The Place Where The Giant Fell

By John Henry Hardy

Carrie Ann Benton loves Rodney Buchard. But because of his Mexican heritage, they must keep their romance a secret. Horace Benton, a racist, power-hungry Arizona judge, is desperate to end his daughter's relationship and secure the political and financial backing necessary to make him governor.

    In face o

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Henry Hardy
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868909061

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WHEN BROTHERS MEET

John Henry Hardy

Copyright © 2023 by Mr. John Henry Hardy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN 13: 9781088299876 (Ebook)

www.jhhardy.com

Chapter 1

Constance Higgins was sworn in as the fiftieth president of the United States on January 20, 2041, and soon after, the reality of the situation had taken a turn for the worse. She was sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office in the West Wing of the White House and staring at the calendar for the umpteenth time.

Three months is not a lot of time, she thought.

After having served two terms in the House of Representatives and a full term as a US senator from Pennsylvania, she was halfway through her second term when party members encouraged her to run for president. Less than two months had passed since she took office, and in spite of her political experience, she was taken aback at the awesome responsibility she had assumed after a whirlwind campaign. The promises she made to the American people just months ago now seemed to be but memories of a distant past in light of this new crisis.

President Higgins rubbed her forehead and looked at the grandfather clock. Her first meeting with the cabinet—her cabinet—was scheduled within the hour in the meeting room adjoining her secretary’s office. But she was tired. She hadn’t slept well last night.

She stood up, walked over to the east door, and peered out at the large snowflakes softly drifting down, draping the shrubs and dormant rosebushes in the Rose Garden in cloaks of ermine and blanketing the ground and walkways in ever-rising sheets of alabaster. She sought solace by looking at that beautiful and peaceful world of white, but it did nothing to quell her anxiety. The ultimatum she received yesterday from the ambassador was totally unexpected, and she didn’t have a solution.

Maybe, she thought, someone in the cabinet might come up with some ideas, but at the moment I can’t see any way out of this predicament.

***

As she emerged from her secretary’s office, the entire cabinet respectfully stood up to acknowledge the blue-eyed blonde as the US president.

The secretary of state, Robert T. Perry, greeted her for the entire group. Madam President, he announced.

The president saw their anxious looks. They couldn’t yet know what demands the Chinese government was making, yet they looked certain the news was not good.

Please be seated, Constance told them. This meeting has been classified as top secret. It is a matter of national security, and therefore you will not convey to anyone whatever is said or happens here under the penalty stipulated in the Revised Patriot Act of one December 2039. The charges against you will be either treason or sedition or perhaps both and I will prosecute the offender or offenders to the fullest extent of the law—got it?

No one said anything; Constance Higgins was not one to be trifled with, and she never made idle threats.

Since this is our first formal cabinet meeting, the president continued, "I am letting you know we will meet biweekly, as the past administrations have done, and your duties will also remain the same as your predecessors’, which is to advise the president on any subject I require relating to your respective offices. From time to time, I may also call an emergency session. All the meetings will begin with my opening remarks, and then I will direct my requests to each individual secretary of the department concerned. Questions and issues not addressed in my opening remarks will be discussed at the end of the session.

"Today, I am going to reiterate how our country got into this quagmire, and I need you to think about what I am saying. Your ideas and suggestions on how to get us out of this mess will be welcomed. After I finish my opening remarks, I will reveal the demands made by the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, as stipulated in the dispatch I received yesterday from Ambassador Zhou Wei.

First of all a significant number of our prior administrations refused to secure our southern border, resulting in the influx of millions of illegal aliens. To make matters worse, she continued, the last five administrations were voted in by the swing vote of those illegals who were granted citizenship by Congress. Unlawful immigration surged after the Supreme Court declared our fifteen-hundred-mile barrier fence unconstitutional. Consequently our population has swelled to more than four hundred million people. We now have ninety million people on welfare; millions have been added to the disability rolls, and Social Security is being decimated by the millions who have never paid into the program; and we have only enough money left in the Treasury to fund it and Medicare for the next three months.

President Higgins looked around the room; not a single cabinet member moved, nor did anyone make any comments. She hastily looked down at the bullet points she had scribbled less than an hour ago and continued. "Medicare payments to physicians and hospitals haven’t been increased in the last five years, and consequently many physicians are refusing to treat the elderly or are seeking employment in other fields. It now takes six weeks to get an appointment with a primary care physician, copays have skyrocketed, and out-of-pocket expenses have spiraled out of control. End-of-life consultations for our ailing senior citizens may soon become a reality.

Our military strength has been cut drastically in the last ten years. The number of navy ships has been reduced from four hundred thirty-five to less than three hundred commissioned ships, and twenty-five more are scheduled to be mothballed by the end of my first year in office. The army has been condensed from a ten-division active-duty force down to six, the marine corps from three to two, and the air force has been sliced from one hundred and twenty wings to a mere sixty wings. These cuts were designed to save money, she said. "However, the reductions are causing the strength of our military to spiral downward toward that of a third-world nation, and this has further emboldened the existing radical forces in the Middle Eastern countries.

The last automobile produced in America rolled off the assembly line on December thirty-first, 2039, because the Chinese yuan, the Mexican peso, India’s rupees, and South Korea’s won have always been at a lower ratio compared to the US dollar, and American businesses continue to relocate to those countries in unprecedented numbers. The results are a nine-hundred-billion-dollar trade imbalance with China last year and a seventy-one-billion-dollar trade shortfall with Mexico thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"These deficits are bringing our stock market to the brink of collapse, and job losses have put our unemployment rate above ten percent. Two decades ago we became a socialist nation, dispensing far more money for domestic benefits than we take in, forcing us to borrow the difference. Consequently our government is borrowing nearly seven billion dollars a day to keep the nation afloat, and yet foreign obligations keep draining the nation’s Treasury, which caused us to default on our latest interest payments on Treasury bond coupons. Our national debt has soared to thirty-two trillion dollars, causing China, Russia, and India, the largest holders of our debt, to judge that our global financial acclaim and prestige are no longer trustworthy or viable.

"Nevertheless the dispatch from the Peking government, which the Chinese ambassador delivered yesterday, is most troubling. The secretary general of the Communist Party of China, Mr. Zhang Li, is insisting that in the future we pay our debts in gold rather than dollars if the current overdue interest is not paid within ninety days. The Chinese government’s demand means that all of our precious metal reserves stored at Fort Knox would eventually be transferred to the asset side of China’s balance sheet.

This, of course, would result in the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world, she continued, and would leave the US government broke. She waited for several moments to let the shock have its full effect before giving them more information. "We have one hundred fifty million ounces of gold stored in Fort Knox that is valued at today’s price of roughly five thousand dollars per ounce. That’s seven hundred fifty billion dollars’ worth of gold, but it is far above the interest due on our Treasury bonds held by the creditor nations.

It would hardly put a dent in our thirty-two-trillion-dollar debt. I will entertain ideas on how to address the current crisis. Where do we get the money to pay the overdue interest on the Treasury bond coupons within ninety days? What options are available to us at this point? I’ll start with you, Elaine Johnson, since you’re the secretary of the Treasury.

Madam President, Elaine Johnson answered, We have very few options. My staff and I estimate we’ll pull in about one hundred forty billion dollars by the end of the first quarter. However, as you know, the actual amount varies from month to month, depending on what becomes due.

Are there any pools of money we can borrow from to quell the creditor nations’ current demands? the president asked. If so, we’ll have to find a way to pay it back later.

Well, Madam President, the secretary answered, the only money pool that is available is slated to fund Social Security and Medicare payments for the next three months.

We need seventy-five billion dollars immediately to catch up on the interest payments for the Treasury bond coupons, which are due every six months, the president answered, and we have only ninety days in which to do it.

The only way my staff and I could come up with that kind of money within the first quarter, the secretary of the Treasury answered, is to cut Social Security payments by thirty percent for the first three months of the year and use all the money slated for Medicare.

Wait a minute. Karen Mack, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services spoke up. The folks on Medicare are our most vulnerable citizens. If you take away their benefits for even just three months, I guarantee it will prove to be detrimental for a number of them. And don’t forget those folks, with the exception of those newest immigrants Congress authorized to receive Medicare benefits, have paid into the system all their working lives and had to wait until seventy-five years of age to start receiving any compensation.

Well, if we don’t do something, Karen, the president interjected, it will be a financial disaster! Russia and India will also demand payment in gold and dump our Treasury bonds onto the open market—as they and China have been threatening to do. The Saudis and Japan are considering doing the same thing. Then our interest rates will skyrocket, and we’ll have a hell of a time getting new buyers because of our interest payment default.

I don’t know what to say, Madam President, Karen Mack answered, except that decimating Medicare will create turmoil here at home.

We must remember, Madam President, Elaine Johnson interjected, that twenty-two percent of those Medicare and Social Security recipients have never contributed so much as a dime to the fund. Most were illegal aliens until Congress made them citizens and declared them eligible for benefits as well. It garnered Congress and our liberal presidents a lot of votes over the past twenty-four years, but it sure has left this administration with a hell of a mess to clean up.

OK, Secretary Johnson and Secretary Mack, the president answered, I’ll take your ideas under advisement. Mr. Mahood, what does the Department of Defense make of the general secretary’s demand?

John Mahood stood up, as he was accustomed to doing when he was about to speak. With his gray buzz cut, piercing blue eyes, and manly stature, he looked every bit the marine corps general he once was. Whenever he finished speaking, there was no doubt on anyone’s mind as to where he stood on an issue, and the president’s first cabinet meeting was no exception.

Madam President, he began, have you received any demands from Russia or India?

No, the president answered, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In China, the secretary of defense continued, only the Politburo, the standing committee of the Communist Party, can make a decision of the magnitude contained in that dispatch, and you can bet there is a clandestine reason for it. They already know you will never adhere to their demand for the gold, which tells me this is not about the money. They want something else. What it is I have no idea, but I can tell you this, Madam President: in ninety days we’ll find out for sure what they’re after.

You’re guessing then about there being a clandestine reason, Mr. Mahood? the president said.

Yes, what they’re really after is anyone’s guess, Madam President, he replied. But I am willing to bet my career only eleven people on the face of this Earth know what is really going down for sure: the nine members of the Politburo, the secretary general, and the commander of the Chinese Liberation Army, the CLA. The CLA is the enforcer of all the rules of the Chinese Communist Party, and all government officials of any significance are members of that party.

And your point is, Mr. Mahood? the president asked.

My point is this, Madam President: the Europeans fear China’s military power and are in no position to oppose anyone. They would be very reluctant to support us on this issue or take measures to defend their interests even if they were threatened, the secretary of defense responded. NATO is a sick ally. In the event of an international crisis, the United States would stand alone against those three powers, and whether we like it or not, the rest of the world still looks upon us as the leader of the Free World. If I were you, Madam President, I wouldn’t mothball any of those twenty-five ships, one of which is an aircraft carrier. In the more than forty years of my military career, I have dealt with the Chinese many times. They are extremely untrustworthy and unpredictable. They are ruled by a dictator, and it’s obvious to me their aim is world conquest. The Chinese now have the largest army, navy, and air force in the world and have made inroads into South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. The Carter administration gave the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government, and that country turned over control of it to China. In the event of an international crisis, our ships could be denied use of the canal, meaning we could not shift our naval strength in a timely manner to oppose threats to our East or West Coasts if this crisis develops into something more menacing. It seems obvious that China, Russia, and India have formed some sort of an alliance, and their current demands are merely a prelude of things to come. However, everything I have said is purely speculative, but we’d better be prepared for anything.

When John Mahood finished speaking, there was a prolonged moment of silence.

The president finally said, "Your point of view is well taken, Mr. Mahood. I’ll take it under advisement. Mr. Perry, as secretary of state, I want you to meet with the Chinese ambassador, Zhou