What Do You Mean Its Still Tuesday

by Billy Bob Richardson

  “At any rate, it doesn’t matter who or why, for our purposes. All we need to focus on is the opportunity it presents us. At some point in the next couple of months 35 to 45 standard 8’x40’ containers will finish being filled and be placed on a container ship of Liberian registry. Since anything American is looked on with suspicion those containers will go to Valencia in Spain, where they will be unloaded and held in the international trans-shipment area. Since it will not leave the port it will not be searched. The containers will be relabeled to disguise the fact they came out of the US. They will then be loaded on a different ship. At that point it will appear they are from a company that Venezuela receives shipments from on a regular basis. Spain is a big trading partner with them so shipments from there are commonplace.”

  “What’s in them, Zeb?” asked Madd.

  “All of the family members working for the alphabet agencies have been working on this for a long time. We knew the family would eventually need modern battlefield arms and ammunition in significant numbers. With help I have been digging, Madd. For a long time we all kept coming up dry. It seemed almost impossible to acquire the types and numbers of weapons and supplies we would need.

  “Finally two year ago pieces of information came across our desks. A piece here, a piece there, and a picture began to form that that gave us some hope. After two years of following leads and pulling on threads, we have been able to find out that large orders for weapons and supplies have been placed.

  “They are spread out in many ways to multiple companies. The orders are for all types of weapons and ammunition, like M16A4s. The original order included 50 caliber machine guns and the M240Gs. Ammo and magazines for all the weapons. Included is a small arms and mobile weapons specific repair center. It’s built into a standard cargo container, along with everything needed to rebuild each type of weapon shipped. There is also a long list of equipment from body armor and load bearing equipment to M9s.

  “I haven’t seen a complete list. There could be about anything in them. Not only that, the makeup of the weapons could have changed since the copy I saw was acquired. So far I haven’t been able of find any vehicles in all of this. No telling how many small arms and ammo could fit in that many containers though,” said Zeb.

  The cousins were practically drooling over the possibilities inherent in that type of arms shipment.

  Madd’s imagination was about to run wild.

  “There are some really interesting possibilities in that many containers. Most of the containers we see can carry 67,000 pounds. A thousand rounds of 5.56 weighs 27 pounds, so in theory you could load something like 2.5 million rounds in one container. The 308 ammo for the 240s weighs around 48 to 50 pounds per thousand. So a container would hold 1.4 million or so. No idea what 50 caliber weighs. It’s all a guess, of course. I am not in supply but I think M16A4s come to us in crates 10 or 12 to the crate. We will say a crate is 4’x4’x8”. At that size a cargo container would hold somewhere between 2,400 and 3,000. That’s just some possibilities. What might be in them is anybody’s guess,” said Madd.

  “Zeb, how do you plan on us getting our hands on those shipping containers?” asked Real.

  “All the shipping orders are computerized. They use bar code readers to check the containers, then a computer records that bar code. When it’s time to ship the container, the computer tells the loader to send that bar coded container to its destination. I have someone who can hack the systems and change the destination of the bar coded container. I will know ahead of time when they are going to ship. All I have to do is watch for their shipping order.

  “Once the containers are filled they will go to the trucking company’s hub to wait for the ship to make port. We will send an appropriate amount of our containers to the same hub. My associate will change the numbers via computer.

  “From there it is simple. Using the bar code, the computer tells the truck to take the containers loaded with weapons to our warehouse. The computer then sends the number of our containers to the ship for shipment to Spain. We don’t have to change the bar codes, only the destinations. If anyone checks to see if their container is on its way the computer assures them it’s on the ship to Spain.”

  “The time it takes to send a container from the US, to Spain, have it sit in Spain waiting for a new ship, then be sent all the way to Venezuela can take months. By the time it’s discovered that the containers don’t contain weapons, the real containers will be long gone.

  “When it’s time to ship the containers full of weapons, I will break up their containers into 5 or 6 separate time frames. I will have them shipped a few at a time over the period of a couple weeks to a warehouse or warehouses. All we have to have is someone there to greet the trucker, sign for the load and unload it from his truck with a container handler. Then they stack the containers inside the warehouse. We can check them one at a time for any type of tracking device and then stockpile them. As soon as we have them all and they have been checked, we send them to another site of our choice.

  “With the help from the other guys in DC, I set up a dummy trucking corporation and arranged leases on some used tractors. We have people in the family who can drive them and I will provide them with bogus papers. Since all the papers are bogus and don’t lead to anyone real, they can’t ever be connected with the transfer of the containers. I will have the tractors on short term leases. It will depend on circumstances. They won’t be that expensive, but we will actually have to have some cash out of the LLC to pay for them. Depending on finances and circumstances we might even purchase tractors for this, then use them later for other operations.

  “By the time the bogus containers reach their destination, the real munitions containers will have turned into vapor and the trail will be months old,” said Zeb.

  “Zeb, who is paying for all of that? We are talking hundreds of millions here. They have to be some pretty heavy duty backers for that type of action.”

  “That’s how I got on to them, actually,” said Zeb.

  “It appears to be from private subscriptions. There is an old saying. If you want to find who did something, follow the money. I was watching some intelligence about currency movements when I stumbled onto this. Far as I can tell they are rich individuals and companies that are willing to overthrow a sovereign nation by inducing civil war for their own greedy ends,” said Zeb.

  Afghanistan, Al’s CHU

  After Madd told the story of the meeting to him, Al was greatly relieved and very impressed. Zeb was a gold mine of deep dark secrets. He seemed to do as much research for the family as he did for the government.

  “How much longer before your contracts are over, guys?”

  “A little less than 7 months and we are headed home,” Ivan said.

  “How about you Al, what are your plans?”

  “Word is that they are actually going to start drawing down the forces here about the time you guys head back, so I’ve applied for a desk job state side. That will give me the opportunity and freedom to spend time with Rose and firm up our relationship. I can’t even begin to tell you guys how much I miss her. She is a new beginning for me. I’ve found an inner peace just knowing her that I never knew existed before.”

  “You really got it bad, don’t you Al?” Ivan said it in a good natured way that made everyone smile, yet he knew that his new friend was hooked.

  “Not only will that let you get out to the farm and see Rose more often, it will give you a chance to get to know Dek and the other guys,” Madd told him.

  “Sounds like a plan. When we were there on R&R I never had time to get to know many of the younger guys around. I think it would be educational to meet and know them.”

  “You will enjoy it. They’re a great group of guys. Anything else you wanted to ask?”

  “Yes, there is, but it’s hard to put into words. How to say this? OK, every conversation. Every action we discuss is predicated on a worst case scenario. I guess my question is, how much has to happen to
our country, to the population, to get us to those worst case scenarios?”

  It took Madd a minute to get his thoughts in order. How was he going to explain a concept that he had thought about for years in a few short minutes? Al was an intelligent man but until he met the family he had never even considered an end to civilization as it now was.

  “There was a psychologist named Abraham Harold Maslow born in the early 1900s. He may or may not have been a good psychologist, maybe even a great one; I’m in no position to judge. Like a lot of psychologists, most of his theories sound like so much psychobabble to me. Maslow's ideas have been criticized for their lack of scientific rigor. He was criticized as too soft scientifically by American empiricists.

  “He is also known for Maslow's hammer, popularly phrased as "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail", from his book The Psychology of Science, published in 1966.

  “While I personally don’t subscribe to a lot of psychological theories, there was one idea that Maslow came up with that seems to hold some truth. It also fits into what you asked.

  “Maslow called this theory the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. His idea was described this way. Human needs are ordered in a prepotent hierarchy, a pressing need would need to be mostly satisfied before someone would give their attention to the next highest need. Human needs as identified by Maslow were as follows. At the bottom of the hierarchy were the ‘Basic needs or Physiological needs’ of a human being: food, water, sleep and sex. The next level is ‘Safety Needs: Security, Order, and Stability’. These two steps are important to the physical survival of the person. Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter and safety, they attempt to accomplish more. The third level of need is ‘Love and Belonging’, which are psychological needs; when individuals have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others, such as with family and friends. The fourth level is achieved when individuals feel comfortable with what they have accomplished.

  “Simply put, a person needs to not be starving, not be freezing and not be in fear of their lives. They need to have some type of shelter and safety before they can move to a level of sharing themselves, goods, or whatever, and protecting others. This isn’t a perfect example of course, but I believe it has a lot more right ideas than it does wrong ideas.

  “So my answer to your question is, all it takes for a high percentage of the population to seek only the basic needs, food etc. in any way they can, is pretty simple. When they get hungry enough, thirsty enough, most people will ignore other people’s needs. Once people haven’t eaten in a week, or have eaten little for several weeks, the thin veneer of humane actions is going to come to an abrupt halt. A week to, let’s call it four weeks, with little or no food and water is all that stands between what would be called a situation, and complete anarchy. So, tell me Al. If a few weeks stands between people helping other people before they start cutting up those same people for the dinner pot, what would you plan for long term?”

  Al looked pretty grim when he answered, “Forget I asked that question. I see your point very clearly.”

  “There is one other idea I want to leave you with. If humanity finds itself reduced to that common denominator of scrounging food and water and defending what they have from others, when there is no safety, no protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, or freedom from fear, how many will find their human spirit, their humanity stamped out? After such an event and the following horrors are visited on humanity, will human civilization bounce back? How many will have the strength or the will to survive in such a harsh environment? After a year or two of such conditions, how many will have had the will to keep from laying down and dying?

  “Much as I hate to say it Al, we better break this up and head back to our own area before someone wonders what we are doing over here for so long,” said Madd.

  With their goodbyes said, the cousins headed out.

  Madd had left him with a great deal to ponder.

  For once Al’s luck was in, or so he thought. Less than three weeks after his request he was on his way stateside to his new office job.

  Eight days later, Madd and the cousins got bad news.

  Damn and double damn. Al had been assigned back home to a desk job. After only 3 days back and on his new job, a drunk driver T-boned him. He was in the hospital with several broken bones and a lot of bruises. Now Rose, one of her girlfriends and a former Special Forces guy from the family were there looking after him. Actually, Rose and her friend were sitting in Al’s room. The Special Forces guy sat in the guest lounge playing solitaire. He escorted the girls back and forth to their hotel and would help move Al when he could leave the hospital. As soon as the doctor cleared him to travel they were going to take him home to the ranch. It was almost impossible to understand how a guy could survive years of risk taking, just to be brought down by some rich, well-connected asshole. When the cousins got back, and things had settled down, they would pay a visit to Mr. Rich and Famous.

  Later Madd would remember thinking, I sure hope there’s no truth to the old superstition that troubles came in threes.

  Al and Rose seemed to be plagued with bad luck. Rose had rushed to D.C. so she could sit with Al and help with his recovery. Now it seemed she and her friend were coming down with either the start of really bad colds or the flu. Either one was going to keep them out of Al’s hospital room. Rose was upset, so she called and commiserated with Itsy about the bad timing.

  With Rose and her friend ill, the other family member there couldn’t help nurse them and be in Al’s room, too. Itsy decided that she would take Annie and Susie out to D.C. so that there would be enough of them to nurse one group and sit in Al’s room as well.

  A stop at FedEx to overnight a package to D.C. and a plane ride the next day saw Itsy, the girls, and her father landed in D.C. After picking up a rental car they made a stop at the FedEx and retrieved their package. Next stop was a local mini mall to pick up some over the counter medicine, snacks and some girl stuff Rose needed.

  Itsy’s dad was in a store right next door picking up some items for the male member of Rose’s mission to help Al. The arrangement had been to meet outside the drug store and head to the rental car, but Itsy finished first. To save time she decided to load the supplies in the car instead of standing on the sidewalk with the heavy bags.

  Three local thugs were engaged in one of their favorite pastimes. Cruising the parking lots see what they could steal was a way of life for them. They specialized in finding cars with those little stickers on them that denoted a rental. Rental cars were good targets because tourists would have a bunch of credit cards that could be sold. Best of all, they tended to have expensive cameras and jewelry. If luggage or goodies could be seen inside, they just smashed a window, grabbed it all and drove off. If nothing was visible they either hammered a sharpened screwdriver in just below the trunk lock to pop it, or they used a big pinch bar, then grabbed what was there.

  They weren’t picky. If they saw a well-dressed person walking to their car they would rob them of everything of value and beat on them just for fun before driving away.

  If they were really lucky the might even find some sweet young thing to rob and pull into their car. Plenty of times they had grabbed a girl from a parking lot and taken her for an all-night party. A little casual rape and torture really made a party snap! Sometimes the three could see a girl was going to be a problem so after beating her to death they cut her up and made a trip to the local dump. Just thinking about it as they searched for their next victims made them grin.

  His mother had named him Tyrone, but his homies all called him LBM (Little Big Man). He was over six feet tall with huge arms and hands. Weighing in at 279lbs, most people steered clear of him when they could. He really enjoyed grabbing a victim by the shirt or by the hair with his left hand and using his sledgehammer-sized fist to smash in their faces. Didn’t matter to him if they were male or female; it was all the same. Well, actually g
irls were more fun because they tended to cry and beg harder. He was actually an intelligent man. He stole and robbed because he liked it. For some reason he had always had a hard time keeping a regular, full time girlfriend. A couple of beatings and they all tended to avoid him for some reason. It really puzzled him why that was.

  Twotone always drove, and LBM rode in the front passenger seat. People called him Twotone because one side of his face and neck were a much different color due to a burn he suffered as a kid. He didn’t like it, but that’s what the kids called him, and it stuck. LBM was the man! Twotone loved to watch him beat their victims to the ground, then stomp them. He didn’t even have to get out of the car most times to enjoy the show. He would roll up beside a mark, and LBM would open the door, step out, grab the poor sucker and beat him before stealing his belongings.

  Dingo was the third member of their crew. Twotone never knew why a guy from the projects had a name like Dingo, but nicknames had no rhyme or reason a lot of times, they just stuck with you for life. Dingo always rode in the backseat on the passenger side. When LBM swung his door open, Dingo would wait until the front door was fully open, then swing his door open and engage whatever target he was needed on. No one in their right mind wanted to open the door so fast it slammed into LBM; people who did that regretted it.

  Sometimes one had to wonder what exactly Fate had in mind when her little vignettes started to play out. Was it some cosmic plan to balance good and evil in the universe?

  Itsy was a few steps ahead of Annie and Susie as they walked along in front of the parked cars, headed for their rental. Her right hand carried a shopping bag. She steadied her pocketbook with its strap over her shoulder, using her left hand to keep it from swinging too much. Both the other girls also carried a shopping bag and a pocketbook in a similar fashion.