Retired Old Men Eating out (Romeo) Volume Two

By Harry Katzan Jr.

This book is a fun easy to read BEACH READ. A reader can pick it up and start reading. It’s sharable. It’s informative. It tells how old men really are. It is a way to get together and make friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663253552

Harry Katzan Jr.

Harry Katzan, Jr. is a professor who has written several books and many papers on computers and service, in addition to some novels. He has been a advisor to the executive board of a major bank and a general consultant on various disciplines. He and his wife have lived in Switzerland where he was a banking consultant and a visiting professor. He is an avid runner and has completed 94 marathons including Boston 13 times and New York 14 times. He holds bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees.

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Copyright © 2023 Harry Katzan Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any reference to real people, organizations, products, and places are intended to give the work a sense of reality and authenticity, and are used in a fictitious manner. All names, characters, places, dialogue, and conventions in the book are the product of the author’s imagination, except where a name and attributes are established in the literature. In summary, it is a stupid novel.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-5354-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5356-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5355-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023910285

iUniverse rev. date: 06/02/2023

CONTENTS

Introduction

Main Characters in the Book

Chapter 1 Getting Back in the Groove

Chapter 2 Déjà Vu All Over Again

Chapter 3 The General Gets to the Romeo Club Meeting

Chapter 4 The General at Work

Chapter 5 A Little Bit of Information on the General

Chapter 6 The Chinese Situation

Chapter 7 What is Maya Up To

Chapter 8 The Team is Called to the White House

Chapter 9 A Trip to The Lehman Company

Chapter 10 The Team Works on the Plan

Chapter 11 The General Calls Buzz in London

Chapter 12 Back at the Romeo Club

Chapter 13 The President’s Chinese Problem

Chapter 14 The Solution

Chapter 15 The Fast Exit From China

Chapter 16 Financial Data Flow

Chapter 17 Outsourcing and Offshoring

Chapter 18 Cybersecurity

Chapter 19 Bitcoin

Chapter 20 Block Chain

Chapter 21 Artificial Intelligence

Maya’s List

About this Novel

About the Author

Books by Harry Katzan, Jr.

OTHER NOVELS BY

HARRY KATZAN, JR.

A Case of Espionage

Shelter in Place

Life is Good

A Tale of Discovery

Everything is Good

Retired Old Men Eating Out (Romeo)

For Margaret, my best girl, now and forever

And Kathryn and Karen

INTRODUCTION

Matt and the General are at it again, but this time it is the Fav Five consisting of Matt, the General, Ashley, Anna, and Maya. The setting is the Romeo Club, that is, Retired Old Men Eating Out. The men meet on the first and third Wednesday of the month to have breakfast, and hopefully to discuss the news of the day and whatever else they want to talk about.

In the Romeo Club, the membership is primarily retired men but other persons, such as retired women and younger men and women are welcomed. One of the characteristics of the Romeo Club is, in some sense, all of the men are equal, after they retire. The members are doctors, lawyers, professors, company presidents, White House employees, and so forth, as long as they are residents of Sun City, an up-scale gated community adjacent to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, a community primarily composed of wealthy people.

Matthew (Matt) Miller is a distinguished math professor at a distinguished university; the General is a retired military general who is wealthy from a prosperous business company; Ashley, Matt’s wife, is a former movie star that teaches drama at a local community college; Anna, whose given name is Marguerite Purgoine, a retired professor of creative writing; and Maya Wilson, Ashley’s quilting friend that is the wife of an Army officer killed in Viet Nam. They are the team named the Fabulous Five.

This not so little beach read takes a look at what the Fab Five and Romeo Club are up to these days. This edition is a sequel to the first edition of a book entitled The Romeo Affair.

The scene changes rapidly, but always in the scope of no violence, no sex, and no bad language. The book typifies the conventional beach read in that the subject matter can be read as a collection of separate stories.

This is the fifteenth book in the Matt and the General series. The characters assume their dynamic personalities as in previous tales.

The Author,

June 2023

MAIN CHARACTERS

IN THE BOOK

The General – Les Miller. Former military General and Humanitarian. P-51 pilot and World War II hero.

Matthew (Matt) Miller – Professor of Mathematics. Grandson of the General. Sophisticated problem solver and strategist.

Ashley Wilson Miller – College friend of Matt Miller. Married to Matt Miller. Receiver of the National Medal of Freedom.

Marguerite Purgoine - Retired creative writing Professor and an associate of the team. Known as Anna for some unknown reason. Wife of the General.

Sir Charles (Buzz) Bunday – P-51 pilot and Army Air Force buddy of Les Miller. Member of the British Security Service. Knight of the United Kingdom.

General Clark – Mark Clark, Former Four Star General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Appointed to be U.S. Director of Intelligence.

Kimberly Scott – The Intelligence specialist of the U.S. Has an extensive publications record.

Katherine Penelope Radford – Retired Queen of the United Kingdom and personal friend of the General.

Adam Benfield – Iranian terrorist leader known as Atalus. Spy for the U.S. and England.

Maya Wilson – Member of the Fab Five quilting group and government analyst.

END OF MAIN CHARACTERS

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CHAPTER 1

GETTING BACK IN

THE GROOVE

M att, the General, Ashley, Anna, and Maya arrived back in New Jersey from Sun City with only a little difficulty. The trip was boring and they didn’t feel at all like going back to New Jersey. Even the weather was bad, compared to the sunny south.

Adam Benfield, the Russian, American, English, and Iranian spy who was under surveillance by the U.S. government, was all of a sudden gone. Benfield was proud of his Mercedes S-500 luxury car and thoroughly enjoyed being a driver for important engagements of the General. He was granted residence in the States by the intelligence people. Besides he had a crush on Ashley that he got through working with her on an intelligence problem. He was well known because everything he did from an intelligence standpoint didn’t work. But a spy is a spy, and the U.S. government had a ‘watcher’ living next door. Why? Who knows. Actually, it will be obvious later.

Benfield’s next door watcher was friendly with Matt, as they both had interests in mathematics and they spoke the same language, so to speak; the language of mathematics. That’s what they say anyway. He agreed to use Matt and Ashley’s Chevy to do the driving and pick them up at the airport. Actually, there were too many people for a little Chevy, so they had to summon one of those online services that people depend on and provide a load, of complaints.

The return flight had been indeed bumpy and they were all justified in being a little grumpy having to leave Sun City and Hilton Head Island. The beach had been pleasant and the restaurants and the shopping couldn’t be beat. Matt and Ashley had their universities to attend to and that was an important consideration. Matt and the General played their last round of golf at one of the Sun City courses the morning that they left.

Once they got situated at the speed and altitude in the flight, everyone settled down. Matt liked to fly as high and as fast as he could. He loved to run the fan jets flat out as that was the way they were designed. Ashley didn’t like it, and the general and the other ladies didn’t pay any attention to what was going on.

Maya asked about Matt and Ashley’s university work schedule and Ashley just shrugged and motioned to Matt, as if to say, ‘He would figure it out’.

Maya looked over at Matt and said, He’s too busy to talk.

Ashley just smiled and said that Matt had the plane on autopilot and was occupied with his Rubix’s cube.

Why the Rubix’s cube? asked Maya. Isn’t that for kids?

I don’t think so, replied Ashley. "The General bought one for himself and one for Matt. I guess he