by Randy Dutton
“Because they don’t believe we’ll succeed, and they’re coveting the deposit.”
“What else did you promise them?” a delegate from Sitka challenged.
“We guaranteed our military neutrality.”
“Clarify just how neutral we have to be,” the Sitka delegate asked.
“No offensive missiles, no anti-missile weapons. Essentially we are not to be an arm of the US or Canadian military.”
“What about economics?” another asked.
“Russia wants Alaska to continue developing our resources. There’s no conflict there. We also had to guarantee that we wouldn’t try to stop them from developing their resources in the Arctic, which is a problem environmentalists have caused them. We also settled all territorial boundary claims in the Barents Sea.”
“Why were they so accommodating?” a Fairbanks delegate asked.
“Because they trust the Chinese less than they do us. And no doubt some of our payments will find their way into their government officials’ pockets.”
“How long are they giving us to make the payments?”
“Twelve months. If we can’t manage it by then, then the Chinese move it and Russia keeps all deposits and payments, and Alaskans accept Russian dominance and Chinese development.
“What about China?”
“They weren’t happy with Russia’s decision, but they were placated with our proposal of economic opportunity.”
“So when do we offer the Alaska Bonds?”
He held up his cell phone. “One minute after this assemblage votes to approve the Free Alaska Treaty with Russia. Our bankers are on speed dial.”
“Has the American government weighed in on this?”
He nodded. “President Fernandez said we and the Russians will be on the wrong side of history.”
Further discussion continued for 20 minutes. The vote was unanimous – Alaska independence was preferable to Russian or Chinese dominance.
Minutes later, Wall Street was abuzz with the financial ramifications of a free Alaska.
Chapter 79
February 2, 1300 hours
Seabrook, WA
The Frisbee rolled to her feet. Anna’s foot dragged it to her side. Leaning over from her beach chair, she picked it up and flicked it downwind. In a running jump, a black lab snatched it before the spinning disk landed on a Fuzz patch floating in the light green waves.
“Good throw, Babe!” Pete called from a distance as he played with Shade. “Want to join us?”
Anna put her tablet on her lap then swept loose, windblown blond hair out of her eyes and pulled her wide brim hat tighter. “You two keep at it. I’m just going to enjoy the rare February sunshine. I’m not inclined to do anything fast for a couple months.”
She stroked the blanket covering her large belly while her bare left foot rubbed the stretched out Rottweiler.
“Talos, you can go play if you want,” Anna encouraged.
The young Rott looked up, yawned, and put its head back onto its paws.
Anna smiled and went back to reading the latest Brad Thor novel.
Both she and the puppy had decided Fuzz made a perfect beach carpet – soft, with no bugs. The alien species marked the last high tide and ran in a thick, wide band along the entire coastline.
The wide public beach had moderate activity during this warm spell, so she wasn’t too surprised when an Australian shepherd wandered over and sniffed her bare feet.
Suddenly, the black and white dog started yipping.
“It’s okay boy,” she reassured the stray.
Talos raised her head and emitted a low growl to warn off the intruder.
A burly man in his early 60s wandered over. “Down, Kyler!”
The dog continued yipping.
“Sorry, Ma’am. Kyler here’s talkative when he wants to say something. I’m guessing your Rott’s got him interested.”
“It’s okay. If he gets too aggressive, my dog will just eat him,” she joked. “Down, Talos.”
Duke smiled. “I reckon she would.”
He knelt and clipped a leash onto Kyler, still yipping at her feet. He tugged. “Sit, Boy! What’s got into you?!” He yanked the dog into a sitting position and started stroking the dog’s head.
“Must be the lotion I’m using,” Anna said.
Duke tried seeing through the blond strands blowing across her face, then his attention lowered to her raised blanket. “When’re you due, if I may be so bold?”
“About two months.” She sized up the man and decided he was a friendly sort. “You local?”
“Yeah. I rented a house in Ocean Shores last autumn. I’d driven around enough over a couple months that I fell in love with the area.”
“It’s a beautiful land. My husband and I”—she motioned to Pete trying to catch the Labrador—“fell in love with it as well.”
He looked at the thick band of moss. “Too bad this”—his throat cleared—“stuff’s spoiling it. For the months I drove around, Fuzz has expanded so fast, I thought I could watch it grow on the trees and ground.”
She nodded sadly. “It’s tearing the forests apart. Weighs down branches then breaks them off in the wind.”
“I hear tell it’s the same everywhere.... And the ocean’s turned light green. The world’s changing.”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
“I’d love to whip the people that created this stuff,” he said.
Anna tensed.
His hand extended. “Name’s Duke. Always a pleasure meeting a beautiful woman.”
She gently shook it. “Catherine. And a pregnant woman never tires hearing that.... So you drove around for a job?” She repositioned her wide hat and pushed hair out of her eyes.
“I was looking for someone.” His eyes slightly narrowed at the sight of her blue eyes.
Her defenses rose and she let hair drift back over her face. “Was it a romantic pursuit?”
His head shook. “Nah. A runaway. Found a few places she’d been, but I lost track of her months ago. She probably headed south. The trail’s gone cold....” His head cocked. “You seem familiar. You from around here?”
“Nope. I’m a Midwesterner,” she lied.
“By chance, you ever been to Canada?”
“Went to Victoria once, a couple years back... Lovely city.”
With Pete approaching, she spoke louder, “Our last vacation was September in Las Vegas.”
Pete’s eyes flared at the danger code phrase.
Duke shrugged and shook his head. “Too hot.” He turned to Pete. “You must be the lucky husband. Name’s Duke, I was just retrieving my errant dog and I struck up a conversation with your lovely wife.”
“Yes, I’m a very lucky man,” Pete deadpanned, shaking the man’s hand, but not offering up his name.
“Well, I must be moving along. Pleasure meeting you, Catherine. Good luck with the baby.” The man strolled away.
“What was that about?” Pete’s eyes darted from her to the retreating visitor.
She swept long hair from her face to behind her shoulders. “Said he spent early autumn paid to look for a ‘runaway.’ That made me nervous. I think he’s a fugitive recovery agent.”
“A what?”
“A bounty hunter...and I remember seeing the dog before...a couple times during our honeymoon. It certainly seemed to remember my scent.”
“Know what? The dog looks familiar to me too, but I can’t place where.” Pete’s attention shifted from the man and dog walking down the beach. “Think he recognized you?”
Her head shook. “I watched for tells. My hair hid most of my face and I deflected his questions that placed me in his trail.... No. Likely a disheveled woman with a big belly and hidden face, wearing nondescript loose clothes and a hat, on a cool beach in a non-exotic locale was enough to convince him otherwise.”
Chapter 80
February 10, 1600 hours
Free Alaska Legislature
The Great Bear Lodge
Several file boxes lined the long pine table. Six men and two women were gathered at the far end.
“To freedom!” Joe Barco cheered, clicking his bottle of Alaskan Perseverance Ale with the others.
“To freedom!” the others jovially responded.
“So the US government didn’t know what they had?” Barco clucked.
“To them, these defaulted bonds were useless art,” Jim Hancock replied. “I really thought we’d have to negotiate harder.”
Joe leaned toward the lead investigator. “Tell me, Don, how’d you find them?”
Don Cuervo was a 41-year-old athletic Yale lawyer turned international investigator. Hancock had used him to uncover the real culprit behind the previous summer’s Maldivian official assassination. That investigation had exonerated Jim’s client, Tom Heyward, CEO of Profit Oil, and led, ultimately to this moment.
The serious-minded investigator showed only slight excitement. “Oh, it just took some digging through old financial records.”
Hancock had instructed Don not to mention outside assistance from an unnamed source. Had Don known the other source was the very assassin he had uncovered in the Maldives, complications would have mounted.
“Amazing the dust that collects in government warehouses,” Cathy added. Don’s slightly younger paralegal had also participated in the Maldives investigation.
“Some associates and I spent days digging through thousands of file boxes, checking and cross-checking documents. I must have lost ten pounds!” She sipped her ale.
Don patted her on the back. “Nobody’s better than Cathy at tracking a paper trail.”
She accepted the compliment by hoisting her bottle.
Don continued. “Our investigation first found what the Treasury inventory originally listed as legitimate debt owed the US. Then we found the transcripts and notes of discussions that shrugged off ever collecting the debt.”
Cathy chimed in, “We uncovered diaries, schedules, and memos in the National Archives. These showed officials determined the bonds weren’t worth displaying. From that, we located where they buried such documents.”
“That was the grunt work,” Don said.
“Was that the toughest part?” Barco asked.
“Negotiating for them worried me the most,” Don said.
“Why’s that?”
“I was concerned the bureaucrat would recognize their potential value and just hold on to them...indefinitely. Or that he’d report our interest up the chain and the White House would catch wind.”
“How’d you keep it quiet?”
Don nodded. “Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, the bureaucrat-in-charge went for the dangling carrot.”
Barco’s head tilted. “And that’d be...what?”
“Cathy convinced him that by excessing the bonds as art at above-appraised-value, he’d be recognized as forward-thinking and might get promoted out of government surplus.”
Cathy crinkled her nose. “See...managing the country’s document attic isn’t a very sexy job. Usually, it’s a career dead-end. I feel kinda sorry for the guy for what’s likely going to befall him.”
“His problem,” Barco deadpanned. “Any chance the US will try to challenge the sale?”
Cathy answered. “They’ll probably consider it, but we did everything legally. We even paid for an appraiser handpicked by the government supervisor with the authority to make the sale. The appraiser verified the bonds as worthless for anything other than art. But as a strategy we paid a slightly higher value even though the sheer volume of bonds would flood the art market and drive the price down.”
“Why higher?”
“To show the bureaucrat’s bosses how good of a negotiator he was. And our premium included a proviso guaranteeing us access to all documents relating to the bonds.”
Jim added, “And, since the Alaska Legislature set up the Free Alaska Association as a quasi-governmental unit of Alaska to purchase the bonds, technically, Alaska is protected from being sued. We can use the same defense the US claimed protected China.”
“But the US doesn’t recognize Alaska as an independent country.”
“Yet!” Jim said strongly. “Alaska has many friends in the US government. That’s something I’m still working on.”
“You ever going to tell me whose idea this was?”
Hancock shook his head. “Not unless they want it known. But that does bring up a favor I want to ask of President pro tem Barco.” He looked at the others. “Excuse us a moment, please.”
The other four moved to a far table.
“Okay, Jim. You’re sitting pretty good with me right now. Ask your favor.”
The lawyer spoke quietly to the head of the provisional Alaskan government.
After five minutes the speaker nodded. “Okay. And you’ll personally finalize the documents?”
“Yes. I’ve got everything I need with me.”
“And you still won’t tell me their names?”
“Not until they give me permission. Hell, they don’t even know I’m asking for this.”
Barco cocked his head. “Then why are you doing it?”
“I think someday they’ll need a lifeboat.”
“That’s a rather bold and unusual request, but I’ll set it up.”
The Speaker raised his bottle. “Well then, well done! Cheers!”
Chapter 81
Feb 15, 1300 hours
The Oval Office
President Fernandez leaned across the Resolute Desk. “What was bought as excess property?!” he asked warily. He tapped his finger against a coffee cup, the French roast scenting the room.
“A group bought the old China Bonds,” Jack Dowell said cautiously. He was standing, his briefcase hanging from his left hand.
“From whom?” The president waved him to a chair, indicating this wasn’t going to be a short conversation. Fernandez’s eyebrow lifted. “Treasury said in 2012 neither they nor the Fed owned any China Bonds?”
“They said the bonds weren’t on their list of foreign exchange reserve holdings.... What they neglected to say, or didn’t know...is that the bonds used to be.”
“Used to? Explain!”
“When the government decided never to push China for redemption, Treasury wrote off the value.”
“So where did the bonds go?”
“To the National Archives. They were reclassified as art.” Dowell slid a large photo of a bond to his boss.
Fernandez glanced momentarily at the colorful picture, then his eyes locked onto Dowell’s. “And then?”
“None of the archivists wanted to display them, so they went in storage.”
“No doubt in some dark warehouse to rot.” He leaned forward. “So how did they get sold?”
“Someone found out about them and made an offer.” He sat and opened his briefcase.
“So”—the President snaps his fingers—“just like that, the Archives sold them?”
“Well, it’s within their authority. They had an appraiser evaluate them, and the offer exceeded the appraised value. The bonds were deemed financially worthless based upon the legal cases.”
“What cases are those?!”
Dowell looked at his notes. “In 1970, the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, a quasi-judicial independent agency within Justice, considered a claim on defaulted pre-1949 Chinese Bonds. The International Claims Settlement Act of 1949 authorized the Commission to adjudicate claims of U.S. nationals against the PRC for takings of property that first arose after October 1, 1949—”
“Get to the point!”
Dowell put his notepad on his knee. “The claim on the bonds didn’t fall under the Act and thus was denied.”
“Doesn’t the PRC have immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act?” Fernandez asked.
“People have tried suing China. And you’re right, the FSIA makes it tough. There are four exceptions, but two require China’s permission. The law is rigged against the bondholders.”
&
nbsp; “Find out who bought them. We can sue to get the bonds back!”
Dowell looked down and exhaled. “The FAA bought them—”
“The Federal—” Fernandez started.
“Free Alaska Association,” Dowell finished.
“What the hell’s that?!”
“It’s a government entity set up by the Alaskan provincial government to help their transition.”
“You mean they’ve got sovereign protection?!”
“We haven’t recognized Alaska, but despite our efforts, Australia, Canada, and a few others have. It does muddy the water.”
“So why would Alaska buy the bonds?”
Dowell contained a grin. “I think they’re going to use them against the Chinese.”
Fernandez scoffed. “You think they’ll force China to redeem them?”
“Tough to call. If they dangle their resources...maybe,” Dowell said.
“But that violates the UN Carbon Law! We fought to shut down Alaska’s oil and gas production, and block their large mining projects! This will hurt us in restoring the Earth.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I want you to convey to the Chinese Ambassador that our Administration doesn’t have anything to do with promoting Alaskan freedom.”
“I’ll make an appointment today.”
President Fernandez leaned back in his chair and contemplated the ceiling. “Damn! Selling Alaska could backfire.”
“How’s that, Sir?”
“Think about it. My legacy’s threatened.”
Dowell’s brow furrowed. “Sir, this doesn’t have anything to do with your legacy.”
“Of course it does! My campaign claims I made the greatest business deal ever, and blocked a potential producer of CO2. Then these nutbags go independent. In one fell move, Alaska announces it’s defying the UN and reopening up its fossil fuels industry. They’ll produce even more fossil fuels just to pay off their debt to Russia and build up their independent infrastructure.”
“Your financial deal’s still the greatest.”
“Is it? Some global warming skeptics grab up worthless bonds and use them to buy Alaska.”
“Well, from what I understand, the China Bonds only covers half their cost.”
