The Shelter: Book 1, The Beginning

by Ira Tabankin

  Matteo Renzi, the leader of Italy, says, “I’ve spoken to him during the campaign. I asked him how he plans to succeed when we’ve all failed to win modifications in the restrictions on our government spending. He said if the banks and Merkel don’t accept his changes, he’s serious about pulling Greece out of the EU and a return to using the Greek Drachma. He also said he’s got a surprise for Germany. He’s going to bill Germany for damage done to Greece in the Second World War.”

  Werner Faymann, the leader of Austria replies, “Does he realize if Greece leaves the Union, others will follow. Our dream of a united Europe will come to an end because some fat, lazy Greeks wanted more. He’ll hurt all of our people if he withdraws Greece from the Union. He’ll take the Union down and all of us with it if he follows through with his threats. He could start another worldwide depression. His little stunt of threatening to bill Germany for damages done seventy years ago is a joke.”

  Mariano Rajoy sighs, “I think the Union is coming apart anyway. If Greece stays in the union, it will only delay the unenviable. Germany lost the First and Second World Wars, but now Merkel controls the banks who in turn controls the Union. She may have lost the military side of the battle, but she won the war. She indirectly rules all of us. She mandates what and how we spend.”

  Matteo Renzi asks, “Mariano, do you really believe the Union is doomed?”

  “Yes, I do. All of our economies are weak, our people demand jobs and a brighter future for their children. When we tied ourselves together, we became only as strong our weakest member. Unfortunately, we have too many weak members. We have been at each other’s throats for hundreds of years. In the last one hundred years Germany tried twice to conquer all of us, now because their leader controls the banks, she, they have conquered us. Our people resent it. I don’t see Merkel accepting any changes to the bailout package she backed for Greece, that'll force Tsipras to pull Greece out of the Union. Which one of us will be next? When the Union implodes how will Merkel get her banks repaid? She’s not going to pay them back from the Germany’s operating funds. Our people are tired of austerity programs, our people are burned-out being told they have to accept less and less. I think Tsipras might be onto something. If all of us unite, Merkel can’t stop us.”

  Matteo shakes his head, “Mariano, I think pushing Merkel into a corner can be very dangerous for all of us. If she doesn’t support us, we could be left without any operating funds.”

  Werner replies, “We can’t continue on the current path, all of our people are unhappy. If Tsipras succeeds, our people will rise up and force a change across all of Europe. We could even end up at war with each other again.”

  Matteo whispers, “What if Germany decides to foreclose on her loans? What if she sends her military into our countries to collect what we owe her? Our people will go crazy, they’ll see ghosts of the 1940s goose-stepping through Europe again. Are we ready to relive the dark days of the First and Second World Wars? Millions could die.”

  Werner says, “I don’t think she would do that, the entire world will turn against Germany. The world fought Germany twice before, they won’t want to go to war with her a third time, if the world does, they will completely destroy Germany so she never rises again. If Merkel resorts to military force, it will result in Germany’s total destruction. Putin and Obama could be brought back into a cold war that can explode in Central Germany similar to our worst nightmares during the dark days of the Cold War.”

  Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark says, “It’s going to be different this time. The Americans bailed us out in the first two World Wars, this time they are tired of war. They’ve spent fifteen years fighting in the Middle East, their President has promised the people no more wars. If he hopes his party wins the next election, he won’t send troops to our aid. His banks will demand if anything he sides with Merkel. I don’t think we can count on America to come to our aid.”

  The five leaders agree to wait thirty days to see what, if any, progress Greece makes in their discussions with Merkel.

  @@@@@

  In the small town of Poltava, located in Eastern Ukraine, a squad of US Special Forces troops, wearing Ukrainian army uniforms is watching and reporting on the Russian army reinforcements moving towards the front. Sergeant Gray aims his handheld laser on the third Russian T-90 main battle tank in a line of the new Russian main battle tanks, he whispers into the radio, “Delta Foxtrot Two, lit. Bring it on.”

  His message is encrypted and burst to a US Military MilSat, which transmits it to Tampa, Florida, the home of SOCOM (Special Operations Command). The SOCOM commanding General responds, “engage.”

  Circling 45,000 feet above Sergeant Gray are five armed Predator drones. The pilot and weapons operator are sitting in a trailer in Germany receive the ‘Go’ command from SOCOM. The weapons operator says, “We’re good to go, Hellfires are selected and ready.”

  The pilot confirms, “Good, we’re clear to fire. All Predators are networked so each target is only hit once.”

  The weapon’s officer smiles responding, “Roger, now firing.”

  The Hellfire missiles leave the Predators guided by the sensor in the missile’s nose tuned to the frequency of the Sergeant's laser designator. The Hellfire follows the laser striking the top, the weakest spot on the T-90. The missile’s first warhead blasts a hole through the T-90’s thin upper armor and a layer of reactive armor. This allows the missile’s body and main warhead to penetrate the tank. The explosion of the Hellfire missile inside the tank sets off the stored main gun rounds in the tank’s turret. The explosion blows the turret off the stricken tank, killing the crew. Before the first tank’s turret lands, Sergeant Gray illuminates the next tank in the line. The Predator weapons operator fires another missile, killing another tank. The Special Operating Force team moves their lasers from tank to tank, within six minutes the road is littered with burning dead Russian tanks. Hundreds of millions of Rubles worth of brand new tanks litter the road.

  The images of the destroyed Russian tanks are reviewed in Moscow by the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergey Shoigu. He slams his fist on the conference table. “Damn the Americans. Only they could have done this.”

  Picking up the secure phone to the Kremlin, Shoigu says one word into the phone, “Putin.” His call is instantly connected to the President’s office.

  President Putin answers his secure phone on its first ring, “Mr. Defense Minister what can I do for you?”

  “Mr. President, the Americans have struck and destroyed a line of twenty-four T-90 tanks that were on the way to reinforce the front in Ukraine.”

  “How can you be sure the Americans destroyed our tanks?”

  “Only they could have taken them out with such precision and speed. It had to be either one of their stealth bombers or drones.”

  “What proof do you have?”

  “At this minute I have none. I’ve sent two experts to investigate the scene, they’ll take samples and be able to determine which weapons caused the destruction. I’m willing to bet we find some missile residue proving it was the Americans.”

  “When you have the proof call me. What’s your backup plan to replace the lost armor?”

  “Mr. President, we don’t have many of the new T-90 tanks available, I’m going to have to replace them with T-80s.”

  “Where are the balance of the T-90s?”

  “Sir, they are with the Fourth Guards on the border with the PRC.”

  “Leave them there for now. If the yellow bastards see us withdrawing armor, they’ll sense weakness and launch another series of cross-border attacks.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send a few platoons of Spetsnaz to locate who destroyed our tanks. If they are Americans, keep some alive. I’ll need them to pressure the stupid American President.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Increase the security of all of our bases in the Ukraine.”

  @@@@@

  Lacy and I sit across from each other enjoying
breakfast, sipping cups of rich freshly brewed coffee. Lacy smiles looking at me, “Honey since we can live anywhere, where would you like to go?”

  “I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

  “Hawaii?”

  “I knew you’d say that. I think Hawaii is out, it’s too far for the kids to visit. Plus, if anything really bad happens in the world we’re going to be stuck out there.”

  “Honey, the weather’s perfect, if we bought some land we could grow everything we’d need. If nothing happens, we’ll live in paradise.”

  “Do you really want to be so far away from everyone we know?”

  Lacy smiles, saying, “No, you’re right, we can vacation there, I know where I don’t want to live.”

  “Me too, I don’t want to move back to California, I don’t want to live in the North East.”

  Lacy laughs, “But Jay, you were born in New Jersey, aren’t we going to be buried in Jersey?”

  “I was born there and got out as soon as possible, the only reason we’re going to be buried there is, it's where the family plots are. Since I’m to the right of Attila the Hun, I don’t get along with anyone there anymore. In addition, it’s too cold. Same for the Mid West.”

  “Don’t you get along with your cousins?”

  “Only if we don’t discuss politics.”

  We’re interrupted by the television in the background, the ‘News Bulletin’ flashes on the screen. Lacy looked up saying, “Now what? What else can go wrong in the world?”

  The ‘talking head’ reported the FBI arrested a Russian spy working for a bank on Wall Street.

  I sip my coffee, telling Lacy, “Not good.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “About the only reason I can think of for an FSB agent to be working on Wall Street is to screw with the market or to screw with our currency.”

  “Jay, what’s FSB mean?”

  “Sorry, the FSB is the replacement for the Russian spy agency which used to be called the KGB.”

  “You mean like the CIA?”

  “Yes. They’re similar.”

  “I thought the Cold War was over, why are they spying on us?”

  “Honey, they’re spying on us, we’re spying on them. The Obama reset button with Russia didn’t work, it was all a big PR bullshit event. Our relations with them are as bad now as when we were in the Cold War. Our relations may even be worse than during the Cold War. Russia is flying bombers towards Alaska and Europe again. They have developed new generations of weapons and all the while we’ve been reducing the size and strength of our military, Putin is rebuilding the Russian military. Putin is playing Obama like a fiddle. When they said Obama was the smartest man in the room, there must have been no one else in the room. He hasn’t shown he knows anything about foreign relations. His policies are making things worse around the world. Our friends don’t trust us and our enemies don’t fear us.”

  “Do you think the arrest means anything of significance?”

  “Depends what the agent was doing when he got caught. I don’t trust Putin. He’s never given up the goal of making Russia the world’s sole superpower, he’d like to dominate the entire world. He’s rearming the Russian military, he’s waking the Red Bear out of its hibernation. He’s never taken his eyes off of Europe.”

  “Does it impact our plans?”

  “Let’s assume nothing happens, everything in the world stays status quo for the rest of our lives, where would you like to live? If we assume something does happen, where would you like to live?”

  “Honey, when you say, something happens, what do you mean?”

  “Let’s assume, the market melts down, a race war breaks out, or there’s a major terrorist attack. And lastly, alien invasion.”

  Lacy laughed, throwing the crust from her toast at me. “Don’t give me any of that science fiction bullshit.” She continues, “What’s the chances of anything bad happening?”

  “I think there’s a very real chance of a currency collapse, our debt is approaching $20 trillion, there’s no way we can ever pay it back. Obama and Congress keep spending like drunken sailors. We’re selling our bonds to the Fed, which is like me loaning you money to give it back to me. Sooner or later, and I think sooner, it’s going to implode. Our currency isn’t backed by anything except for the goodwill and trust of the USA government. I don’t trust them to pay back what’s owed. If the new government in Greece goes ahead and writes off their debt, telling Germany and the banks to screw off, the Euro will fail, resulting in the EU breaking up. At first our dollar will benefit. However, the dollar will fail when people realize we’re not in any better financial shape as the EU. People will begin questioning how safe the dollar really is. I think if Greece goes through with their threat the price of Gold will soar. People will think it’s the only safe financial haven."

  “Why don’t you do some research, we’ll talk more tonight. I’ve got to get to the office. Maybe it’s time to buy some gold. Are you still planning on calling Beth today?”

  “Yes, she’s an hour behind us. I have to speak to her anyway, I’m almost ready to send her our tax data for last year. We need to find out from her what the downside is if we take the lump sum payout.”

  “Love you, gotta run. Call me later.”

  “Will do. Love you too.”

  @@@@@

  New York City’s FBI Special Agent in Charge William Gray is frowning as he reads the arrest report of Evgeny Buryakov. He’s thinking, we delayed too long. We lost his two ‘friends’ who were able to leave the country. I tried to get D.C. to approve us picking them up three weeks ago. I’ve been doing this for 22 years, the assholes in D.C. are young pups. They think the entire world can get along by saying we’re sorry and we love everyone. If Buryakov doesn’t talk, it’s going to take a lot of manpower to figure out the extent of the damage he’s done. Just another day in paradise. A knock on his office door breaks into his thoughts, “Come in.”

  “SAC Gray, we have processed Buryakov. He’ll be in conference room number 3 in twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks. Don’t let anyone near him until I question him.”

  “Sir, D.C. has said we have to transfer him to headquarters in two hours.”

  “How did they communicate this to us?”

  “Via secure fax.”

  “You never saw it, pull the paper out of the secure fax machine. We’ll transfer Buryakov when I’m satisfied we have all of the information from him we need to figure out what he was doing.”

  “Sir, D.C…”

  “Said nothing because you didn’t get a fax because we were out of paper.”

  “Yes, sir, you realize you could be fired for delaying to carry out HQ’s order.”

  “Good. I’m ready to sit on my boat and fish all day.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll pull the paper.”

  “While you’re at it, pull the telephone plug, some asshole may put paper in it. No one will check the plug.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Damn D.C. They want me to transfer Buryakov so they can return him to Moscow. The screwed up State Department must be behind this bullshit. Stupid State Department and their damn phony reset button. They delayed us moving against Buryakov for weeks. If they’d let me move when I wanted to, we would have the entire team in custody and we’d have a much chance of knowing what they were doing.

  @@@@@

  I spent the morning making notes, talking with our accountant and sending her our tax records and previous year financial information so she could help us figure out the best way to handle our winnings. I didn’t notice Lacy calling the house until the ringing brought me back to reality.

  Lacy sounded concerned, “Honey, got a minute? Did you speak with Beth?”

  “She’s overjoyed for us, she said she’s going to raise her rate to do our taxes to $27 million. After we had a good laugh, she told me to take the lump sum and put 25% away for any other potential tax issues. She’s sending us some interest bearing account infor
mation we can stick the money in until this time next year. She reminded us that we have to spread the money around as soon as we get it. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) backs each insurer for only $250,000. Not per account, per person. After the 2008 banking meltdown, there is a hell of a lot less US banks than there used to be. There aren’t enough US banks left for us to open accounts at each to cover our $28 million. Beth said she’d help us open accounts in banks around the world to spread our risks. She also suggested some high-grade bonds.”