The Storm Maker (2 page)

       With
that Hantex banged his fist on the table jolting Vanx. Vanx promised the boss
what he had asked for and took his leave. As he sat in his car going down the
mountain, he started to think about his party’s past that was intricately
connected to the whole affair.

       “Back
home, sir?” the driver asked as they left the mansion behind.

       “No.
Take me to Ranx Assembly; I have to talk to Tonex urgently.”

       The
driver nodded and kept driving. Vanx thought back to the time when he had
founded his party. Vanx used to work for a marketing company, writing speeches
for both the politicians as well as the business leaders. His speeches were
greatly in demand and one day he realized that he could use his talent for his
own gain.

       It
had always irritated Vanx—amongst many others in the Ranx Nation—that their
country once contained the seat of the world’s largest and most powerful empire
and yet today Ranx was a mediocre nation in all matters. The Sangria was the
capital city of the old Sanguine Empire and while it was now in ruins and
reduced to a tourist and archaeological attraction, it still inspired awe and
nostalgia in the hearts of many a Ranx nationalists.

       Thus,
he founded the Ranx Rejuvenation Party and gathered a few like-minded folks
into it with the explicit goal of turning the Ranx Nation into an imperial
power and of reviving the spirit of conquest that the old imperial city
represented. There was, however, just one problem; most people were not
interested in such a grand notion nor did they have moneyed backers. Their
countrymen were too concerned with the petty concerns of daily living.

       Then
it all changed when Boss Hantex decided to back them up in exchange for a deal.
Boss was the most exceptional businessman in the Ranx nation and this was not
disputed. He had started on the bottom with loans from friends and family to
buy a small steel mill and had then built up the largest industrial firm in
their country with focus on steel, coal and electric power.

       There
was, however, another man, Banker Jupex Kot, or just the Banker, as he was
called, who controlled 37% of the shares of the largest bank and bankrolled the
ruling National Growth Party. He had pushed them to pass laws that favored his
large bank, especially one law that put a ceiling on bond market debt issuance
and mandated that companies had to go to the banks for large capital debt. The law
was ostensibly passed to protect the investors, but it really favored the
Banker. There were a few small banks, but only Banker Jupex’s bank could meet
the needs of large companies and he had the final say in credit approvals.
Thus, all the big businessmen bowed before him and deferred to him.

       But
not Boss; he told Vanx and his party leaders, that he didn’t give a damn about
their historical-imperial dreams, but that he would bankroll them if they would
break the back of the Banker after coming in power. They were going nowhere and
had nothing to lose, so they accepted the deal.

       After
a pitched political battle lasting a decade, which the newspapers called the
Boss-Banker War, RRP had won, come to power and repealed the debt ceiling for
bond issuance. Furthermore, they banned large banks from buying debts of
industrial companies, essentially breaking the back of the Banker as the
biggest power broker in the commercial world.

       But
a strange switch in the interest of Boss and RRP leaders had occurred during
this time. As a full-time member Boss received the regular party newspaper as
well as other literature. After the RRP victory, his business became large
enough that it no longer made big capital investments; he could finance small
expansions from retained earnings and Boss lost interest in fighting the Banker
or even in the daily operations of his business. He started reading about the
old Sanguine Empire and started dreaming of recreating it with Ranx Nation as
the imperial power center.

       RRP
leaders had moved in the exact opposite direction. As they had come to power
and had to run the government they had become very involved in important
mundane tasks such as collecting taxes, financing the administration and
keeping the country going. They had also realized how weak their nation was
compared to the top powers; Ranx Nation wasn’t even in the top ten countries of
the world in military or commercial power. They had all but abandoned the
imperial dream.

       Now
the Boss had rekindled that dream on his own. Vanx decided that he would
provide Boss with whatever support he needed—after all, he had dreamed the same
dream once. The party had no other choice; Boss was determined to go ahead and
without him they could not win the next or any elections thereafter. Banker and
the National Growth Party were chomping at them hard. If Boss’s plot failed the
RPP could wash their hands of it completely, and if it worked they had won the
world.

       Vanx
would give the orders to State Minister Tonex to fulfill Boss’s demands.

08/10/958

On
the national road between King Starryvk City, Capital of the Starfire Nation
and Port Skazvyt, about three-fourths of the way from the later and one-fourth
from the former, is a town by the name of Ironbridge. There used to be an iron
bridge there along with one bridge keeper living nearby in a two room house.
That was the extent of settlement when the bridge was built. Today the bridge
has been replaced with one made of steel and cement, because it was now part of
the national road; the settlement has increased to thousands and thousands of
people. The right exit ramp just after the bridge while driving southwest
towards the Capital led to the central road that ran smack in the middle
through Ironbridge.

       In
Ironbridge, a young man dressed neatly in a gray shirt and dark blue pants with
a same colored hat and a shotgun slung over his shoulder, stood in front of the
Helvyk National Bank
awaiting the arrival of his manager. He had gotten
up early today, way earlier than usual, because today was a special day at
work. The bank behind him was three stories tall; with a wide front gate made
of light golden colored glass while the walls of the bank were cream colored; rectangular
slabs ran across the entire outside perimeter of the building where one floor
separated from another. In front was a neatly maintained lawn split into four
squares. There was the central town street, then a sidewalk and two squares of
grass split down the middle for customers to walk up to the gate. In between
the street and the front door was another small street, a two-lane one-way road
where the bank manager and the higher ups on visit could conveniently park.
Another two squares of grass separated that reserved private street from the
door.

       The
manager pulled up in his car and parked it on that street. The manager was a
man in his late thirties with well combed hair and was wearing black suit and
pants with black leather shoes. He got out and rushed to the front door.

       “Good
morning sir,” the young guard said with an early morning smile and then yawned
a bit.

       “Feeling
sleepy huh?” the manager asked as he took a key from his pocket.

       “It’s
seven o’clock now, two hours earlier than the regular bank day,” the guard
said. “Too early,” he said and took out a key of his own.

       The
manager turned his key in the door and said, “It’s only once a month that we
open this early. We have to count all the cash, count it twice, and track it to
the accounts and transactions. A lot of this work has to be done by seven this
evening when the armed truck sent by headquarters will arrive to take the
monthly cash to the big vault in the Capital.”

       “I
suppose once a month I can be bothered,” the guard said and turned his own key.
The front door only opened when both the manager and the guard keys were
inserted and turned.

       “Look
at the bright side of this bright morning,” the manager said as he opened the
door. He  turned around and pointed to the four young bookkeepers walking up to
the bank. “Those bookies have to work from seven in the morning to seven at
night doing all the counting and accounting. You just have to sit back and
watch.”

       The
manager entered the bank, followed by the guard and the four bookkeepers. In the
front were five counters and the tellers would arrive at nine o’clock. The
guard walked to counter furthest to the left, pushed the half sized swinging
door and put his shotgun on the counter. There were only three tellers on hire
at this branch and the guard had made the fifth counter his own corner.

       “Sir,
mind if I get a coffee?” the guard asked, “just down the road.”

       “Sure,”
the manager said. “By the way, I brought my pistol with me. Today is the only
day of the month I do.”

       “Don’t
worry, I won’t be more than five minutes,” the guard said and went to get his
coffee.

       The
manager and the bookkeeper went inside to the inner room behind the counter
desks and the manager used a special key and a number combination to open the
lock to the cash vault. They kept the cash that was needed for each day’s
transactions in the counters with the tellers, but all the extra cash that was
deposited was locked in this vault. Once a month it would be driven by the
armed truck to the main vault at the bank’s headquarters. But before it went,
the branch had to provide a full accounting of it signed by the manager.

       As
the guard walked out of the coffee shop located across from the bank just a
block away, he noticed a car parked in front of it. Two men sat on the front
seat reading newspapers. He was surprised to see a car parked there this early.
Most stores and offices did not open till nine and no workers would just sit
around in the car. Suspicious, he walked closer to the car and looked inside as
he walked by. The two men did not appear to be Starfirians. They were perhaps
tourists, he thought to himself.

       He
crossed the empty road and as he walked up the street to the bank front door he
turned around and looked again at that car . It was still there motionless. He
went in and took his seat behind his counter, put the coffee down next to the
shotgun and leaned back on the chair. He tapped on the gun, smiled, then drank
his coffee.

       The
three bank tellers, all women, came at nine and the first customer walked in
ten minutes later. The business today was the usual pace. Four to five
customers would be in the bank at any time. The manager and the bookkeepers
were busy in the back doing their cash counting.

       When
the afternoon rolled around there were twelve customers in the bank, taking
advantage of their lunch hour to conduct their banking business. The guard, who
had been sitting and playing cards with himself all morning, was debating his
choice of lunch meal when both the doors crashed open.

       Two
men with automatic rifles rushed in pointing their guns as they yelled
"Don’t move" to a suddenly panicked crowd. The guard had reflexively
grabbed the shotgun from the countertop when the doors had been slammed open
and he fired two shots into the nearest bank robber, dropping him to the
ground. He scrambled to reload his shotgun while the second robber opened fire
on him and dropped him dead. His gun hit the floor with a thud while his body
slumped over the counter with blood dripping down.

       A
couple of women screamed. An elderly counter lady started sobbing—she had known
this young man for quite a while. Four more armed men rushed in, pointed their
rifles at the crowd and shouted for them to shut up. The bank manager had heard
the shots and commotion and he came out of the back room with his pistol drawn.
He fired four shots at one of the bank robbers instantly killing him. Two
robbers turned around and unloaded at the manager whose body flipped around
violently at the hailstorm of bullets and fell down dead with a spin.

       “Damn,”
one of the bank robbers said, “this is a bad start; two dead already.”

       “You
two get the crowd against the side wall,” another one said, “then execute our
plan.”

       Two
robbers corralled the twelve customers and the three bank tellers toward the
left wall and had them sit down with their backs against the wall. The
remaining two bank robbers went to the vault where the bookkeepers were sitting
distraught at the table. They had thought better than to come out. The vault
door was closed but not locked. One of the robbers opened the vault door while
the other one escorted the four men out to the front lobby at gunpoint and
herded them with the rest of the hostages.

       “Alright,
you two take your positions as we had planned,” he said to the other two.
“While he gets the money, I will watch the hostages and the front door.”

       The
two of them nodded and headed towards the staircase.

* * *

       The
Ironbridge police chief was having a breakfast in the police cafeteria. He had
just finished drinking his coffee and was on the last of his three sausages. At
the table with him was an elderly policeman reading the newspaper and a police
clerk working his way through his omelet. Half a dozen other policemen strolled
around with their breakfasts, chatting. Their regular conversational murmur was
broken when the police chief’s secretary rushed into the cafeteria.

       “Sir,
they are calling for you upstairs,” she said to the chief. “There are reports
of gunfire at the Helvyk National Bank.”

       “Reports
or rumors? Did the bank manager call in?” he said calmly as he ate his sausage.
It could have been boys setting off firecrackers nearby and he did not want to
alarm everyone before proper confirmation came in.

       “Shopkeepers
on the central road opposite to the bank called in,” she said, “but nobody is
answering the phone at the bank.”

       “I
will be up in a minute,” he said taking his last bite. “Meanwhile, send a
patrol car to the bank to find out what is going on.””

* * *

       The
robber took a key from the dead manager’s pocket and went to lock the front
glass door. Just as he turned the key and locked the door from inside, he saw a
man in a suit walking on the sidewalk turn towards the bank. They both looked
at each other through the glass and for a moment both of them froze. The
customer saw the rifle in the robber’s hand as the robber fumbled with the key.
The man turned on his heels and ran screaming as the robber turned the key,
opened the door and let loose a volley of bullets at the fleeing man. Suddenly
he sighted a police car two blocks away. The patrol car turned on its siren and
gunned straight for the bank.

       The
robber sprayed its windshield with bullets. The car braked hard as the two
policemen ducked, then jumped out and took cover behind their car. They pointed
their Lockyett repeating rifles towards the door and one of them reached inside
for his radio. Meanwhile the people on the street had quickly disappeared and
the shops and the stores had dropped their shutters.

* * *

       The
police chief had just walked over to his office when the police radio crackled
loud and clear.

       “The
patrol car came under automatic fire,” his secretary said, rushing into his
office.

       “Automatic
fire, damn,” the chief said. “We have got a syndicate on our hands here.” He
walked outside where the policemen had left their desks and were grabbing
rifles and shotguns from the gun racks. He looked at the patrol chart that was
nailed to the wall. Counting himself, he had a total of fifty-nine policemen
with him in Ironbridge; out of them, twenty had night duty and would be
sleeping in their homes by now. That left him with thirty-nine to deal with
these robbers and still maintain a constant patrol in the town.

       “I
don’t have an account in that bank,” the police chief said, “Anybody know the
physical lay about of that place? How many doors, windows and all that?”

       “I
do,” a policeman holding a shotgun came forward. “I live nearby and have my
account there. There is only one large glass front door on the first floor
facing the central road. No other doors or windows on the first floor. There
are two big windows each on the second and the third floor above the door. The
left and right sides of the bank are windowless concrete walls. In the back
there is a single window in the center on the third floor, rest is all wall in the
back as well.”

       “I
am going there myself,” police chief said, “and taking fourteen of you with me,
including you,” he said to the policeman who had volunteered the information.
“We have twelve patrol cars on the town, direct three to the back of the bank
to watch that window and send two cars to meet the one we already have in the
front. Tell them to hold their position and not attempt anything till we reach
there,” he said to his secretary.

       She
nodded  and rushed to the police radio to dispatch the orders to the patrol
cars. The police chief checked his pistol and then said, “Let’s go.” Fourteen
other policemen ran out with him, carrying their repeating rifles and shotguns.

       The
police chief and his team reached the bank in sixteen minutes. Three police cars
had already taken up position in front of the bank with six policemen with
rifles drawn positioned behind the cars for cover.

       “What
has happened since you got here?” the police chief asked as he took out his
pistol and walked up to the first patrol car that had arrived. The rest of the
policemen parked their cars and took their positions behind them with all of
their rifles and shotguns aimed at the front door.

       “Just
as we turned on this street,” one of them said, “we saw a man shooting at a
fleeing customer. So we decided to head straight for the bank, but
unfortunately he had an automatic rifle and shot out the front of our car.”

       “ATR
Rifle?” the police chief asked, because that was the standard automatic rifle
issued to the army and the warriors. While it wasn’t lawful for the civilians
or the police to possess them, underworld syndicates sometimes managed to get
their hands on some.