by L. Todd Wood
They sat in silence.
“What about the currency?” Connor finally asked.
“If we can do all the things I mentioned, the dollar will take care of itself. With your trillion-dollar find, I believe there is enough gold to return to the gold standard. We have to peg the currency to something of value. Right now, the paper is worthless. Relying on fiat money opens the door to central banks printing money to pay off debts. It allows for massive government spending, keeping the current government in power. However, in the long run, it only brings economic misery in the form of inflation and loss of purchasing power, a lower standard of living for everyone. We have to base our currency off our hard work and economic and fiscal discipline and something of value. Then we will be okay.”
Connor looked out the window as they passed the Empire State Building. He marveled at this monument to America’s financial strength in the past, and he wondered if the country still had the fortitude to make it so again.
Oval Office
He felt cold. It was a strange feeling. It was plenty warm inside, as the winter was approaching, and the staff had increased the indoor temperature. But he still felt cold. President Walker glanced at the bust of Churchill that was returned to the White House by the British after an absence. It was placed prominently in his office. Perhaps he was feeling what Churchill must have felt, staring down the Third Reich. It was a chilling experience. He tried to draw strength from those who had sat here before him.
The European Monetary Union was gone. The euro had collapsed. The Europeans were now conducting transactions in yuan. NATO was finished. To save itself, Europe─with the exception of England─had given in to Chinese demands. The special relationship still existed after all, he thought. Australia was also still with him, in addition to Israel. It was as if the old British Empire held together against the mysterious Asian world.
What was he to do? What should he tell the American people? Of course, they would survive, but the world was very different now, much more dangerous. Sacrifice would be the name of the game going forward. That is what he had to tell the American people. He had to be honest with them about where they stood, where they stood together. He would be strong and would rally the people to the occasion. Just as we have done many times before, he thought. This is no different.
Yes, he would be strong for them. He shivered with the cold.
Epilogue
Connor walked along the beach barefoot as the warm water from the waves repeatedly bathed his feet. The bright, Bahamian sun beat down on him, and he could feel his shoulders and the back of his neck burning.
Time to put on more sunscreen, he thought to himself.
It was several months since Kate’s funeral. President Walker was there. Everyone who knew him was sympathetic, but there was really nothing anyone could say. However, he felt the funeral was for Kate, not him. It was for her family. He was amazed at the amount of people who showed up. She was a special person. Her family bore the real loss.
He had known Kate for only a few weeks, but she had touched his heart. Now his heart was empty again.
He had resigned his position at the firm. He didn’t need the stress anymore. He needed to clear his head, and he wanted to simplify his life.
All was not lost. He was awarded the ten-million-dollar finder’s fee for the gold from the U.S. Treasury. Hell, he was rich. And his country was safe, for the time being. But he had lost two dear friends. He had to believe Alex at heart was a friend, even though he had his own agendas.
Funny how life can change in a New York minute. Life’s a box of chocolates.
The BlackBerry in his pocket vibrated. He pulled it out. It was a 202 number coming in. He didn’t recognize it. He answered the call.
“Mr. Murray, it’s the White House calling. The president would like to speak to you. Please hold.”
Connor stopped walking and looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful day. A few small, white clouds were drifting aimlessly across the blue background.
“Connor, hello it’s President Walker. Look I was just wondering how you are doing? How are you handling things? You are in the Bahamas, I understand?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” said Connor. “I’m making do, just clearing my head. Spending a lot of time on the beach.”
“Well, good to hear. Let me know if I can help you with anything. Call my chief of staff for anything all right?”
“Thank you, sir,”
“Oh and one more thing,” said the president. “There’s someone I want you to meet. I know it’s kind of early but I think you would like her. You two seem very much alike.”
“Really? You’re playing matchmaker now, sir?”
“Yes maybe I am. And by the way Connor, I have to tell you one thing about her. She’s Russian.”
###
About the Author
L. Todd Wood is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has been an aeronautical engineer and an Air Force helicopter pilot. In the Air Force, he flew for the 20th Special Operations Squadron, which started Desert Storm. He was also active in classified counterterrorism missions globally supporting SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force. For eighteen years, he was an international bond trader with expertise in Emerging Markets. He has conducted business in over forty countries. Todd has a keen understanding of politics and international finance. He is a contributor to Fox Business News, The Moscow Times, NY Post, and others.
www.LToddWood.com
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SUGAR
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SUGAR
by
L. Todd Wood
Prologue
Saccharum officinarum
This story starts several hundred million years ago. The exact timing doesn’t really matter. You only need to get the gist of what happened.
The day started the same as they had for tens of thousands of years. The sun rose and the temperature followed. The cold-blooded animals stirred. The heated air cloaked all life on Earth in an embryonic cocoon. And the air was warmer today, noticeably warmer than usual.
There were many more animals as of late, all different kinds. The diversity of life was exploding all around. That’s what happens when an ice age ends, when the Earth warms. The resulting tropical conditions foster all kinds of evolutionary experiments.
It was the end of the Paleozoic era. It was one of those fulcrums in the history of the Earth, a springtime to end all springtimes, a great awakening.
Plants were large in this day. Giant ferns dominated the interior, but in the coastal plains near the oceanic waters, another type of organism thrived. These were the grasses. One of these specimens in particular grew in giant clumps. This invasive plant had large, noded reeds that reached to the sky. It was a perennial and therefore multiplied in abundance along the coast. It was the ancestor of what today we call sugarcane. However, this organism was much larger than the cane we are familiar with in the twenty-first century. The reeds were massively tall and looked like today’s pine trees, flowing in the summer wind.
Millions of years later, this part of the Earth was to become known as Southeast Asia. To be exact, it would be called New Guinea. At this point in history, however, the area still shared a coastline with the landmass that would become Australia. But alas, this was not to last.
The animals became agitated. Something strange was happening. The large array of reptiles was moving to highe
r ground. Somehow that sixth sense that animals often possess had kicked into high gear. Something was going to happen. The air became very still.
There was a deafening crash as the natural dam made from glacial-carved rock in the mountains gave way high above the coastline. A few hundred thousand years of melted ice behind it had created enormous pressure. It could no longer hold. The water cascaded down from the higher ground like a prehistoric Niagara Falls, only bigger. The seas began to rise.
One particular clump of the cane was perched on an outcrop of rock overlooking the rising ocean. The water from the breached natural dam rushed over it and instantly knocked the entire plant into the sea. The resulting deluge of sediment from the oncoming flood covered the plant entirely. It had no chance to decay. Over the millennia, the layer of sediment above it slowly turned into rock, becoming a hard seal.
Layer upon layer of sediment was deposited above it across the ages. These too turned to stone.
Over a few hundred thousand years, the pressure began to build.
Part One
Chapter One
She was a Jatt of the Kharral clan. The time was the Christian year 1098 and it was no longer summer in the Punjab, the northwestern territory of India. The rainy season had just ended, and the cane was large in the lush, green fields. It was a time of harvest.
The Ravi River meandered like a snake through the valley near her home. It emanated from a confluence of five rivers of the Indus Valley, with the Himalayan Mountains decorating the horizon to the north. The territory was soaked with rain and runoff from the melting snow on the mountains. This provided ideal conditions for growing food. The abundant, flat farmland was extremely fertile. Things grew here, no matter what was planted. The Punjab was the breadbasket of the world, at least as the world was known at the time.
The people were happy. This was a celebratory time of year. They would garner money and staples from the sugar they would produce. It had been a grand harvest, and there would be plenty of food and shelter for everyone. No one would go hungry or cold in the following winter, the deadliest season of the year.
Historically the Jatts were nomadic herders but had settled in the Punjab and now were skilled farmers. They were a people that would be successful at whatever they put their mind to. This trait was in their genes. There was an unwritten rule that you didn’t get in a fight with a Jatt, because they didn’t stop fighting until they were victorious or dead.
Jatts were members of the upper castes. They were not Brahmin, but due to their technocracy, they were placed above many in the hierarchy. For instance, the girl’s father ran the cooperative sugar mill, which serviced the fields arrayed around her village as far as the eye could see. The cane beautifully swayed in the wind as the warm breeze flowed down from the Himalayas.
Her name was Roopa, meaning “blessed with beauty.” And beautiful she was, shockingly so. Like the other women in her clan, she had wheat skin and long, dark hair to her waist. However, her eyes were blue, which was very rare in her people. The contrast was mesmerizing. Many unmarried men in the village had been watching her for some time, dreaming of making her his wife. There was much talk among the village as to who the lucky man would be. Marriages were arranged in her clan, causing much consternation among the young maidens. Their lives changed forever with the decisions of their parents. The parents tended to look for a wealthy widower to provide for their daughter, whereas the young girls dreamed of a young prince. The parents usually got their wish.
Roopa had just turned fifteen and her body was changing. It had been changing for a while. She was a woman now, she could feel it. She had strange yearnings that she did not understand. Her life was blooming in the spring of youth, her future ahead of her. She felt immortal.
Roopa had been raised in a privileged environment. Everyone in the valley depended on her father. This gave him a position of prominence and respect. Her life was easier than most due to her parent’s position in the clan, but she was still expected to work. The last few years had been tough on the sugar industry in the Punjab, so a successful harvest was a wonderful thing for the Jatts. However, there was always work to do, even for beautiful young girls. Besides, her father wanted her to learn the joy of creating something with her own hands.
Her family refined sugar, as they had done in this region for hundreds of years. In this way they had become important, even indispensable. If the mill was not in operation, the population suffered. Her father took this responsibility seriously and worked hard to keep the mill in working order and to improve its efficiency. He constantly looked for ways to increase the output from the raw cane, even inventing processes of his own to streamline and grow the operation. He was loved by the people that depended on him.
“You should put on your orhna,” her mother scolded as Roopa left the house on the way to the sugar mill to do her job for the day. There she would help package the sugar loaves as they were taken from the molds at the mill. It was a critical job, to make the finished product attractive to their buyers on the Silk Road.
“You are a woman now!”
“It is too hot to wear it and work,” Roopa retorted with disrespect.
“The men will notice.”
“I am still a girl,” Roopa said and stood to face her mother in the doorway to the outside world. The intricate, religious carving accentuated the entrance to the dwelling. Metal accoutrements adorned the exquisitely detailed wooden door.
She knew her mother was right. She could feel the men staring at her nowadays and rather enjoyed it, but she was rebellious in the prime of her youth. Soon I will have to start wearing it when I leave the house, she thought to herself. The orhna was a shirt but also a veil. It was worn over her angia, or blouse, and ghagri, or heavy skirt. Her mother said it was so that she would not have to worry about men looking at her., that is was a luxury. Well, she didn’t want this luxury. Her breasts were full and the men loved to stare at them. Her hair flowed down her back soft as a sheaf of feathers.
Her family had very strict rules regarding women. She was a Muslim, but not all of the clans in the Punjab shared her religion. There were Sikhs, Buddhists, and some Hindu.
She left the house with her mother still preaching behind her, her voice trailing off in the wind.
