The bank branch of the Farmer\u2019s Credit Union and Loan nearest \u201cGrid 19\u201d was open for business on a Tuesday morning when a convoy of black SUV\u2019s rolled up in front of the building and a phalanx of men in dark suits and sunglasses marched into the building and converged on the manager\u2019s office.\u00a0 A security guard intercepted them and was shown some very high-powered federal credentials that backed him right down.\u00a0 The manager was handed paperwork that required him to begin providing access to all of his files, account data and any other damn thing the feds decided they wanted.<\/p>\n
At approximately the same time a similar invasion was occurring at the headquarters of that bank.\u00a0 And the man heading up that raiding party was from the Justice Department and he wasn\u2019t interested in uncovering some scam that the IRS would be adjudicating.\u00a0 He was interested in a conspiracy.\u00a0 He demanded and received access to all transactional data for accounts that were deemed to be colluding in a price fixing conspiracy to control commodity prices throughout the United States.<\/p>\n
The president of the bank was a mild-mannered fellow who was basically scared out of his wits and agreed to cooperate as thoroughly as humanly possible but he assured the official that he had no idea what they were talking about.\u00a0 His bank wasn\u2019t a high-powered financial behemoth.\u00a0 They were strictly small potatoes.\u00a0 And after a few weeks of digging through the bank\u2019s accounts, transactions and files they found precisely nothing.\u00a0 All of the payments were between the private individuals that bought and sold the farm products.\u00a0 The bank had no control over prices or quantities.\u00a0 There was no commonality between these transactions and the bank other than the money passed in and out of their accounts.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Assistant Attorney General who was overseeing the investigation read the report he had received from his flunkies and shook his head.\u00a0 This was not going to be well-received by his boss.\u00a0 He now regretted having allowed himself to be convinced that his old Harvard Law School buddy Dex Hastings was onto something big with this price fixing conspiracy.\u00a0 He called up Hastings, \u201cHey listen, Dexter, make sure the next time you have a tip on a conspiracy theory just call up Morning Joe instead.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have price fixing when the individual prices are up and down all over the map.\u00a0 \u00a0I can\u2019t waste a million dollars auditing some penny-ante flyover-country bank looking for super-villains.\u00a0 Some of us have to work for a living.\u201d\u00a0 After that he felt better.\u00a0 But then he wondered if Hastings would still invite him to his summer party on Martha\u2019s Vineyard.\u00a0 After that he felt worse.<\/p>\n
Dexter Hastings got off the call from Washington and he was incensed.\u00a0 His friend in Washington had insulted him, his dashboard had that red flashing light which the CEO would slam him for and he still hadn\u2019t gotten to fire Barry Carver for his insolence.\u00a0 This was turning into a hell of a week.<\/p>\n
Just then he received a text to report to the C-Suite.\u00a0 Arriving, he saw that the executive board was assembled and Dexter nervously entered the board room and took a seat at the far end of the table.\u00a0 Eventually the matter under discussion was resolved and the CEO, Jim Hatcher turned to him smiling and said, \u201cDex, we\u2019ve been discussing your project.\u00a0 It seems that wheat just isn\u2019t going to recover soon enough for us to put your plan into action.\u00a0 We\u2019ve decided to reallocate the capital to another venture.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had an offer from Typhon Industries to buy up your entire portfolio in the Midwest.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to have to take a bit of a haircut to get him to take the whole lot but we\u2019re just champing at the bit to pick up that Korean Biotech firm with the hair restoration patent.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard it\u2019ll be worth a trillion dollars over the life of the patent so how can we resist.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry we won\u2019t be able use you anymore but you know how these things go; here today gone tomorrow.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve got an excellent package set up for you, I hope.\u00a0 So, buck up.\u00a0 You\u2019ll surely bounce back from this.\u00a0 In fact, if you\u2019d like I\u2019ll put in a good word for you with Typhon Industries.\u00a0 Who\u2019s that fellow, Paul Connors?\u00a0 I hear he\u2019s a strange duck, but any port in a storm, as they say.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s all Dexter.\u00a0 See you around the Vineyard next summer, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Connors was sitting at his desk, looking at what liquidations he could expedite in order to make the land purchase from Bay Holdings.\u00a0 He would be forced to sell an embarrassing amount of gold and platinum group metals on the international markets.\u00a0 It would necessarily depress the prices but more problematically it would draw too much attention to commodity holdings that would be difficult to explain.\u00a0 For these metals hadn\u2019t been purchased they\u2019d been mined.\u00a0 And having to account for his mineral holdings would raise too many questions that he could not afford to answer.<\/p>\n
Just then a deeply encrypted link appeared on his desktop.\u00a0 Opening it he saw the face of his most valuable operative, Cutter.\u00a0 The bearded face looked only slightly worried which Connors took as good news.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s the word Cutter?\u00a0 Will the gestapo be busting down my door this week?\u201d\u00a0 Cutter shook his chin, \u201cNo, not this week.\u00a0 You lucked out.\u00a0 That nitwit Hastings sicced his equally stupid friend in the Justice Department on the poor guys in the bank.\u00a0 And since they know exactly nothing about our operation, that\u2019s exactly what the feds learned.\u00a0 We dodged another bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connors smiled weakly, \u201cHow many more will we dodge?\u201d\u00a0 Cutter looked down, \u201cBetter assume that was your last break.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to have a plan to deal with the day after tomorrow when some bright young man kicks over your Potemkin scenery and exposes your operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connor stopped smiling, \u201cDo I declare war on the United States?\u201d\u00a0 Cutter looked at him with a glazed expression and said, \u201cYeah, more or less.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The bank branch of the Farmer\u2019s Credit Union and Loan nearest \u201cGrid 19\u201d was open for business on a Tuesday morning when a convoy of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,2510,1289,237,4,242],"tags":[3269,76,1290,265],"class_list":["post-30539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-literature","category-fiction-by-me","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-american-archipelago","tag-fiction-writing","tag-my-fiction","tag-science-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n