by Gene Skellig
With the economic collapse in Japan, however, Mr. Yamamoto had cancelled the project after throwing tens of millions of dollars into research and design of the prototype sail craft.
As part of the liquidation of the Yamamoto Corporation, he had been forced to sell off everything, at whatever price, to stave off bankruptcy.
He had contacted the Canadian Military Attaché in Tokyo, the man who he thought of as a friend, as his personal and corporate world was falling apart around him.
“Mike, I can’t pretend any longer. My Northern Lights program is cancelled, and we will not be moving forward with any of the projects in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories,”
“Wakarimasu, Yamamoto-San” Mike had replied with a smile, trying out his Japanese. “We knew this time would come, and I’ve already been given direction in this regard, from Ottawa.” Mike replied, attempting to put the proud Japanese tycoon at ease.
“Direction?” Tatsuo Yamamoto asked.
“Let’s face it, Japan’s economy is in full collapse. The only people who think the yen still has any value are the poor old pensioners your government encourages to keep using the fiat currency. The rest of the world knows the yen is worthless. And with the US currency about to be replaced with those new G-Dollars, alongside our own gold-backed Canadian dollars, the whole world knows that gold is king again.” Mike began.
“Sure. Gold is the only true money. But the problem is, until the new gold-backed dollar, or some other world reserve currency emerges, global trade is dead,” the industrialist observed.
“Exactly. But in the meantime, the yen and the old dollars are still in circulation, even as the new currencies are being printed and distributed. So my instructions, or rather, those of my Ambassador, are to expend all of our Embassy’s accounts denominated in Yen, US Dollar and Canadian Dollar by the end of the month, and to begin – and this is absolutely confidential Tatsuo – to begin using the G-Dollars on the first of next month.”
Captivated by the inside information he was receiving, the industrialist’s mind was moving a mile-a-minute. It suddenly seemed to him that there could be a way out of his troubles, perhaps even to stave off bankruptcy for his companies.
Mike went on. “So in regard to your commitments, especially the deposits and clean-up fees you’ve made for the Northern Lights enterprise – those we are going to convert to G-Dollars and keep on the books. You’ll be one of the few Japanese with any of the new hard currency. But as for everything else, we recognize that the program is dead on arrival, and you’ll be faced with the orderly wrapping up of the project. To help with that, I have been authorized to buy your prototype vessel, that fat pig you showed me in Osaka.”
“Buy it? We’ve invested over a hundred million yen in that.” Tatsuo began, but then faded, knowing full well that there was no point continuing the development of the prototype vessel if the program was already as dead as the global economy.
“What terms, or basis for valuation does Canada have in mind?”
“Well, here’s the strange thing. I’m to offer you two choices. First, we’ll pay you twenty million Japanese yen for it, if you can deliver it to the Port of Esquimalt, to our naval base there, in whatever condition the hull is in now.” Mike began, clearly putting out the ‘throw-way’ option first.
“And the second approach?”
“You finish it, but not for the original purpose.”
“And?”
“And we’ll pay you twenty-million in gold-backed Canadian G-Dollars, and we’ll accept it at your Osaka dockyards.
For Tatsuo, the prospect of getting hard currency and even keeping some of his employees working on completing the vessel, in this case for the Canadian military, opened up so many new possibilities. “Go on, Mike.”
“We want the vessel to be completed, with some of the features as per the designs you showed me, but with a few other features added. And we want it completed by the end of the fiscal year – that’s in just three months. Can you have her sea-worth by then?”
Feeling a bit ungracious for saying so, Tatsuo had to ask. “Will you advance funds now, to give me something to work with?”
“Yes. We can advance the nominal sum of ten million in the new currency right now, but you can’t use it until the official launch of the currency at the end of the month. This is to fund the alterations – mostly cosmetic, add-ons to the fitment of the interior spaces and the deck, nothing major.”
“So this ten million in new Gold Dollars, this is above and beyond the twenty million Canada is paying for the vessel?” Tatsuo asked, incredulously.
What Mike did not have the heart to tell him was that Ottawa had directed Canada’s embassies, trade missions, and military attachés to throw around as much of the old money as possible and a massive surge of the new currency, upon its official release, so that the new Canadian G-Dollar comes out of the gates ahead of the new Euro and is competitive with the anticipated US gold-backed dollar, so that the Canadian economy will benefit from the restoration of the gold standard on equal if not superior footing to her rivals. Despite being a major producer of gold, Canada was still dependant on global trade, and the sale of her commodities. So if Japan, China, Korea and other manufacturing centres could not revive their failed economies, the economic stagnation affecting Canada would never end. As the ambassador hat put it to the trade and military staffs at the embassy in Tokyo: ‘We’re going to throw the new money around like a drunken sailor on shore leave!’
From that moment, Mike had worked closely with Tatsuo, in an undocumented manner, on a military procurement project that entirely bypassed the complex web of red tape that was normally required of all military procurement. The project was entirely off the books, and if it were ever looked at in detail, would have been seen to violate all manner of actuarial controls, government regulations, security regulations and laws.
For his part in it, Colonel Mike Latimer had his own focus. The relatively small project he was overseeing with Mr. Yamamoto was just one of many ways the Canadian embassy was attempting to pour Canadian money into the Japanese tentacle of the global economy. But it was the one project that had a truly military purpose – that of serving as one of the contingency plans for the evacuation of Canadian Embassy staff.
Many of the staff, including the Ambassador, were from Japanese-Canadian families and had family in Japan. For some of them, should the Embassy be evacuated for any reason, they would have the option of remaining in Japan and taking leave from the Embassy during the emergency, or to return to Canada by the safest expedient means.
Some of the war plans and emergency scenarios – whether based on regional war or a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami – called for sheltering in place, while others called for evacuation through any means possible. When the Embassy staff discussed the various scenarios, it became clear that in some cases, evacuation by sea would be more viable than an air-based evacuation plan. The trouble was that the Canadian Government did not have control of any sea-worthy vessels in Japan, and with the pressures on the Canadian Navy, it was rare for a Canadian warship to be on a port call to Japan.
So when the cable to the Embassy arrived detailing the guidance relating to the financial crisis; the direction to spend money on all variety of ‘programs’; and the key signal that ‘due regard for value for money, substantiation, and other normal best practices are hereby suspended’, the Ambassador telephoned the Prime Minister to get voice confirmation that he had understood Prime Minister Currothers’ intent.
After an unprecedented half-hour discussion with the Prime Minister, Ambassador Kirkwood put the phone down with a perplexed look on his face, and informed his senior staff of the situation in Ottawa and the new crisis in Washington.
“Shit is about to hit the fan when the Americans default on their debt. We are directed to repatriate non-essential staff and to close down most embassy services. That will leave no more than a dozen here. Mike, that means you and your military staff, but cut
that back to less than a half-dozen. I’m sending everybody else home, and giving paid leave to the locally employed personnel,” the Ambassador said.
That was when Mike had first gotten the idea of asking permission for Canada to “invest” in the vessel he had seen in Osaka. He knew that the ship’s unusual design, and highly automated systems were right-sized for a dozen or so from the embassy, with lots of room for supplies. From that moment on, as Yamamoto’s men completed the fitment of the ship, the remaining embassy personnel thought of the vessel as their ace in the hole. It allowed them to remain focussed on their efforts to shore up the economy of Japan and continue to serve Canada during this turbulent period.
Two months later, when Mike was showing the vessel to his wife, the ship still had not been given a name. Knowing that the Military Attaché and his wife were avid sailors, despite the man’s Air Force pedigree, Colonel Latimer had been given the honour of being the ship’s first Captain. The ambassador had insisted that Mike have his wife name the ship.
So even if the first visit to the shipyard in Osaka had been a shock to Sarah Latimer, she embraced the fact that her husband already decided that she would name the ship. When Mike showed her the ship for the first time, explaining the strange telescopic mast and boom and all of its intricacies, Sarah put her scientific brain to use in asking detailed questions, and had entirely put aside any reservation that the ugliness of the vessel had made on her. For her, “pig” was no longer a word that came to mind.
By the end of the tour, after satisfying herself that she understood the algae-diesel plant, unusual high-clue aspect sail design and the highly sophisticated navigation system, she hit Mike with the one questions he was uncomfortable about addressing.
“Mike, I get how this is supposed to be a ‘green’ design. That bio-fuel diesel engine, really makes sense. And I can accept that the sonar system has a benefit in collecting precise sea-floor data, and could even have other research uses when the guys at the naval yards in Esquimalt get their hands on it. But these other structures you’ve had them add, like those boxes on either side, and all those key-hole thingies all over the place. This thing looks like it’s being retrofitted for some sort of combat. What gives?” she demanded.
“I can’t lie to you, Sarah. Those are security features.”
“Do you really think we’d need those? Just to sail across the Pacific, to the West Coast?”
“Well, suppose we had to go somewhere else?”
A look of shock took over her face as she finally understood. “You mean we might have to sail southwest? – like toward the Philippines and Indonesia?”
The stern, silent look on Mike’s face was her answer. And she knew what that meant. It meant that for some reason, which his military code would not allow him to explain, Mike was preparing the ugly boat for the possibility of being sailed through the pirate-infested waters of southeast Asia.
From that moment on, she understood that the ugly ship was to be retrofitted to combat pirates and be self-sufficient. The image of a turtle came to mind, with some animal attacking the slow-moving creature as it withdrew its hands, head and feet inside the protection of its hard shell.
When the ship was complete and ready to be launched, the worsening economic situation made Sarah see the ugly boat as their only way to escape the coming chaos in Asia.
At a quiet ceremony, with the core embassy personnel, their spouses and children on hand, along with the Yamamoto family and several of the engineers, craftsmen and welders who completed the fitment of the fat boat, no more than fifty or so people, she swung the Champagne bottle with gusto, smashing it into the keel of the boat she had come to have a close connection to. Her words still hung in the air as the Champagne dripped off of the hull, and the blocking and rigging was removed, allowing the fat boat to slide into the dark waters of Osaka Bay.
She had kept the name secret until the final moment, just before flinging the tethered bottle at her:
“On behalf of Canada and the Yamamoto Corporation, I christen thee Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship – Utility Hull number 4138, to be registered as a research vessel and known by her crew as the ‘Grumpy Tortoise’, may you protect all who travel in you!”
18
COMBAT INEFEFECTIVE
[Three and a half years into the war]
It frustrated Colonel Weir to be so far from the action. Ever since his promotion to full Colonel and secondment to the Australian Army’s Special Operations Command he had been so wrapped up in the paperwork and endless rounds of meetings and briefings that he seldom had contact with the men of the Australian SOCOMD – his men – let alone with his American countrymen with the MAGTFA up in the Darwin sector.
Largely relegated to spending half of his time with the S5 planning cell of SOCOMD and the other half of his time reviewing the Special Forces Training Centre’s latest version of the condensed “reinforcement training curriculum” that would turn regular soldiers of the Australian Army into lethal Special Forces soldiers, Colonel Weir knew that he was best used where he was. But despite that, he chafed at being relegated to staff work.
In the off chance that some turn of events could take him back into combat operations, he maintained his physical fitness regime. Perhaps not quite as rigorously as he had back at Ranger Training Brigade, but he could still hold his own when he ran with the younger soldiers.
He was as comfortable with the Australian Special Forces men of 1 Cdo Regt as he was with other Australians from Special Air Service Regiment. To him, the men of SASR were interchangeable with those of Special Ops Command, SOCOMD and on par with Rangers and Marines.
Ever since the war had started, and the Special Forces Training Center near Sydney had been taken out, along with the lion’s share of Australian military and civilian power centers in New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, and Queensland, any surviving military installation safely located far to the west of the Chinese controlled areas had been quickly expanded to replace the lost capabilities.
In the context of Australian Special Operations, that meant Perth. More specifically, Campbell Barracks, just south of Perth. Home to the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, SASR, Campbell Barracks was the logical place to focus the entire Special Forces force generation effort. So while the newly formed units ostensibly were broken down into SASR units, 1 Cdo Regt, 2 Cdo Regt, Special Ops Engineering Regt, Special Ops Logistics Squadron, Military Working Dogs unit, Parachute School and Special Operations Training Centre, they were all Special Forces units under Australian SOCOMD. Unified by their cause, they were a very close, largely interchangeable, and highly motivated pool of Special Forces operators. They were just the type of men and women that Colonel Weir needed.
His mission, other than to ensure that SOCOMD personnel were properly trained, was to orchestrate a wide range of carefully designed missions. Some of his operations were focused on cultivating intelligence sources in enemy occupied areas, within the Chinese communities, through decrypted intercepts of enemy radio and other communications systems, and more conventional field work. For the first role, he had an entire organization of Australian civilian and military personnel ranging from former teachers from the School of the Air organization to academics and lay persons of Chinese origins. For the second, largely leveraging off of the capabilities of the first, he had a steady feed of information from the American facility at Pine Gap, with some first rate Intelligence Branch analysts at the Intelligence Fusion Centre that had been set up at HMAS Stirling, the Royal Australian Navy’s major base on the West Coast.
However, all of this was insufficient. What Colonel Weir really needed was field work, the highly granular, specific information such as time-and-place, personalities and other information that fed into predictive behavior estimates. This was at the center of his close relationships with the personnel of SOCOMD. After getting to know them in his capacity as subject matter expert supporting their training, giving lectures on psychological warfare,
insurgency operations, counter-intelligence and a myriad of other competencies, he would then change hats and be the man who sent them into high-intensity operations, extremely dangerous missions, and not uncommonly, low-return-probability, “LRP”, missions.
The degree to which it affected him, sending his courageous young prodigies out on LRP missions, was a burden that he kept to himself. In his outward appearance, Colonel Weir was tough as nails. To him, it was pure military necessity. He had to send them out, put them in place to do their task despite the odds. And he had to ensure that they had every skill, every bit of technical knowledge, and as much support as possible for them to convert the LRP mission into a successful outcome. Not only out of caring for his men, but also so they could be used again for the next task.
Special Forces operatives, like the thousand or so US Marines still operational up in Darwin, were a rare commodity and had to be conserved.
With this philosophy at the core of the operational planning that he engaged the S5 staff with, Colonel Weir wanted to achieve the greatest effect with the least risk and resources applied.
This did not mean killing the enemy outright, nor sapping his will to fight. In some cases, such as USMC Colonel Ferebee’s highly successful series of operations that defeated the 42nd Group Army two years prior, Colonel Weir’s Special Operations in support of the larger mission were crafted to assist in drawing the enemy down the garden path, to play on their hubris and over-confidence until they had so far outstripped their logistical support lines of communication that they could be cut off from re-supply and ultimately forced to surrender or die in their vehicles.
That strategy had worked once.
Despite losing a Corps sized formation, the Chinese had made rapid adjustments to their operations, and ensured that they did not over-extend themselves like that again. They focused on tightening their grip on the local population. Not only to entrench militarily, but also to hunker down in preparation for the harsh conditions of the nuclear winter – and to have in place sufficient stockpiles of food, water, energy and other resources to survive.
