by Ira Tabankin
The applause and cheers cause President Reid to pause before continuing.
“Please let me continue. I stand in front of the world today asking a very simple question, do you feel safe with the keys to the world’s largest nuclear arsenal in the hands of a mass murderer? Do you feel safe going to bed tonight knowing a man who so easily killed our founder is developing and deploying a new generation of nuclear weapons? Our intelligence people have hinted to us that Brownstone is developing real science fiction weapons in addition to increasing his nuclear arsenal, rail guns, and lasers. A murderer will have nuclear weapons in addition to SciFi weapons. Is he going to develop a “Death-Star” next? The only reason for him developing these types of weapons is he wants to dominate and rule the world. Is President Brownstone a political? No, he’s a military man. A US Marine, the most bloodthirsty of all of America’s military. I say to the world; President Brownstone must be stopped; he must pay for his crimes, crimes, not just against the people of the LSA, he has committed war crimes against the peace-loving people of the world. Do we want to bow down to Emperor of the World Brownstone? If he succeeds in building these new weapons which will be able to stand up to him? He can easily crush us with one of his fingers. Think about the man, a bloodthirsty mass murderer with his finger on the button able to destroy the world.”
Screams of BOO BOO fill the press room in the Gray House
“Join us, I ask the world to join us in bringing the criminal Rodney Brownstone to justice. The LSA is hereby placing a reward of $50 million dollars for the capture of President Brownstone. Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t want to take any more of your time tonight, I ask for the world’s support. I ask the peace loving people of the USA to rise up and overthrow your non-elected President, rise up and join your brothers and sisters in peace, join us in the LSA where we care about your children’s, children’s future. Goodnight.”
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The Situation Room in the White House is deadly quiet. President Brownstone stands, “Much worse than we expected. I wish we had had the full recording in advance. Rash, I’m not criticizing, we’re all very thankful to you for getting us what you were able to. You gave us a head start. Without your friend, we’d have been caught off guard and unprepared. Steve, were you successful in getting our assets moved before Puten could freeze them? What about our largest international companies?”
“Mr. President, I agree, Rash for one I want to thank you. You gave us enough time to ensure we survive. We were able to slide our assets out of Russia right out under Puten’s nose. By the time he gave the order to freeze our assets, they were already gone. The majority of our largest international companies all thanked us and moved their funds. Mr. President, since we returned to the gold standard and were the only country that has, in many locations our dollar is worth more than a dollar. As such, I doubt the world is going to move away from our dollar. Reid can talk all he wants; the LSA is the one with a sinking economy, ours is growing stronger every day. Our unemployment rate is down while we’re counting the real number of unemployed, not just those collecting unemployment benefits. Our inflation rate has sunk while the LSA’s has increased. We’ll be free from importing oil within our 18-month goal.”
“Mr. President, Secretaries, speaking for the military, we were able to flush most of our navy before the Russian submarines moved into position, we caught them with their pants down. We found one Russian Oscar class submarine inside our two mile limit. We blasted it with active sonar; we dropped fifteen active sonar buoys over the Oscar’s position. We used the underwater communications to tell the Oscar to surface, or we’d destroy her. Her captain decided to surface because she couldn’t escape. There were so many buoys around the Oscar; she hit many of them when she surfaced. When she was on the surface, we dropped blue paint on her, marking her as ours, we ’owned’ her. That’s one Russian submarine captain who’ll be counting trees for the rest of his life.
“Our strategic forces are on DEFCON 3 alert; our bombers have been dispersed; all are armed with strategic weapons, and 30% of them are being kept airborne as are 30% of our refueling planes. F15s and F16s are flying CAP. The Navy has added F/A 18s to patrol the blue water regions. Every military base is operating on Threatcon DELTA. The 101st has taken up position aiding the secret service here in DC. Patriot missile batteries are being set up to cover the city of Washington, DC. Armor units will arrive in five hours. We’re sorry for the traffic mess we’re making on I-95 north. All military leaves have been cancelled.”
“Rash, you’re next.”
“Mr. President, Secretaries, within minutes of President Reid beginning his address we flooded the web and twitter. The LSA was expecting our cyber actions. I’m not sure if all of you know; the LSA has government paid hackers and “trolls” ensuring their side of the story always trends, and their message is the first found when performing searches. Frankly, they overpowered us. We’re currently in the midst of a cyberwar, the tides flowing back and forth, so far neither of us can claim total victory. We are making some progress in getting people to at least listen to us. We’ve released all of the documents we had on the New York City power outage. I had copies of them marked “Top Secret” and made sure they were leaked by WikiLeaks; they swallowed the bait and published the documents on their site. If you watched the White House reporters during Reid’s address, you saw them agree with Reid. I’m afraid we have a full blown war on our hands. We’re not starting from our usual position which is in the bleachers. We have a lot of work to do in a very short time. There are leaks coming from The Hague that the World Court is going to issue a warrant for President Brownstone’s arrest. Once they do, all hell is going to break lose.”
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“Premier Xing, the Americas made the Russians lose face. They forced one of their submarines to surface just outside of Norfolk, to add insult to injury; they dumped blue paint all over the surfaced submarine. They outflanked the other Russian submarines and got their fleets to sea.”
“General Tao, the American military isn’t one we are ready to face. Even in their diminished state they are the most-powerful military on the planet. If the LSA speech is correct and the Americans are developing these new science fiction weapons, they will be untouchable for decades. They will force a new arms race that will cost billions of dollars.”
“Premier, we should start our own future weapons programs.”
“General, you weren’t on the general staff when the Russians tried to outflank the Americans by developing laser and particle beam weapons, all they had to show for hundreds of billions of Rubles is the ability to blind a satellite. We can destroy a satellite much less expensively with our hunter-killer satellites. General, the American markets are more valuable to us than anything. They keep our people employed and happy. They enable our economy to grow.”
“Premier, is this why we didn’t support the Russians in dumping American dollars?”
“We dumped some to show our support for Russia, our close ally. When we dumped a trillion in dollars, we also tipped off President Brownstone in advance so he wouldn’t be surprised and knew we were still allied with him.”
“I see, we’re playing both sides.”
“Remember your Sun Tzu, in the end the Middle Kingdom will come out ahead.”
“I assume our type 093 submarines are shadowing the Russian and American Navy?”
“Yes, Premier Xing, of course, they are, I changed their priority, so our boats are in a better position to collect data on the Russians.”
“Send the location of the Russian submarines to the American Admiral Zander. He will ‘owe us a big one’ as the Americans say. He’ll pass along to President Brownstone we helped them; they’ll focus on the Russians leaving us alone to complete our absorption of our new territory.”
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President Puten is meeting with the Russian defense minister, “Minister Lenardski I don’t understand how the Americans got their navy out of their bases under our noses, I
thought General Voldodin said his plan was foolproof.”
“Mr. President, the only way the Americans could have pulled this off is if they had advance notice of President Reid’s speech.”
“Minister, that is an interesting thought, could they have a spy on Reid’s staff? Could their NSA have placed bugs on Reid himself? If they have a spy or have bugged Reid’s office or person, then they know we’ve been assisting Reid. We can’t allow this. I want the FSB to assist Reid to determine if there’s a spy on his staff. If there is a spy, get all of the information they have. If not, see if your agent can figure out how Brownstone knew what Reid was going to say. He had transferred America’s assets before we finished the paperwork to freeze them. The American major corporations were tipped off; they also moved their billions of cash before we could grab it. I want answers. We need to know how much the Americans know. Brownstone is a step ahead of us. I wanted him to be two steps behind us. Our plans were based on keeping President Brownstone having to react to us, now we have to react to him. When I was the Director of the FSB, the Americans were two steps behind, not ahead of us. I want answers and I want them now.”
“Mr. President, we’ll contact our agent in Los Angeles.”
“Remind him, he can be sitting in LA watching the women walk by half-naked, or he can count trees in Siberia for the rest of his useless life. I want him to suggest to President Reid that the criminal Brownstone and America should be disarmed of their nuclear weapons for the good of the world. America has thrown their weight around too long. It’s time for America to have their claws cut. We’ll volunteer to help Reid and the United Nations disarm America. I’m sure Reid will love this idea.”
“Mr. Puten, there’s no way Brownstone will agree to disarm. He’s spending billions rearming America with the next generation of weapons, ones a generation ahead of anything we have. We lack the core technologies to match the Americans.”
“Then steal the technology. The damn yellow bastards excelled at stealing their secrets, learn from them how they did it. They are our friends for now; the FSB should send a team of technical experts to visit them and share cyber methods.”
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“Ron, did I hear him say he wants the World Court to arrest President Brownstone and put him on trial in front of the world for crimes against humanity? What kind of kangaroo court bullshit is that? Why would he, or we the people of the USA, allow this? He’s most likely already been found guilty before the trial even starts. What’s next?”
“Brad old buddy, why then President Reid offers his kind services to us, so we’re not without a President. We’ll end up worse than we were under Obsma. If you ask me, it’s a good plan from the LSA’s view and a horrible one from ours. President Brownstone allowed the LSA to split to avoid an armed uprising and bloody civil war among us. If Reid tries to push himself back into control over all of the country, we’ll end up with the bloody civil war that only Russia will benefit from. We will be fighting neighbor against neighbor. I thought we had, by the grace of God, avoided that massive blood bath.”
“Ron, maybe it’s what Reid wants, you know, prune out the trouble makers, makes it a lot easier for him to rule if most of the people are progressives. He had us conservatives either killed or locked away someplace; he might even ship us to Siberia to keep us out of the country, and none of our family would be able to help us. We’ll be 12,000 miles away; he’ll hold our lives over our families, in order for our families to quietly go along with his rules. If he wins he wins it all. The light of freedom will go out forever.”
“Isn’t he forgetting he’ll still have to deal with Puten?”
“Nope, Puten will leave Reid or whomever in power as his puppet here, Russia will have the White House full of FSB agents. We’ll be slave workers for Russia. We’ll grow their food and make their products without being able to enjoy the fruits of our labor. America will never be able to rise again to threaten Russia. If I were Puten, I’d do everything possible to ensure this plan worked as quickly as possible. Once President Brownstone is able to start rearming the military with a new generation of weapons and personal armor, no one will be able to touch us. Time isn’t on Reid’s side. Look for Reid to continue to stir up problems for us around the world. I’m betting we’ll start hearing American tourists and international business people being attacked and kidnapped to apply pressure on Brownstone. It’ll also show Reid and Puten how far Brownstone will go in protecting American lives.”
“Ron, I fear you’re right, which means we better be alert for domestic terror attacks too.”
“Excellent point, I’m going to call in an alert to the station to increase our alert level.”
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In one of the many Royal houses of the Saud family, a different type of meeting is taking place. Projections of the USA’s oil and gas production are plotted with the corresponding reduction of revenue the Kingdom will see. One line is going sharply up while the other is going sharply down. Everyone in the Royal family knows that this means. It means the end of the Saud royal family.
The royal prince responsible for oil revenue in the Kingdom studies the chart, he turns to face his aides, “This is a picture of the end of the Kingdom, we can’t survive at these levels of reduced oil revenue. If the USA continues to expand their fracking and opening new lands for exploration, their purchases of oil from us will drop to zero within seventeen months. ZERO, when that happens the kingdom will fall. The people will lose their lifestyle; the radicals will rise up; they will gather the people’s support; they will overthrow the royal house of Saud. We will all be dead or wish we were.
“We have to find a way to slow or derail the American’s plans. If we don’t, we are surely looking at our end.”
“Your Highness, should we consider helping the LSA in their battle against President Brownstone? It’s Brownstone who implemented the program for America to be oil independent. If Brownstone goes, the country may lack the will to continue. We can launch a major media and PR campaign against fracking. We’ll pay Hollywood to produce anti-fracking films and TV programs. When it comes to money, the greens look the other way where the money comes from, our best example of this is the ex-Vice President who sold his soul and his television network for oil money while he still promotes his Global warming nonsense.”
“Yes, a valid plan, four of you prepare to visit our friends in the media, I’ll set up a budget of $300 million, with that kind of money we should be able to buy the LSA. We must find a way to stop the USA from completing their oil independence program because if they continue and succeed, they will destroy OPEC. We’ll never recover. Once our people lose their standard of living the entire region will become a war zone. The fundamentalists will control all of the Middle East, throwing us all back 1,000 years. We won’t be safe anywhere. We will be hunted and killed by the fundamentalists.”
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President Puten is very angry, his face is bright red, “Minister, what do you mean the Americans have frozen all of our assets and the assets of the old European Union? How did they do this so quickly? How do we get them to unlock the frozen assets? This is totally unacceptable. Minister, what do you need from me, other than a declaration of war?”
“President Puten, I don’t know yet, I suggest you open a dialog with President Brownstone, maybe the two of you can reach an agreement.”
“What can we do to fight back economically against the Americans?”
“Mr. Puten, we will have to get back to you. We don’t know. We though when we dumped their dollars we had them over a barrel; they surprised us when they returned to the gold standard. They caught us by surprise.”
“Your options are to find a way to get our assets unfrozen or you and your family will have an all expense paid trip to Siberia. By the way, it’ll be a one-way ticket. We need the European assets. I counted on those assets.”
Chapter 3
“Prince Azaid, OPEC has inquired if you will be able to attend a special meeting i
n Geneva this Sunday?”
“Please tell them we’ll be there and alert my security that we’ll fly out on Thursday with an open return date.”
“My prince, do you think the combined might of OPEC can slow the Americans down?”
“We’ll see what our partners have to say in a few days. Alert the Hotel d'Angleterre that we will require the entire hotel for our stay.”
“My Prince, the hotel general manager has informed us he has three rooms that will be a problem to vacate.”
Prince Azaid is visibly upset, “Tell them, either we have all 45 rooms held for us or we’ll buy the hotel and terminate his contract with cause. If these guests won’t leave, send one of our people to buy them out of their agreement, put them up at our cost elsewhere.”
“Yes my prince.”
“Aban, arrange a party for me on Thursday evening, you know the number to call. Tell her I would like redheads this trip and make sure they are real redheads; at the price we pay her, she can at least make sure they’re real. Also tell her, if any of the girls are high, I will return them for a full refund. She has this last chance to redeem herself after the last time we used her. I can’t forget she send us the phony blondes.”
“Of course my prince, I’ll see to it at once.”
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In the LSA Gray House, President For Life Reid and his Vice President are having coffee together.
“Harold, I want to go with you to The Hague and Geneva, I can assist you at the meetings.”
“Nanny, I think it’s a good idea, however, for security I suggest we fly on two different airplanes, that way if something happens to one of us, the other can manage the country.”