Saving Miguel

Saving Miguel

By

John Bradford Branney

Mirador Publishing

First Published by Mirador Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by John Bradford Branney

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers or author. Excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

First edition: 2013

Any reference to real names and places are purely fictional and are constructs of the author. Any offence the references produce is unintentional and in no way reflect the reality of any locations involved.

A copy of this work is available though the British Library.

IBSN : 978-1-909220-46-1

Dedicated to Theresa, my wife, friend and greatest supporter.

Prologue

No one can pinpoint the exact year or series of events that started the world’s economy into its steep death spiral, but in 2006, the U.S. housing market began what was considered the largest decline in recorded history, dragging down with it large portions of the world’s financial systems. The collateral damage from the housing market crash was felt everywhere in the world with millions of people losing their jobs and home equity while the banks that had financed these risky mortgages fought to remain in business.

While the world’s economy teetered on the brink of financial destruction, another economic crisis of catastrophic proportions occurred in 2008. Widespread fraud and manipulation swept through the world’s financial institutions, walloped the markets and bankrupting well-known and respected companies. Banks around the world collapsed, resulting in the single largest money transfer in recorded history when governments took on insurmountable debt to bail out their respective financial institutions.

While all of these catastrophic economic events were occurring, a shaky economy threatened to collapse the European countries of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, and Italy. With the financial future of these countries in jeopardy, one of the bellwether currencies in the world, the Euro, fought for survival in the midst of a possible collapse of the European Economic Community.

In the 2008 presidential election, the majority of citizens in the United States liked the message of hope and change from one of the candidates. No one knew for sure where this candidate had come from or how he rose so quickly up the political food chain. Part of the nation believed he was the messiah who would unite a divided country while the rest of the nation believed he would drive the wedge even further into a divided country.

The majority of the people elected this candidate to the presidency of the United States and with Congress’s approval, the U.S. government embarked on a spending spree never before equaled in the history of the world. The government, through its entitlements and social welfare programs, supplied food, housing, medical care, and even cell phones for most of the citizens who asked. The government passed economic stimulus programs designed to prop up the weak economy and provided bailouts for failing companies and industries. The President promised affordable health care for every citizen in the country and Congress passed massive health care reform, adding billions of dollars of cost to the health care of citizens of the United States. Under this charismatic president, the United States migrated towards both socialism and bankruptcy.

In 2012, the people of the country spoke again, reelected the President for another four years. The unprecedented spending spree by him and the Congress continued. The government spent far more money than they collected in tax revenues, spending money on wars, economic stimulus, international assistance, health care and domestic social programs.

The U.S. remained on the verge of bankruptcy during the President’s second term and Congress remained ineffective, divided between two very distinct ideologies. Congress debated whether to raise taxes on the rich or to cut government spending. In the end, the President and Congress could not find common ground with their differences and the country’s debt continued to rise. Unable to even propose a budget that could deal with the ballooning debt, the government took the path of least resistance and printed more money, the equivalent of an individual citizen paying his mortgage with an already overloaded credit card.

It took nine more years of reckless spending, state-supported social programs, and failed fiscal policies to take the U.S. economy into a bottomless abyss, bankrupting the country and setting off a catastrophic domino effect that brought other major economies of the world to their knees. The value of the world’s major currencies plummeted and governments were unable to pay their bills. The payment systems between countries no longer worked and with the resultant drop in consumer demand, companies could no longer pay their employees, causing massive layoffs and unemployment. With high unemployment and no consumer spending, the downward spiral continued with even more layoffs, plant closures, bankruptcies and entire governments collapsing. The social welfare programs that had once supplied the basic living needs of millions of people around the globe went bankrupt, leaving the vast majority of the world’s population impoverished and homeless.

Out of the ashes of the world economy, a new world order was born. A few billionaire Oligarchs who had somehow survived this Economic Armageddon, grabbed land and natural resources from failing countries and companies around the world, for pennies on the dollar. No longer hampered by the imaginary borders between sovereign countries, these billionaire Oligarchs absorbed the military might of these failed countries, creating their own private armies to protect their expanding empires and interests.

With armies backing them up, the billionaire Oligarchs seized even more land and natural resources with the hardest fought wars occurring in Russia and the Middle East, ultimately destroying the infrastructure and bringing the production of vast reserves of hydrocarbons and metals to a halt. It did not take long for these shortages to hit the lives of the already impoverished people of the world, causing shortages of food and gasoline. Shortages did not stop with food and gasoline with practically every commodity becoming scarce for those who needed it the most.

By 2025, the economic conditions of the world had hit rock bottom. The global unemployment rate rose to over seventy per cent and even those people employed, lived in poverty. The following account takes place in a country called the Monarchy where most of the wealth resides within one family and where the legislative and judicial branches of the government no longer exist. The Monarchy creates all laws and judges all people. The unemployment rate in the Monarchy is over seventy per cent, even counting the extensive military personnel. The percentage of people living in extreme poverty hovers around eighty per cent. The largest legal industry in the Monarchy is agriculture, growing food for the military and a few citizens, while the largest overall industry in the Monarchy is illegal drug trafficking.

Many of the citizens of the Monarchy’s capital city have left the city in search of jobs elsewhere. There remain six hundred thousand people in the city with most owning nothing more than the clothes on their backs and many surviving the reality of their harsh lives by using the readily available cheap illegal drugs.

Part 1

"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectations of the things that are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

Luke 21: 25, 26

Chapter 1

It was a hot and sticky day in the city’s marketplace. Dust and the sour smells of decaying meat and vegetables permeated the stifling air. The large crowd of people bumped into each other as they attempted to walk up and down the bustling street, turning left and right through a maze of food stands set up along the street. For a few tokens issued by the Monarchy, citizens could buy one of the few gaunt animal carcasses hanging on hooks or the past ripe vegetables rotting in the sun.

The clothes of the people were ragged and stained and their faces dirty and smudged. Citizens ogled the animal carcasses with hungry eyes. Most of the animal carcasses had originated from the dwindling population of stray cats and dogs in the city. Most of the citizens knew that the tokens required to purchase this meat was well beyond their means, but they still enjoyed dreaming.

A small metallic bird hovered over the marketplace, searching for a human who matched the facial features programmed into its tiny electronic brain. The metallic bird zoomed back and forth from one end of the marketplace to the other, recording the dimensions and measurements of each face in the crowd, so it could crosscheck these against its mission parameters.

A long haired man with a long, unkempt beard stood on one corner of the bustling marketplace selling cheap hallucinogenic drugs to any unfortunate citizen who needed them, but more importantly could pay for them. The long haired man looked up in the sky and watched the silver-colored bird buzz back and forth, up and down the length of the marketplace, like a bumblebee on steroids.

The long haired man ripped open his backpack and pulled out what appeared to be an old radar gun used by police officers from days in the past. He flipped on the radar gun’s power switch and pointed it in the direction of little metallic bird. When the metallic bird zoomed past the man again, he aimed and pulled the trigger on the radar gun. The metallic bird’s tiny engine sputtered and then stopped midair, sending the metallic bird on a collision course with the ground. However, before the metallic bird met its fate, it had already sent to its master the GPS coordinates of its prey.

On one side of the filthy marketplace, an old man and a small boy stood in the middle of a dirty sidewalk. The bustling crowd of people ran into the boy, knocking him back and forth like the silver ball in an antique pinball machine. The old man attempted to shield the rail thin boy from the throngs of people, but he was not too successful. Finally, the old man grabbed the boy by the arm and pulled him behind a half empty fruit stand. The old man bent over and looked the boy straight in the eyes.

Boy, where your mama and daddy? the old black man asked the pale boy. Whatchoos name, boy?

The young boy looked up and studied the old man’s face. The boy had never seen a man as old or with skin so dark. He studied the old man’s features, the nappy salt and pepper hair with more salt than pepper. The old man was unshaven and his white whiskers bristled on his lower face. The boy studied the deep creases on the old man’s forehead and around his eyes. The boy then gazed into the old man’s filmy eyes and noticed their deep yellow color, surrounding the dark brown irises. The boy had never seen eyes this yellow and did not know they even existed. He had only seen everyday eyes and of course, the bloodshot eyes of his father. Through these peculiar eyes, the young boy saw into the old man’s soul and knew that he was gravely ill. The old man was dying.

Ice Mo, the old man said and then asked. Whatchoos name? Where you live?

Hiyo, the boy replied.

Hiiiyooo, what kinda name that? Mo replied. Whatchoos real name?

The old man was now very close to the boy’s face. The boy smelled the stale stench of fermented alcohol on the old man’s breath. It was similar to the smell on his father’s breath after he had been drinking and smoking cigars. The boy also smelled the stench of the city on the old man’s skin.

Mo knew the boy did not live in the city since his clothes were so clean and new. No one in this grimy city dressed in a white shirt with matching white trousers and shoes. One hour in this city with these clothes and they would smell like the ashes and smoke that perpetually permeated the city air. Mo knew that he had to protect this boy and take him somewhere safe, before the bad people noticed him. There were plenty of bad people in this city. This city had become a mean and dangerous place for young and old alike.

The boy could tell from the old man’s eyes that he meant him no harm. He saw kindness in this old man. The boy reached out with his small open hand and gently touched the white whiskers on Mo’s cheek. Startled, Mo pulled his head back and then realized it was only the boy’s empty hand caressing him. Mo’s dry cracked lips parted into a smile.

The marketplace exploded with the sound of screaming troopers and shrill whistles. Troopers wearing white helmets and khaki jumpsuits flooded the already crowded marketplace, swinging their fiberglass nightsticks at anyone within reach. The people in the marketplace ran screaming, stampeding over each other while trying to get away from the onslaught of swinging nightsticks. Women howled in fear while the men on the streets ran to hide their drugs and contraband. When the troopers spotted the boy along one side of the marketplace, they veered away from the crowd and headed directly towards Mo and the boy.

Mo just stood there, hunched over and far too terrified to twitch a muscle. He was too old and sick to consider running from the troopers. Besides, he had nothing to hide from them and he was not doing anything illegal. Then a thought popped into Mo’s mind. It was not Mo the troopers were after, they were after the boy, and although Mo had done nothing to the boy, the troopers would beat him anyway. The first trooper reached Mo and grabbed the boy away from him. The next trooper repeatedly swung his nightstick down on Mo’s head and shoulders, knocking him to his knees. A few more smacks with the nightstick and Mo’s body collapsed to the ground, his bleeding face lying flat against the dirt-covered sidewalk. As the trooper carried the boy away in his arms, the boy looked at Mo and their eyes met. Mo’s eyes pleaded to the boy to forgive him for not helping. Then a nightstick slammed into the back of Mo’s head. The boy thrust his open arms towards the old man, trying to reach out to him, but it was too late.

The trooper carried the boy up the street to a convoy of armored vehicles, arriving at the middle vehicle. The electronic door of the vehicle unlatched and sprung open. The trooper set the boy down into a passenger seat within the vehicle and then hurried off to go hunt civilians. The electronic door of the vehicle sealed shut and the convoy drove off. The boy peered up at the man sitting next to him and knew that he was in big trouble.

With eyes as warm as blue ice, the middle-aged man glared angrily down at the boy. The man was dressed in a heavily starched khaki uniform, tight enough to draw attention to the man’s willowy body. In the past, people had made the mistake of associating this man’s thin features with weakness, but this man could strike like a cobra, quick and deadly. The tan and unwrinkled face of the man was razor thin and his nose, broken several times in past battles, leaned slightly to the left. The skin on the top of his hairless pate was tight and freckled. A horseshoe of closely cropped gray hair circled the man’s head from one ear to the other. This man was in charge of the entire Security Service for the Monarchy and his name was Chief Security Officer Gordon Stewart.

Wandering about again, are we Miguel? Stewart asked the young boy with a heavy British accent. I’m chuffed as nuts we found you, you little nitwit.

Hiyo, Miguel replied and then stared upward, through the vehicle’s window and at the sky above. The boy wondered what happened to his new friend Mo.

Is that all you have to say for yourself - ‘hiyo’? Stewart asked. By the way, you little wanker, the proper way to greet someone is ‘hello’, not ‘hiyo’!

Miguel did not respond. He just continued to stare out of the vehicle’s window, thinking about his friend Mo.

It did not take long for the armored convoy to reach the humongous white Citadel on the high flat plateau north of the city. The Citadel’s forty-foot high walls made from white limestone, glistened in the bright summer sun. The convoy approached the guardhouse that was approximately one half mile in front of the walls of the Citadel. On both sides of the guardhouse, a fifteen-foot high electric fence encircled the Citadel’s entire perimeter. When the guards saw the convoy approaching, they lowered the three-foot high steel vehicle blockade into the pavement, allowing the convoy to speed by the guardhouse on its way to the Citadel.

The convoy roared under the rising twelve-inch thick steel front gate, turning sharply to the left onto a massive courtyard of the Citadel. The vehicle carrying Miguel and Stewart stopped directly in front of the entrance to a tall building called the Home Residence. The Home Residence was a large five-story rectangular shaped block of white fireproof and bombproof concrete and steel. Most of the outside of the building was featureless except for a few small barred windows located on the third and fourth floors. On the top floor of the building there was floor to ceiling windows where Miguel’s father had an office suite. Access into the building began with a locked gate with large, hardened steel bars. This gate allowed access to a building alcove where visitors were met by two heavy gauge, explosion proof steel doors which then granted access into the building itself.

Around the entire perimeter of the Home Residence was a beautiful and immaculately tended courtyard filled with trees, gardens, walking paths, and artificial ponds. Meticulously cut limestone blocks made up the high wall surrounding the courtyard. This high wall was the Citadel’s outer defense and surrounded the entire perimeter of the courtyard and residence. A walkway on top of the high wall allowed troopers to walk the entire perimeter around the Citadel and see for miles in every direction.

Stewart got out of the armored vehicle and pushed Miguel ahead of him toward the building, telling him, Chivvy along, boy. Stewart placed his thumb on a small black pad at the first barred gate. The security software recognized the swirls of Stewart’s thumbprint and granted access through the first gate. Once under the building’s protective alcove, Stewart and the boy walked up to the steel front doors. Stewart spoke his name into a voice recognition box alongside the door and the double doors swung open.

The entrance hall that Stewart and Miguel entered was large and empty with high cathedral ceilings. It was as cold and uninviting as the outside of the Home Residence. The floors were made of impeccably cut blocks of white marble that flawlessly matched the brilliant white stucco that covered the thick concrete walls. Spotlights projecting from the high ceilings, bathed the featureless room in bright light. On opposite sides of the stark white entrance hall were two curved staircases that wound upward to a second floor reception area. The staircase’s banisters were intricately hand carved from rare African Blackwood while deep pile white carpet covered each individual stair.

Stewart looked around the entrance hall and then grabbed Miguel by the nape of his neck, pushing him towards one of three paintings occupying the walls. Whenever Stewart visited the entrance hall, which was not often, he always spent a few minutes admiring each of these three paintings. It was not that Stewart was an art collector, he was not, but he did enjoy looking at these three masterpieces. Where else in the world could Stewart view three formerly priceless masterpieces adorning a seldom visited and unguarded entrance hall. Stewart’s feet landed in front of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh called A Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers.

Miguel, what do you think about your father’s painting here? Stewart asked the boy. The boy just stared at the painting, not even whispering a peep.

C’mon, lad! I would have thought you knew more than that, Stewart replied. "Cat got your tongue?

"A duffer named Vincent Van Gogh painted this in Arles, France, sometime in the late 19th Century. Yep, painted over a hundred and thirty years ago and here it is sitting in your old man’s lobby. He probably swindled it from someone for a pittance, if that.

Thirty years ago, this masterpiece sold at an auction for tens of millions of dollars, now it finds itself here, of all places.

Stewart grabbed the boy by the collar and walked him to the opposite wall where a second painting hung.

This painting’s the bee’s knees! Water lilies done by some frog named Claude Monet in nineteen-hundred something years, Stewart said to the boy. "It is called Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas, that’s right, Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas, say that fast a few times, kind of rolls off the tongue, eh?

Your old man took this beauty off its former owner for a whistle and a song. The bloke owed money to your old man, as everyone did. Your daddy had the taste to hang this priceless masterpiece in his lobby. Class, real class.

Stewart