Chapter 21

The night that oil prices dropped below forty dollars a barrel, was the same night that Putin sold us a huge amount of gold at a giveaway price, the family was quietly gathered in front of a warm fire, in Branson, waiting for word from our cutouts, as to how the transfer went. In the intervening months, we played a cat and mouse game with Putin, One minute we suggested buying billions in gold from him, and the next we'd back off and "think about it," some more. The up and down dangling of several billion dollars was wearing on him, but he desperately needed to fund his "retirement" account in some island nation.

By the time Saudi oil production had undercut the world market so deeply that Russia couldn't keep a single oil well working, we had him over a barrel – pun intended. The price pressure of thirty-eight dollar a barrel oil had Russia facing massive unemployment, food riots throughout the country, and a furious ruling party, that wanted someone to blame, right now.

The special financiers that we hired were really working for the Judge, and they had a set of rigid protocols, checks and double checks in place to protect the gold transfer. Their force was supplemented by a squad of Jack's off the books guys that looked every kind of scary, so everyone thought that the transfer would happen smoothly, but our guys were prepared to fight their way out if necessary.

Colleen and Winnie kept a vigil with me, after everyone else headed up to bed, and when the phone call came, we were so on edge, we all three jumped at the ring.

Winnie answered and after giving a predetermined set of codes, she listened and jotted down the answering codes, prior to speaking plain English. When she hung up, she turned to me and Colleen and said, "The transfer went far smoother than any of them expected. Putin is apparently teetering so near the edge, that he dare not screw anything up, and it looks like the money is being redirected offshore, to protect the leaders of the regime, when the ceiling falls in, later this month. That much money should keep them all in vodka for decades, and comfortably living somewhere far from the outraged Russian leadership.

"It looks like the trust has possession of over twenty-two metric tons of gold bars, and they are being transferred to the vault in Switzerland as we speak. Lloyds of London has executed the insurance policy, and the bank has countersigned the documents.

"Honestly, Carl – I mean John – it's not like you weren't rich before this, but you just made over one-billion dollars in the last fifteen minutes." She smiled when she said it, and we laughed with her, "It might turn out to be a lot more if prices destabilize."

I was ready with that answer. "In about a month, when oil goes under thirty dollars a barrel, gold should explode in price, to about six-thousand an ounce, and the billion-seven will become almost seven billion. If we sell it back to the US Treasury, we can take the profit tax free, and put it to work, like we have the money from selling Nauru.

"The side benefit is that Putin and his cabal of lying, scum, will be living on a tropical island, afraid to come out of hiding, and Russia will have an honest chance to emerge from decades of 'managed' democracy. I'm all for that."

We chatted a few more minutes, I took Benjamin outside to do his thing, and we all went to bed.

Months crawled by as I lived up to my responsibilities as Vice President. It wasn't long before Charles began to quietly campaign, without really campaigning. His staff started to schedule lots of extra speeches, in the same region where he had to speak, to get him in front of lots more citizens, and keep himself squarely on the front page of every newspaper and news station in the area.

It worked, as his popularity continued to slowly climb above sixty percent, and the strength of his support helped several congressional candidates defeat entrenched incumbents. CNN and MSNBC absolutely hated him, which made sense, as he gave them no special consideration. Somewhere along the line, both news networks assumed they were entitled to special treatment and when that failed to happen, they took it out on him with a vengeance.

The real sea change occurred in how congress and the senate approached his political agenda. Because he kept partisanship out of his agenda, there was little for the opposition to grab onto and howl about, without looking silly. Of course many in the opposition party howled even louder, claiming that failing to have a specific partisan agenda, proved he was a partisan tool.

Whatever...

I was being increasingly approached and asked to carry messages to Charles, from politicians that felt direct contact with the President was not in their best interests. The game of politics I far more complicate than it seems, and every player seems consumed with posturing instead of attacking the problems. Since I refused to play the game, I became the consensus choice to carry messages back and forth.

"Mr. Vice President, the administration must bend to the will of the minority party and stop this brinksmanship with oil producing nations. Please make the President understand that America is not a scavenger nation, where we pick the bones of collapsing economies to fill our coffers."

The speaker was a twit. Simply put, his demand that the minority party be in control of the national agenda is an old ploy, used by the losers of every election since Washington, and all without much in the way of success. Why the junior senator thought I would any more likely to fall for such a transparent ploy, I had no idea.