299 Days: The 17th Irregulars

Chapter 184 F$

“Light ‘em up, boys,” Joe Tantori said with a huge grin as he handed cigars to his guys, the fifty plus Marines and the two dozen military contractors and former law enforcement personnel he had working for him. Cigarettes, and especially cigars, were extremely hard to come by these days. The cigars seemed like incredible luxuries. Joe was handing them out and making sure they had lighters. He was in heaven.

Joe acquired the cigars from the bank deal he had just put together. As he was distributing the cigars, he thought back on the deal he had just made an hour before.

Before the deal, Joe had been making money in a pretty much honest—but unconventional—way. During the Revolutionary War period, America had “privateers” who were essentially a private, for-profit navy. Privateers would intercept and capture enemy naval cargo and independent pirates and keep most of what they got. They would give a portion (usually) to the Patriot government or military units.

They were on the Patriots’ side and were taking out Loyalist naval equipment; they just kept some of the money. It was a way for the cash-strapped Patriots to have a naval force they otherwise couldn’t afford, and a way to keep groups of well trained and equipped sailors with something positive to do instead of being pirates or joining the Loyalists. George Washington used privateers masterfully during the Revolutionary War. They were a huge asset. Joe knew they could prove to be so again during the Collapse.

Joe’s Marines, military contractors, and ex-law enforcement officers were a very well-equipped privateer force. He had two fast military interception boats he used for the military training he once did as a contractor. He had plenty of diesel in his underground tank, and he had over seventy men who were very well trained and extremely well-armed. They had to have something to do, and Joe had to feed them. The answer was obvious.

The waters off of Joe’s compound were teeming with targets. The Loyalists were using the waters of Puget Sound to supply their fortress of Seattle. Most of the Loyalist ships were well protected, but many little ships, most of which were not well protected, took the “shortcut” to Seattle which took them right by Joe’s area. In addition to the Loyalist supply vessels, there were plenty of pirates setting out to steal whatever they could.

Pirates? That sounded farfetched to Joe before the Collapse. Men with eye patches who talked funny and had parrots on their shoulders? The fake Hollywood pirates had been replaced with real ones. Modern day pirates were essentially gangs in boats. They stole, killed, and raped all they could. The pirates were vicious, as bad as any of the gangs — biker, Mexican, black, Asian, skinhead — that sprang up everywhere. They were also as brutal as some of the satanic cults that were terrorizing a few parts of the country.

The highways on land were the government’s main security concern when it came to moving goods, but a tremendous amount of goods before the Collapse had been transported by sea, at least in coastal areas like Seattle. The Loyalists didn’t have the resources to protect all the maritime freight, even the fraction of freight moving after the Collapse. The freight was protected by Loyalist naval units and they were very good, but most were essentially mercenaries. Their true loyalty was always in question. The government nearly stopped trying to protect all the maritime freight, concentrating on only the most important shipments that went to key places, like Seattle, and using their Loyalist naval assets to do that. The government didn’t even try to protect against pirates. It was very low on their priority list.

The Patriot military forces made contact with Joe, who was an Oath Keeper and it was likely he would be receptive to the Patriot’s request of him.

One day, a visitor, Lt. Cmdr. Travis Dibble, came ashore to Joe’s facility. He was a young guy, in his late twenties, which was very young to be a lieutenant commander, essentially the equivalent of a major. But Joe realized why a young guy like Dibble was a lieutenant commander: he had a military academy ring on. The writing was too small to see, but it was probably Annapolis.

Lt. Cmdr. Dibble had a letter from the General of the Washington State Guard. The letter conferred “privateer” status on Joe and made him immune from any prosecution by the Patriots, provided he maintained “good behavior” during his work for the Patriots. Lt. Cmdr. Dibble explained that Joe and his men could keep whatever they needed from the supplies they recovered, but would be expected to give the remainder to the Patriots. It would be on the honor system. A Patriot vessel would appear periodically to take back supplies Joe’s men “liberated.”

Dibble was very clear: if Joe’s crew acted like pirates, they would be treated like pirates. Dibble knew of Joe’s Oath Keeper background and said he did not expect there to be any problems.

“Besides,” Dibble said holding up a GPS unit, “If you guys start freelancing as pirates, we can let the Limas know where you’re at.” He read off to Joe the exact latitude and longitude. “It would take about an hour,” Dibble said, “for the Lima airstrike or helicopter assault to annihilate this place.” That was an effective deterrent to becoming pirates.

Joe used the privateer letter to do some good things for the Patriots. They started small. They didn’t have a lot of diesel, so they didn’t patrol outside of the immediate area of the compound. They boarded about a dozen ships that came near their area. Most ships were carrying people who were getting out of the cities. Three were smugglers. They weren’t hardened pirates. One boat was full of drugs and alcohol. Joe kept the alcohol, but dumped the drugs. Two other vessels were full of ammo, food, fuel, and medicine. They kept all of it; they needed the supplies. They captured the two smugglers who were not dangerous and turned them into laborers at the compound. The smugglers were grateful for their fate.

One vessel caused them problems. It was operated by a small band of pirates who were definitely very bad guys and were a drugged out gang on the water, which significantly degraded their combat effectiveness.

The pirates fired on one of Joe’s patrol boat at a very long range, which was a very big mistake. Joe’s boat radioed to the second boat and the chase was on. It lasted about 20 minutes. Joe’s boats got within range and let loose with the M240s that the Marines brought with them. They had to be careful not to sink the pirate boat because they wanted the loot. They disabled the boat, got closer, and had the Marines take the pirates out with rifle fire. Man, those Marines could shoot accurately, even on bobbing water.

They recovered a huge treasure of gold and silver. The vessel also held guns, most of which were high-end antiques and obviously stolen. They recovered some ammo, alcohol, and food. Joe kept half the gold and silver and planned to buy more diesel with it. It was reimbursement for the expenses he had made while doing the patrols, especially the diesel fuel. He gave the alcohol to his men, of course.

Joe put aside the other half of the gold and silver, and all the antique guns, for the Patriot vessel to retrieve. The Patriots were very happy to have the gold and silver. Revolutions cost money; lots of money.

Joe was a little disappointed at the privateering. He thought he would make more money at it than he was, though it wasn’t like he was doing it for profit. He was doing it to pay his expenses. The fuel he used to patrol was very valuable. He would go out on the water and fight all the Patriots wanted as long as they would get him the diesel.

Joe had plenty to feed his guys. They still bartered in town with people for security, which was his main source of income. They grew some of their own food and gathered lots of seafood. They weren’t doing without, but Joe knew that he had some very valuable guys working for him who had options in the marketplace. He had to do something to keep his guys paid and happy.

Then he got a call from his old friend in town, Bruce Cohutt. Bruce was in his fifties with silver hair and was very distinguished looking. He had come from Georgia and still had a Southern drawl. Bruce was originally a financial adviser but came to Washington State to take over his father-in-law’s boat parts shop. They made custom boat parts for yachts, which was one of the only manufacturing businesses left in the county.

Bruce had always liked Joe. He wasn’t like the Yankee wimps up there. Bruce loved to shoot and Joe had invited him out to the compound a few years ago. They had something else in common: the county was trying to shut both of them down. They wanted to shut down Joe because he had a shooting range that bothered a county commissioner living a mile away, and they were out to get Bruce because he employed people who didn’t work for the government. It really seemed like the county wanted to control all economic activity. They came after Bruce’s boat shop with “environmental” concerns, even though Bruce complied with, or exceeded, all regulations.

“Joe, can you come into town for a meeting?” Bruce asked on the phone.

“What for, Bruce?” Joe asked.

“A business proposition,” Bruce said. “You’ll see. I won’t be wastin’ your time.”

“Sure,” Joe said and they made arrangements for the time.

“Where will we meet?” Joe asked.

“At the bank,” Bruce answered. “The old one.” All the other bank branches in town were for large corporate banks. The old one was a historic building that had been built in 1890.

“Why there?” Joe asked.

Bruce chuckled. “You’ll see.”

Joe went to the meeting with a small group of four guards. There wasn’t too much crime in town, but Joe still travelled with security. While no one outside of his compound knew it or could know about it, Joe was a Patriot privateer. Although his role as a Patriot privateer was highly confidential, he couldn’t be too safe, so it was best to take some guys in case there were any Loyalist bounty hunters out and about.

Besides, Joe was in the security business. He needed to show people he traveled with plenty of security. He had a PSD, or personal security detail, of four of the military contractors from the Dirty Dozen. Led by Andy “Booger” Borger, the former Ranger, the PSD looked like they were protecting a Congressman when they moved around. It was the perfect image Joe wanted to convey. He didn’t need to feel important, but he needed everyone to see that Joe’s guys were the ones they came to for security services. That’s how he made a living.

Joe and his PSD met Bruce at the bank, who was there with his favorite rifle, a wood-gripped FAL.

Bruce introduced everyone and they sat down. “We’re thinking about starting a bank,” Bruce said.

Joe instantly knew why he was there.

“We need a bank in this town,” Bruce continued. “It’s hard to do business without one. Businesses will need loans at some point, and even if you’re not a business, it’s hard to live without a safe place to put money. What if some gang sweeps through here, like they did over in Port Angeles? People are keeping everything to themselves. We need a big ole’ safe deposit box,” Bruce said, motioning to the historic bank. “Here it is.”

“Bank” and “banker” had slowly become dirty words over the past few months. People hated them—and for good reason. The old banks had been closed since May Day. The government had taken everyone’s deposits and retirement accounts, and the banks were very happy to help in the largest theft in the history of the world. Tens of trillions of dollars.

“But people need banks, at least the kind we want to start,” Bruce said. He went on to explain that the new bank would not be like the old kind that got electronic credits from the Federal Reserve and then loaned the money out and got interest back, with everything being paper or electronic. No, the new banks springing up would be like the old kind of banks: a place where value could be stored and honest loans could be made. The community would be in charge of the bank instead of some corporation in New York. Most importantly, the banks would be where money was backed up by something real, not the “full faith and credit of the United States of America,” an entity which pretty much didn’t exist anymore.

The new banks, called “free banks” because they would operate in the free areas of the country, would be like the ones 100 years ago. They were totally private enterprise ventures; no government involvement. Each bank issued its own bank notes, which resembled dollars and were hard to counterfeit. They were like certificates of deposit. They created their own currency, which became known as “Free dollars,” or “F$.”

For example, a person might deposit F$10,000 worth of gold or ammunition with the bank and receive F$10,000 worth of bank notes. The depositor essentially sold the bank the goods and took bank notes in exchange. Any person with the bank notes could walk into that bank and redeem them for gold or ammunition, or anything else worth that amount that the bank had.

These bank notes could be traded like paper dollars—with one huge exception: the bank notes were backed up with actual value. Real, valuable things like gold, silver, and hard-to-get commodities, like fuel. The bank wouldn’t issue more notes than it had assets to back up the notes; if it did, the value of the notes would plummet and no one would use them. And the people in town would probably kill them.

Bank notes would be redeemable on the spot, not some electronic credits on a computer that said the person had some dollar amount and then the bank put that amount worth electronic credits onto the account of that person. No, free bank notes could be redeemed for real things.

Barter could only go so far. A person could only trade items with someone who wanted the items they had. This was a huge limitation. If the buyer and seller didn’t need the exact same thing, then no trade could happen. People in Joe’s area needed a currency. They needed a way to buy and sell things.

Lots of little trades were currently being done by barter. Actually, new mini forms of currency were being used. Silver coins and ammunition were common currencies. There was an incredible demand for .22 ammo, since it was small and (before the Collapse) cheap so it could be used as change. If a round of 9mm was worth $20 in FUSA, or Former USA, money, a round of .22 might be worth $1 in FUSA money. Therefore, .22 could be used to make change and to trade things with smaller values.

Obviously, FUSA dollars were worthless. Worse yet, no one even had access to their FUSA dollars because the government had taken them all away by closing the banks. FCards, or “Freedom Cards,” were kind of a currency, but they were still based on electronic credits in a computer and were controlled by the government. The government could shut down a person’s FCard account in a few keyboard clicks. More importantly, there wasn’t always food or other items in the stores to buy with the FCards. The people in Joe’s area needed a new currency.

But, if the run up to the Collapse had taught people anything, it was that a fake currency based on electronic credits and promises to repay were worthless. It led to inflation—horrible inflation because the dollars weren’t backed by anything since the Federal Reserve created the dollars out of thin air. Savings held in FUSA dollars were eaten up by inflation, which meant the savings were basically taken by the government. A local currency could solve the problem.

The free bank note would only work in the areas where the notes were recognized, which was a limitation that would have to be solved later, on the larger scale. But at least the free areas, which were the rural areas at that point, would have local currencies.

There was one “disadvantage” to a free bank that was also actually an advantage. With a free bank, a person couldn’t “instantly qualify” for a $10,000 credit card and go spend the electronic credits on a computer ledger on vacations, expensive clothes, or whatever. Instead, with a free bank, someone needed to have $10,000 worth of value to deposit and then he or she got a note worth that amount. The old bank’s $10,000 credit card—backed up by nothing, easily spent on stupid stuff, and putting the card holder in debt for years and years—was hardly an advantage to the consumer. It was a huge advantage for the old bank and the merchants who took the fake money to sell useless things. The last thing America needed was more of the fake money, overspending, and debt that marched the country right into the Collapse.

Free banks would solve that problem by making money scarcer. That’s right: less money could be a good thing. It’s possible to have too much money in circulation, which can lead to $10,000 pre-approved credit cards. It also led, Joe remembered, to $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities by the federal government and runaway inflation.

Bruce continued, “People depositing things of value need to get them to our bank. And our bank needs to guard them once they got there. If a depositor has ten ounces of silver to deposit, he needs to physically get it to the bank and we need it to stay here.” Bruce paused and then said, “Joe, that’s where you come in.”

Joe smiled. “As you might have heard,” he said, “I happen to have a few armored cars. Could that be something of service to your bank?” Of course, Joe knew the answer.

Bruce smiled back. “Well, yes, now that you mention it.” He gave Joe a big Southern grin that spoke volumes.

“Might you need some guards for the bank?” Joe asked with another smile.

“Hmm. I guess so.” Bruce chuckled and went on to explain that they could hire local guys to hold rifles and guard the place, but they needed training for them. And, more importantly, they needed outside guards who could guard the local guards.

“How can you trust me to not rip you off?” Joe asked.

“We’ve known you for years here,” Bruce said. “Besides, if you wanted to rip us off, you could do it now.”

“And,” another banker said, “Everyone in town knows that you and your guys are the only security in town. If we try to set up a bank without you, it’s pretty obvious that you could ride in and take all the deposits. Having ‘security by Joe’ is what people need to see so they’ll have some confidence in the security of their deposits.”

“OK, you guys trust me,” Joe said to them, “but how do the rest of the people in town trust me not to take their stuff?”

“Same reasons we have to trust you,” Bruce said. “Hey, people need to trust us. If they don’t, then they don’t have a secure way to get their deposits to us and they don’t have our bank notes to use. If they don’t want to use our services, that’s fine. They’re on their own. They can try to buy a piece of land or a factory with ammunition if they want. Good luck with that.”

“Yeah,” another banker said, “we have a profit motive in making sure people trust the bank. We’ll do lots of things to increase people’s trust, like let people come and see our assets. So they don’t think it’s some myth like all the gold bars in Ft. Knox.” That was a reference to the FUSA’s claim that there was enough gold under guard at Ft. Knox to back up the dollars in circulation, which was a complete fantasy. At the beginning of the Collapse, it was revealed that there was no gold there.

“This will be a community bank,” one of the other bankers said. “It will be by us and for us. It’s local. We’ll only prosper if our customers do. It’s that simple.”

“Trust?” the first banker said. “Sure, we’re asking people to trust that we won’t take off with all the gold and silver, but people had to trust that those old FUSA dollars were worth something, which was a much bigger leap of faith. A piece of paper is ‘worth’ whatever amount was printed on it. Really? We all saw what happened when people figured out they couldn’t trust those dollars. I think we’re asking people to trust us much less than that.”

Joe nodded. He wanted to be part of this, to help people in his area by having a bank. He also wanted to make some money. He could have started stealing and running protection rackets long ago. Everyone in town knew that. He was a good man who used the incredible power he had very sparingly and only for good.

“OK,” Joe asked, “so how does the bank make any money?” He knew the answer, but asked anyway.

“Well, eventually by loaning money,” Bruce said. “But that’s a ways off.”

“What?” Joe asked. Banks made money by loaning it. How come they weren’t going to do that right away?

“We won’t loan money like the old banks,” the first banker said. “They did ‘fractional reserve banking.’ That’s where they only had to have a tiny fraction of their deposits on hand and could loan huge multiples of their deposits. So, if an old bank got a deposit of $10,000, they would loan out a million. This is why the old banks couldn’t come close to paying every depositor. Remember the long lines right before May Day when word got out that the banks would be closed in a few days? Those banks never had anything close to the amount of cash that they owed depositors. We’ll be different. We have to be or no one will deposit with us.”

“We will have the money on hand to cover the notes we issue. Period,” a third banker said. “We might loan a small percentage of our money eventually, but we’ll never get into that fractional reserve banking nonsense like they used to.”

“Joe,” Bruce said, “loaning money won’t be the main way we’ll make money. Instead, we’ll basically be a safe deposit box. We’ll charge a fee for safely keeping the deposits. I think people will gladly pay to have their valuables safely locked up instead of worrying about gangs coming to their homes or business to steal…or worse. They’ll pay quite a lot, actually. People are paying you for security contractors now. Looking at this as a business person, what good is having stuff when it might get taken? People will pay something to have their things safe.”

Bruce continued. “Then, when the rebuilding starts, there will be a huge demand for credit. There will be so many businesses starting up. People will pay fairly high interest for a loan. We’ll loan part of our assets—but only part, like maybe a quarter, max. We’ll only loan to people we know can pay us back, like a solid business starting up in town. We’ll earn interest on the loans. We’ll pay people a little interest on their deposits and we’ll keep the difference between the interest we charge on loans and the interest we pay on deposits. Plus, we’ll still make money for the safe deposit boxes.”

“But let’s be honest,” another banker said. “We’re doing this because we want to have some security and economic growth in our town. If we make any money, it won’t be for years from now.” All the bankers would deposit their own wealth into the bank and use that as seed money for the bank’s expenses. It was an investment for them.

This plan to start an honest bank made sense. Joe realized he had quite a business opportunity here. “So,” he asked, “you would pay my company from the safe deposit charges now and maybe interest later?”

“Yep,” one of them said. “Directly from the safe deposits, as in you physically keep a portion of whatever items a person gives the bank as the safe deposit fee.” They started to talk about what percentage Joe’s company would keep. That discussion lasted several minutes, and ended with Joe keeping 50% of the safe deposit fees for the first year because the bank’s major expense, at this early point, was for security. It would take many of Joe’s guys and equipment to secure the bank. It would be a fortress.

Joe was beaming inside. All of his hard work and preparations had put him in a position to essentially be a 50% partner in a bank without investing a dime, just giving his guys some work. Before the Collapse, he had worked so hard at a traditional business, only to have the government shut him down. Now, no government could shut him down, and he didn’t have to pay any taxes. He would have never thought people could do quite well after a society collapses, and that they could do it honestly, without having to rob and kill for it. But it made sense: in every human situation, some people do well and others don’t. Most of the population was doing horribly. It was inevitable that some people, the prepared and smart people, would actually prosper from the Collapse.

He extended his hand to Bruce. “Deal,” Joe said. That was how business was done now; a group of local people who knew each other, a handshake. In so many ways, the Collapse was like pressing a giant reset button to the way America originally was, and to the way the country became so prosperous before it went insane.

One of the bankers came up to Joe with three cigar boxes. “Hey, Joe, I know you like cigars. Consider them a signing bonus.”

Joe smiled. “I got about seventy guys who would love a cigar. It’s a pleasure doing business with you, ladies and gentlemen.” That’s how Joe Tantori got into the banking business.