Chapter 1: The Kale Contract

March 21, 1988

Dr. Sall stood at the window of the presidential palace staring out into the dark of the night. He stood ramrod straight with his arms hanging down at his sides. The tension he felt was evident in his shoulders. There was a noise off in the distance. He turned his head slightly, vainly trying to locate where in the darkened surroundings the noise had originated.

Staring out of the window like that, was a good way for a President of Kale to get killed. He wasn’t all that concerned about his life ending that day, though. The real threat to his life was two hundred miles away, fighting his army. Kofi Okeke, also known as the Lion of Kootu, wanted to be president. His troop of bandits were going to help make that happen. His ambitions were financial, not political. The Presidency was a good place to get rich, quickly.

Everyone knew that Okeke would be a disaster for the country. The man was born of pure greed, and backed by brute force. Anything he saw, he wanted; and anything he wanted, he took. Cars, money, or women ... and it didn’t matter to him if others owned them. He’d left behind a trail of destroyed lives. Now he wanted the presidency, and all of that foreign money.

Okeke was a beast and his men weren’t any better. In some ways they were worse. For them, a night of rest and relaxation involved taking over a village, stealing everything, and raping the women. Villages visited like that never complained, since there was never anyone left, to complain. Okeke’s men knew how to kill, much to the chagrin of the army who was the primary recipient of that knowledge.

As far as Presidents of Kale went, Dr. Sall had a pretty good reputation in the international community. The majority of aid to the country, actually got spent where it was intended. They had a new school for training nurses and a lot of students were attending it. It was too new to have graduated anyone, yet, but there were real hopes for better medical care in the future. All they would need were medicines. Of course, that would require additional foreign aid.

He had not thought that becoming President of Kale would turn him into a beggar, but there were a lot of times when he felt that like one. How many cocktail parties had he attended where the primary topic of discussion wasn’t about matters of international importance, but begging for money to improve one thing or another in his country? He didn’t know, but it was a lot.

Kale was a poor country. The average life expectancy was around forty-five years of age. The death rate among children under five was one of the worst in the world. Disease and malnutrition were the biggest killers of young and old alike.

The literacy rate was around fifteen percent, so the potential of the upcoming generation was far short of what it could have been. Even with the best leadership, Kale would not see much of an improvement any time in the near future.

Dr. Sall was a tall thin black man. There were some who might consider him skeleton thin, thinking that he was a victim of an early life of starvation. His facial features, skin tight like a drum, gave him the appearance that he had fasted for the past two weeks. It was just his natural build. His short black hair was slowly turning gray, more from the pressures of his job than his age. He did not look healthy.

He turned and looked at his guests. There was a sadness around the eyes. He sighed and walked away from the window, taking slow measured steps. There was a quiet dignity in the way he moved.

“I do not know what to do,” he said in a rich, soft, gentle voice.

Pen Hopo said, “You can do what your predecessors have done. You can take the money and run.”

“That is why Kale remains a poor nation,” Dr. Sall said tiredly. “This nation has had leader after leader occupy this grand building, stealing everything within reach until they angered the people so much that it was unsafe for them to stay. Then they abscond with every dollar they had stolen to live a luxurious life of retirement in Sviss.”

Pen Hopo didn’t comment. The history of this region of the world was tragic. Corruption, poverty, disease, and war were ongoing problems that didn’t seem to have an end in sight. Nobody really seemed interested in doing anything about it. There were no great mineral resources to attract investors, there wasn’t an educated work force that could be exploited, and there weren’t even scenic areas that could attract tourists if their safety could be assured.

He asked, “Did you know that there are currently four former presidents of Kale living in Sviss today?”

She answered, “Yes. I knew that.”

“I understand why so many countries hesitate to send financial aide to us. They must be tired of funding the retirements of Kale Presidents.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Pen Hopo said.

The room they were in was opulent, but in a worn out, old and tacky way. Imported marble from Itan or Romal covered the floor. Rich dark woods, imported from Joma, framed sections of the walls. The sections of walls were painted with murals portraying nationalistic scenes of historic importance. Five crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, four smaller one at the corners of the room and a large one in the center of the room. The few pieces of furniture scattered around the room were antiques, brought in from Espa.

Marring the rich appearance of the room were the bullet holes in the walls that had never been patched, the cracks in the marble floor, and the pieces of chandeliers that were missing. An old worn Inra carpet covered part of the floor, but it had a blood stain that had never been completely removed. One of the murals had a large white patch, which covered a part of it. Another mural was flaking, with half of the image gone.

The molding along the ceiling was ornately painted and covered with gold gilding. In contrast, the covers on the light switches and electrical outlets were cheap plastic. The door knobs looked like they had been hammered together in someone’s garage. There were finely made curtains hanging on three windows and flimsy cheap curtains that might have been made from recycled bedsheets covering two others.

He moved over to his desk and took a seat. The desk was large, intended to impress others rather than to function as a place of work. A man couldn’t reach across the desk to grab some important paper. The desk was made of rare woods with intricate inlays. The chair, on the other hand, was a cheap thing that had probably been purchased from a low end office supply store.

He studied the young woman with a wrinkled brow. He wasn’t sure what to make of her. She seemed so young to have such a sense of presence. Maybe it was the armor she wore, the helmet, or the weapons she carried with such ease. He studied the quill pen and pot etched in the upper right hand side of her tan armor wondering what such an odd symbol represented.

He didn’t know the names of the other two Warriors who were there to protect her. She had introduced them as her Sword and Shield. It was kind of fitting, since the Sword had a black sword etched into the upper right hand side of her tan armor. The Shield had a black shield similarly etched on his armor. It was obvious that they were to have nothing to do with the negotiations.

“Tell me what I should do.”

“That’s not my job,” Pen Hopo said.

“Aren’t you a salesman ... saleswoman?”

“No. I’m a Pen. I write contracts,” Pen Hopo said.

He asked, “Would you like to see something interesting?”

“I suppose,” she answered warily, not particularly liking the sudden change in topic.

“Open that closet door over there,” he said gesturing to a door along the rear of the room.

Suddenly, the tension in the room rose tenfold.

Her two companions moved closer to her, protecting her from any threat that might appear. The man with the black shield etched in his armor was holding his rifle pointed at the door. Pen Hopo was standing with her back to the man, her rifle in hand. The woman with the sword etched in her armor had moved to stand between Pen Hopo and the entrance to the room. She had her rifle in hand. Dr. Sall never saw the rifle move, but the barrel was now pointed directly at him.

He’d seen bodyguards move to protect him in the past. He’d watched bodyguards move to protect leaders of more importance than himself, also. In his entire life, he had never seen anything like this. It was almost like watching a highly choreographed ballet. Every move looked practiced. There was lethality about it, though, that sent shivers down his spine. Then he realized they weren’t protecting her, they were all protecting each other.

“I promise you, that there’s nothing in the closet that could possibly hurt you. I just thought you’d like to see what’s inside it,” he said holding up his hands and trying to defuse the tension.

The trio exchanged a rapid fire sequence of words that he couldn’t understand. The woman with the sword etched in her armor moved towards the door taking slow careful steps. She approached the door taking an indirect path to it so that she ended up beside the door with the knob near her. The rifle switched hands so that it was still pointed at the door.

What happened next, he would never be able to relate in its entirety. He saw the woman reach for the door, it swung open, and, almost simultaneously, there was a blinding flash. By the time his eyes recovered the ability to see, the three were at the closet door. Two were looking inside with the third alertly watching the rest of the room.

“Gold?” Pen Hopo said in surprise. “You’ve got a closet full of gold in your office?”

Dr. Sall said, “It’s a long story.”

“Against my better judgment, I’d like to hear it,” Pen Hopo said.

Dr. Sall sat back in his chair. Moving deliberately, he folded his hands across his stomach and settled in like a story teller preparing to entertain a room full of kids.

He said, “When I first became President, I moved into this grand old building which we call the Presidential Palace. Back when Franka claimed this country as a colony, this building was the Governor’s Mansion. So you would think that some trace of that Franka style would remain.

“I had never been in this building before. Upon accepting the Presidency, this building was to become my new residence. I walked through it room by room to see what was here. I expected to step into a bedroom and find an antique Frankan four poster bed with matching bedroom furnishings. I believed that a Presidential Palace should be maintained and the treasures inside cherished.

“I was horrified by what I found. Sure, the Presidential Rooms were nicely furnished, but the rest of the rooms were filled with junk. I think each time a President fled the country, he took a room of furniture with him. Or maybe, he gave some things to friends and relatives while he was in office.

“That was my first discovery. My second discovery was a little more surprising. One of my predecessors, I really don’t know which one it was, had put gold fixtures everywhere. There would be a bedroom with patio furniture and a mattress on the floor with gold fixtures everywhere in the room.

“It was insane.

“There were gold door knobs, gold covers on the electric outlets and switches. There were gold faucets, toilet paper hangers, and toilet seats. Poking around some of the walls in the bedrooms, I found little hidden compartments ... I guess you could call them caches ... containing jewels along with gold coins and bars. I assumed they were leftovers from Presidents who didn’t manage to flee the country before being deposed.

“It was an embarrassment of riches. I mean that, literally! It was an embarrassment!

“It is a national shame that the average person in this country earns fifty dollars a year. We spend a hundred times more than that to have a cocktail party welcoming a new ambassador to the country. The gold fixtures in a small bedroom, are worth more than an entire village may earn in a decade.

“Well, I immediately handed over the gold from the caches to our treasurer to add to our nearly empty gold reserves thinking that we now had some money fix one of our problems. A couple million dollars isn’t much in the hands of a government, but it can go far if spent wisely. I had visions of drilling a few wells and putting in windmills so that crops could be irrigated. Such a simple thing can go far to end hunger in a little village.

“Those were the kind of dreams I had when I came to office. Purchase small durable items that would last decades while fulfilling real needs. A windmill can last for fifty years with very little maintenance and the skill required to maintain one is trivial. Yet it can pump good clean water from the ground and deliver it to the fields to nourish the crops. A hundred shovels, hoes, and rakes are worth far more than a tractor and cost as little as the spare tire. Tractors break down and then rust where they stand. But a good shovel will last long enough to dig the hole in which to bury the tractor.

“A few weeks later, I visited the gold vault and discovered that gold had never arrived there.”

He sighed.

“I should have known better. Any money, or anything of value, ends up in the hands of the corrupt and the greedy. One Friday, a trusted colleague is talking about how horrible it is that there’s so much corruption here, and the next Monday you learn that he bought a villa in Romal and immigrated there.”

Pointing to the closet, Pen Hopo said, “So where did all of this gold come from?”

Dr. Sall said, “As I said, I handed over the gold from the caches, but there was still gold everywhere in the Presidential Palace. So I visited a cousin of mine who owns a hardware shop and bought replacement things. I figured no one would notice if the gold just slowly disappeared.

“The first thing I did was to replace the toilet seats. There is just something morally wrong about solid gold toilet seats. I put them in that closet thinking that someday I would convert them to cash, and fix something in the country. Surely a gold toilet seat was worth enough to pour a concrete floor and put a corrugated roof over it to serve as a school.

“Over the three years that I’ve been president, I’ve been replacing gold items with cheap replacements. It’s become a game to me. I sneak into some forgotten room in the palace, and change something out, making sure that no one sees me do it. I carry it over to that closet, and stash it away. I’m sure there are rumors about me, but I’ve not heard them.

“So, I figure I have almost enough gold in there to pay you what you’ll be requesting for your services.”

“Are you saying that you want to pay us with gold toilet seats?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you had received some money from Amra to help quash the rebels,” Pen Hopo said.

One of the few advantages of Okeke’s reputation as a brutal sadist was that most countries didn’t like the idea of having to deal with the man once he took over as president. Amra was so much against the idea, that it put together an aid package specifically to prevent Okeke from succeeding. He feared that it was too late. Even if he bought the gunships and weapons the Department of Foreign affairs suggested, they probably wouldn’t arrive in time to be used. Okeke would end up being the beneficiary of the purchase. Odds were good that he’d use the weapons to invade Massar for what little wealth it contained.

“We did. It is sitting in a bank account in Amra waiting for me to write a check.”

“So pay us with a check,” Pen Hopo said.

It was only when he went to look at each of his visitors to see their reaction to her words, that Dr. Sall realized that they were back to their original places. He hadn’t even noticed when they had moved. Pen Hopo had her rifle slung over her shoulder, but her hand remained on the butt of her pistol. Her Sword and Shield were amazing in how they were able to be there and yet not be noticed.

“Did you know that I earned my doctorate in economics at the Royal College, in Engle?”

“Yes, I did.”

“It’s a very prestigious school. Their curriculum is one of the finest in the world.”