in the U.S., Greece, Brazil, the Philippines, and Israel. The quantities stored in Israel alone are staggering. You see, for more than 50 years, both Egypt and Israel got $1 billion worth of military aid annually from the United States, all part of the 1973 Peace Treaty deal. Those were all use-it-or-lose-it ” annual funds, so Israel often rounded out each year their $1 billion spending with ‘more ammunition.’ So by the year 2025, there were more 4.2” mortar shells in Israel’s war reserves than in the U.S.”

  Kamwi pulled out his MobDev and thumbed at it with practiced precision to reference his electronic library of military manual PDFs. He glanced up and said, “Okay, here in this manual is a good overview of the Four-Deuce: The M30 system weighs 307.5 kg including the complete mortar with a welded steel rotator, M24A1 base plate and M53 sight. I suggest we purchase M30s for fixed-position defense and either M320 towed mortars or the newer M327 mortars, if we can find some, for our maneuver units.”

  “What types of 4.2-inch mortar rounds were made?”

  Kamwi scrolled through the PDF and lapsed into quoting verbatim: “Here are the basic types: One, the HE M329A1, with a max range of 5,650 m (6,180 yd), weight 12.3 kg (27 lb.) Two,

  the HE M329A2, with a max range 6,840 m (7,480 yd), weight 10 kg (22 lb). Three, the HE M34A1 -- max range 4,620 m (5,050 yd), weight 12.2 kg (26.9 lb), and Four, the WP M328A1 -- well, that’s white phosphorous, now banned in many countries -- max range 5,650 m (6,180 yd). And we have the illumination parachute flare round M335A2, which has a max range 5,490 m (6,000 yd.”

  After seeing an appreciative nod, Kamwi added, “American 4.2-inch mortar rounds are designed to be drop-safe and bore-safe. As such, the fuses in the rounds for this rifled mortar do not arm unless the round is spun a certain number of times. That is to say that the round is not armed until it exits the barrel spinning and travels a safe distance from the gun emplacement.”

  In the end, after checking for availability from surplus arms brokers, the IRDF opted for rifled 4.2” mortars rather than Russian 120mm mortars because the manuals were available in both English and Hebrew and there was a huge quantity of used mortar parts, sights, and shells available on the surplus market. With modern ballistic computer apps available for mobile devices and dedicated Kestrel weather monitoring devices, the FDC apps could combine current MET (meteorological) and elevation data from GPS, as well as the crucial Angle T and all other relevant data. This minimized the need to “walk” the mortar round to the desired target.

  Chapter 20: The Settlers

  “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is, to be a slave... I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain...” -- Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, in Blade Runner (1982); screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick

  Solus Christus, The Ilemi Republic -- June, Four Years After Declaration of the Caliphate

  Although they came from a wide variety of backgrounds and income levels, most of the settler families in the Ilemi Republic had two possessions in common within a week of arrival: At least one firearm, and at least one drone. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs) and commonly called drones, were ubiquitous in the 2020s and 2030s. Although they were at first little more than just expensive playthings, by the 2040s they were mass-produced, inexpensive, and utterly practical. When integ
rated with late-generation lithium nanowire batteries, these drones could be recharged thousands of times before their batteries needed replacing.

  The quadrocopter drone profile became a familiar sight worldwide, starting in the 2010s, and by 2020 many governments had legislated flight and size restrictions. But by then they were ubiquitous. The sweet-spot size for long-endurance electric quadrocopter drones was ½-meter diameter rotors. This gave a quadrocopter sufficient lift for up to a ten-pound payload. But if only a couple of pounds were needed for sensors, then the extra eight pounds of capacity could be used for extra batteries, giving UAVs of that size either long range or persistence -- the ability to hover or orbit for extended periods of time.

  A parallel development was the Automated Landing Systems (ALS). ALS hardware and software gave second generation UAVs the ability to Return To Base (RTB), with just the touch of a button. There was no need to actively pilot a UAV when it was in RTB mode.

  The variety of people who opted to move to the Ilemi Republic amazed Alan Pilcher. Often, they propitiously arrived just before they were critically needed, and Akins considered that providential. Among the early arrivals were:

  - Martina Forti, a SIGINT specialist with the Italian AISE with a degree in electrical engineering. She turned down sales engineer job offers with both Marconi and Elettronica to move to the Ilemi. She was initially distrusted by some IRDF officers because of her background with a foreign intelligence agency. Martina later became a Deputy Director of the Ilemi Republic Intelligence and Security Service (IRISS.)

  - Gideon Di-Nur, a former Israeli Defense Force mortarman from Eilat, Israel, who was an instructor with Israeli Krav Maga Association (IKM). He became the mentor and lead instructor for Krav Maga training for the entire Ilemi Republic Defense Force. He was also the militia’s first mortar trainer.