The Container Affair Read online

  Additional works by this author

  can be found in the series...

  The Naval Odyssey of Professor James Brand:

  Submarine Scourge

  (Book I)

  Mission to Britain

  (Book II)

  Available at Amazon.com

  The

  Container

  Affair

  A Brad Bayle Mystery

  J. Eugene Porter

  The Container Affair:

  A Brad Bayle Mystery

  © J. Eugene Porter, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  For permission requests, email the author at:

  [email protected]

  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, incidents,

  organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally.

  ISBN: 978-1799153825

  Design: Vivian Freeman Chaffin, Yellow Rose Typesetting

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jon and Jeff

  “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

  Proverbs 29:18

  Preface

  The global economy is complex and confusing. Even economists are often at odds to explain what is or is not happening. These experts talk about business cycles, economic models and, of course, monetary policy. Most of this means little to the 99.9 percent of the world’s population trying to get from one day to the next. In the past 240-plus years since the founding of the United States, the nation has gone through endless booms and busts. With each of these, government leaders learn a little more as to what caused it and how to lessen the impact. The economy is unknowable to most, but some individuals do have a keen understanding of it and use this knowledge to enrich themselves.

  At the turn of the last century, the nation was faced with the “robber barons” who controlled most of the American economy. The names Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Gould come to mind as members of this class of individuals. They learned you could persuade key individuals within the government to do your company a great favor by allowing you to create an enterprise of massive “social utility.” This allows a few people to maintain market power and control of the economy. By these actions, these men created enormous fortunes.

  The famous political battles of Theodore Roosevelt and his attacks on the so-called “trusts” which were owned by these individuals, lasted several years and ended with the creation of new government rules and agencies such as the Federal Reserve System and the establishment of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1913 which created the tax on incomes. This tax was a direct response to the incredible wealth vested in a few people. The Depres-sion created more legislation and populist sentiments with New Deal initiatives such as Social Security and numerous financial regulations. These programs were designed to level the playing field. President Franklin D. Roosevelt often told his audiences that the Constitution was very specific in promoting equality by quoting from the document’s preamble, “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

  The American and world economies stayed fairly balanced through the tumultuous post-war years until the 1980s, when the perfect storm of technology, improved communications, government actions and geo-political shifts affected not only the core of society but the ability to create and use wealth. An example of this comes from Credit Suisse who reported in late 2016 that the top one percent of the world’s population-controlled 45% of the world’s wealth. The report continued by stating there were 34 million people worldwide with a net worth of over $1 million. There were 123,000 people worldwide with a net worth of $50 million or more. The Swiss bank also stated 71% of the world’s population had a net worth of less than $10,000.

  In the United States, tax rates, loop holes and trusts helped the upper one-tenth of one percent amass greater fortunes than ever before recorded. These few super rich hired consultants and lobbyists to work the halls of Congress and state legislatures to improve their economic wellbeing by reducing or eliminating taxes and creating new innovative legal entities to shelter their wealth. All it took was a phone call and a check to some anonymous political action committee to get a member of Congress to support or kill a bill. Money is truly power.

  This seeming inequality has fueled the growing populist movements aimed at overpaid executives, bonuses for failure, golden parachutes for the few and layoffs for the many. The nation, and now many in the global community, look for leadership from government to rein in the excesses of the past and to once again level the playing field. Shared responsibility and shared success is the new mantra coming not only from the left, but now the righteous indignation of the great middle class is causing many in the wealthiest classes to hunker down and wait for a changing tide.

  This leads to an assumption government will take control of things and ensure equality for all. It further assumes our elected officials will provide independent thought and actions which are for the good of all the people, not just some of the people. This is the core of the problem, at least as seen by some individuals on both sides of the discussion. If one was a member of the billionaire class or whose success was greatly dependent upon them, would there be other challenges or fears on the horizon? A few of these super rich individuals would have not only the means but the power to control the business, political and social environment, thus keeping their power unchecked. Perhaps a smaller subset of these individuals might consider other means to maintain their wealth and power. Meanwhile, the vast majority toils on.

  Part One

  Gambit

  WASHINGTON, D.C. James Benden looks at his watch while peering down the street, waiting for the town car to show up. He is not a happy man. He’s about to meet with Mr. Cartwright, the CEO of one of the largest financial concerns in the world—a man who controls James and his way of life. Benden’s job is to do Mr. Cartwright’s bidding, and James will do whatever it takes to ensure Mr. Cartwright’s personal financial position in the world. James’ present wife is always asking for more “allowance” money, which now runs over ten thousand dollars per month. This new lifestyle is way beyond what he used to make as the vice president of a bank holding company. At the bank he gained a reputation as the “go-to guy” for getting the legislature and congressmen to go along with the bank’s plans.

  Benden was successful and had built a great reputation in the industrial and finance communities when one day Mr. Cartwright had come calling. His offer was so huge and so tempting there was no way he could refuse. Funding showed up for Benden’s new company and so did the bulk of clients, many of which were in financial businesses. But Mr. Cartwright was the biggest and most important client for the firm, plus Mr. C, as he called himself, had a handshake deal which he could pull at any time. James knew he was in debt both financially and emotionally to his benefactors’ whims. So, he waited for the car and hoped it arrived soon.

  *****

  CHICAGO Brad Bayle waited for the doctor. He had a feeling the news would be bad. His wife was down in the children’s play area with their youngest child Dora, and he knew she was afraid to hear an unpleasant pronouncement by the doctor. His oldest child, Robert, was in the hospital room down
the hall and had been there for over two weeks. Since the car accident six months ago, Robert had held on to life, managing a fast recovery and transferring to a regular room. Everything was looking up until Robert began having tremors and lost his eyesight. Doctors could not come up with a clean diagnosis but now the new specialist, Dr. Freinberg had completed a new series of tests including MRIs pointing to a major problem in the brain. Focusing on the unknown and worried by the growing financial challenges, Brad tried to think about his work and not his financial situation which was making his life even harder to endure.

  His wife, Marla, had lost her job three months ago, and his federal salary as an FBI agent was not sufficient to keep up with his family’s lifestyle. If only he hadn’t gone along with the idea of buying a huge house in the suburbs, perhaps he would be okay, but now things were getting even tighter. He was one of many Americans whose dream was unraveling through no fault of his own.

  *****

  SAN FRANCISCO John Malone peered out his office window at the squirrels running up and down the trees. They were gathering food he thought or maybe just playing around. It was late September and it never really gets cold in the Bay Area nor does it get real warm. He loved the place and its high energy business climate until the downturn began to eat away at the toys of prosperity. For several years after the great recession started, he had seen the impact of the difficult economy as people left his company, contracts dried up, and housing prices fell. He felt sorriest for the young people, those under forty who had joined in the burst of energy of the dot-coms in the late ’90s and grew fat and happy with the housing bubble. Now they were being pinched by high mortgages, low salaries, and even lower expectations. The only thing which kept his company afloat during the recession was the defense contracts he had won over the past decade.

  His company specialized in cybersecurity. He had become famous in the black ops world dealing in breaking into communications systems, messing with computer networks, and following 9/11, tracing the money of the terrorists and later, the drug kings of South America. These projects allowed him a good lifestyle and provided a sense of stability to the seventy percent of his employees who remained. He had to do the “right-sizing” thing, as he called it, and gutted his commercial banking business along with the startup retail enterprises. He dreamed of getting out of the military business because he disliked so many of the people he dealt with in the defense world. John thought of himself as a patriot, but lately felt his work was being abused by a few for the benefit of international corporations and politicians. Even his best contacts at the NSA were becoming a concern because of the direction of their efforts.

  Now, he thought to himself, was the time to begin something which would help the world, not mess it up more, but what that was, he didn’t have a clue.

  *****

  WICHITA Richard Davis had been unemployed for over three months, since being laid off by Air Frames International. The company had been devastated by the recession, and its corporate jets and smaller business planes were not selling. He smiled and thought about the company statements regarding the “contraction of business” which were used to justify moving most of their manufacturing to a new plant in Mexico. The company was making sure the fat cats were being taken care of and thought nothing about the work and dedication of their employees. His father had worked here for thirty years, and his grandfather had worked for them plus Boeing back into the mid-1950s. Dedication be damned, he surmised. He should never have left the air force. He had been with the air force, serving as an Air Commando through the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, and left after becoming disillusioned by his experience. His job brought him new skills and a home life until his wife left him with the small child he thought was his but found out later it was not. Love DNA testing, he thought, for it sure saved him a bunch of child support.

  Now he was doing custodial work for $12.50 an hour with no insurance, a small trailer, and a broken-down F-150 pickup truck. “Thanks, America, for the support to me and all the other veterans out there,” he said out loud to himself. He wondered if there were any opportunities to improve his lot in life or if there was any way he could fix this mess. He muttered as he cleaned floors of the office building, “Who screwed this up so bad that I’m cleaning up after these fools?”

  He had been talking to some buddies at the local VFW hall and had heard about jobs for experienced vets like him working on ships being built up north in Maine or south in Mississippi. He was not crazy about either location but decided if things did not pick up soon, he had to find a good paying job, one with at least some type of future.

  *****

  BILOXI Nora Henson was a stunning beauty. She had aged somewhat, but at thirty-five still turned most men’s heads. She was doing that now as she picked up the drink order from two fifty-plus men at the blackjack table. She smiled and got close enough, so they would perk up and notice her, then she walked away with a $25 chip as a tip. Not bad, she thought, taking money from stupid men at this silly casino.

  It used not to be this way. She was an artist, had a nice gallery, and was highly educated, especially for a cocktail waitress. She had graduated from Tulane, was married once—a mistake—and for many years had run a good business in her adopted hometown of Biloxi. That is until a storm named Katrina came to town. She had bought an old home near the water and used all her divorce settlement to fix it up. She took in art from the local community and had built quite a reputation as a dealer as well as an artist.

  The storm took it all away. Nora’s business was washed away and with it years of work, and the work of others. She did not have insurance, nor did she have a house. She had lived upstairs in two rooms which were more than adequate for her and poured her money and soul into growing her business. She knew she was lucky having escaped at the last minute before water closed the roads. The only thing she had saved was a painting of her favorite pet cat, which she had done in college. The painting showed the loneliness of her life even back then as the cat walked in the early morning fog of a wintry French Quarter. Now she was broke, and she was mad.

  The Federal government took care of the big wigs, especially the politicians, and worked to rebuild the casinos where she now plied booze fifty hours a week. Her place was bulldozed, and the bank took back the land because she had no insurance and no money to pay the mortgage. “So sorry, Ms. Henson, without collateral we can’t give you a new loan to rebuild, and the money from FEMA will not help enough, so we are taking back the property.” Now there was a convenience store going up on the spot where she had once sold her art and that of others. Now her dream was gone and her anger increased each day.

  She wondered how this would end and what she could do once her looks began to fade. She needed someone to blame, and she wanted to get even, but how?

  *****

  MIAMI Jerome, “call me Jerry,” Cauble left his office near the docks and moved slowly to check out the noise down along the pier. He never knew what was going on these days but knew people who were always getting into trouble. Drugs, illegal immigrants, stolen merchandise, stolen cars, even earthmovers, all kinds of stuff. All in a day’s journey through the docks of South Florida. He moved to his left and saw three brawny men yelling at each other over what appeared to be a box containing a flat screen TV. “Amazing,” he muttered, “what falls out of trucks these days.”

  He walked back to his office and pulled up the next spreadsheet on his computer. His company provided stevedore services, bulk containers, and short-haul transport to the small players in the maritime trade. He always laughed at this description because he knew a good portion of the “trade” was illegal, and if not illegal, very immoral. He had seen hookers, druggies, gun merchants and enough Haitian refugees crawling along on the docks to know his business had a good degree of risk.

  The pseudo depression, as he characterized the economy, had hurt him severely, but not as bad as others in his line of work. Many of his “cash” customers were
unaffected by the financial crisis, and his biggest problem was dealing with off-the-book accounts. He had been visited numerous times by the DEA, the IRS, and the FBI. They all wanted information, and he traded small bits of intelligence for a cursory examination of his business. As long as he traded only with the small-time players, he kept both the Feds and the Cartels off his back. He laughed quietly, saying, “What a way to run a country or a business.”

  Jerry would love to get out of what he was doing, but it was all he knew. He was forty-eight years old, had all his money tied up in the business, and his house on the outskirts of Ft. Lauderdale was underwater, financially speaking. He could not raise a dime by selling the house nor could he get any new loans. So, he joined the millions of others who had some hope and very hard work. This economic quicksand got him angry each time for he wanted to blame someone for the mess. It wasn’t me nor was it my friends. Someone has got to take the fall for all of this. But who do we blame?

  *****

  WASHINGTON, D.C. The car drove for some time with James Benden sitting in the back seat tapping away on his iPhone. Every so often he would look up to see where he was going then return to the never-ending emails. He was supposed to go to a cocktail party this evening for the Amalgamated Shipping Company. He could miss it but wanted to make sure his number two, Bill Spurlock, would be there. Must show the colors, he mused, and keep the billings up.

  Finally, the car slowed and drove into what appeared as an old gated entrance to a farm estate, but instead was a large sprawling set of two-story office buildings which stretched across the hillsides like a small college campus. Somewhere in this collection of well-maintained buildings he would find his biggest customer, Charles W. Cartwright.

  Cartwright was into everything and everyone. His empire began with a set of oil properties on the West Coast inherited from his mother. This long-term asset continued to pay for acquisitions in timber, potash, copper, iron ore, bauxite, natural gas and even diamonds. These “items,” as he called them, were his first step in building a global empire. Once he had these commodities under his corporate belt, he moved to the next phase of his growth strategy—movement.