Bill of Goods

By David Collins

Bill of Goods is a story that could happen to anyone --- especially someone with an innate sense of curiosity. What begins as the tiniest bit of idle curiosity proves to be only the first step in an incredible, journey of deceit, danger and death. Conspiracy, mysticism, and geo-political intrigue blend to create a surreal reality. Bill of Goods reveals a centuries old plot that threatens the future of the entire human race.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664119468

David Collins

David Collins is one of the UK’s most respected investigative reporters. In 2011, he became the youngest journalist in the history of the British Press Awards to win News Reporter of the Year for helping police convict the serial killer Levi Bellfield for the murder of Milly Dowler. He joined the Sunday Times as an investigative reporter in 2015, joining the Insight team. He is currently northern correspondent for the Sunday Times based in Manchester.

Book preview

Chapter One

Funny, thought Dean. Not like ha-ha, more like odd or curious. It was a small thing, but exactly what he was likely to notice. He had always been observant. It was a natural trait, and one that 36 years in the intelligence business had honed to a fine edge. Ten years of retirement had done little to dull that edge. At 67 Dean Carter was still noticing what others generally did not. Solving puzzles and mysteries and understanding the why of even seemingly insignificant things were lifelong compulsions.

Marcie, his wife, frequently accused him of analyzing everything to death. Take now for instance. Dean had started to take a bottle of mustard from the grocery store shelf but noticed a store-brand alternative next to his regular selection. This option had never been there before. A quick look at the ingredient labels on both products showed them to be virtually identical, yet the store brand was priced significantly cheaper.

Let’s give it a try, said Dean as he dropped the bottle into his shopping cart. Dean had noticed over the past few months a growing number of such store-brand items being offered. If they keep this up, Dean thought, before you know it, they will put other companies out of business. Subconsciously this thought piqued Dean’s curiosity.

Dean noted the 12 store-brand items as he placed them on the conveyer belt. How many next week? he asked himself. Dean swiped his credit card through the store’s POS card reader.

As it always did, the system instantly noted:

Working behind the scenes, the system stored his purchase preferences, frequency of purchases, and other information creating a customer profile. Unknown to Mr. Dean Carter, this data and that of the store’s other customers was passed on to other, much more powerful computers in a distant non-descript building with a non-descript name.

Without knowing it, Dean’s shopping trip was his first step on a fantastic trip that would completely change not only the course of his life but also the future of the entire world.

Chapter Two

The issue of mustard prices was far from his mind the following morning as Dean helped Marcie prepare for the family Thanksgiving Day dinner. He worked on autopilot peeling the spuds for Marcie’s classic southern-style potato salad. This was his only contribution to the meal preparation. Marcie, like other old-school southern wives, was very particular about her holiday meal preparations. As he pulled another potato from the bag, he noticed the label: Product of Mexico.

Chalk another one up for NAFTA. Wonder what this will cost Maine and Idaho?

Indeed, the nation’s produce industry was changing, and not for the better.

Tonight’s holiday dinner would be an intimate one with only him and Marcie, their two children Paul and Sarah, and their spouses, Karen and Richard, present. The youngest four members of the Carter clan would be chillin’ with friends at the mall.

Young folks, thought Dean. Never have time for the family anymore. What a change from our day.

It was even much different from when Paul and Sarah were young. They both loved spending time with family. They participated in school sports and other extracurricular activities. Kids now just didn’t seem to be interested in much other than computer games, TV, cell phones and hanging out with friends.

Dean… DEAN, Marcie’s voice brought him back to reality, and the fact that he had finished his chore. Even after all these years, peeling potatoes was his only contribution in the potato salad making process and for that he was truly grateful. Marcie had been his dear, tender, loving and devoted wife for 46 years. However, you certainly didn’t want to mess up her potato salad especially on Thanksgiving Day.

Honey, Marcie’s voice came to him from the dining room where she was already setting the table.

Honey, thought Dean, one of Marcie’s nicknames for him. Southern nicknames, he thought. Even though he was southern born Dean had been a military brat, the son of a career Air Force NCO, and had spent an additional 36 years traveling to various military assignments during his own career. He had never grown accustomed to the way Southerners used nicknames. It seemed everyone had at least one. Depending who was talking to her Marcie was either Nan Na, Mawmaw, Honey, Sweetie or others. Of course, you had to learn them all in order to follow any family conversation.

Honey, if you are done with the potatoes will you work on the entertainment for tonight? That was Marcie’s way of saying, I’ll take care of getting dinner ready. You can work on something that won’t risk messing up the meal.

After all these years Dean was pretty good at interpreting what she really meant.

Oh, Honey, came her voice again. Don’t get out Trivial Pursuit. Remember how upset the kids got when we beat them so badly last time?

Yes, he did. It had been embarrassing how many simple questions their children and spouses had not known.

Honey, I hate to bother you, but when you bring in the games could you bring my box of Thanksgiving Day decorations from the garage too, please? It’s on the shelf over the freezer.

Marcie had just finished clearing off the fireplace mantle for a few holiday decorations as Dean returned with the requested boxes. A few garlands of artificial fall-colored leaves and small artificial pumpkins was all it took to give the room a festive feeling. The last item from the box of decorations was the centerpiece, a large colorful turkey, which on the bottom had a label that read, Made in China.

How ironic, he thought.

The smell of turkey just from the oven and other good things drifted in from the kitchen as Dean and Marcie finished placing the decorations. All was ready when the doorbell rang.

Right on time, thought Dean as he opened the door and greeted the young’uns as Marcie referred to them in good Southern fashion.

Long time no see, said Richard, Sarah’s husband. Dean had difficulty breathing as the bear of a man locked him in a powerful embrace. It was his standard greeting whether it had been a day or a year since their last visit.

Next was Dean’s youngest, Sarah. Slim and trim. Dark hair that contrasted intensely with her porcelain skin. She reminded him of Marcie when they first met. Even at 5'8" she was still a good 6 inches shorter than her husband. As they stepped past Dean to hug Marcie, Dean turned his attention to Paul and his wife Karen. Although easy going and generally soft spoken, these two were the power couple in the family, and they looked it. Always elegant in appearance and bearing, they exuded refined breeding. Paul was an associate professor of Geopolitics at the local state university and headed his political party’s state selection board. Karen was a career nurse and served as senior hospital administrator for the county hospital. In addition, she was a senior team coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.

As they concluded their greetings and walked past the kitchen, Richard sniffed and commented, Man that smells good. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. Anyone who knew this burley former trucker, turned disc jockey, knew his comment was probably not much of an exaggeration. Food was never far from his mind. Sarah just looked at her mother, smiled and shrugged. Marcie grinned knowingly in response.

As they entered the dining room and seated themselves, Dean took his traditional place at the head of the table. Marcie sat at the other end, closest to the kitchen. The two young couples took their places across from each other. Before offering a prayer of thanks, Dean took a few seconds to really look at his family and realized how truly blessed he was.

As usual, the dinner conversation was largely about the grandchildren. Paul and Karen’s two kids, Jennifer, 17, and Eric, 14, and Richard and Sarah’s children, Sean, 16, and Rebecca, 14.

How are the kids doing in school? asked Marcie, always interested in the health and well-being of her grandchildren.

Jennifer is doing great, said Karen. She made the dean’s list last semester and is still doing really well.

That doesn’t take much, thought Dean. He had attended a few PTA meetings last year at Marcie’s request but had become discouraged when he discovered some of the school’s antics regarding student grades. For example, he found out that the lowest grade a student could receive was 69. Even if they failed to turn in homework or turned in a blank test, they received a 69, one point below passing.

In addition, during one PTA meeting, a food drive was discussed. In order to stimulate student interest, it was decided that for each food item brought in, the student received a one-point increase in the subject of their choice. Ten cans of food, and a D became a B on the report card. Dean was also concerned about how dumbed down the student textbooks had become.

Suddenly Dean became aware that everyone was looking at him as Marcie said, So, what do you think?

Realizing he had been caught not paying attention, and there was no easy way out Dean just said, About what?

Dean! Marcie shot back, irritated that he had been daydreaming during their conversation and had obviously not heard the updates about their grandchildren. What do you thing about Sean getting his driver’s license?

I guess that means he can start chauffeuring the old folks around. It was a lame effort to break the tension. It failed.

Hey, I heard something really strange from some buddies last weekend, offered Richard, changing the subject. One of the guys from down at National Shipping said they are going out of business at the end of the year.

National Shipping, locally headquartered, was a major general freight carrier. They had been in business for over 80 years and employed over 900 local folks. The freight line had a strong reputation, so this turn of events came as a surprise.

Any idea why? asked Dean.

Nope, replied Richard. The guy said they had just gotten the word. It makes no sense.

Speaking of unusual conversations, said Karen, I had one today at the hospital. I received a phone call regarding my work with Doctors Without Borders. It was from a board member at the World Health Organization. He wanted me to do whatever I could to influence getting additional Chinese medical personnel accepted into the DWB program. I explained there is an established vetting program for applicants, but he seemed to be interested in finding a way around the normal procedure.

The evening concluded with coffee, dessert and Russian Rummy. After the young’uns were gone, Dean helped Marcie clean up, as his subconscious dwelled on several bits from the evening’s conversation. Nothing really specific, but his instincts still insisted there was something big going on.

Oh well, it can wait ’till tomorrow, Dean thought as he turned out the kitchen light.

Chapter Three

The following morning found Dean walking the familiar aisles of their neighborhood grocery market with notepad and pen in hand. Today was not about shopping. It was about data gathering. He had a hunch, but it would take some work to answer the question that was bugging him.

I’ll work on the dry goods area first. That’s where most of the store-brand items seem to be, he thought. Coming to the canned goods aisle, he opened his notebook and began writing down select facts about each item: type of food, competitor items, their respective prices, etc. By the time he was done there were 47 store-brand items on his list along with 118 competitor products. He had his data. Now he just had to figure out what it meant. By the time he arrived home he knew how he would proceed.

It didn’t take long for Dean’s office desk to fill with sheets of paper crammed with facts, figures, observations and other data. After a couple of hours, what had begun as more or less an idle bit of curiosity was now an intense interest. The longer he worked with the information he had gathered, the more convinced he became that there was something momentous in what he was exploring. His spider sense did not tingle much now days, but it was going wild over this.

I need to dig deeper, Dean thought as he looked at the work he had done so far. There’s more here than simply competitive market pricing of grocery products. College had taught him empirical and deductive reasoning methodologies. His 36 years of military intelligence work had instilled the skills to thoroughly dissect a problem, to peel back the layers, to connect the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle, and to distinguish truth from skillful disinformation efforts. All these skills and talents were beginning to warm to the challenge that his instincts suggested lay before him.

Ok, said Dean to his empty office. Let’s shift to the product presence. There were 47 store-brand items in the section I looked at. Nine of these had no competitor products on the shelf. This situation exists for one of three reasons: 1) there are no competitor product on the market; 2) the store chooses not to stock the competitor product; or 3) the store is sold out of the competitor product. Number three is unlikely since there were no product placement tags on the shelf indicate the absence of a stocked product. I’ll have to research numbers one and two further. Now on to the other 38 items.

But before he could proceed, his cell phone rang. From the ring tone Dean knew it was Tony, a long-time friend and fellow VFW member.

Hey, amigo. What’s up? came Tony’s energetic greeting.

Hey, Tony. Doing great. How about yourself? replied Dean, knowing already the reason for the call.

Just calling to remind you that tomorrow is league night. Tony always called, even though Dean had never missed their Saturday-night bowling league.

Of, course. I’ll be there Tony. Wouldn’t want to miss seeing you roll a 300, replied Dean, teasing his friend who had the lowest average on the team.

Just checking, chief. See you tomorrow night, and click, he was gone.

Back to business, thought Dean as he shuffled through pages of notes until finding the one he sought. Here we are. Now let’s see, 38 store-brand items that have a total of 118 competitors. There are 5 store-brand items with one competing product; 11 with two; 6 with three; 7 with four; and 9 with five.

Dean decided to take some time to consider what he had so far. He was still definitely shooting in the dark, but his instincts still told him he was onto something important. One thing he noticed about the products, they were all simple items: green beans, canned corn, pinto beans, etc. None were complex constructs. Also, they were all in either bottles or cans. In terms of the prices, the store-brand items were an average of 38.7% cheaper than the competing items. Based on a little computer research, such price differentials were far more than what was usually required to break the brand loyalty of customers for a product. Such a price difference suggested more than an effort to gain market share. It suggested a serious effort to force competitors out of business. With over 5,000 retail grocery outlets nationwide such a stragegy was certainly feasible.

I’ll need help with this, thought Dean as he stared at the growing number of pages on his desk. A broader picture was beginning to take shape in his mind, but he needed more to go on, and the expertise to go with it. Several evenings of internet surfing, and a couple of trips back to the store at a minimum would be needed before starting the next phase.

Chapter Four

The warm, sunny Saturday was far too nice to spend inside, Marcie insisted, which of course meant only one thing: yard work. It was late afternoon before Marcie was satisfied with their progress and called it quits for the day. Dean only had time for a shower and an early supper before heading off for his Saturday night bowling league.

Tony and the rest of the team were already rolling their pre-game warm-up balls when Dean arrived.

So, what’s the competition look like tonight Tony? Dean asked his friend.

Nothing to worry about, came Tony’s usual response. This exchange between the friends was always said loudly enough for the other team to hear.

As the night progressed, the two friends chatted about many things. At one point, Dean told Tony of his growing concerns regarding his grocery store’s unusual marketing activities. Among Tony’s many interests, he dabbled in conspiracy theories, and was always eager to hear a new one. Dean described his efforts thus far as well as some of his emerging concerns. Tony listened patiently, but then assured Dean that he was worrying about nothing.

Well, at least we won all three games, said Dean to himself as he packed up his bowling ball and headed for the exit. Unexpectedly a stranger blocked his path. Taking Dean’s hand in his own in a curt handshake, said, Good game, and then departed just as suddenly as he had appeared, leaving Dean with only a surprised look and a small piece of folded paper in his hand.

The neatly printed message read simply, If you want to know the truth, call 828-555-7255 at 11 tonight. Needless to say, Dean’s mind was filled with questions as he drove home. Who was the mystery man? What did the message mean?

Should I make the call? Dean thought to himself as he arrived home. Dean had mixed feelings about accepting the curious invitation. In fact, as he sat in his office watching the few remaining minutes tick by, he vacillated over the issue. Finally, as his computer announced the hour, Dean thought, What the hell? What have I got to lose? and dialed the number. It was answered on the second ring.

Yes, came the curt acknowledgment followed by silence.

Are you the guy…, was all Dean got out before he was interrupted.

Write this down, the voice said. Mall, main entrance 9, tomorrow night. Stay in your vehicle. Click and connection was dead.

Dean sat thoughtfully in his office. pondering the unusual events of the evening. There was always the possibility the whole thing was just a prank, possibly even something that friends of his at the bowling alley had concocted.

That’s probably it, Dean thought as he turned off his office light and headed to bed.

Chapter Five

Marcie was in a talkative mood during the short, Sunday-morning drive to church. I wonder where everybody is? asked Marcie, notcing the unusual number of empty parking spots. As Dean and Marcie walked towards the church’s main entrance they could see that the rest of the Carter Clan was already there, visiting with other congregation members on the church’s front lawn.

With a satisfied smile Marcie glanced sideways at Dean and said, they’re all here. Every Sunday was the same. In typical Southern, mother-hen fashion, Marcie always checked to make sure the entire family came to church. There was time for little more than hugs and handshakes before the sound of piano music coming from the sanctuary called them to service. Taking their traditional seats, they waited for the piano music to end.

After a brief silence, the preacher, standing behind the pulpit said, Good morning.

Good morning, came the unified response from the congregation.

Pastor Carl Manning gripped the sides of the pulpit and swept his gaze slowly over the entire congregation. He then looked down at the pulpit in silence. The rise and fall of his shoulders could be seen as he breathed slowly and deeply as if gathering his strength for a great challenge.

Finally, looking again at the congregation he said, Evil is real … Satan is real … and demons walk among us. Soon we will each be called to declare our allegiance to God or to Satan. As it is written the book of Revelation… and the sermon continued.

For the most part, Southern Baptist church services follow a prescribed formula. In some cases you can even set your watch to how long it will be from the start of the service until the preacher takes off his jacket, or how long until he slams his hand down on the pulpit … and certainly how long the sermon lasts.

Today was different. Preacher Manning went well beyond the normal duration for the sermon. Long enough that congregation members began shifting in their seats and even exchanging glances. When he finally concluded, there was an audible sigh of relief throughout the sanctuary.

Although puzzled by the unusual length of the sermon, that was not the topic of conversation as the family gathered in front of the