Chapter 6: Kings of the High Frontier
CHAPTER SIX
Support Free Trade: SMUGGLE!
-- Bumper Sticker
The preceding year paid off well for Marcus Grant. As a businessman, he understood and
utilized the virtue of starting out small with a familiar service and a popular product. He began
his enterprise with smuggling, an ancient commerce, and -- profits in hand after cheerful
laundering by willfully disinterested bankers -- he immediately dove into less-crowded fields of
endeavor. He set up several offshore corporations through which he bought an abandoned
factory and warehouse on the shores of the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey, a 200 foot
cargo ship of Liberian registry, a vintage Boeing 707 in excellent repair, and three floors of an
office building in downtown Long Beach overlooking the Port of Los Angeles.
Using these tools and his talent, Marcus Grant made his subsequent fortune. The service
was still the same, only the commodities changed.
The secret of smuggling was secrecy, yet smuggling a product for sale required an
end-market. A market required that customers be informed of products and services available.
So no matter how secretly Marcus Grant operated, word concerning the nature of his commerce
began to spread, for not even a black hole in deepest Space can hide its presence -- the very fact
that information about it disappears provides the means to infer its location. The stories about
Grant consisted of rumors and inferences, unsubstantiated by anything that passed for evidence
in a court of law.
Grant sat in his office on the twentieth floor and gazed at the screen on his computer,
reviewing the day's events.
China: government officials complained that pilotless drones, apparently dispatched from
an airfield in Seoul, South Korea, were parachuting shipments of contraband to dissidents on the
outskirts of Beijing. One of the drones -- accidentally downed over the capital city by collision
with a flock of cranes -- carried three separate packages. One contained inflammatory,
anti-government literature. One contained Danish pornographic magazines. The third consisted
entirely of Bibles. Grant did not regret the loss of the drone; the parts were untraceable, and the
banned items would swiftly find their way into the counter-economy via corrupt bureaucrats. He
mentally wrote off such losses as the cost of doing business, a kind of advertising that inevitably
resulted in market expansion.
Nevada: High speed boats raced across the Colorado River every few minutes, carrying
cartons of cigarettes from Laughlin, where the tax per pack was minimal, to California, where
citizens violated the recently enacted 200% tobacco tax with impunity. Individual entrepreneurs
composed much of that black market, but a plurality of ships belonged to Desert River Jet Mail
Boat Sightseeing, a charter division of Grand Cayman Diversified Industries, Inc., on which
Grant Enterprises held a private placement bond covering all its corporate debt.
New Jersey: The Hoboken factory lay fallow, awaiting some future use. He made a note to
confer with Donahue about it.
Worldwide: Wherever a government ordered a commodity illegal, strictly controlled, or
heavily taxed, Marcus Grant fed the market with quality and efficiency. Cheap American rice
flowed into the agri-protectionist Japanese market; cheap Vietnamese computer chips sluiced
out to electro-protectionist Canada. Video games crept into Cuba; quality cigars snuck out.
Birth control devices crossed the border into Guatemala; unwanted babies escaped to clandestine
adoption agencies in wealthier parts of the world. Australian beer went to the Czech Republic;
refurbished Czechoslovakian AK-47 rifles made their way to African independents, Manchurian
insurgents, Los Angeles shopkeepers, and dozens of other embattled groups and classes.
Grant spoke to the vox intercom. "Jo-Don!" The computer instantly connected him to
Joscelyn Donahue, his second-in-command.
"Here, Marc," a crisp voice replied over the line.
"What's with the Ruthenia shipment?"
"Extra charges against the delivery division due to additional bribes of Ukrainian
ministry of exports. Hasn't been entered into the spreadsheet yet. We're still in the black, but
they're opening up to grey markets in electronics, so we're going to have to undercut the
competition in some other ways than mere availability."
Grant mused for a moment, his fingers peaked against one another. "All right. Stop sending
in the low-end computers and shift to top-of-the-line goods. Those are tariffed at
one-hundred-fifty per cent white market, so set the bribe maximum at five per cent of our cost
and pass it through to the wholesale markup. Then start building the market for CD-ROM and
VR."
"Shifting gears now." There was a pause, then the voice added, "Marc --
predictions for the coming winter are for food shortages. Take a look."
The information appeared on his computer screen, gleaned from the CIA-KGB joint
intelligence system. Grant ran a few inquiries of his own, then muttered, "Idiots. They
de-collectivized farming but still maintain central control over trucking and fuel. No wonder
food's rotting in warehouses while markets stand empty. All right... There must already be a
link between off-time truckers and black market diesel. Strengthen it. Establish a network of
freelancers and forge the appropriate paperwork so they can learn to look clean while hauling
the goods. I want a return of at least twenty per cent of the throughflow."
"I'll get on it." She switched off.
Marcus Aurelius Grant turned to gaze out a window that offered a sweeping view of the
harbor. The sun dropped behind Palos Verdes, the fortress hill of wealthy homes that jutted into
the Pacific as if wanting to break free of the rest of the Los Angeles megalopolis. Grant lived
there, in a home at the top that was as much an ærie as his office. He enjoyed looking
down on the world. It gave him what he considered to be a proper perspective on the human
race.
He was a tall man, even seated in the oversized executive throne. In just two years his wavy
black hair turned from its formerly long sandy-blond to a premature silvery grey trimmed in
short, businesslike style. Dressed in an exceptionally well-tailored dark navy pinstripe suit, pale
blue shirt that matched his eyes, and navy tie sporting the tiniest and most conservative maroon
dots, he now fit the classic alpha-male archetype. He looked the part he played: owner of a vast
financial empire.
A few degrees above Palos Verdes hung the sliver of a new crescent Moon. It took a while
for Grant to notice it in the twilight. When he did, he glanced quickly away and returned his
attention to the computer.
Information was what made him strong, and information cascaded through Grant Enterprises
like fish through a gill net: very little escaped his grasp. So it was that an item captured from
the Combined Federal Electronic Database System was immediately routed to his attention. It
was a simple list of topics for an upcoming meeting of a senate sub-committee headed by
Ludlow Woolsey III, the senior senator from Utah. On that list was the name of a company only
one dummy corporation away from Grant Enterprises. That was too close.
Grant Enterprises thrived on information flow. It told Grant what was illegal where, and
allowed him to determine when and how to make a profit circumventing the laws. The only
catch was that information never flows in just one direction. Every time the Grant octopus
insinuated a tentacle into the world market, it left a trail that could -- given extreme
perseverance -- be traced back to its source. His twin defenses against such diligence were
bribery and blackmail. The elder Woolsey possessed peculiar interests in certain congressional
pages working on the Hill. One of them worked for Grant, though she did not know it. He kept
the photo negatives and videotapes in a vault where he stored many other sensitive items. A
large vault.
Woolsey snooped where he should not. That was the trouble with politicians, Grant mused.
So few were honest enough to stay bought.
Woolsey, now in his seventies, had reached the end of his term limit, yet was still young
enough to risk losing out on private-sector positions by falling into scandal. Grant suspected
counter-blackmail by a competitor. Whatever Grant had on Woolsey, someone else had
something dirtier. That would require--
"Marc?" Joscelyn Donahue's voice said over the intercom.
"Yes?"
"Senator Woolsey's on line two. He says it's important."
Grant punched up the line. "Good evening, Senator. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The voice on the other end, sonorous and dignified, spoke with equal courtliness. "Why,
Marcus, it's always a joy to hear your voice. I'm just calling as a proud parent to let you know
my son Ludlow the fourth has been named head of the House Subcommittee on Space, Science,
and Technology."
"Congratulate him for me." Grant now realized the angle. Not counter-blackmail against
Woolsey, but against Grant himself.
"Now, you know," Woolsey continued, "even with such a prestigious position, he
faces a tough campaign this fall..."
"Say no more. He's got my personal contribution to the legal limit. I'll have a fifty dollar
check cut immediately. On a totally unrelated subject, Ludlow..."
"Yes?" The senator knew better than to think any subject unrelated.
"Fidelity Security Full Faith and Credit Trust Savings Bank in Portland has quite a few
non-performing loans. I think someone should question the loan officer."
"Consider it done, Marcus." The senator switched lines.
The exchange had grown a bit more blatant than he wanted, but he lacked the time to
haggle. One of Senator Woolsey's bag men would soon secure a loan from Fidelity Security
intended never to be repaid. The bank would simply write it off as a non-performing loan and
add it to the staggering debt structure of the bank, to be repaid, perhaps, by taxes when the bank
went under.
"Ah, democracy," Grant muttered, shifting his thoughts back toward turning a profit.
Marcus Grant knew the power of government and he knew the power of the market. He
preferred the market. White, black, or grey, it never left as sour a taste in his mouth.
Proceed to Chapter 7
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