James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

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WHAT IF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT ENDED TOMORROW?
The America we are accustomed to is no more. Practically overnight the stock market has plummeted, hyperinflation has crippled commerce, and the fragile chains of supply and high-technology infrastructure have fallen. The power grids are down. Brutal rioting and looting grip every major city. The volatile era known as “the Crunch” has begun, and this new period in our history will leave no one untouched. In this unfamiliar environment, only a handful of individuals are equipped to survive.
Andrew Laine, a resourceful young U.S. Army officer stationed overseas in Afghanistan, wants nothing more than to return home to Bloomfield, New Mexico. With the world in turmoil and all air and sea traffic to America suspended, Laine must rely on his own ingenuity and the help of good Samaritans to reach his family. Andrew will do whatever it takes to make it home to his fiancée, no matter how difficult the circumstances.
Major Ian Doyle is a U.S. Air Force pilot stationed in Arizona with his wife, Blanca. Their young daughter, Linda, is trapped in the North-eastern riots. Three teenage orphans, Shadrach, Reuben, and Matthew Phelps, have no choice but to set out on their own when their orphanage closes at the beginning of the Crunch. Then there is Ignacio Garcia, the ruthless leader of the criminal gang called La Fuerza, who will stop at nothing to amass an army capable of razing the countryside. And over everything looms the threat of a provisional government, determined to take over America and destroy the freedoms upon which it was built. The world of Survivors is a terrifyingly familiar one. Rawles has written a novel so close to the truth, readers will forget it’s fiction. If everything you thought you knew suddenly fell apart, would you survive?

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The books that it pained him the most to sell were his hardback set of Matthew Henry’s Commentaries and his set of The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards. But he knew that he had to travel light.

He unlocked the second footlocker. It contained mostly clothes, about thirty audio CDs and a dozen DVDs. He already had MP3 backup copies of the CDs burned onto Kaylee’s laptop in New Mexico, so there’d be no regrets in leaving those behind.

Laine cut the tape seal on the cardboard box and pulled out the modular sleep system (MSS) sleeping bag that he had bought at the post clothing sales store during his officer basic course. Also in the box was a civilian bivouac bag, a Millet brand “Cyrano.” This was a top-of-the-line bivy bag made with an olive green Gore-Tex top and a heavy brown rubberized waterproof fabric bottom. This sleeping bag’s cover could take the place of a tent and was so waterproof that he could practically sleep in a puddle and it wouldn’t leak. The bottom of the box was filled with clothes, a rappelling Swiss seat, and a binder full of his college term papers.

Andy sorted and then resorted his civilian clothes, paring them down into two piles: “Keep” and “Sell.” He sorted through the contents of his suitcase, duffel, and flight bags with the same ruthlessness. He placed everything that he planned to take on his trip home in the closet, so that it would be out of sight when buyers arrived. He took the time to check the condition of his compact Elecraft KX1 QRP shortwave transceiver. This low-power rig could be used to transmit Morse code in the 20-, 30-, 40-, and 80-meter ham radio bands.

Powered by six AA batteries, the ten-ounce radio was capable of transmitting around the world when ionospheric conditions were right. It put out just 1 to 2 watts of power (or up to 4 watts if using an external 12-volt battery). Using his 200-watt Kenwood HF rig in Texas, Lars had several successful two-way contacts with Andy in Afghanistan, even though his younger brother’s transmitter put out only a few watts of effective radiated power. Andy carefully repacked the transceiver and accessories in two thicknesses of zipper-lock bags and then in a pair of Tupperware containers.

The two lieutenants returned at 1815. Right behind them were a TDY Marine Corps captain and a WO2 aviator. Then came a couple of majors: one was a field artillery officer and the other was a chaplain.

As they crowded into the room, Laine announced:

“Okay, here are the ground rules: I hold up each item, describe it, and name a price. The first one that says ‘Dibs’ gets it. The prices will be very reasonable but nonnegotiable. Keep in mind that I just had to pay $125 for a dinner at Burger King, so don’t try to nickel-and-dime me. Each of you grab a notepad from the desk there and keep your own tally. We’ll settle up at the end, in cash. Now, any part that you pay for in euros, you can divide by four-a four-to-one exchange ratio. Klar?

The sale was over in less than a half hour. Most of the items sold for between $10 and $50 each. Laine was surprised to see some of the officers buy clothes in sizes that didn’t fit. Then he realized that they were desperate to get out of dollars and into anything tangible that they could later barter or sell. He even sold the two empty footlockers for $100 each.

The one item that brought in the most cash was his laptop. It sold for $2,500, which was a pittance, considering the recent inflation. Andy was sad to see it go, but unless the Internet connections inside the United States started working again, it would just be a boat anchor. And if the connections were reestablished, Andy surmised that he could keep in touch using borrowed laptops or rented PCs at Internet cafes.

Laine took the small remaining stack of the books that hadn’t sold and put them on the half-empty bookshelves of BOQ lounge. Most of what was already there were Reader’s Digest condensed books, out-of-date travel books, and romance novels. After he had added his books, the collective IQ of the shelves rose dramatically.

Andy returned to his room and wrapped his remaining gold coins in duct tape. He similarly wrapped the wedding band mate to the engagement ring that he had presented to Kaylee just before his Afghanistan deployment. He then removed the screws to the Primus backpacking stove lid’s sheet metal heat shield. He inserted the duct tape squares inside the lid and used even more tape to hold them in place. When the heat shield was reinstalled, the extra thickness was undetectable.

14. Clerks and Jerks

“This first stage of the inflationary process may last for many years. While it lasts, the prices of many goods and services are not yet adjusted to the altered money relation. There are still people in the country who have not yet become aware of the fact that they are confronted with a price revolution which will finally result in a considerable rise of all prices, although the extent of this rise will not be the same in the various commodities and services. These people still believe that prices one day will drop. Waiting for this day, they restrict their purchases and concomitantly increase their cash holdings. As long as such ideas are still held by public opinion, it is not yet too late for the government to abandon its inflationary policy. “But then, finally, the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears. Everybody is anxious to swap his money against ‘real’ goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them. Within a very short time, within a few weeks or even days, the things which were used as money are no longer used as media of exchange. They become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them. “It was this that happened with the Continental currency in America in 1781, with the French mandats territoriaux in 1796, and with the German mark in 1923. It will happen again whenever the same conditions appear. If a thing has to be used as a medium of exchange, public opinion must not believe that the quantity of this thing will increase beyond all bounds. Inflation is a policy that cannot last.” -

— Ludwig von Mises, The Anticapitalistic Mentality (1972)
Rose Barracks, Vilseck, Germany Early November, the First Year

Andy was ready to turn in his green active-duty ID card, but there was some confusion and a day’s delay while some red Army Reserve card blanks were couriered down from the Garmisch Garrison. Technically, after leaving active duty, Andy still had a two-year obligation in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) control group, but he wouldn’t be expected to be in a local Army Reserve unit.

A GS-12 civilian clerk-a jovial and rotund retired chief warrant officer-prepared his Form DD-214. Handing Laine a draft copy to check for errors, the clerk said, “Here are your walking papers, but I’m afraid they really are walking papers!” Andy groaned. The clerk added, “I guess you heard about the groundings.”

“Yeah,” Andy replied glumly. There had been two recent Islamic terrorist incidents in the three days since Laine had returned to Bavaria. The first was a bombing of a train station that adjoined the airport in Nurnberg, and the next day a 9/11-style hijacking in France had ended tragically in a fiery crash just short of the Parliament building in London, killing 242 people. These events had prompted a grounding of all civilian aircraft for at least a week. Most trains except for some local U-Bahn s and Strassenbahn s had also been stopped. Even long-distance bus lines had been halted.

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