International Affairs: A Young Reporter is Lured into Investigating Tyrants

By Stanley Chapman

Katarina Carlsson has been down on her luck, is broke and out of work. Then, in a chance meeting she lands a job as a reporter for a New York newspaper and is assigned to investigate how tyrants are taking over democracies worldwide, and what the dynamics of this trend are, and to write that news story. A tough undertaking, especially for her first assignment as an investigative journalist. Little does she know, the Editor-in-Chief has given her this “impossible” assignment so she will fail and, therefore, quickly resign.

This novice reporter knows that in many of the recent elections across South America and Europe, far-right candidates have had a strong showing. This is true in Germany, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Spain. History reveals that far-right politicians, if elected, sometimes strive to become dictators. As an example, in Brazil, Turkey, Venezuela, Syria and Hungary, far-right leaders are now dictators and run the governments. Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, and Kim Jung-un of North Korea are, of course, infamous dictators.

Yet, Katarina confronts this task with a determination that perhaps only a naïve reporter could have. As an investigator, she travels to China, Hungary, Brazil, Peru, Turkey, and Venezuela to interview people and gather data. The only problem is, these are all countries where representative governments have turned into dictatorships. This presents some real obstacles for a young American accustomed to freedom of speech. Each destination is unique, presenting barriers (finding sources of reliable information) and dangers (authoritarian police forces) which she must face and overcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanley Chapman
• Release date: Jul 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463305430

Stanley Chapman

I have a BA and MA in English and was a teacher in high school and college for seven years, then went to work as a Training Manager for telecommunication companies. My hobbies are hiking in the Rocky Mountains, photography, gardening, and the care and feeding of bonsai trees (and two dogs). I love international travel and have visited 15 countries. When young and foolish, I wrote poetry and quickly discovered I was no T.S. Eliot, although I did have one poem published. During this same "Romantic Period" in my career, I also wrote short stories and had a similar realization as when being a "poet." That is, I wasn't very good at it (at least, once again, I had one short story published). As soon as I grew up and gathered some real-life experience (teacher and training manager), I started writing novels. I am currently on #3 and love the creativity and the hard work involved. If you wish to give me feedback on either of my novels published via Smashwords, my email is [e-mail]. Thank you.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Katarina wandered through the casino, exasperated that her luck had not changed.

A casino dealer glanced at the glittery woman as she approached his table. She wore an off-the-shoulder gold evening gown with lace gold shoes. The dealer smiled. A little blackjack, madam?

Katarina looked inquisitively at the young man. He had an agreeable smile, but there were no players and he looked bored. Not tonight, she said.

Why not try your luck?

Luck is an unpredictable force, and right now that doesn’t seem to be with me.

Maybe I can help you change that.

I don’t think so … she said as she passed his table.

Oh, give a guy a break, he pleaded. I’m dying here.

She stopped and looked back, sensing this casino dealer was feeling as disconnected from his life as she was from hers. She glanced at her watch. Almost 11 p.m. It had been a long, discouraging day. Here’s how it is,’ she said candidly. I could tell you that I’m a wealthy countess and have lots of money in the bank, and that I have an estate in Stockholm with a grand piano. There is no piano and no manor. She opened her purse and fanned out five twenty-dollar bills. This is what’s left of my estate."

Why not try blackjack? The odds are as good as any.

Katarina liked this young man’s kind face. Hastily, she decided to make one last attempt to reach for a rainbow, acquire buckets of money, and make the transformation in life she dreamed of. She chuckled to herself at such a fantasy. It seemed a long way down the road from the reality she now faced. She sat down cautiously. I might make one more try. Promise to be lucky for me?

My most sincere promise.

She nodded at the dealer and gave him the five twenty-dollar bills. Five-dollar chips, please. He passed a stack of chips to her. Deal away, she said, pushing two chips out. My luck has got to change. It’s all or nothing.

The dealer shuffled the cards and dealt the first round of blackjack.

Katarina won this hand and the next. Thus, your good luck begins, the dealer said.

Let’s hope it continues, she said.

It’s late at night and we’re alone at this table. Mind if we chat a bit?

Is it allowed? she asked.

I make my own rules. Being a dealer in a casino isn’t exactly my career path. So, let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Bo Nordensköld.

Katarina Carlsson, she replied.

Swedish? he mumbled as he dealt the third round of blackjack.

You think so? she mumbled sarcastically as she looked at her cards.

The naturally blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion gave you away.

Your name gave you away and I thought, ‘It’s weird for two Swedes to meet in Las Vegas.’ I think you said ‘Nordensköld.’ That’s the name of a noble family in Sweden, isn’t it?

I’m afraid I inherited none of the nobility but most of the arrogance.

She grinned. I really didn’t think casino dealers were supposed to be anything but professional. Persons of few words. Sort of stoic and uninteresting.

That’s the arrogance I spoke of. Besides, I’m burned-out as a dealer. When I finish up my degree in Political Science, I’ll be out of here.

Ah, Poli Sci! I have an interest in exploring why there’s a rise in far-right governments and dictatorships across the planet. My degree is in Journalism. Which puts me in the same boat as you. What the heck does one do with a degree in Poli Sci?

I have no idea, he responded with a laugh, but I’d love to work with you on determining why dictators are growing in number. With a degree in Journalism, I suppose you could get a job with a newspaper when you grow up.

Katarina tried to suppress a giggle, but still snorted a bit. She looked at Bo and figured they must be about the same age. I don’t ever plan to grow up. I got my degree from Boise State and succeeded in getting a spectacular job with a local newspaper. It was as society editor, investigating the social activities of Boise. Some challenge, huh? Boise is not exactly Hollywood or New York City, even though the main difference is that, in Boise, only the social elite were interested in the activities of the social elite. In Hollywood or New York, it seems almost everyone is interested in movie stars or fashion designers. Anyhow, I slowly sank into such an apathetic state I had to quit to save myself.

A sad story.

It truly is. Almost as sad as being a card dealer at a Las Vegas casino.

Ouch! By the way, you just won five hands in a row. Not bad.

Thank you. Keep giving me good cards, please.

Was ending the society editor gig the reason you ended up in Las Vegas?

Katarina was normally a fairly private person, but she liked this dealer’s friendliness. Usually Las Vegas dealers were rather lifeless and dull. An occupational hazard, she assumed. Bo, on the other hand, seemed to be perpetually cheerful.

As Bo continued to deal blackjack, and she continued to win most of the hands, she told her story.

Ending my career as a news reporter isn’t exactly why I’m here. My mother passed away and, then, a month later my father followed her decision to escape their smallholding farm and abandoned his body, too. When I quit my dreary newspaper job, I decided to take over the farm.

I guess that didn’t work out, Bo mumbled as he pushed more chips in Katarina’s direction. She had won another hand.

Having a smallholding farm is a gamble far greater than what I’m doing right now. My parents never had a pot to pee in, but they were happy to have nothing.

They didn’t even have indoor plumbing? Bo asked with a smirk.

Katarina ignored him. They had a dog, two cats, chickens, geese, pigs, goats, rabbits, and one cow, and that was good enough for them. I had a horse—a present for my tenth birthday—but when I enrolled in college, I sold it to buy books.

I love animals, especially horses, Bo said. I did a lot of riding as a kid, on our ranch in Montana. Not a bad way to live.

Not bad at all. My mom had been a teacher and my dad a social worker, but they both dropped out, disillusioned with the direction America was going with the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon. They escaped to a farm life and soon thereafter I was born.

A joyful moment for the world. And you just won again! Bo pushed more chips in front of Katarina.

After my parents passed away, I took over the farm and tried to find a modicum of happiness in that lifestyle, as they had. It was a bad experience. You see, the farm was old and somewhat run-down. I spent a year, with the help of a handyman, repairing one thing after another. Naturally it ate into what little profit I could make. Yet, I was able to ‘live off the land,’ as the saying goes.

Quite a challenge, Bo said, as he dealt another hand. He announced he had a ‘blackjack’ and collected the chips she had bet. Sorry, he mumbled.

That’s only part of the story. It was difficult to cope with the fact that the farm I’d loved as I was growing up was such a dreadful headache. And it was difficult to confront that the cheerful, positive person I’d been the day I graduated from college had become forlorn, stressed out, and on the edge of defeat. Eventually, I even tried to stay away from the friends I had in Boise, in fear they would see what I’d become.

That is truly disconcerting, Bo said.

It was a daily challenge. For instance, I’d been keeping an eye on my sow, Fredricka, in hope to start breeding her. She had an absolutely adorable temperament. Then she gave me a scare. I went to feed her and couldn’t find her anywhere. I finally found her sleeping in the field behind the barn. She was unable to stand and would take no food. She was shivering. I had trouble figuring out what had happened. She had shade in her run and I didn’t think she needed a mud wallow. Yet I hadn’t anticipated she would lay in the sun all day and get a sunburn on her stomach. That was precisely what had happened. Apparently, she had been too hot and hurting to return to her shelter, so she had slept outside in the field, with the temperature falling very low that night, giving her a chill.

I can sense she was almost like one of your children, Bo said. When I was a kid, a terrier I adored died suddenly. The vet said it was cancer. That was the first time I cried. And, I mean, I wept fiercely—like someone who’d lost a loved one. So, I know how you must have felt.

Thank you. I was able to immediately create a mud wallow for Fredricka and she recovered, despite her crimson tummy. Her appetite returned, but I had to give up the idea of mating her and producing piglets, at least for the time being. Another failure.

In any case, life on a farm is interesting, Bo commented as he showed two face cards, beating Katarina’s eighteen, and he swept up her chips.

Too interesting at times. I had worked with my parents to help incubate fertilized eggs and it seemed an easy thing to do. Now, on my own, I had the bright idea to raise Dutch Booted Bantam chickens. Having a few chickens in a backyard coop was a growing hobby in Boise and the surrounding areas, so I thought I could make a few dollars tapping into this marketplace. The Booted Bantams have good dispositions and beautifully colored feathers. After some searching for breeders, I managed to buy two dozen hatching Booted Bantam eggs. I got very excited after twenty-one days in the incubator, anxious to see my new chicks. Sadly, nothing hatched. The eggs were not fertile. Fortunately, the breeder sent another two dozen at no cost. Into the incubator they went. Then, a catastrophe occurred. An electrical fuse tripped and, unbeknownst to me, the power to the incubator was off and the nights were cold. The result was that not a single egg hatched from this second batch.

That sounds as bad as my experience on our ranch in Montana, Bo said as he collected from Katarina’s losing hand. Her stack of chips, which had grown, was now dwindling.

Even everyday farm activities can be a problem, she said. Free range chickens were all the rage and a nice, romantic idea. It had the added benefit of allowing me to watch my lovely chickens peck around a pile of firewood, investigate under a bush, and wander across the lawn behind my farmhouse, but I had no previous experience with this ‘free range’ concept and my front door step soon became covered with chicken poo, there were endless quests to find eggs, and my wonderful birdseed platform to encourage song birds to frequent my property had become a chicken feeder! And just as my initial asparagus heads peeped up, my wonderful chickens made their attack and enjoyed a gourmet meal, followed by an organic spinach dessert. I discovered I had to keep my lovely chickens in a fenced yard, after all. A disappointment.

I think a farmer’s life is not for me! Bo said.

What would you do if your chickens stopped laying eggs and your milk cow suddenly became high-spirited, trying to head-butt you and acting like an obstinate donkey when you attempted to lead her into the grass paddock? That’s everyday life on a farm.

We sometimes have to learn the hard way, Bo said. That was ranch life for me.

Tell me a bit about that, while I still have a few chips left, Katarina said with a grin.

I’m sorry. I’ll try to deal you better cards. He shuffled and dealt. My dad had the ambition to be a successful cattle rancher. He worked hard at it. At one point, we had seventeen ranch hands working for us. Dad supervised them in a way I could only call, ‘with a hand of steel and a heart of concrete.’ We prospered.

I finally won a hand! Katarina said. As Bo passed chips to her, she added, I guess I can call you a buckaroo!

That’s better than ‘cowboy,’ which was what dad hoped I’d become.

You didn’t get along with the ranch foreman? That’s no way to get ahead.

Only problem with my dad was he started to bring his ‘hand of steel and heart of concrete’ home with him. He would order me and my mom around as if we were ranch hands. It was like he couldn’t turn off that personality. It didn’t bother me much. I learned to say ‘Yes, sir’ and never argue with him.

Sounds like a tough situation for you, though, Katarina said. Say, give me some good cards. I lost again.

Bo nodded. It was a lot tougher on my mom. One day she packed up and announced she was going to live with her sister in Colorado. My dad was shocked. He begged her to stay. She refused.

Yikes! But I certainly don’t blame her.

She was an exceptional person. When her and my dad were first married, she wrote romance novels. I read a few of them, when I was old enough. They were good. Usually about a savvy, professional, highly-educated woman who sacrifices her career for a cause, such as to marry a man and raise a family. Prophetic, huh?

Prophetic and sad, Katarina said.

My mom had told me, privately, that recently she’d tried to write novels again. She couldn’t. She was so unhappy that it had caused the creativity within her to die. The worst part was, she said, creativity was what she liked most about herself.

Katarina shook her head. Your story is sadder than mine!

Well, at least you won another hand, Bo said as he passed chips to her. Do you want to hear more, or am I boring you?

Please go on.

My dad offered to sell the ranch and start a new life with her. She didn’t go for that. Then he said she could have half the money from the ranch and go her own way. At that point, she walked to the door, opened it and walked away, saying, ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

Wow. I can feel her upset, myself. What a miserable situation to be in.

Dad was devasted. I think he never knew how much he loved her until that moment. Within a month, he’d sold the ranch and moved to Venezuela. When I got a letter from him, he’d bought a cattle ranch and was trying to start a new life. I think he had to get as far away as he could from the hurt he’d caused.

Having a new beginning is good, sometimes, Katarina said. I’m trying to do that. I ended up selling the farm and, then, had only one goal: to never be stressed over money again. The years of scrimping during my college days, the meager salary of a cub reporter on a small newspaper, and the financially catastrophic farm—all these were too much for me. I decided reaching for a rainbow was far better than the way I was living. If you don’t go for your dream, you’ll never get it.

My rainbow is to complete my Poli Sci degree and find something interesting and challenging to do.

I like that, Katarina said.

So, you’re at my table trying to win a fortune? Bo asked.

More or less. My rainbow was to either win a pot of gold or marry a rich man.

How is that pot of gold going?

It was going well until a disaster occurred.

What was that?

My foolproof system for winning at roulette proved to have a tragic flaw, which soon caused the money I’d gotten from selling the farm to be swallowed up.

That’s terrible, Bo said. Are you distraught?

No. I’m philosophical. I had a love-hate relationship with the farm. I loved the animals and I hated the financial stress it caused. So, I’m actually happy to have escaped the farm and although I seem unable to turn my small capital into a fortune, I have no regret because I can see I’m a much happier person now. I tried. I went for that rainbow on the horizon. And I still have one rainbow left: a chance to snag a rich husband.

Or winning at blackjack?

Yes. I admit I’m making one last attempt at quickly solving my financial problems.

The dealer looked at Katarina’s small stack of chips and shook his head.

Katarina smiled. I’m down to this stack of chips. I might as well put all the chips in, for one last deal of the cards. She pushed the chips forward. Is that much money a legal bet at your table?

Bo looked around. I won’t say anything if you don’t. Good luck!

An eight and a six were dealt to Katarina. Bo had a king showing.

Hit me,