NationStates Jolt Archive

The Democratically Elected President of Economicdisasterstan looked out through the window of his spotless black jeep, churning up a turbulent cloud of dust in its wake as its tires plowed through the gritty main 'street' of this little hamlet. He could see his dark reflection in the window, the glitter off of the glittering stars, piping, and military regalia of his dark beige uniform, patterned on what the colonialists wore when they ruled his land.

His land. The words filled the DEP's heart with pride, even as he looked out on the people in their threadbare clothes, some wearing billowing, breathing material to try and block out the sun and others going topless, nearly naked except for cloth wrapped around their hips and thighs for decency's sake, instead trying to deal with the stifling heat of the equatorial sun. A hot, dry wind blew south from the great deserts, which were once plains... plains until they were overgrazed by cattle, and the plants did not breathe out their moisture to the sky; what little was left dried up and blew away, leaving nothing but the fine sands of the desert, all what remained of the once-fertile but mineral-poor soil.

Outside, a group of women in burquas looked up demurely from churning their goat milk into butter before it spoils in the hot sun. The drought was been worse that year, and the only wood to be had was the dry kindling of saplings which had made a valiant effort before drying out and dying of thirst, knocked over by the wind and split open by the cruel sun. Still, the Economicdisasterstani were nothing if not adaptive--the women's churns were constructed from steel fuel pails to hold the butter and unloaded Kalishnikov rifles to agitate it, relics of the proxy warfare of superpowers a long time passing. "Look, it's the President," one murmured softly in Arabic, pointing out the jet black utilitarian HMVV bouncing along the uneven road, speeding away.

"How can you tell? 'S just like all the other military jeeps," her friend responded as she pumped her AK-47 up and down, the goat curds squelching softly.

"It doesn't have shit all over it," the first explained, returning to her work.

Inside the air-conditioned cab, the DEP's cell phone twittered softly. Pulling it out of its holster nestled right up against his nine-millimeter pistol, he opened it and put it to his ear. "The President." His voice was nowhere as booming as it was when he lead the military coup that toppled the puppet dictator, but, then again, he never was much of an orator nor needed to be one.

"Hey, baby," said the faux-smooth voice with the Sicilian accent on the other end, a slight unintentional sneering tone to it, sounding much like an Italian used car salesman. "Was wondering if you gave my little proposal some thought. Could be mutually equitable an' all, you know."

"It brought a smile to my face," the President replied, "but not one of agreement. It is a good joke."

"Oh, 's no joke, baby. I took the liberty of sending over someone to talk to you back at your compound. Maybe if it's explained in person, it'll seem more appealing. Ciao, Il Presidente."

Back, behind the razor-wire-capped stucco walls of the President's palatial compound, stood the fulfillment of the man's promise. A trained gorilla, in the Moneylaunderingstani standard of a cheap white-pinstripe on navy blue sports coat and trousers, looked as if he had been wedged into his clothes with a shoe horn. He grinned broadly underneath his broad, black sunglasses which covered his eyebrows as well, his yellowed, mismatched teeth looking more like a slide from a dentist's horror reel or maybe a veterinary training film than an actual human smile. After a quick, emotionless greeting behind a grim face, the President saw the man into his large audience hall which doubled as an office. The President sighed, sitting down behind his massive desk, the red-and-green flag of Economicdisasterstan displayed proudly behind him, the desk raised up so he could look down on the tall, brutish man.

A slight pause filled the room with complete silence as the DEP collected his thoughts. "So, Mister..."

"Enforcer." The brute grinned again, a painful sight. "I'm The Enforcer."

"Riiiight... Mister Enforcer. Your boss wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Yup." The Enforcer looked like a Neanderthal pirate, a constant black grainy stubble on his chin and slightly short greasy black hair that conformed to the shape of his skull misshapen from too many blows to the head, but his eyes glittered with a intelligent antichristian malevolence. It may not be the Apocalypse quite yet, but this man looked as if he could be the dry run for it. "The boss says you're none too keen on our li'l proposal."

The President folded his hands, looking down at The Enforcer. "I am not. I do not see the benefit in it."

"Well," The Enforcer said with mock joviality, looking around at the room at an invisible audience, "that's eeeee-zee! Y'see, Mister President, we can ensure you stay in your nice cushy spot. I mean, c'mon, nice place you got here, and places like these is pretty rare in your nekodawoods, if y'know what I mean."

"Yes, accomplished by my own work." The President's voice turned firm. "I will not keep it through extortion."

"To be 'onest," the gorilla replied, "you do daily by extortin' yer people. But, hey, your biz, not ours. We've been doin' great bizness in the past. Hey, you won that election, right? Ninety-nine percen' even of the elgibuhl electorate, neh?"

"You obviously were sloppy about it, if you were involved," the uniformed man countered, "I had to shoot the one man who voted against me."

"Hey, we're good, but our 'sources ain't infinite. What about yer new T-90 tanks, eh? Won' haf to worry 'bout no do-gooding democracy peddlers kickin' over your chem-cal weppins, neh? Oh yeah, them chem-cal weppins! Wot are made wif our know-how and our money..."

"Merely donations to the cause and much appreciated. Don't dare think I owe you anything from them."

"Now, now... that's a shame," the Enforcer mused, beginning to walk over to the desk. "I represen' some pretty big concentrashuns of money, Mister President, and money can be pre-tty powerful." He grinned again, still jovial but with a quiet, malign light in his eyes. "Would be a shame if less donations to yer cause came in, eh? Maybe donations to others' causes? Yer not the most popular man, Mister President, and there's some people wot would like to see you not in the good spot wot yer in. Would be a shame if they got their way."

"I don't do well with threats," the President glowered.

"Threats? Me, threatenin' you? Naw... would be nuts, wouldn't it?" He backpedaled, but he still looked quite in control of the situation. "Just pointin' out po-tenchalities, 's all. How's I sees it, and not from my boss's pee-oh-vee, is that we can either help you out like we've been or we can help out those other people. Is all a matter of bizness, y'see--we help out those who help us out. Playin' ball, y'know. If we don' see a return on our invesmen', we'll jus' haf to... expan' our porfolio or sumpin. Really, this is The Bookie's job," he grinned, "not mine. I's just spekulatin'. Still, things break an' all, and I think we can help protek' you from some of dose things wot seem most likely to break in yer position."

"You've speculated enough with my time," the absolute leader of Economicdisasterstan growled, "and you will leave before my men take you out. And not to dinner."

"Hey, alright." The gorilla put up his hands. "Fair 'nuff. Just wah-ned to talk. Ciao, Mister President."

As the Enforcer left, the President picked up his phone and dialed a number. It was time to solve this problem.

Outside, the Enforcer walked out into the large square in the middle of the compound, then looked up at the bright yellow sun, heat scorching the ground. Still, despite the drought, the lawns of the compound were pristine and green. Looking down, he saw a cute little black Labrador puppy, probably a three month old product of the President's purebred bitch.

Grinning, he kicked it clean across the square like a deflated football before walking off. Things break, Mister President.

The Major looked out grim-faced over the waves, grimacing a little deeper every time another high wave broke over the hull, dashing spray against him. The Chinese-built Type 62 (http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/littoral/shanghai2_1.jpg)-class anti-submarine boat was never intended for going far from the coast, much less braving the high seas, and even though she took on more supplies and food than usual, both were running very thin. This far out into the ocean, it looked like the trip would be one way unless the Major could pull off a victory. Every time he thought of it, he smirked a little, even in the face of the sea and the spray. Those thugs simply didn't stand a chance.

Contrary to popular belief, the Democratically Elected President's personal guard were not a bunch of cronies and thugs, the kind of armed militants who made up most of Economicdisasterstan's military culture aside from the poor conscripts simply wanting to serve out their term and return to their huts of mud and burnt-out T-72 turrets. No, the Personal Guard were professionals, perhaps the only real professional military in Economicdisasterstan. They served the DEP because he was their commander; no more and no less. True, they were sent in to rough up people who were giving the President trouble, who had something the President wanted, or who the President wanted to ask a 'favor' of, and true, the target of this mission fell into all three categories. Those were missions... distasteful missions, in the Major's opinion, but missions nonetheless. They had training, they had equipment, but they did not have the brute force of the warlords or the President's army; besides, even if they could change it, it wasn't their place to. They were soldiers and it was their duty to do what their superiors told them. Just like the spiritual leaders told them how to conduct their secular lives; just like the government propaganda told them who to hate and when; just like the hard knocks of life forced enemies that simply had to be defeated--free will, freedom of choice, all fallacies. It was simply their fate.

Up ahead, a ruddy red and steel grey spot peeks over the horizon, the first evidence of their goal, quietly rusting away in the seemingly perfect weather. Smirking slightly, the Major looks back over his shoulder. "Get ready, men! You know the drill--don't shoot anyone unless they're asking for it. The President wants this operation intact, and any damages come out of your salaries!" Behind him, soldiers pass the word along, the thirty-man boat operating under a skeleton crew of ten and twenty-four makeshift marines of the Personal Guard. Bolts pulled back snap into position, chambering cartridges into place in AK-74 assault rifles, promising violence to those who may find themselves on the business end. Each individual bullet was a promise, a reminder why no one troubles the Democratically Elected President of Economicdisasterstan.

The three supertankers that made up Moneylaunderingstan "Proper" individually dwarfed the tiny cutter, the sides of their slowly corroding hulls canyon walls of rusting steel and chipping red paint; combined they formed a veritable island, looking like a fortress rising up out of the water and looming ominously overhead as the patrol boat idled in under the steel ramparts of one tanker's aft. The original name of the supertanker was lost to time in large once-white characters so eroded that their original languange could not be determined. The Major looked up at the ancient legend, pondered it for a moment, then craned his neck back just that much more to look up at the top edge of the hull as the top of the wall that needed to be scaled. Listening, he heard only the soft lapping of the South Pacific against the hulls. Quiet... which means hooks will make a lot of noise.

Turning around, he spoke in quiet Arabic to his men. "We are going to put up three lines, one at a time, carefully. Just do it on my signal; we don't want to make it steady and attract too much attention."

The Personal Guard was by no means an elite special operations force, but, then again, The Enforcer's thugs in Moneylaunderingstan Proper weren't even soldiers of the lowest stripe. No deck patrols, no constant vigilance; they simply prowled below-decks to cow the workers with their presence or lounged in their bunks, reading (or perhaps just looking at the pictures) or playing games to idly pass the time. The tankers were old ex-ships, and sometimes made strange noises--it was always hard to breath in the bottommost decks, thick with the smell of crude oil that filled up the lungs and felt like breathing water--so a few more thunks and clanks went essentially unnoticed. That just meant some pipe or connections in the massive diesel engines finally gave up to time and popped, shifted into a new position, or simply broke; it happened all the time.

What didn't happen all the time was having men in fatigues under old 1960s-era flak jackets and M1 steel pot helmets, carrying AK-74s, prowling about in groups of two with weapons raised. There was absolutely no resistance on deck; those few people lounging about look up to find themselves looking down the barrels of rifles and immediately surrender, the 5.45 millimeter bore looking positively huge in their minds' eyes. After securing the decks, the soldiers move into the aft superstructure, those large towers now acting as combination office buildings and residence complexes.

Il Sultano watched impassively as his door flew open from a swift kick and two soldiers slipped in, leveling their rifles at him. Between them entered the Major, who lowered his own rifle after a moment, not expecting this... lack of reaction from his target, who simply leaned forward, put out the butt of his expired cigarette, then took out another and lit it with his firestarter made from the skull of a baby harp seal. "Well," he started, taking a long drag and puffing it out, wisps of smoke curling from his lips and nostrils, "this was unexpected."

"So, tell me, baby," the slightly deposed Bonsignore asked, kicking back in the dank lower-level cell that acted as a dungeon in Moneylaunderingstan, "what exactly do you want now? Money? Power? I think I can arrange something around those lines."

The Major felt a little sick to his stomach at having to talk to this scum. Ever since he'd kicked down the door to Il ex-Sultano's office, he'd had to listen to this sloppy rich man try to act cool, calm, and collected, but constantly sniveling for his life. "What I want is irrelevant. I serve the wishes of Economicdisasterstan, and its current wish is that you be securely locked up."

Venditti nodded, then leaned forward from his seat on the creaky wooden platform in his cell that served the dual purpose of bench and cot, lips curling up to just barely reveal his teeth in a sly half-smirk. "Alright then. Mission accomplished. Now what?"

The Major paced away a few steps, frowning to no one in particular as he listens with his back to the ex-leader of Moneylaunderingstan. "Hm?"

"Now what? You've taken Moneylaunderingstan Proper, and my boys are safely under lock an' key. Certainly the good nation of Economicdisasterstan and your soldiers want a little more than that, baby."

"Fine. First things first, stop calling me 'baby,'" the Major snapped.

Bonsignore nodded, an appraising look on his face. "All right. That I can do. Actually," he continued in a casual tone, "I'm surprised you made it so far in that little boat."

"As am I," the Major muttered, looking down momentarily. "Where are your diesel fuel reserves?"

"Eh? Don't have any need for any, so we don't have one."

The Major twitched. "What?"

"We do have a small supply of aviation gas for my seaplane what's out on assignment, but lacking a navy, we don't have any diesel. There may be some left in the engines back from when these hulks worked, but you'd have to set up a drip to drain engines larger than the average house. It'd probably take months to get enough to fill your boat to go back through the Indian Ocean. You're stuck here, ba... Major."

"What are you trying to say?"

"It's pretty simple." Bonsignore "Piranha" Venditti shrugged. "I bothered your President, he sent you here to look after me, but I have been quite profitable for him. That profitability is gonna continue into the future because I have your guns pointed at me. You're an occupation force now."

The Major winced slightly--the idea of being occupiers grated on his nerves, his nation having been occupied so many times before by so many outsiders. Still, he pauses and sighs. "If that is the wish of our government... so be it. We serve our country."

"And if your country's mind could be... changed?" The jailed man smiled slightly.

"Then we would change with it." The Major replied simply. "However, you are here and powerless, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high if I were you."

Back in Economicdisasterstan, meetings occured in darkened rooms as soon as it was heard that Moneylaunderingstan had fallen. "Okay," was how they usually began, "now if ya wanna keep pullin' in yer sal-ry, then lissen up..."

Meanwhile, in his compound, the Democratically Elected President leaned back in his simple chair of metal and wood and smiled, gently drumming his fingers against his desk as he thought. Now his land, his power, was no longer threatened by any mobsters with dreams of puppeteering. In fact, those mobsters were now his, existing only to serve and increase his power. Chuckling softly at these thoughts, he worked to come up with what he could do with all his lucre once it started coming in.

"What are you doing?" asked a soldier in the mid-decks of one of the tankers, looking over the shoulders of a white-collared worker tapping away at his terminal.

"Bookkeeping stuff," the worker replied in an unplacable accent, probably an expatriate from some other country just like everyone else. "Despite the invasion and all, I've still got a job to do."

The soldier nodded slowly. "Fair 'nuff... what job is that?" He blinked at the array of spreadsheets, ledgers, and browsers splayed across the worker's three monitors. "Looks like you hafta be kinda smart to do it."

"Oh, that'd be a fair estimation... thank you," replied The Bookie with a smile, adjusting his small rectangular reading glasses with thumb and forefinger along the edge of the frame before looking back at his screens with a tilt to his head, looking down his nose at his work like an egotist at someone lesser in his mind. "All we do is move money from one place to another, back again, and tie the trail into knots. So, what I'm doing right now," he points at the screen as he makes a withdrawal from one online bank and an immediate deposit into another, "is moving money around. And money is power."

"Yeah, so I've heard," the soldier quipped with a grin. "You keep at that. I'm sure the President will be happy with you moving money and power around for 'im." He then continued on his rounds, still finding this strange little data haven interesting in its novelty.

The Bookie shrugged slightly, then smiled at his screen. Perhaps he will be, perhaps not.

A trained gorilla with a malign intelligence in his eyes sat back in his cheap hotel room, the rotting wooden chair creaking under his muscular weight. He held the phone delicately to his ear as if the handset was made of porcelain rather than black plastic. Given the sun, and the humidity, who worked together for years to eat away everything else in the blighted land, he was not going to take any chances. "Yes, Gen'ral. Thas' all we's be needin' from yas. You'll fin' tha money alrea'y transferr'd to yer accoun'." He nodded once. "Thas' right. No worries; jus' take yerself a holiday. Hell, give yer men a holiday too. They work hard, they deserves it."

Quickly, money changed hands; more slowly, power shifted to follow suit. The newly more wealthy began to hatch plans in order to maintain their new wealth in paranoia; to increase it in greed. They looked at those who previously used funding, connections to stay in power; they looked at how they operated, and without even thinking, adapted and improved their methods even as they registered their forerunners as threats and competition to be eliminated. Even then, they realized that their power, their wealth, stemmed from two things and two things alone--fear and money. Fear was produced in a vicious cycle, forcing those awed by power to become mercenaries for the cause and, through their brute force, instill the fear to react, to cow the populace and opposition; the money was all firmly controlled by the quiet people who asked simple favors and gave generously. Still, despite the simplicity and rationality of the favors, some, too headstrong, resisted.

The Enforcer sighed--it was late at night and he was supposed to be asleep. Still... The thought of the job ahead put an evil smile on his face blacked-out with grease paint, not grinning, as that would expose his teeth as he low-crawled through the dried grass. This one had been a little smarter--he'd immediately removed all his money from the electronic accounts and immediately cut ties to The Bookie. In times like these, that just would not do. Pressing himself up against the masonry wall of the warlord's compound, he looked up at the concertina razor wire lining the top with bits of jagged glass sticking out a thick layer of mortar. Looking at the rotting piece of cardboard he was planning to use, the gorilla tossed it away with a mildly annoyed grunt.

From around the corner came a guard attracted by the soft noise, and The Enforcer decided then and there to do this the fun, dramatic way. Pulling his .40 caliber CZ 45 Champion (http://www.cz-usa.com/product.img/39.jpg) pistol (personally modified to accept a suppressor, of course), he immediately gave the guard two more holes to breathe through in his chest. Failing to immediately rework his respiratory tract to be compatible with flow-through ventilation, the guard fell and the gorilla walked casually past him, putting another round between the man's eyes and holstering his pistol in preference to the guard's AK-74. Shouldering the rifle, he moved on, switching it to semi-automatic mode as he walked carefully but quickly sideways to reduce target profile. His suppressed pistol still made a bit of noise, and people would get curious, and start seeing bodies, and that would make his job more difficult.

And fun.

Standing by the corner, he heard one guard asking quietly in Arabic if everything's all right. "Yeah, I'm fine," the Enforcer grumbled back in the same, "bad cough." The guard made a quiet sound of assent and slowly walked off, boots tramping softly through the hard ground. The Enforcer nodded to himself, turned the corner, and wrapped his burly hands around the man's head, adding a quick twist. Stooping down to get more magazines, he kept going on. The real action would start once he got to the entrance of the compound.

Drawing his pistol again, the Enforcer snuck up on the wooden guard shack on one side of the gap in the outer wall. Working his fingers in his leather glove, he readied himself... then punched through the thin glass, surprising the guard inside first with the suppressed .40-caliber barrel and then the contents of the barrel. Reaching around inside, he found the switches that controlled the main entrance and perimeter lights and switched them off. Retracting his quickly but carefully, he took off running, taking advantage of the surprise caused by the darkness, switching rifle for pistol once again. Ducking behind a side building, he almost ran into a guard; acting purely on instinct and training from some past, the gorilla saw to it that the bayonet on his rifle met with the guard's unprotected stomach before the butt of the rifle connected with the guard's forehead. Seeing red and reveling in it, the Enforcer made his way into the main building after tearing through a few more individual guards in a rampage of blind yet silent brutality.

The warlord's domicile was not exactly plush yet, but it was certainly far more comfortable than the Economicdisasterstani standard. Boots moving silently over the carpeted floor, the Enforcer found the door which led into the main office--guesstimating from previous observation--and pushed his way in. The two men already in the room looked up from their desks and blinked, the Enforcer lined his ill-gotten rifle on the younger one's shoulder and shot straight through it at this range. Dropping the rifle in preference for the pistol, the gorilla walked right up to the other's desk as the 40-ish man behind it kicked away futily, trying to reach the pistol in his ostentatious fold-over leather holster.

"Ya shouln've messed wif Il Sultano's money, chief," the Enforcer grinned as he planted the remaining contents of his pistol's magazine into the warlord's forehead. Looking back at the warlord's lieutenant, keeling over in shock, the gorilla grinned a bit more evilly, picking up the man with one brawny hand and pistol-whipping him into the corner. After barraging him to within an inch of his life with kicks from his heavy boots, the Enforcer kneeled down and tapped the barely conscious man to get his attention.

"Yer in charge now, kid. Jus' remember--don't fuck wif tha people what put ya in power, or else..." he grinned broadly, an infernal gleam flickering behind his eyes as he drew his pistol again. He put the barrel up against the lieutenant's head, pulled back the hammer with his thumb, then slowly squeezed the trigger, resulting in a loud click, the lieutenant flinching as if he were shot. The Enforcer guffawed and re-holstered his pistol. "Or else they'll fuck wif ya right back. Take care o' yersself, and be good." Slapping the 20-something on the shoulder, the Enforcer started to make his escape... before pausing a moment. "Oh, yeah, kid--where does... did yer boss keep 'is money?"

"His mattress," murmured the lieutenant, too shocked, frightened, and broken to lie.

"Ah, a tradishunlist," the Enforcer grinned, "smart guy." Next stop--the bedroom.

A few kilometers away, the Democratically Elected President trembled with fury as he glared down his chief accountant. While he may not have been much of a speaker, the President certainly could glare. "Say it again," he growled, "and say it slowly. I don't think I heard you right the first time."

The accountant gulped, his mouth completely dry. "It seems, sir, President sir, that your accounts..." He paused again, almost gasping for air. "Have gone dry. The banks are reporting that your latests purchases have bounced and are calling in the structured debt arrangement we arranged to improve your credit rating... and we don't have enough to pay those off."

"And how did this happen?" Deadly quiet.

"I don't know, s-s-sir," the accountant stammered, speaking more and more quickly. "The cash slush got depleted in the last round of loyalty payments and all our electronic accounts are... empty. They're all the ones that the Moneylaunderingstani deposited funds into, so they know the numbers, but they shouldn't know the withdrawal codes unless they bribed someone--"

Within the next three seconds, another gunshot rang out. No questions were asked, the mess was simply cleaned up. Within the next five minutes, the Enforcer hopped over a dark portion of fence on a mattress which he was sure to bring with him before running off to his black rental jeep. Within the half hour, he was on his way to visit an accountant with dreams of wealth in his mind... just to make sure he'd play ball.

It was always easier when people played ball.

Just not as fun nor as invigorating.

OOC: This is very good writing, I'm really impressed :). I guess this is a story as opposed to an RP, though? Anyway, enjoyable stuff!

[Yeah, it is more of a story, but I have to explain away this population growth somehow. No way that a microstate in the South Pacific would have hundreds of millions of people connected to it unless its power expanded in curious ways.]

"I don't think I understand you, General," the President growled into his telephone handset the next day, free hand drumming heavily on the steel desk painted in 1950s sage green. He hadn't gotten any sleep that night as he'd forced every accountant and person with more than basic mathematical skill to look over his accounts; their evaluation of the system was unanimous. The money was gone, and there looked to be no way to recover it. Someone offered the idea of raising taxes as a poor attempt at a joke; the President immediately did so before being reminded that the people of Economicdisasterstan quite literally had no money to tax and that the warlords, those feudal regional leaders who ruled through money and fear, would never stand for it unless the army was called up for a show of force.

That same army, possessing quite a bit of advanced equipment purchased from larger nations, more technologically advanced but economically crippled and needing the blood money, was on holiday. All of it. "The army's on holiday on my orders, sir. We've been in exercises for a month straight and I think the men really do need a rest."

"And if there is an attack?" At this point, the President ceased to distinguish the difference between his country and himself.

"Why do you think we're not advertising it, sir? Two days from now, we'll get back on the job and everything will be back to normal."

"General, I am ordering you to put the army on immediate alert."

"Sorry, sir, but I can't do that without a definite threat to the survival of the state."

"You will ready the army of your own free will," the President growled, "or else I will send the Personal Guard to convince you to."

The General shrugged almost audibly on the other side of the line, a half-pause. "The Personal Guard is currently deployed to Moneylaunderingstan, sir. The soldiers I have defending your compound right now are regular army, and they'll stay there--just don't expect them to march up and down the square."

The President trembled with rage again, something he was doing with more and more frequency as of late. The General, not being able to see this, continued on blithely. "Oh, and the mercenaries called. They said that due to missing their monthly payment, they're suspending operations effective immediately. They've got an alternate contract or something. Really lucrative, they said."

"Did they say with whom?" The dictator-in-a-democrat's-clothing growled very softly into the phone.

"No, sir--goes against company policy, they said. I told you not to trust mercen--"

The President slammed the receiver down onto its receiver, hard, the thick black plastic of both cracking at the impulse.

Not too far away, The Enforcer folded his hands and leaned forward, looking over at his collection of powerful men. His night had also been sleepless, but he didn't mind. At least it was a fun night, and The Bookie told him that everything was in place. That was good enough for him. "Now, y'know how dis usely goes. One-quarta up fron', three-quartas once tha job is done. We've already decided 'ho's gonna take charge afta dis, and we'd like to see dat come fru. If he don' 'make it,'" The Enforcer winked knowingly, "den ya can kiss all dat money g'bye. Addishunly, if any of youse take him out," his voice dropped into a malign growl, "I'll do you like I did dat guy las' night. Got it?"

The warlords nodded, all very familiar with the concept. It was, after all, how they themselves operated in their own little fiefdoms of terror and extortion. After the trained gorilla's little speech, they dispersed and called up their own mercenaries and thugs, telling them to get ready. There shouldn't be much in the way of resistance, they thought, but just in case, overwhelming force never hurt. All across the nation, paramilitary forces readied themselves while the regular army kicked back and relaxed, and in the vicinity of the President's compound, gangs of armed men hopped into the backs of pickup trucks and jeeps, waiting for the signal. The Enforcer nodded, and they all started driving, pressing in from all directions over the flat, dusty desert plains.

The guard in the guardhouse looked out, seeing the clouds rising on the horizon. Pulling out his binoculars, he put them to his eyes to see, in the distance, the gangs driving in, already brandishing their weapons. Shrugging, he sat back down and kicked his feet up. Wasn't his problem, not today.

Sitting behind his overlarge desk behind his office, the President drummed the fingers of one hand against his leg, his other curled tightly around his Type 77 (http://www.sinodefence.com/army/individual/type77_pistol762_1.jpg) 7.62 mm pistol. The motors outside roared, a whirlwind of controlled metal, heralding the arrival of what he feared most. No gunshots rang out, no report of gunpowder either singly or in bursts; his men... his men... did not fire. They had let him down. He had personally chosen their equipment, the best and most efficient in Eastern technologies, oversaw their training, saw them daily... and they had let him down. They were traitors, the lot of them. Never mind that he often drilled them to death, or sent them in little wars of imperialism against the ideologues next door or to enforce his will on a recalcitrant warlord. They were his pawns; the chess set couldn't rebel against its king.

Hearing heavy bootsteps outside the door, the President raised his pistol and pointed it in his trembling hand over at the door. He wouldn't go down without a fight. He'd take some of the traitors down with him. In his mind, he consciously avoided making connections with twenty years ago when he had been the heavy bootsteps in the hall, his predecessor sitting just where he sat now, holding a different pistol but in the exact same way. The door opened, and the President pulled the trigger, the little gun making the first report of the battle. The bolt slid back, one brass casing flying from the ejector, then back forward, faster than the eye could see, and he squeezed the trigger again, and again. Holes appeared in the doorframe, in the door as the first person through ducked and rolled over to the side. The President gritted his teeth his finger spasming in fear and the feral need to protect himself, all until... something under too high a tension for too long finally gave up and broke. He sat there like a man hypnotized, listening the strange music of his gun, the feel of its recoil against his hand, drained of all emotion, running too high and too hot and now low, panicked somewhere far beyond calm as his pistol exhausts its seventh and last shot and the bolt kicks back into the open position and stays there. His finger still squeezing, he looks down at the machine in his hand, eyes welling up with tears. Even his machines, his tools, his thoughtless chunks of machined metal, were rebelling against him.

The armed men stood back up, looking at the holes in the door and walls before finding none in themselves. Marching two at a time up onto the President's stage, they roughly picked him up by the shoulders and bound his hands, leading him out as he sniffed and murmured in a breaking voice, eyes blinking with almost-tears, looking at no one in particular.

Thousands of kilometers away, a door of iron bars swung open and Il Sultano walked out, stretching slightly with a smile as he smoothed back his slightly disheveled hair, greasy from not being washed for about a week. "Thank you, Major."

"Thanks nothing," the Major grumbled, "new orders from the top. Apparently now I'm supposed to escort you back to Economicdisasterstan along with the rest of my men."

"Good, good," Venditti smiled, "tell ya what--we'll take my seaplane."

"Anyway, I'm glad we could all have this little chat." Il Sultano Bonsignore Venditti smiled, or more accurately his lips pulled back from his teeth in the vaguely menacing way that earned him the nickname 'Piranha' as he paced back and forth in front of the sage-green desk on the little stage in the Presidential office, looking over the assembled warlords. "As you can all see, gentlemen, I am playing all sides against the middle here. You are all where you are today because I helped you there, and every now and then all I ask is a little return on my investment. Y'know, favors done for favors, nothing too big. It was the same for this guy." He jerked a thumb at the ex-Democratically Elected President, tied to a chair on the side of the stage, with The Enforcer leveling a boxy yet curiously mean-looking combat shotgun (http://www.militech.sownet.gliwice.pl/bullpup/__mossberg500(300)BW.jpg) to the back of his head. "Y'all know that. Hell, we bought your votes for him. Still..."

Il Sultano stopped, shook his head, and sighed. "I tried to tell him that. I tried," he looked up with a pained expression, "to let him know it wasn't an option to decline. Rather, he decided to neglect the realities of the situation. Heck, even that's understandable. I wouldn't have minded just letting him retire to some tropical coastline far from here, nice and comfortable-like... but no. He had to go off and do a silly thing like attack Moneylaunderingstan Proper, and I just can't let people get away with stuff like that, you understand. Bad for business.

"My fault, though, my fault." He shrugged and sat on the edge of the desk, looking out at the collected Economicdisasterstani warlords. "I thought we could be subtle about it. Y'know, quiet and intelligent and all that. Now I see that isn't gonna work, so time to play it straight and blunt. I fund each and every one of you, and I do it happily--on the caveat that you understand that if I ask you for something, especially if it's nothing too big, I fully expect you to reciprocate all of my generous feeling. If you're feeling greedy and not at all mutually friendly, like this guy, or the warlord who pulled out, I have no compunction against sendin' The Enforcer here to pay you a visit or using the rest of you all against one or two of you. If you all band together in greediness, then I'll just have to cut all the funding, making you just as dirt poor as the people you hold sway over, and give it to some other people who understand things a little bit better."

He smiled a bit more genuinely now. "Of course, I don't mean to insinuate that any of you'd do that. I'm guessin' we're all reasonable men here and so we can reasonably see what looks to have all the benefits and none of the losses. Now I'm not gonna pester you often; it's not my business. I'll ask the occasional favor, but it shouldn't be anything much unless it's a panic. As long as you guys scratch my back, I'll scratch yours and keep you in power. We can work out any kinks as we go along, I'm sure."

Checking his watch, Il Sultano stood up and winked. "Anyway, I must be off. Just remember that I'm willing to work with you on all this. Call me in the morning once you've made your decision." With that, he walked out, whistling a little tune to himself.

The Enforcer, still holding the ex-President at gunpoint, watches his boss walk out, waiting for him to be well outside the door before speaking. "An' if yas cross us, I'mma gonna do dis to you." Then he pulled the trigger.

Il Sultano leaned back into his almost abusively plush chair, kicking up his heels as he read over the resolution of the warlords. It was filled with fanciful speech and diplomatic tone, but essentially consisted of only two words: Terms accepted.

After drawing another Treasurer cigarette from his platinum-plated cigarette case and lighting it with his seal-skull lighter, he took a long drag and smiled crookedly. Everything had worked out almost according to plan. Moneylaunderingstan's portfolio was diversifying, and that meant nothing but good for Il Sultano Bonsignore "Piranha" Venditti, one of the few people to conduct an extortion racket on a national scale.