Shining Star Pedro Alberto Vera 2005 First published 2005 Copyright © Pedro Alberto Vera ISBN 1-4116-5667-9 This publication has been released under the following Creative Commons Deed: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.512/22/2005 You are free: * to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work Under the following conditions: 1. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. 2. Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. 3. No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. 4. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. * Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the author at pedro@veraperez.com This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Acknowledgements I have many people to thank for their help in getting my thoughts into writing: My wife Ivette and my son PJ, for always being there. My mother Gloria, for teaching me to read very early and fostering my love for books. The Bookaccino readers group in America Online, the first place I got to correspond with fellow writers. The participants of the 2003 National Novel Writing Month, which was the catalyst for this book. My online friends in the Undernet chat network and elsewhere, for reading and not laughing at my first two drafts. And last but not least, to my two writing ``buddies,'' Dr. Karla Akins and David Smith, for always being one email or instant message away from a brain picking session. To all of you, my deepest and most sincere thanks! Pedro Alberto Vera Foreword Sometimes you don't know if you can do something until you try it. Sometime in September 2003 I decided to stop procrastinating with my writing and I pushed myself to expand on a story line that had been bothering me for the best part of the year. A week before I intended to complete the book, I learned about the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) competition, which is run throughout November every year. Immediately I signed up, wrapped up writing of my book and prepared to write Shining Star, which is based on a general idea I have thought probably since I was in high school. NaNoWriMo proved to be a life-changing experience for me. I finished the basic draft in a little over three weeks! Writing was easy; the problem was later with the editing and revisions. It took me until April 2004 to put the manuscript in a shape that more or less left me satisfied. And then I did not do a thing about it for over two months. I realized that I needed to get the book out, and publishing it (yet) was not acceptable. If I waited another year for it to be shopped around for publishers, and then for it to go through the publishing process, I would lose all interest in the follow up stories that pick up where this one will stop. That is when I realized I could release it as a download for personal use only. That way people can read my book and I can move on and work in the next version. If there is enough interest in a printed copy of the book, then I would be more than happy to make arrangements to have it published. The Creative Commons License under which this work is released allows you unlimited personal use and redistribution as long as I receive credit for my work, it is not used for commercial purposes and it is not used for derivative works. I really hope you can enjoy my book! Please send your thoughts and comments to pedro@veraperez.com and visit my web site at http://veraperez.com Prologue Puerto Rico, or Borikén, as its indigenous tribes used to call it, was ``discovered'' by Christopher Columbus on his second trip to the Americas, on November 19, 1493. Over the next 512 years the island saw an unending series of colonial governments, and there was always an excuse to avoid granting the island complete self-rule. The first to rule where of course the Spaniards. They ruled the island until the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Next came the Americans, who little-by-little lessened their grip on the island until in 1952 the island became a Commonwealth of the United States. This gave the island an autonomous government but not complete independence. Over the years various political groups within the island tried to force a vote to move the government from the quasi-colonial commonwealth to either full independence or full statehood as part of the United States. None succeeded. The basic problem was that major political factions in the island were hopelessly deadlocked. At least 80% of the voting population of the island voted along strict party lines, which were evenly split between statehood with the US and to remain a commonwealth. The remaining 20% were split between pro-independence groups and people that selected candidates based on specific issues. Puerto Ricans were already US citizens due to the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917. Under the commonwealth Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the US Presidential elections, and do not pay federal income taxes unless they work for the federal government. They pay social security and Medicare taxes and males are required to register in the Selective Service upon their 18{}^{\textrm{th}} birthday. The island receives military protection from the US, and all federal agencies have a presence there. The official languages are English and Spanish. All these services cost money, which was acceptable to the US since Puerto Rico had been the strategic gate to the Caribbean basin since the Spanish landed. Until something drastic happened, like if for example Castro dropped dead and the communists are toppled, Puerto Rico would remain an important defense concern for the Americans. This all changed with the fall of communism. Suddenly the Americans found themselves without strategic enemies, and the big drawdown of armed forces started. Puerto Rico got hit hard and eventually lost all military bases, except for the navy base at Roosevelt Roads and Fort Buchanan, a small garrison in the San Juan metropolitan area. The Navy also kept a naval gunnery range in Vieques Island, off the eastern coast. The locals protested the gunnery practice for years, but the Navy did not pay attention until a civilian security guard got killed in a training accident. The public outcry was loud enough so eventually the gunnery range was closed. The Americans, in retaliation, closed down Roosevelt Roads, the largest single employer in the east coast of the island. The White House Washington, DC. After suffering the worst defeat in the history of the country for a sitting president, the President of the United States smiled to himself: he had a backup plan. Hours before his concession speech he held a meeting with only his Chief of Staff plus the secretaries of State, Defense and Commerce. The meeting was held to wrap-up a project known only to the five attendees, something they have worked on and off over the last year and a half. Of course, there would be no record of the meeting. Since the project started they had worked with a very simple rule: no paperwork. Everything had to be digital until the very end. Not that it really mattered now, since they did lose the elections. By the time anyone figured out what was going on the damage would be done. Once the finishing touches were in place (and everyone was happy), an aide was summoned to the West Wing offices to deliver a series of documents to the US Congress. These documents were the core of what would forever be known as the Puerto Rican Status Resolution Act, or PRSRA. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico had been a thorn in the side of the president for his whole term of office. He felt that it cost the nation money that was much needed elsewhere, and except for some US Army Reserve units and having use of the island for strategic purposes, it was by all means useless to him, and by extension, to the country. Puerto Rico had been a US territory since the Treaty of Paris of 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War. The island was still a possession but its political status was blurry. Puerto Rico was a ``commonwealth''The Puerto Ricans call it the Estado Libre Asociado (Free Associated State) of the United States but whenever the US turned the other way, the local politicians would start playing nation state games. For example, the governor of the island was known to try stupid bullshit like signing economic treaties with neighboring countries, sending delegations, etc. If he let the Puerto Rican governor do that, next thing he knew the governor of West Virginia would be out there trying to sign treaties with Costa Rica or some other place. The president felt that the idea of the commonwealth was stupid. He realized that the commonwealth meant giving to the island a hell of a lot more than what he took out of it. Sure, he got to draft them since they were forced to register in the Selective Service, and sure, they paid social security and Medicare, but they still cost a pretty penny. They did not file federal tax returns yet still benefited from the services of all the agencies of the federal government. A week later both houses passed the PRSRA. The president signed it the very next day, but the press elected to ignore it since they were still busy rubbing on his face his defeat in the elections. ** Rosa Isabel Meléndez, governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, did not hear about the PRSRA through official channels. Instead she found out by reading El Nuevo Día, a very influential newspaper that was controlled by the PNPPartido Nuevo Progresista, or New Progressive Party. Backers of the PNP are called Penepés. , the pro-statehood party. Governor Meléndez was a Popular, that is, she belonged to the PPDPartido Popular Democrático, or Popular Democratic Party. Backers of the PPD are called Populares. , the part that supported a continued commonwealth. Governor Meléndez repressed the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. Not only had she learned that the Americans had finally figured out the means to ditch the island, but she had to read the news from an opposition newspaper. Of course, she could not scream. After all, she was the governor. If she lost her temper then her staff would assume she had lost control. ``Mariela,'' she said calling her staff secretary, ``would you please ask the Divine Trinity to walk in here for a quick meeting?'' ``Yes Madam Governor.'' Less than 30 seconds later, her three top advisers, Carlos Hernandez, Aníbal Gomez and Rafael Cordero, all lawyers, all three political science professors at the University of Puerto Rico, walked into her office. The press called them the ``Divine Trinity.'' That was too quick. The three little shits knew already and were waiting to be summoned. ``Madam Governor, you asked to see us?'' Cordero asked. ``This is not going to take long. Effective immediately I have accepted your resignations. I will announce this in a press conference about 30 minutes from now.'' The three men were thunderstruck. They still don't get it, the stupid morons! ``Madam Governor, May I inquire what is the reason of our resignation?'' Hernandez asked. ``It was either that or put you on trial for dereliction of duty. Should I elaborate?'' She replied. It was obvious that she did not expect or desire an answer. The three men quickly scurried away to clean their desks before she changed her mind. The governor then had her secretary call first her husband, a well-known banker, and then her lawyer, who also happened to teach constitutional law at the School of Law of the University of Puerto Rico. It was half an hour before both men arrived, which gave her time to get her act together and at least try to show she was in full control of her emotions. When the two men arrived she simply threw copies of the paper at both of them. It was clear that both had read the paper already and had elected to postpone this meeting for as long as possible. Am I the last one to hear about this? What is wrong with these people? After a moment of uncomfortable silence, the madam governor could not hold any longer: ``Explain to me did a split US Senate, with a split House, with a DEFEATED president managed to get their goddamned acts together long enough to completely wreck a solid, 50-something year old political institution.'' She demanded. ``Honey,'' her husband started, ``maybe it is not so bad.'' ``Don't honey me goddammit! Did you read El Nuevo Día? There is a FINAL plebiscite. Final as in this is the last goddamn time it is going to happen. And did you notice the funny part? WE ARE NOT PART OF IT!'' ``What do you mean with that? Of course we are part of it,'' her lawyer replied. The governor started losing her patience but realized it was not their fault that they could not grasp what was really at stake. ``The people of Puerto Rico are going to be asked, for the last time, what the hell they want to do. They can join the US and become the 51st state. Or they can declare independence. There is no provision for a commonwealth, and no, write-ins are not allowed.'' ``Rosa, I don't think this is legal.'' Her husband said. ``Of course it is legal! They probably spent a year working on that bill and making sure it did not have any loopholes in it!'' She snarled back. ``I am going to have to race back to the office and try to research on this, but my first impression is the sons of bitches got their act together on purpose to ditch us.'' Her lawyer conceded. ``They know there is no way in hell that the people of the island are going to vote for statehood.'' Puerto Rican political alignments mimicked the two party system in the states. In the US, around 80% of the voting population votes along party lines, so the elections are decided by the remaining 20%. Whenever a political candidate is campaigning, he is trying to help sway the members of the 20% group, since he knows his party voters will stick with him regardless. The political split in the commonwealth works more or less the same. About 80% of the voters are evenly split between the PPD (pro commonwealth) and PNP (pro statehood). The remaining 20% or so is mostly comprised of voters that will place their vote based on other factors than on just party lines. The 40% that would usually vote for the PNP would vote for statehood by default, no doubt about it. The problem was that the 40% that usually voted PPD (which was left out of the elections since there would be no choice to continue the commonwealth) would vote for Independence out of spite. The remaining 20% had a strong pro-independence element, so in reality the independence option would win with very little campaigning. Her lawyer knew this, just like every other armchair politician in the island. It did not take a genius to figure out that this move was a planned effort by the Americans to kick Puerto Rico out from their protective umbrella. ``Most of the people from our party will vote pro-independence,'' her lawyer conceded. ``OK, you go and try to figure out what the hell to do. I got to face the senate myself to explain why the hell we did not catch this before it was signed.'' She said. ** It took six long miserable months of political grandstanding, U.S. Supreme Court appeals and downright begging, but the special elections were upheld. The governor resigned herself to the idea that the commonwealth as a political idea was dead. 20 years from now I will be in the history books as the idiot that stood idle while the islanders voted to get out of the union, which eventually meant the end of Puerto Rico as a geographical entity. We will end up as a banana republic. The special election would be conducted on the first Tuesday of April. The other two political parties took to the news like it was an early Christmas. The PNP, being pro-statehood, went into overdrive with a scare campaign that tried to make the people see that independence would turn the island overnight into a second Cuba. It was corny but effective. The PNP political strategists where not worried about their core membership. Like political parties in the continental US, Puerto Rico has a great majority of people that vote along party lines, not by candidate. Because of this there was not much danger of a big segment of their party members voting for independence. It would be unheard of. The PIP (pro-Independence) folks had a bigger task at hand, but they had an advantage: they had been preparing for this moment for more than 60 years. As new blood was infused into the party, new arrivals got conditioned to the kind of nasty political storm that would surge if and when the island was faced with a final choice between statehood and independence. There was more. The Independentistas had William Roth. Roth was an interesting character: a self made millionaire, born and educated in the island, and then military service in the US. William was a man of many connections, and his allegiance was with the island. William was also behind the PRSRA. It was he that wrote the original position paper outlining how expensive the island was and how it was a losing proposition to keep pumping money into it. While his paper was pretty straightforward he still had to do some (anonymous) political maneuvering, and in a couple instances it came down to downright bribery and intimidation. Which was fine with him, he had enough money to burn. Ten years earlier William Roth had realized that the island would never progress unless it had a real government, and the commonwealth was not going to cut it anymore. What the island needed was statehood. The problem was that the US could not afford a 51st state. William cringed at the thought of the island trying to survive on its own, but it was either that or to watch the commonwealth fall apart over the next 15 years. It all came down to funding. He needed to find something to make the island self-sufficient. At the same time, he had to hide this from the US or they would never agree to let the island bail out. William spent the previous eight years funding secret research into natural resources available to the island. Offshore oil was the obvious choice, but it would cost a bundle to do the research. Still, a plan was hatched and put into action. Right as PRSRA was being debated in the West Wing of the White House, William had found absolute proof of at least three separate submarine oil deposits that would yield a yearly output compared to more than half the total oil used by the states. If he could exploit the find, he could sell the oil to the Americans much cheaper since the transportation distance was a fraction of what it would be to move oil from the Persian Gulf. Now that the economics of the situation were reasonably under control, Roth had to start looking into the political elements. Roth would have to find a way to make sure the PNP could not tamper with the elections, and he had to get himself nominated as a presidential candidate for the first presidential elections in the history of the island. The Capitol San Juan, Republic of Puerto Rico President Elect William Roth told himself that when there is a will, there is a way. Three long arduous months of campaigning, bribing and strong-arming paid off. And better: the plebiscite had been a clean win for the independence choice. Within hours of the close of the polls for the plebiscite, which were conducted with automated equipment donated by the good people of Palm Beach, Florida, the President of the US had phoned the president of the Independence Party both to congratulate him in this historic moment and to announce to him that a resolution would be announced at the United Nations on the very next day. Its purpose was to request international observation for the first presidential elections in the history of the island, which would be held on the first Tuesday of November. The president of the Independence Party was thrilled. This was the first time since Columbus landed in 1493 that the natives of the island would be truly allowed to govern themselves. When the call was over, he turned to his visitor. ``William, are you sure this is going to work?'' ``We got nothing to lose at this stage, do we?'' he replied. That was months in the past. William Roth had just defeated four other candidates to win the presidency, plus he had 63% of the votes. International observation was a big plus. The world press commended the United States in their democratic gesture by allowing the island to become the country it was entitled to be. One enterprising newsman tried to get a reaction on the streets of Washington, DC, from disgruntled residents that (he did not know) were sore that after so many years the district was still under the taxation without representation regime. All he got for his efforts was a mob that chased him throughout Lafayette Square, right in front of the White House. The police did not intervene until somebody landed an empty bottle of rum on his head. Before he fainted he noticed the rum was distilled and bottled in Puerto Rico. President William Roth spent his first week in office making speeches and receiving representatives from almost every country in the Caribbean basin plus some Europeans and South Americans. Those were the ceremonial meetings; the business meetings would start over the weekend. Right as the Secretary of State of the Dominican Republic was leaving his office, one of his aides stuck his head into his office: ``Boss, turn on Telemundo!'' one of Roth's aides said. Telemundo, WKAQ, was the most popular TV station in the island. ``What the hell happened?'' He usually had CNN on and muted. President Roth walked to his desk and picked his remote to switch the channel and turn on the volume. ``We are here at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport with the former governor of Puerto Rico. Madame Governor, what is going on?'' A reporter for Telemundo asked. ``I am leaving the island. I want no part in whatever mess that man Roth has in mind for the island. If I was you I would consider how long is going to take before he starts attacking the civil liberties that allow you to be a reporter.'' She said bitterly as she walked into the security checkpoint, still manned by the American Transportation Security Agency. President Roth turned off the TV. ``That scene is going to be repeated many times throughout the month. They are grandstanding, that's all. They want to go into the books as political exiles. Well, fuck them.'' The aide, realizing he was way over his head, decided to nod and leave the president alone. ** Back in the states, a political circus was starting to unravel. There were leaks to the press hinting at foul play around the confirmation of the PRSRA. The former president waved it off as pure speculation, but the polarity of the house had changed during the elections, and a special commission was setup to investigate the events leading to the approval of the PRSRA. This of course, was pro forma. The leaks came from President Roth. Roth believed a little political turmoil to distract the Americans would buy him some time while he put his game pieces into place. ** While the international media was going wild hog over the PRSRA fiasco, President Roth got sworn-in. After a long and elaborate speech he declared a 7-day long national holiday. His detractors, backed by the former PNP, started a series of political ads comparing the week-long holiday to a return of the Spanish policy of the 3 B's: Baile, Botella y BarajaDance, Drink and Gamble, the three things that the colonial Spanish Regime fomented to keep the populace happy and distracted from paying attention to what the politicians were doing. . Roth did not waste his time and started unleashing ten years worth of skeletons buried in everybody's closets. In the first salvo he netted half the leadership of the PNP plus some annoying people from the PPD. After major exposure to the media, he arranged deals with each of them so they could leave the island nation, with one catch: they had to sign an agreement to not return to the island for fifteen years. Everybody took the deal. The PRSRA did not strip Puerto Ricans from their US citizenship, so anyone was still free to reside in the states. The new citizenship laws only applied to non-American immigrants and to newborn children. With half their leadership gone for good, the rest of the PNP politicians scrambled for cover. Some arranged backroom deals to switch to Roth's party, the Progress Party (his naming the party this way was a slap in the face to the PNP followers, since PNP stood for ``New Progressive Party''). Most of the PPD followers had voted for independence, so they were fairly happy with the situation. President Roth did not want to give the country the week off, but he desperately needed everybody distracted during the first crucial week. It was pure luck that the PNP politicians attacked: the scandalous aftermath would be the first of many nails into their coffins. With his biggest political obstacle out of the way, he turned his attention to the economics of the island. When Puerto Rico wakes up next Monday the island will be fiscally cut-off from the states, thought the first President of the Republic of Puerto Rico. The White House Washington, DC. The new president of the United States, Marcus Wheeler, felt uneasy about the Puerto Rican affair. He was cynical enough to understand that even if there had been tampering with the democratic process when the PRSRA was enacted, there was also a bigger picture, and it did not make sense. Why would all these disparate politicians stick together on an issue like this? He quietly thanked God for his idea to get rid of the whole cabinet when he came aboard. If and when the issue blew up, all the major players involved would be out of government service. The President called his Secretaries of State and Defense for a special task: he wanted the intelligence community to put together a position paper on major strategic concerns that could benefit from the dissolution of the commonwealth in Puerto Rico. SecDef was quick to react: ``Mister President, if I may. There is a basic strategic issue here, and the Secretary of State will probably agree with me. That island should have never left the protection of the US. It is the gateway to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. With the proper armament they could challenge any ship trying to reach the Gulf or Caribbean shores.'' ``Is that so, SecState?'' ``Yes sir, the Secretary is correct. That is why we never made any noise to leave the island. Yes, it is expensive as hell, but in strategic terms it is a bargain.'' ``What about Guantánamo Bay?'' the president asked. ``Gitmo is not enough. We need Puerto Rico.'' SecState answered. ``How can they afford to buy any armament? The country is running a worse deficit than California!'' SecTreas added. ``The boys at CIA say there have been an increase of oil surveying activity on the northern coast of the island,'' SecDef said. ``How come nobody told me about it?'' The president asked, half a second before both SecTreas and SecState tried to ask the same question. ``With the funding crunch the CIA has to pick between assigning resources to keep an eye on China and the Middle East. There is no time to keep an eye on something like that.'' The president did not reply; he was well aware of the financial aspects of running intelligence operations, after all he was a retired National Intelligence Officer. ``This is what I want: Have your people put together the position paper. You have 30 days to pull it off.'' The men, realizing they had just been dismissed, stood up and single-filed out of the office. ** With 3 days to go before the national holiday was over, President Roth had received excellent news: the German company in charge of surveying for the oil had called with an incredible offer: Give us 5% of the gross revenues of the whole offshore drilling operation and we will finance the infrastructure. The First President of Puerto Rico made his first un-presidential display of behavior: he jumped off his chair and started screaming for his cabinet members to race to his office (their offices were on the same floor of the new Executive Building, across the street from the White House in San Juan). The President started by stating (not threatening) that anyone that talked to unauthorized persons about the meeting would find him or herself with a one-way ticket to Miami and 15-year exile papers (the term was starting to turn popular). Once he had everybody's attention, he started his pitch. It took him the best part of the hour to spell out his economic stimulus package. As the meeting progressed some of his more savvy cabinet members found small holes in the plan; these were noted for and would be taken care of before the plan was to be put into effect. After the hour everybody around the table stood up and applauded. They finally agreed on a course of action that would launch Puerto Rico as an economic powerhouse that would lead the rest of the region. Washington, DC Official Washington was not too happy about the new Republic of Puerto Rico: the intelligence community was having a hard time coming up with leads on what really happened. Not that it would have helped: the Puerto Ricans had opened an embassy in Washington and had hired the services of the biggest political lobby shop in the city. The press, always tipped mysteriously, was never more than one step behind, and did not hesitate to plaster their headlines with the failures of the new administration to deal with the ``Puerto Rican Issue,'' as it was now being called. The Puerto Rican public relations machine was impressive: Full-page ads in all the major papers exhorting the delights of Puerto Rican tourism were running almost daily. Also, international observers were invited to visit the first oil drilling operations off the north coast of the island nation. Then President Roth dropped the bomb. ** The President of the Republic of Puerto Rico issued a press release: Thanks to the incredible finding of the oil deposits, and the deal under which Siemens would finance the whole operation out of their pockets in exchange for a percentage of the gross, Puerto Rico had become officially self-sufficient. The drilling would start immediately; since Siemens would use prefabricated floating platforms while the permanent platforms are being built. This cash influx helped in many ways, but there was more. President Roth announced there would be no income taxes for individuals that have had filed a return in the previous five years. The exclusion would last 15 years and had a provision to be renewed at that time. This move was mostly psychological. Many people in the island cheated on their taxes, but most at least filed them. Later in the year a Social Security Act would be enacted and the US Government had already agreed (after some magnificent arm twisting) to transfer all monies paid by Puerto Rico residents so these could be transferred into the new Social Security Service. While the island nation was still trying to catch her collective breath over the announcements of the oil deal, the tax cuts and the transfer of Social Security, President Roth struck again: a revised version of the old Section 936 was enacted. The old Section 936 allowed corporations to operate in the island without paying taxes. It meant thousands of jobs with great salaries. Operating in the island allowed the companies to produce cheaper and not having to worry about import tariffs, since back then Puerto Rico was a commonwealth of the US. The new section 936 allowed the same tax exclusion but forced the companies to still pay US-level wages. The companies would lose the import tariff advantage, but Puerto Rico could sign a treaty with the US in order to ease the flow of economic goods. This is where the oil came in. President Roth's trade delegation delivered to Washington what he privately joked, Godfather style, an offer they could not refuse. The offer was simple: Buy all our oil at a huge discount to what the Middle East and Venezuela can offer it, and in exchange we get to import our goods into the US without paying import tariffs. The Americans of course balked, but then reality settled-in. They had never collected import tariffs from Puerto Rico, so it is not like they would be losing any money. Plus the discount on the oil, which was sweet crude and allowed for more end products, on its own represented a hell of an economic advantage. The oil reserves in the territorial waters of the island would take 300 years to be emptied under current consumption projections. By then the island would be industrialized and manufacture would provide the income now provided by the oil. The Pentagon Arlington, Virginia The Joint Chiefs of Staff had mandated the creation of a task force to study the national security ramifications of the Puerto Rican issue. A Marine Corps Brigadier General led the task force. In addition to his aide, he had a Full Colonel (Brigadier Designate, Infantry), US Army, as his deputy. The rest of the task force was comprised by intelligence officers and enlisted technicians, in an even mix from all the services. The General had started operations with a basic premise: that something was going on and it was up to them to find out about it. The task force was promised the full cooperation of the intelligence community, and already tasking orders had been issued to provide additional photo and radar satellite passes over the island nation. The initial excitement lasted the 45 hours it took to receive the first assessments from the Intel weenies: Almost a year since the island became a Republic, there was absolutely no military activity. ** President Roth was by no means a pacifist, but he was a very practical man. Defense was a very high priority, but he had coldly calculated that by aligning his economy to the Americans, he could easily cry bloody murder and have the 82^{\textrm{nd}}Airborne Division land in the island if anyone tried to threaten the sovereignty of the island. He had a plan for a military force for the island, but he was not in a hurry. In less than a year the economy had taken a much needed shot of adrenalin. The first shipment of sweet crude was delivered five days ahead of schedule, which allowed Puerto Rico's public relations machine another excuse to flood the US media with full page ads and 30-second spots on all news shows. Puerto Rico now had representation at the United Nations, and embassies had been opened in England, Germany, Spain, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. More embassies were planned in 15 additional countries. ** The President of the United States was losing his patience. He was paying billions per year to maintain an intelligence apparatus that could tell him every goddamn thing he wanted to know. That is, as long as it was not about Puerto Rico. The new country was turning into a pain in the ass for everyone involved. He really wanted to believe that it was their business and they were entitled to their privacy. Had he been a career politician he could have found a way to convince himself that yes, they are nice fellows and it is OK if they try to hide stuff from the good old U.S. of A. But the reality of the matter was different: he had been a spymaster before he was a politician, and he smelled a rat. He did not want to give them the free trade provision, but the offer for the sweet crude was just too good to pass. He could use that as leverage against OPEC, since Puerto Rico had turned down OPEC's generous offer to join their cartel. The one thing he hated above all was that the island nation was now doing better than under US rule. San Juan, Republic of Puerto Rico For the first anniversary of the Republic, President Roth announced a full week of celebrations, speeches and parades. As much as his political enemies hated the idea, most of the people were not ready to turn down a free week of paid vacations. Private industries would receive tax credits to offset giving their employees the week off. The celebrations would kick off with the announcement that the Senate and the House had given their unconditional approval to the new Constitution, which was loosely modeled on the American constitution but with an eye on closing some of the loopholes still present in the US version. The Constitution still needed to be approved by popular vote, but so far the opinion polls had been extremely positive. The Constitution warranted the same basic rights and liberties as the US version, but it had some marked differences. Freedom of speech was guaranteed but it had more specific definitions of slander and libel. Discrimination by sex, religion, sexual preference and race were criminalized. Drug use was illegal, with the exception of marijuana. While consumption was legal, the drug must be purchased from a legal dealer. The marijuana itself had a tax stamp just like cigarettes and alcohol. Selling weed without the proper paperwork would carry a prosecution for tax evasion. Cocaine, heroin, X and other drugs remained illegal, with a ``three strikes'' clause that would mean an automatic 20-years-to-life sentence for a third conviction of possession with intent to distribute, or for wholesale distribution. Usage was illegal too, but the Puerto Rican politicians came up with a reasonable compromise: people convicted of usage of drugs in the forbidden list would be forced to perform community services while wearing a jumpsuit that identified them as illegal drug users. The American Civil Liberties Union did not hesitate to use the groundbreaking marijuana laws in the island nation to push their agenda to legalize marijuana use in the states. The press of course loved it all. They were getting used to have Puerto Rico enliven their workload, so gradually all major news bureaus started setting up shop at San Juan. The President also announced the creation of the Puerto Rican Militia, a civilian armed group comprised of all healthy men and women, 21 to 35 years old, that could pass a US Army-level basic training camp. These citizen soldiers would be organized at the town level, and led by former officers of the US Armed Forces. The purpose of this force was outlined in the Constitution as purely for defense of the island nation; it was explicitly illegal to deploy any of these troops outside of the sovereign territories of the Republic. Armories were established at the police stations at each town, and would be under the control of the Secretary of the Interior until the Department of Defense was officially created. In order to make sure there would be enthusiastic participation by the qualified population, President Roth unveiled the Civil Defense Benefits Act, which outlined certain bonuses and benefits to those who participated in the Militia. The benefits included permission to purchase at the commissaries for the police department, home loan guarantees and scholarships. A separate Act, the Military Relocation Act, allowed Puerto Ricans in the service of the US Armed Forces to relocate to the island nation at the end of their service. These individuals would form up the core of what would later become the Puerto Rican Army, but would for now work in setting up the training camps and the militia organizations. The move to start organizing the military was not a surprise. The Pentagon Task Force had been looking into the possibilities for months. Their only mistake was that they had predicted conscription instead a voluntary force. Also, they had not predicted the incentives for Puerto Ricans leaving military service in the US. Their annoyance turned to downright panic when they realized that what President Roth really did was to buy himself a trained army. Over the next few months thousands of ex-soldiers took advantage of the MRA and were now in the island nation building from scratch all the training facilities needed. A new phenomenon was discovered: recruitment figures for all American armed services had gone up sharply, and this difference was almost fully composed of an increased influx of recruits from first and second generation Puerto Ricans living in the states, especially in New York and New Jersey. The Pentagon tried to rewrite the recruitment contracts to forbid recruits from jumping ship after training or even after the end of military service. The proposal never left the pentagon; their own internal lawyers pointed out many constitutional issues that could not possibly be solved, and they were convinced beyond any doubt that if the Puerto Ricans filed a class action suit they would win it. This meant that for the time being, the United States of America was training a foreign power for free. Since Puerto Ricans are US Citizens, there was no lawfully way to discriminate against them if they tried to enlist in the services or to take a commission. It was just impossible to determine who was doing it to stay and who had planned to bail out and use the MRA. The only legal thing they could do was to order more rigorous background investigations to all recruits, not just Puerto Ricans. If this was done equally then it would not be illegal, or so they desperately hoped. This meant that money budgeted for the purchase of new weapons, equipment, and even fuel had to be used instead to accommodate for his new requirement that all recruits would go through a full background investigation. When the issue of the security clearances came up, they found themselves once again with their hands tied behind their backs: There was no way to prove wrongdoing, and they did need bilingual US citizens at these jobs. When the Secretary of State of Puerto Rico approached his counter part in the US to open talks for purchasing military aircraft and ships, he was delicately offered a cold shoulder. They could not just refuse it, but they could stall the process. The Puerto Ricans expected this reaction, which is why additional delegations were sent to Israel, France and Russia to arrange for the purchase of licenses to built cargo and patrol aircraft and man-of-war ships. The principle was that instead of purchasing these units they would purchase the right to manufacture them. The factories would be located in the island nation, which would create jobs and the excess inventory could be sold to other countries in the area. The defense industries of Israel, France and Russia would not have much to lose, since neither of the three countries had strategic interests in the general area. Plus of course they would make money off the licenses and consulting with the Puerto Ricans on the construction of the factories and the management of the production workflow. The Puerto Rican Army and the Militia would need reliable rifles and side arms. When the issue was raised, the original idea was to license the standard M16A2 infantry rifle and the short stock M16A3, both from Colt. Again the US State Department gave Puerto Rico the cold shoulder. This was definitely a problem, but since after the original talks about licensing with France, Israel and Russia, all three countries extended additional offers that would include the licensing to manufacture infantry-capable rifles and other particular weapons. In a grossly miscalculated move on the part of the United States, Puerto Rico now had the capability to build cargo and patrol aircraft at the new Puerto Rico Defense Industries (PRDI) complex in what used to be the former Roosevelt Roads US Navy base, in the eastern coast of the island. The factories would be staffed by a combined team of engineers and technicians from the three partner countries, and these would be rotated out as their Puerto Rican counterparts were trained and proven their proficiency. The ships would prove to take a little longer to setup since Puerto Rico did not have a shipyard. Construction would begin immediately, and the first keel of the Navy of Puerto Rico would be laid down within 13 months. San Juan Republic of Puerto Rico Two weeks before the second anniversary of the Republic, Amelia, a category-5 hurricane, had mercifully spared the island. There was very little damage to the southern coast of the island, but its path curved northward and it struck both the Dominican Republic and Haiti in full force. The devastation was total, and there was an initial estimate of 475 dead between the two countries. President Roth immediately mobilized his non-Militia soldiers (the Militia was forbidden by law to operate outside of sovereign territories) and prepared to offer both the Dominican Republic and Haiti planeloads of emergency supplies and also unarmed troops to help in the rescue efforts. Both countries gladly accepted. The US also offered help, but they would have to base their flights off Miami, while Puerto Rico could stage flights from an abandoned airbase on the western coast, which meant the relief flights could arrive in the Dominican Republic and Haiti within the hour. While the relief flights were under way, President Roth ordered the reactivation of the base hospital, to be staffed by employees levied from all hospitals across the island. The purpose was to airlift back emergency cases that could not be dealt with back at the disaster areas. The cost of the initial operation climbed to the order of $100 million US dollars. Puerto Rico and the US split the initial cost, and the international community donated additional funds. While his critics tried to question the wisdom of spending the $50 million on the rescue efforts, President Roth quickly counter-attacked: The Dominican Republic and Haiti are sister countries (and so is Cuba, but he was going through great efforts to not mention Cuba at all until the time was ripe) and it was their moral obligation to help them, cost be damned. The cynics of the local press failed to notice that this hurricane disaster and its follow-up recovery operation marked the first half of President Roth's first elected term. He was about to prepare to campaign for re-election. President Roth also took advantage of the confusion to open a temporary embassy (the official embassy had been planned already but was not scheduled for another year) in Haiti to smooth out communications between the two governments. As soon as the disaster relief efforts were under control, President Roth announced his intention to run for a second term (the Constitution did not have a limit on how many terms a president could serve) and declared his campaign officially open. He knew he would face fierce opposition, so he had two more years to figure out how to neutralize them. The PNP followers had slowly left the ranks of the party over the first two years of the Republic. The PIP and PPD factions had split between the Progressive Party, now in power, and the Nationalist Party, run by closeted Marxist-Leninists and university intellectuals. President Roth expected a lot of hot air and rhetoric from the Nationalists, but not much more than that. His biggest concern was dissent within his own party. The economy was incredibly strong, and the coffers of the nation did not feel the pinch from not charging income tax or from the new section 936 companies. The PRDI factories and shipyard made sure there were plenty of jobs for skilled labor. He had gone as far as establishing a grant for US-based college professors to come to the island nation to help revamp the engineering schools at both the University of Puerto Rico and the Polytechnic Institute of Puerto Rico. The main goal was to make sure Puerto Rico was producing an adequate number of engineers that would help grow the PRDIA. The grant program was a smashing success. Within weeks the Puerto Rico Department of Education was flooded with grant requests from tenured professors from all major engineering schools in the US, plus some from France and Germany. Roth had even toyed with the idea of recruiting industrial efficiency experts from Japan. President Roth had witnessed the disaster in the US because of the H1B visa program, and how many jobs were lost to India and Russia due to offshore outsourcing. He intended to develop local talent and make damn well sure they would be well remunerated for once they graduated. The idea here was to make the island self-sufficient. Brain and knowledge drain would make the island dependent on imported professionals, a business in which India and other third world countries were getting too good at it, as the US had already found out. While thinking about the education issue, President Roth kept turning in his head the fact that the island had exported her brightest students to the US and other countries over the years, and that a big percentage of these students graduated and was working elsewhere in a professional capacity. He needed these bright students back in the island. President Roth called his Chief of Staff and the two spent the afternoon working on a draft for legislation that would help these students return to the island, the same way it was done for soldiers. The Student Relocation Act (SRA) was born. President Roth could not help but see the Constitution as one big, cold, planned set-up. He rationalized that it had to be done in such a fashion but it still did not feel right. For example, thanks to his social agenda he had in his hands the tamest democratic legislative body known to the world. He could get away with anything he wanted as long as he did not started doing something stupid, like making people ``disappear'' like the Argentineans and Chileans did, or worse, to start keeping political dossiers on his enemies. Roth did keep such dossiers, but it was done at a personal level and with no involvement from the government. In the remote possibility that these ever came out he could claim sole responsibility, not like what happened in Puerto Rico about twenty years earlier. The trick was to take it easy and not do something stupid. He was getting paid one dollar per annum, and so did his whole cabinet. The Presidency had no pension plan: once the President was gone, that was it. Except for a nominal security detail and maybe the request to perform one or two (paid) goodwill missions per year, a former President of Puerto Rico would not receive any benefit after the term of office was over. The dollar-a-year salary angered some of his supporters who expected to see their salaries as a way to measure their relative importance in the scheme of things, but cooler senses prevailed: Public Service was a sacrifice, and nobody could accuse a government official of stealing from the country's coffers if (a) he is already rich and (b) he is doing the job literally for free. To offset this, the ethics laws had to be reinforced and be made much more specific. Roth did not want these people giving away favors to offset the salary issue. In the past things could be arranged. For example, your wife's second cousin could get a managerial job at a municipal motor pool, or the electricity bill of the business of a friend of a friend could be forgiven. Now none of this could be possible. After hundreds of years of looking at politicians for the crooked villains that a big majority were, over the last two years the people of Puerto Rico started looking at their leaders almost as if in admiration. This was a calculated move on Roth's part. The $1/year salary would appeal to the very rich leaders that were looking to make a difference with the country. Roth was not worried about that kind of opposition, he had full dossiers on the top 1% earners of the island, and already had enough skeletons in closets accounted for most of them. Few things terrorized William Roth. He of course worried about things like a military intervention (for which he was not prepared), or of course the possibility of a coup. Still, these were things that he could do only so much about. The one problem he had was that while he was perfectly capable of fighting off anyone, riches be damned, that tried to take over legally; he basically had no way to fight off a grassroots politician with no monetary resources. The ideal candidate here would be an arts or history teacher in a public school or even a public university. Said teacher would be middle-aged and with a completely clean record. And also dirt poor. A person like that could start a small political party and spend five to ten years raising hell one small meeting at a time. A candidate like that could not win a full election but could erode the credibility of the party. And worse: there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was keep people around checking on these small time meetings so they could figure out ahead of time who actually had a past that could be exploited and who was completely clean. Once the clean guy arrived, that was all she wrote. The only solution would be to figure out a way to bring the politician in question into the folds of the party, at whatever cost it would take. ** The SRA passed both houses with a comfortable majority, and President Roth soon signed it with great fanfare. The SRA would allow Puerto Rico born students that had finished their course of studies in the top 5% (for baccalaureate degrees only, there would be no cap for graduates of masters or doctoral programs) of their graduating class to relocate to the island free of charge, and with the same kind of incentives granted to soldiers that qualified for the MRA. Roth's Chief of Staff made periodical polls to check on the acceptance rate of the new administration. With less than two years left before election they had a lot of work to do and he did not want to have to worry about a lousy approval rate at the last second. His current figures (give or take 3%) gave President Roth's administration an approval rate of 69%. The Chief of Staff was completely convinced that the approval rate would plummet once they were in the last year before of the elections. Regardless of how stupid the opposition was, they would score a lucky shot here and there, and it was his job to prepare for these. It was time for some preemptive damage control. The Chief of Staff had known William Roth for over 20 years and knew most of his business dealings. He knew Roth had been a ruthless yet fair businessman, and he was insanely rich so he doubted they would be attacked on the legality of his riches. His personal life was something different: he did not know a goddamn thing about it. He knew where he was born and raised and the schools he went to, plus his military service. The rest was a complete mystery. The Chief of Staff called one of his contacts in the Police, one of the investigators that made a living running internal investigations about other policemen. The Chief of Staff could not ask for a background check, which would be insane and had the potential to become a political suicide. What he did was ask for background information on close relatives of President Roth on his mother's side (Roth never used his mother's last name as is the Puerto Rican custom). He was hoping to start from these relatives and move on from there. As soon as he hung up the phone, President Roth summoned him. The call shook up the Chief of Staff and crazy ideas about tapped phone lines started crossing his mind. Still worried about the call and what it meant, he walked back to the presidential offices. President Roth asked him to close the door and sit down, then proceeded to tear him a new asshole. The message was clear: ``the next time you want to know something about me,'' he said, ``the only thing you have to do is ask, not go running to the goddamn police.'' The Chief of Staff was not the only curious party. The leadership of the opposition had started making similar inquiries, not knowing that new accountability procedures had been implemented at the Police and Justice Department archives that would make it literally impossible to retrieve sensitive information without a major conspiracy. President Roth did not take drastic measures to punish his Chief of Staff. He believed that the fear of repercussion was a hell of a lot better as a motivator to mind his own business than if he actually tried to punish the poor idiot. ** Back in Arlington, Virginia, the Joint Task Force Puerto Rico was still running around chasing blind leads. They were convinced that the creation of the militia was a planned move, and they secretly wished to shoot whoever allowed the plane factories and the shipyard to happen. The General, accusations of unfounded paranoia be damned, was convinced that what the island nation was doing was no different than the way Israel armed itself. The Task Force was still receiving intelligence take from satellites and electronic emission gathering ships just outside of territorial waters. There was a lot of traffic in reserved radio bands, but it was encrypted. It seems some enterprising son of a bitch sold them the same kind of encrypted radios used by American troops in the field. Satellite photos also showed new redundant telecommunications facilities being built across the island. The island was already wired 100% for fiber optics, which would prove to be a pain in the ass to intercept, if not downright impossible. Once they had fiber it meant the whole island could be networked, and these redundant facilities would make it very hard to knock out the whole telecom grid in an attack. Not that it would come to that, but the boys at the Pentagon were paid to look at all the angles. In addition to the redundant stations, the radar satellites noticed spots in the area with a heavy concentration of white noise, almost as if the satellites were being jammed. There was no way to verify this with the satellites, they would need aircraft to fly over and record the electronic emissions so they could be analyzed. And flyovers on an allied country were completely out of the goddamned question. Cayey Republic of Puerto Rico President Roth, his Secretary of the Interior and the Chief of Staff had flown to the Cayey Mountains in the first helicopter built by PRDI; a design licensed from Eurocopter, basically a slightly modified version of their AC550C3 (known as the ``Fennec''). The President loved the helicopter, but he could not wait for the time in which his new crop of college kids would be able to design their own helicopters and airplanes. Cayey was a bustling city nested in the mountains of the center of the island. There was not much there of official value except a campus of the University of Puerto Rico, a couple of private colleges and a fair-sized satellite ground station built by AT&T and now owned by Puerto Rico Telecom. Puerto Rico Telecom used to be owned by the commonwealth but was sold to a Spanish conglomerate. President Roth made his first buyout offer to the Spaniards within a week of being sworn into office. Their investors were a bit nervous with the political status ruckus, so they decided to take the money and run. Puerto Rico once again owned her own telecommunications company. The President was visiting Cayey for a burial: one of his most vicious opponents had a heart attack while sharing his bed with a woman not his wife. This of course was not public; the only people that knew the truth were the real widow and a few people from his inner circle. Plus President Roth-he always found out the juicy bits. Right after the funeral, when the helicopter was out of visual range from the burial grounds, the helicopter took a sharp turn to the east and dove until it was flying nape-of-the-earth. The pilot had flown MedEvac (medical evacuation) Blackhawk helicopters for the US Army and got bored flying VIPs in New York City as a civilian, so he jumped at the opportunity when the MRA was enacted. At least flying the President around he got to fly like was trained to. The helicopter flew between ridges for five miles, and then turned south and into an enclosed valley. The small valley seemed to be empty from above, but upon close inspection the faint outline from a 2-lane paved road started to take shape. The road was painted in a green camouflage pattern so it would blend with the grass at either side. There were no visible navigation aids to help the pilot find the landing zone: the coordinates where entered into his global positioning system (GPS) navigation console and that was good enough to place the helicopter within 10 meters of the landing zone. Even if the Americans turned on the ``selective availability'' encryption for GPS, he would still have a position within 30 meters of his intended destination. The Fennec landed in a seemingly empty spot, but as soon as its passengers left it, they heard vehicles approaching. The vehicles were AMG General Hummers (but everybody called them ``Humvees'') purchased from the US when the last military bases were closed. Since the vehicles were surplus, President Roth convinced the Americans to sell them to the Republic of Puerto Rico for what would cost to transport them to the nearest American base, in Florida. There were enough Humvees and 5-ton trucks (President Roth passed on the old 2-1/2 ton trucks, called ``Deuce and a half'' because they were too worn out) to move a few infantry battalions, which was enough to station a handful at each PR Militia location. The first two Humvees split and stationed themselves at either side of the helicopter and their occupants set a defense perimeter. The other two vehicles stopped in front of the helicopter; its occupants were not part of the militia: they were German engineers on contract from Siemens. After the astounding success of the oil deal, the Germans made it plain that they had a not-very-advertised consultancy shop that specialized in defense industries. Over the last year they had quietly assessed whatever the Americans had left, and also helped overhaul the communications and power grids for the island to make it more resilient and resistant to outside attacks. The place they were at, the hidden valley, did not exist in the books. The seemingly empty valley was actually an artificial dome, and underneath it was a buried laboratory where the Germans were aiding the Puerto Ricans in perfecting an air defense network, a surveillance disruption array and also submarine cables that could be used as SONAR sensors (blatantly copied from the American SOSUS system). In addition the Germans had setup a software programming shop where newer super encryption systems were devised. The cost was astronomic but it was work that had to be done, and Roth could not go to the Americans for help. The Germans were not interested in warmongering; it was more pleasing to be the leaders of the new European community by virtue of their mastery of business. Since the Puerto Ricans were cash rich and were not a threat, they saw nothing wrong in helping them. Plus to this date the Puerto Ricans had only spent money on defensive measures. President Roth was visiting to witness a test of the surveillance disruption arrays. The ground above the dome was covered with tiny transducers that would create the same effect as gigantic satellite dish, plus thanks to the electronic wizardry of the Germans, it could be steered at will. Today's test would involve selectively blinding a commercial photography satellite, which was being used for surveying and urban planning. The array would be aimed in a way that it would disrupt satellite monitoring for a specific section of the island. When the photos from the current satellite pass were downloaded to earth and automatically sent to the company's website, there will be (or so they hoped) a hole in the coverage at a specific time. President Roth was late for the transmission phase because of the burial ceremonies, but he was going to be able to see the new uploads to the satellite web page. The test was a complete success: there was a very sharp square where coverage was missing, somewhere in the island fortress of Old San Juan. When the satellite pictures were zoomed, President Roth smiled when he saw that the square was aligned exactly to cover the Capitol Building in the Puerta de Tierra section of San Juan. President Roth was extremely pleased. If they could selectively jam these photo satellites, nothing stopped them from doing the same to any military satellite that tried to spy on the island. Roth ordered the facility to switch to passive mode: it would use its giant phased array antenna field to track airplanes and satellites, but it would not broadcast any jamming signals without the explicit authorization of the president. A spare passive array was already in the works and would be built in a remote facility in Mona Island, in the channel between Puerto Rico and the Dominical Republic. Roth knew it would be matter of hours before the civilian satellite company that operated the photo satellite reported the anomaly to one of the American aerospace conglomerates, which would immediately pass the word to their military contacts. Falcon Air Force Base Colorado Springs, Colorado The ``mids'' shift at Falcon Mission Control (FMC) ran from 2300 until 0800. Military and civilians on the mid shift arrived 30 minutes earlier so the ``swings'' shift (1500 until 0001) had plenty of time to brief the oncoming shift and also to provide a little bit of overlap. FMC split into different sections. Some groups dealt with telecommunications, others (in separate areas restricted by compartmentalized security clearances) worked on reconnaissance satellites. A third group worked as a liaison to both NASA and foreign space agencies, plus the few purely commercial satellite operators based in the US. Back in the days of the cold war, FMC could afford its own secure communications center as part of the FMC facility itself. After many years of cutbacks and the crumbling of the Soviet empire, the funding for their own secure communications center was axed. This forced them to share the communications center for the whole base. As part of the shift change procedures, the lowest ranking enlisted member of the oncoming shift would draw keys to one of the vehicles from their motor pool. This enlisted member would then draw a sidearm and a briefcase with a cable and handcuff welded to it. This person would then proceed by the most direct route to the communications center on the opposite side of the base and pick up any classified message traffic for FMC. Those messages could be classified up to SECRET. If messages arrived at a higher classification then two armed couriers (one a commissioned officer) would be dispatched. Messages rated as CRITICAL or above would be picked up within 15 minutes of notification through secure telephone by whatever shift was active. It was a quiet night and the communications center had not called in the middle of the shift to pickup urgent messages, so a single courier was dispatched to pick up the last 9 hours worth of traffic. The courier, a baby-faced senior airman from Fairfax, Virginia, had his own plans. He signed for a beat-up minivan with General Services Administration (GSA) plates and drove to the 24-hour PX Shopette, where he stocked himself with frozen burritos and Mountain Dew to survive the night shift awake. He thought about the briefcase (which he had thrown in the back seat) but rationalized that until it had documents in it, the briefcase was completely harmless (in reality it was not empty, the cover sheets for documents were recycled, so on the trip to the communications center the briefcase was full of used cover sheets). The airman got his bag of goodies (he had purchased for both himself and his shift buddy) in the passenger seat and drove to the post communications center. The communications center was a square-shaped building in one remote corner of the base. It did not have windows, and if rumors were true, it had double walls, with a lead liner running between the inner and outer wall to provide electromagnetic pulse (EMP, the electromagnetic explosion that is part of a nuclear detonation) shielding and also TEMPEST shielding (to avoid eavesdropping from electronic emissions). There were no guards posted, and the door was open. The airman grinned when he noticed the colored tape on the floor, different colors to route people to different sections of the center. He followed the yellow line, which would take him to the night desk. The night desk was actually a vaulted room with a door and an outside iron gate, like a jail cell. The top half of the door opened and a clerk would stuff his briefcase and have him sign the handoff forms once his ID checked. The reason there were no guards was because all Falcon personnel carried a new style of ID tag with an embedded computer chip that could be read by radio frequency sensors on the doorways. By the time the airman hit the buzzer, the communications clerks knew whom he was and what he was supposed to look like (their security system would display the same information that was stored in his ID card, so they could spot if an impostor had stolen the ID gag). Similar sensors were used throughout the base and were proving to be pretty handy for things like signing for sick call (since the chip had enough storage to carry the person's medical records). The whole transaction took less than 10 minutes. The airman checked that all messages were intended for his station, signed the release forms, checked that the printouts and whatever floppy discs and compact discs were secured properly and slammed the briefcase shut. From that moment he was required by law to wear the handcuffs with the cable welded to the briefcase. 15 minutes later he was back at FMC inventorying the classified items for his duty station (everything that was classified had to be accounted for and signed over for each shift change) while the shift chiefs of the swings and the mids had their shift change meeting and went over the message traffic. Most of the traffic was routine, and the only one that caught their attention was a commercial satellite photography provider complaining about magnetic anomalies: The Air Force was interested in these because they wanted to know how would a cheap commercial satellite react in conditions for which the military satellites were over engineered. If a commercial satellite could perform at a nominal 75% or better of what was expected from a military-grade spacecraft, then it made sense to buy the cheaper commercial spacecraft. Sometimes the difference in cost was so high that it was possible to purchase and support two commercial satellites for what it would cost to launch one military bird. The report was handed to the same airman that pulled the courier duty since he was the designated satellite controller for the shift. The airman thought bitterly about how it was common practice to give control of these $300 million satellites to the lowest ranked person on duty, so when things went wrong the person would be expendable. Not everybody was cut for the job: the last two airmen that trained for that spot had broken down crying because of the stress. Upon receiving the satellite anomaly report, the airman would swing one of the telemetry antennas and point it at the affected satellite in order to download live telemetry and try to detect a new instance of the anomaly (the ``bad'' telemetry was already in their hands, it came in one of the compact discs he had picked at the communications center). While the new telemetry stream synchronized, the airman started browsing through the archived data provided by the satellite company. Two hours (and 3 microwave burritos) later, he walked over to where his shift chief and the lead civilian contractor were playing dominoes. He showed them the printouts from a 5-second period where there was something; he just could not tell what it was. The shift chief and the civilian telemetry contractors flipped down their dominoes (they would rotate between dominoes and cards) and split the printouts into two stacks, then each took one set and headed for their desks. The shift chief would look for system faults; the contractors would look for erratic behavior in the payload performance. Another two hours went by, during which they double-checked their calculations and even went as far as calling a shift meeting to see if anyone could find fault on their reasoning. Right before the shift change for the ``days'' shift (0700-1700) was about to start, they were convinced somebody had used some kind of selective jamming on the commercial satellite. Since the FMC director sat every day at the morning shift change, there was no need to activate the emergency notification phone tree (each employee that was called had two numbers to call to pass the message, which would help get the message spread quickly in just a few minutes) and they could just drop the problem on his lap and get it over with. The FMC director agreed: there was no goddamned reason to wake him up early for something that he could not fix on the spot. Plus he had to check with his colleagues at the National Security Agency (NSA) in Maryland and the National Reconnaissance Office in Virginia. With any luck the spy satellite weenies would tell him there was nothing to worry about: their satellites could not be jammed like what happened to the commercial satellite. He was wrong. Puerto Nuevo Republic of Puerto Rico President Roth was a very happy man. He was standing in a podium in front of the first man-of-war ship ever built in the island. She was a patrol cruiser, about the same size as the American Leahy class of cruisers. She had been fitted with state-of-the-art air and surface search radars, and had both a bow-mounted SONAR and a trailing cable SONAR. Plus a last-minute addition: French-manufactured EXOCET anti-ship missiles and Israeli-built anti-air missiles. Anti-submarine mounts were in place for a later retrofit of torpedo launching rails. The president gave a moving speech, and after a deafening round of applause from the thousands crowded in the piers, he slammed the Magnum of champagne to christen the cruiser the PRS Conquistador (Puerto Rican Ship Conqueror). After the dedication ceremony, the President and his newly commissioned Secretary of the Navy (who in a previous career retired as a Rear Admiral (Upper Half), US Navy) led a tour of the ship for the benefit of the press and both military and diplomatic observers from the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany and Italy. President Roth damn well knew that the main purpose of these military observers was to spy on him, but there was nothing he could do about it; it was the way that the game had been played since the beginning of time. Plus his spies were better than their spies. After the tour he announced that an additional six keels were ready to be laid on, and there was enough space in the shipyards for two additional keels. There was no need for him to specifically say that this additional manufacturing capability was at the disposal of their respective countries. President Roth already knew he would have these two spots at full capacity for the next five years, but did not know if the demand would be high enough to trigger a bidding war for spots in the waiting list. The President made a mental note to bounce this idea off his cabinet; if they agreed with him maybe it was time to secure financing for another two spots. Or better, make the customer countries finance the whole thing! The Dominican Diplomat (actually a military intelligence officer in disguise) thought that while it was a hell of a deal, it also meant that now his starving nation had an oil-rich country just miles to the east, and they had both a navy (even if for now it just had one ship) and the capability to airlift a sizable amount of troops. The diplomat was aware of the non-deployment clause for the militias, but he was not stupid. He was convinced that the same way President Roth used to fill the ranks of the militia would work handsomely for the creation of the official Army of Puerto Rico. Off the coast of San Juan USS Wyoming, SSBN 742, an Ohio class fleet ballistic submarine now converted to intelligence gathering missions, was trolling-off the international maritime boundary north of San Juan. While the ship was perfectly capable to penetrate the invisible line that marked the sovereign waters of the Republic of Puerto Rico, the politics of the situation dictated that they performed their mission from at least 3 nautical miles from the boundary. The additional distance would not make much difference in their mission, but psychologically the captain of the vessel and her crew felt like a dog on a leash. The Wyoming had been tasked with gathering electronics emissions off the government buildings scattered all over the old San Juan island fortress. So far they had not gathered a goddamn thing. Their guess was that the Puerto Ricans had abandoned microwave tower transmission and were using buried fiber optics and satellite links. That being the case it was a waste of time and the taxpayer's money to troll off the coast of the island listening to atmospheric white noise. Since that cause was already lost, the submarine switched to plan ``B.'' They would stick around a little bit and try to grab signals from things the Puerto Ricans could not avoid using the radio for, like aircraft communications, police cars, whatever they could find. A NSA crew was on board to perform signal analysis on the gathered communications and at least identify if any kind of encryption device was being used. Again, there was nothing but atmospheric noise. The initial assessment of the NSA techs was that the government of Puerto Rico had purchased burst-transmission radios, and that these were encrypted. Tapes of the atmospheric noise were packaged and transferred to a submarine tender 50 miles north of San Juan, in case NSA at Fort Meade could figure out a way to at least get a digital thumbprint of the encryption gear used. ** The Puerto Ricans had scheduled maritime surveillance flights along the major shipping corridors, just to make sure there was nobody prowling around. They were specifically interested in stray drug-carrying flights from the idiots that had not yet figured out that in the New Puerto Rico it was not a good idea to get caught with a Cessna crammed to the hilt with cocaine. The surveillance planes used similar technology to planes used by both the US Navy and NATO forces to monitor ships and detect submerged ships by measuring how their metallic hulls distorted the earth's magnetic field. Some of the crewmen had worked in these planes while in the US Navy, and it did not take a lot of time for them to notice the two American submarines trolling outside of the territorial waters boundary. They knew there was not much they could do (their aircraft was unarmed) but at the same time they decided it was worth reporting up the chain of command that the US was so worried about whatever the hell was going on in Puerto Rico that they sent their two worst sub captains. Two idiot submarine captains that could not hide from a maritime patrol plane 3 miles away, staffed with a crew not yet trained up to spec. This would of course change in the case of an escalation, but they thought it was worthwhile to know this. The crewmen wondered if the submarine detected them but they did not notice any air search radar emissions. ** President Roth did not receive the news about the submarines very well. He had predicted that surveillance attempts would ramp up, but he did not expect them to send submarines so quickly. The President issued new directives to the surveillance flights: Until further notice the surveillance aircraft would work in tandem instead of alone, and any contacts that even brushed the boundary zone would be reported on the spot instead of at the end of the flight. This was both hard on the crews and the aircraft, since their maintenance crews were not yet up to speed and PRDI had not started yet local production of the electronics surveillance gear used by these planes. Roth also started thinking about diversification: He had too many of his eggs in the German basket. Germany and the US were allies, and it was only a matter of time before some brownnosing asshole handed over to the Americans the keys for the encryption chips used by most of his radios. All his agreements with the Germans had poison pill clauses that would cost the Germans (there were similar deals with the French and the Israelis) dearly if they ever strayed off the line in one of their contracts. The oil contract was the most sensitive but the production pipeline was in place and Siemens was still there in a consulting capacity. They could afford to kick them out of the island overnight and the oil would continue to flow. Of course, Roth did not want that. He wanted the Germans so cozy they would not even bear the thought of betraying them just to earn brownie points with the Americans. The president was prepared to go as far as blackmailing the German executives if he had to (they were extremely sensitive to the skeletons buried in their closets) but he hoped common sense and downright avarice will keep them to his side. If that did not work, then he would resort once again to his uncanny ability to dig up dirt on anyone he set his mind to. The Israelis and the French were easier to deal with: they did not trust anyone, not even him. France was strapped for cash; they dealt with him just because they had no other choice. Israel, on the other hand, was a little reluctant but in the end cooler heads prevailed and the sales went through. Plus they were about to make concessions that would allow them to build some of their aircraft and tanks in the island, since manufacturing space was not an issue like back in the holy land. La Perla, Old San Juan Fortress Republic of Puerto Rico With the kickoff of the election season looming a few months ahead, President Roth had to switch his attention to social issues. The tax gamble and the recreated section 936 gave an incredible boost to the economy, but that was not enough. Housing and education were still hurting. President Roth was standing at the gates of the Old San Juan Cemetery, between the walls of El Morro (the fortress at the western tip of the Old San Juan walled island) and La Perla, a very old and rundown neighborhood that for years had been an eyesore when compared to the rest of the Old San Juan sector. With the President was the Director of the Puerto Rican Urban Development Commission, plus a handful of the island's most famous architects and finally the Director of the Social Services Administration. The men and women were surrounded by press and by curious bystanders. The President's police escort were nowhere to be found, but it was assumed they were dressed in civilian clothes and blending in with the crowd. Probably one or two were posing as reporters. The purpose of the gathering was to announce a new urbanization law that would attempt to alleviate the terrible housing situation in the most crowded towns of the island. There is a curious custom in Puerto Rico, named ``Invasiones'' (Invasions). While in the states it is not unheard of to see one family settle in a property they do not own or rent, usually called squatting, in Puerto Rico it happens in a much bigger and organized scale. The invaders plan ahead and show up at a big tract of land and lay out lots for a few hundred families. Overnight these families all arrive at the same time with enough building materials to quickly raise a shantytown in just a couple of days. As soon as the police start harassing them they start running resistance through political means, usually with the help of religious leaders. As the political situation rages, the shantytown starts transforming itself into a normal town with real houses and dirt-paved roads. Once the shanties give way to houses that could in theory stand a category-5 hurricane, the government then calls it quits and arranges to pave the streets and provide electricity and water service. The final step would be to issue deeds to the occupants, but this did not always happen. President Roth's plan was to scour the island of these shanties and help these people build real houses in lots they owned. The first governor elected by Puerto Ricans under the Commonwealth, Luis Muñoz Marín, had for a long time confiscated little parcels of terrain from farmers to give them to poor people so they could have a house and have a little vegetable garden. Many times this generous gesture was wasted, since most of the recipients exchanged these tracts of land for a horse or a cow. Under the new model, a person that had never owned land in the island and was presently living illegally in one of the 50 worst (the plan would be funded to deal with the invasions in blocks of 50) established invasion areas would be eligible to receive a deed for a quarter of an acre elsewhere in the same municipality. The lots would be prepared to receive electrical and water/sewer service and paved street access would be guaranteed. The government would allow the new homeowner to choose between 5 house models, all built from prefabricated sections of steel-reinforced concrete. The conditions: The new homeowner must keep the deed for 30 years and this deed could only be transferred before that date because of divorce or death. Also, each homeowner would sign a no-criminal-usage waiver: if the owner was convicted of a felony and this felony was performed within said property, the property would revert to government control. The idea was to give these poor people a way out of the slums. They got to pick from five generously sized houses that were completely hurricane-proof (since the walls and roof were concrete, and the windows were aluminum blinds, there was not much for the hurricane to tear off). The only problem was seasonal flooding, and the houses were built so in case of flooding the electrical wiring and the plumbing would not be ruined. After the flood receded it would be a matter of just hosing off the floors (the flooring was a kind of polished stone that looks like marble but is much cheaper) and maybe painting the walls. The President announced the first ten invasions that would qualify for the land and house giveaway. There was an accompanying penal code provision for abusers of the program, since it was not too hard to imagine some enterprising individual trying to twist the system for his own benefit. Both the Puerto Rican and international presses, especially in England, the US and Germany, were extremely generous in their editorials about the new social initiatives of President Roth. Former US President Carter went as far as flying to Puerto Rico to offer President Roth his support to raise funds to expand the program, since it was in the same spirit of the Habitat for Humanity program that former President Carter had supported for many years. President Roth graciously accepted and confided in him that one of the things that inspired him to push the program was the impact it had on him as a younger man when he saw former President Carter on TV, hammer in hand and helping build houses for poor people. The former president of the US beamed with delight and he promised further visits in the near future. The Chief of Staff could not believe his good luck: The idea of the housing was a political home run. It would be political suicide to try to run against a President that in about three years managed to kick-start the oil operation and the licensed aircraft factories and shipyards, which brought in a lot of cash into the island and also created many jobs. Then on top of that he killed the personal income tax and created a hell of a corporate tax shelter with the section-936 law reactivation, which created even more jobs. Add to this the Military and Student Relocation acts, and the creation of the militia. And if that was not enough, he had started giving away nice housing to thousands of poor people. The Chief felt he had his job almost cut for him, but he was paid to be paranoid and still prepared to fight all the way to reelection if it came down to that. He had just hired two new speechwriters and an image consultant to help polish his boss' rough edges a little bit more. He also took under retainer a political strategy consulting shop in Washington, to help him prepare to fight any interference from the Americans. Other countries were not blind to all these developments, and they had started to pay more attention to whatever was happening in the island. Venezuela was not happy because the Puerto Rican oil exports were undermining theirs, and the people of Venezuela had never seen themselves as different from the Puerto Ricans. When President Roth started cutting taxes and creating new industries, students in Venezuela started organizing protests to harass the government into studying similar actions. The President of Venezuela damn well knew he could not do it, but it irritated him that his own people were being so unreasonable about it. The Puerto Rican oil was classified as ``sweet'' and had a better yield than Venezuela's, and they also had a secured trading partner. Plus they were still not members of OPEC (Roth's refusal to join OPEC was not a public matter). It was hard as hell to compete in equal terms. The President of Venezuela had tried to send an economic delegation to Puerto Rico to suggest they would get together and help each other by fixing the per-barrel prices so both countries could benefit. The official reply, in the form of a letter, stated President Roth's deepest thanks for Venezuela's kind offer for cooperation. The unofficial reply, which was a direct phone call from President Roth to the President of Venezuela, was short and to the point: he could go fuck himself. ** The American President felt a pang of guilt for his first reaction to the news on the housing initiative. The son of a bitch is trying to buy the vote of the poor. The only reason he felt guilty about it was that he would have done the same too. He had to give it to Roth: he knew what the hell he was doing. The American President thought very hard about this: he was spending too much energy keeping an eye on the new Caribbean nation when he should be minding his own country's needs. He asked his wife if it was OK that they left for Camp David for the weekend one day ahead, and invited the third of the cabinet he considered his inner circle. He would wine and dine them at the presidential retreat in rural Maryland and then on Sunday afternoon he will make his pitch. ** The Pentagon task force was not having a good Thursday. Their best Spanish speaking intelligence analyst had called-in sick and they were up to their necks in contact reports. The Navy missions were not working, and NSA had reported none of their tapes was good; some sort of magnetic disturbance had wiped them clean before they were transferred from SSBN Wyoming to the sub tender ship. The General was now convinced that it was a matter of months before he would wake up to see CNN reporting the establishment of a legitimate Puerto Rican Army. Not only that, they would be riding on Humvees that the US President sold to them for a pittance! That meant they would have two armies, one non-deployable (if he was to believe that Mickey Mouse clause in their constitution that made it illegal for the militia to act outside of their sovereign territory). The General was willing to bet his golf bag on the composition of this new army; he was pretty goddamned sure that a big percentage of the cadre and officers would be also members of the militia. This could turn into another Israel, with guns in every house. The poor bastard picked to run an operation to invade the island will find himself landing on an island with 4 million pissed off people with the same right to bear arms as an American citizen, only their arms will be supplied at no cost by their own government. And most of them will be trained in American Military doctrine. Goddamn them! An invasion would be out of the question. He had his in-house lawyers sift through the new constitution of the island nation to check for loopholes that would allow Roth to turn it into a banana republic. There were none to be found. His lawyers stated that the constitution had less holes than the American version on which it was based. They also checked the laws that enacted the militia and were not reassured when they saw it clearly spelled out that members of the militia would be disqualified from serving as part of an official army of Puerto Rico, but only if they were to be assigned to units with potential deployable status. This meant that yes, they could join the Army too, but they could only operate within the island. The General thought it was nicely worded bullshit. Once the bullets start flying they would forget about that clause as soon as it was convenient for them. The invasion would not work. What if they tried to invade somebody else? What about the Dominicans? Or Cuba? It would not work, the island was not over populated yet, and the Dominicans did not yet have infrastructure in place to exploit their natural resources. Plus there was Haiti. The General thought he was stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place. He was aware that he did not know a goddamn thing, but his instincts kept him alive through two wars so he owed it to himself to put an honest effort. He decided that for the hell of it he would write a paper exploring the possibilities of Puerto Rico expanding in the Caribbean basin over the next 10-15 years. ** The missing Spanish-speaking intelligence analyst was First Lieutenant Robert M. Sharpley, US Army Signals Corp (detached Military Intelligence). Lieutenant Sharpley was the son of the Reverend Anthony Michael Sharpley, who spent most of his 35 year career building rural churches in Puerto Rico. Lieutenant Sharpley's middle initial stood for ``Mario,'' the name of a local minister that Reverend Sharpley admired a great deal. The Lieutenant was raised in Puerto Rico and had had already made up his mind that what the United States was trying to the newly created nation of Puerto Rico was both immoral and illegal. He boarded the first plane to San Juan with just a change of clothes and old and battered bible. The bible had pages hidden into its bindings with internet addresses and passwords for servers that held all of Lieutenant Sharpley's working documents, most of them classified Top Secret or higher. It would take three days before anyone noticed he was missing. ** President Roth still had something bugging him since the day he was elected President. He was confident he knew enough of his political enemies to keep them from becoming a real threat, but there was a legitimate danger in smaller political figures not yet corrupted by the system. These nave politicians if smart could make a lot of trouble. What really terrified Roth was the potential to run against a sincere and poor politician. A guy like that would sweep the lower classes without even trying. He (Roth was not being sexist, he just knew it would be a man) would attack his riches and at the same time his record would be pristine, so Roth would not have skeletons to drag out of his opponent's closet. The worst thing is he had no way of fighting it. He could not try to find these potential honest politicians because he would be no different than a dictator trying to weed out the intellectuals before they raise hell. The only thing he could do was to wait. Off the coast of San Juan Republic of Puerto Rico The USS Wyoming was on the final days of her patrol off the coast of the island. In a few more days she would be taken back to her homeport in Kings Bay Georgia, where she would be converted from a fleet ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) into a guided missile submarine (SSGN). Her nuclear missiles and launchers will be removed and replaced with 140 Tomahawk missiles, plus a SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) mini submarine, berthing and equipment to support up to 66 special operations troops. The crew was already beyond bored, and the captain had resigned himself to spending a couple more days in his command before having to return it for the conversion. He did not know if he would screen for flag rank, so he was more worried about having to put in retirement papers when he got back to Georgia than about what was left of the mission. Due to the overall lack of interest from the crew, they started missing on the little things. Sonar spent their time running simulations on tracking Russian submarines that did not exist anymore (their rusting hulls could be seen from satellite, tied alongside docks in their home ports). The torpedo room spent its days playing with their maintenance dummy. The captain had not even run a general quarters drill in almost a week. The only people that were still doing the same job as usual were the cooks and the medics. Had somebody been paying attention to the depth soundings they would have noticed that the contours of the sea floor underneath shifted considerably from the charts they were using. The navigator was assuming a bare minimum of 100 feet under the keel at all times, but that distance eventually became less than 20 feet, while the crew was oblivious. The area where the submarine was trolling had a long history of chaotic seismic activity but the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had only done two bathymetry readings in the last 25 years, and these readings were most of the basis for the charts used by the Wyoming. The seismic activity shifted the underwater topography; something the captain of the Wyoming should have been familiar with and aware of. Instead, he worried about his pension and what to do with his retirement. He left his executive officer (XO) in the bridge and decided to sit in his cabin and outline his options. As he was about to climb out of a metal ladder on his way to his quarters, an impact shook the submarine, making him slip and hit his head on a steam pipe. The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was the general quarters alarm over the submarine's PA system. The XO felt the impact and called general quarters by instinct, and then ordered the engines to full stop. His next command was to request a damage report and to call the captain over the PA. Until the captain arrived back at the bridge he had to try to pass like he knew what the hell he was doing. The impact was due to an immense boulder that had rolled after a small submarine quake. The boulder hit with enough force to bend the propulsion shafts, which after losing their delicate balance proceeded to rip the shafts and their reducing gears to pieces. The gearboxes blew up killing half a dozen sailors unlucky to be in the area. The engine room knew there was something wrong and kicked in their emergency reactor response plans, so the drive train was already disconnected before they even knew the screw took a hit and the shaft was bent. The engineering chief crossed his finger and prayed that none of the shrapnel from the gearbox punctured an important line. Or worse, the ballast tanks. Once the damage and casualty reports started coming in, the XO's mind went into high gear. It was then when he realized the CO was missing. He tried calling again on the PA and then sent a runner to try to fetch him. With the nuclear reactor offline the boat (submarines are boats, only vessels that travel above water are entitled to be called ships) was at the mercy of the currents. There was some limited steerage capability, but still would put them at the mercy of the strong currents that headed into the mouth of San Juan bay. The Wyoming would not be able to steer itself for long once it lost its momentum, and the bridge crew was too excited to notice they had slipped into Puerto Rican territorial waters. It took another 15 minutes to find the CO, who was still unconscious and now at sickbay. The medical officer could not tell how long it would take for him to regain consciousness, so the XO was to consider himself under command until the medical officer certified that the CO was fit to return to duty. The XO called the weapons and sonar officers to witness the removal of the CO's missile key, which was placed in the crypto safe. Once the key was safe, the XO directed the chief of the boat (the senior enlisted man aboard) to change their depth to periscope depth so they could raise their communications mast and report the accident back to base. ** A flight of two Puerto Rican maritime surveillance aircraft had been practicing tandem drills when they noticed the magnetic anomaly right above the international waters boundary. Thinking it was the hulk of a sunken cargo ship, they decided to use it as target practice for their tracking gear. After two passes the tracking party commander of the lead aircraft noticed there was something wrong: the anomaly was moving. He suggested his pilot (in theory the pilot commanded the aircraft, but once in tracking mode he was at the service of the tracking party commander) coordinate turns with the second aircraft and try another tracking pass above the anomaly. For the second time both aircraft corroborated the anomaly was moving, and that could only mean one thing: a submarine. The pilot of the lead aircraft called base and started the emergency notification process. It took President Roth 10 minutes to find out there was a submarine violating the territorial waters boundary. His people would not be able to identify the country, but he had a fair idea that it would be an American submarine instead of Russian or British. The British had no imperial ambitions in the area since at least 100 years before, and the Russians still had Cuba to deal with. The President guessed that the submarine was probably snooping around and got lost. The patrol craft reported that the sub was moving very slowly, almost too slow to steer. This could be either on purpose (to make sure the vessel would not emit any noise, which made it invisible to sonar) or maybe it had an accident and that was as fast as it could move. President Roth called his science adviser on one of their new encrypted phones and tried to see if he had any ideas. His adviser suggested that if the surveillance planes had sonobuoys maybe they could scatter some above the submarine and scare it into doing something. Since it was well within their territorial waters it would not be a hostile act. Plus what the hell, you can't sink a submarine by pinging it with sonar. President Roth agreed with the idea and relayed it to ground control. ** The XO of USS Wyoming had ordered a full walk-through of the vessel to double check for damage. As the Wyoming continued drifting powerless, it started to develop a list to starboard, which meant either a ballast tank had punctured or one of the control surfaces was bent. Thankfully there were few casualties; except for the CO (still unconscious) and one broken leg when a torpedo fell off its mount, there were only bumped heads and a few scratches here and there. The XO did not bother changing depth; he was still waiting for a reply to his emergency report. He kept running things in his head; he was worried that he missed something. Then he figured it out and raced to the bridge to check on their position. He decided to look for himself before chewing on the navigation officer and the chief of the boat. They were now five miles inside of the 12-mile territorial waters boundary claimed by Puerto Rico. He ordered the communications mast raised again and sent a second report. ** Now that they had the anomaly (they could not push themselves to call it a target, since they were not carrying weapons aboard) within a half-mile square, the crews of the two airplanes prepared themselves for the unknown reaction from the submarine once the sonobuoys hit the water. President Roth had ordered PRS Conquistador and two light police boats to head for the area. Conquistador did not have anti submarine weapons (only sonar), but it was the only military vessel in the bay area. The Conquistador's twin, PRS Vieques, had been kept in the dry docks for a last-minute addition of side-mounted torpedo launchers purchased from Norway. The Conquistador was manned with a skeleton crew consisting of former US Navy officers and petty officers that had taken advantage of the MRA, plus a handful of civilian contractors still working on fine tuning the ship's systems. Just before the patrol aircraft called to confirm the sonobuoy drop, the captain of the Conquistador received a call from the command post in the Old San Juan fortress island. The captain was not shocked, but actually asked the orders to be repeated just to double check he was not dreaming. He hung up the phone and smiled just a little bit. The two patrol aircraft setup their buoy drops; the lead craft would drop a line of sonobuoys at a 45 degree angle from the path of the submerged contact, while the second craft would drop her sonobuoys in a line perpendicular to the first drop. As soon as the second drop was completed, the captain of PRS Conquistador ordered his bow-mounted sonar to full active mode. As soon as the first sound wave hit the USS Wyoming, twenty sailors collectively thought ``Oh shit!.'' The XO had to control his urge to scream at the sonar man second class that reported ``multiple active sonar sources from what seem to be sonobuoys.'' Then corrected his report by adding the presence of a ``solid active sonar source within 3,000 yards.'' He (and everybody else on the boat) goddamn well knew somebody was hammering them with active sonar, they could hear it as it bounced off the ship! There was nothing they could do about it, and the XO was sure that his rules of engagement explicitly forbid him to fire a weapon unless fired upon first. As long as nobody took a shot at them, they would have to sit it through. The XO ordered the ESM (a mast with electronics sensors) and Communications masts. He wanted a quick sweep to see what was out in the surface and maybe in the air, plus he wanted to see if he had replies to the two messages he sent earlier. The ESM mast caught on some of the radio chatter from the two patrol aircraft, and a ship borne surface search radar that was too close to one the Israelis stole from the US 15 years earlier. The radioman announced replies to the two messages had been received. The XO rubbed his eyes in disbelief and handed the messages to the weapons officer and the chief of the boat to make sure he was not imagining things. Both the weapons officer and the chief of the boat concurred that the messages ordered USS Wyoming to surface and fly a US flag, and to try to stall the Puerto Ricans until USS Cole, the closest US ship, could get permission to enter Puerto Rican territorial waters to assist Wyoming. The XO sent a message acknowledging the orders and then ordered the chief of the boat to surface the ship and host the Stars and Stripes ASAP. ** The crews of both patrol aircraft erupted in applause when the submarine surfaced. The captain of PRS Conquistador called back to the operations center to report on the surfacing. The officer in charge of the operations center did not hesitate to call President Roth, who had left orders to be called the second the submarine either surfaced or left Puerto Rican waters. Roth immediately ordered the Chief of Staff to call the US embassy and request a meeting with the ambassador at his earliest convenience. The ambassador was already briefed on the accident and was awaiting the summons, so he replied he would be most grateful if they could meet at the Department of State building in one hour. Roth ordered PRS Conquistador to receive the intruding submarine with whatever military honors they could come up with, and to render whatever assistance was required. ** The XO of USS Wyoming was at the conning tower, observing PRS Conquistador and the two Police boats changing their course and starting to head their way. He could see that the level of the activity on the deck of the cruiser was increased, and then finally realized what was happening. Whatever crew in the Conquistador was wearing a presentable uniform had been ordered to stand at parade rest by the portside rails. When the Conquistador was on a parallel course with the Wyoming, the XO heard a loud whistle and all the sailors performed a perfectly synchronized salute. The XO had not seen a foreign ship perform that maneuver since the Germans did it for the Americans on the second anniversary of the September 11, 2003 terrorist attacks. It was a moving scene that brought tears to the eyes of most of the men standing watch at the conning tower. After the maneuver was completed, the Conquistador continued her trajectory as she gracefully circled the disabled submarine. The cruiser continued with this maneuver until it completed a full circle, then stopped a few hundred yards away. The Conquistador launched a boat with 4 sailors in full white uniforms and no visible weapons. The XO nodded to the chief of the boat, the signal for him to set free the detail of sailors that would unroll the landing rope ladders the Puerto Rican sailors would need to climb aboard. Two of the sailors climbed up, then saluted the Officer of the Deck and the US Flag, and asked permission to come aboard. After a brief introduction the Puerto Rican officers explained that arrangements were being made to allow USS Cole passage into their territorial waters to assist them, and that their medical and support facilities were available if they were needed before the USS Cole arrived. The senior officer handed the XO a standard Lloyd's of London salvage contract: if the submarine was in danger of sinking before the USS Cole arrived, Puerto Rico would claim salvage on the submarine, which under the standard contract granted them a percentage of the value of the property recovered. The XO had been expecting the contract; it was standard procedure. He signed it and handed it back. The Puerto Rican sailors saluted once more and requested permission to leave the ship. The sound of helicopter blades made the XO and the chief of the boat look up. They had not noticed that while their little exchange was taking place, half a dozen news helicopters of the type used to report on traffic conditions were hovering above. Washington, DC All major news outlets reported on the violation of the sovereignty of Puerto Rico. Accusations of gross dereliction of duty were already being voiced on live TV even before the captain of the USS Wyoming had regained consciousness in San Paul's Hospital in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. The only other sailor at the hospital was the one that broke his leg when a torpedo fell off its mount. President Roth was playing the press with great finesse. While he did not directly attack the US for the intrusion, he did not discard the possibility of seeking legal remedies for the violation. While he was doing this, he sent a VIP plane to Georgia to fetch the wife and daughters of the captain of the Wyoming, so when he woke up from his coma the first thing he saw was their face. The torpedo technician's wife was flown in the same flight. When the USS Cole arrived, the PRS Conquistador moved further to allow them maneuver room. Sailors from both the USS Cole and the USS Wyoming were granted a blanket visa while preparations were made to bring ships to tow Wyoming back to Georgia. Since it was found that Wyoming was in no danger of sinking, she was towed to the piers in San Juan alongside Cole. A security point was established at the entrance to the pier and US Marines were the only personnel performing security for the ships from the pier side. From the seaside a Puerto Rican Police patrol boat (with a US Navy ensign as an observer) kept an eye on anyone trying to creep in from seaside. Lower enlisted men and junior noncommissioned officers from both the Wyoming and the Cole were handed meal vouchers that would be honored by all restaurants in the Old San Juan island fortress. Officers and senior noncommissioned officers were taken to the Officers Club in the old Fort Buchanan for a banquet. It was a pleasant affair overall if you wanted to ignore the fact that the sovereignty of a country was violated. President Roth had his Secretary of State draft a diplomatic note that outlined the nature of the violation and requested reparations. The note was barely a half page long, but it took the combined efforts of the Chief of Staff and half the cabinet almost three hours to get the wording just right. The Puerto Rican Secretary of State delivered the note to the ambassador, who gracefully accepted it and excused himself to consult with his government. ** The President of the United States was running out of patience with the incompetence of the people that worked for him. He had just finished a briefing on the submarine mess in San Juan bay and he just could not believe his bad luck. As if there was such thing as bad luck. He was willing to blame it on incompetence (plus the bad luck of having the captain of the sub incapacitated in the one moment he was really needed), but it did not stop him from being madder than hell about the whole situation. The Puerto Ricans were right, and the whole country would end up paying for the fuck up in the submarine. To make things worse, the Puerto Ricans played the situation really goddamn well, even better than what I would have done if I were in the Puerto Rican president's shoes. The whole thing with the crews saluting from the manned rails was just brilliant. And the bastards had sent news crews everywhere, so now the whole country was seeing on CNN how, instead of throwing everybody in jail, they took both crews (except the Marines of course, these were left behind guarding the ships) and took them to party all night long. That Puerto Rican president is one calculating son of a bitch. I have to grant him that much. President Wheeler knew that there was no way in hell he could escape paying the Puerto Ricans for reparations and for salvaging. Roth wanted one billion dollars for violating their territorial waters. And he wanted to invoke the Lloyd's of London salvage clause, which would mean he would have to pay a percentage of the current market value of the submarine. That was a hell of a lot of money. ** The next day, the crews of the two ships woke up in their plush accommodations in the Caribe Hilton in San Juan. They had taken over most of the hotel, to the delight of the night manager. Even if everybody was pretty plastered, everybody had been in his or her best behavior. Rum was cheap and the girls were pretty: that is all that mattered. The hotel did not have the facilities to run a buffet breakfast for the two crews in such a limited notice, so they hired buses to drive the sailors to the nearby Caribbean Conventions Center, where the sailors were received with an immense breakfast buffet and then all the local employees were told to leave so the sailors could run staff meetings broken down by ship. President Roth received the preliminary answer from Washington: they offered to pay $750 million in reparations, and offered a 10% salvage fee instead of the standardized 15%. Roth had two choices here. He could take the money, which he could damn well put to use in the island, or he could twist their arms until they either yield or the arm breaks. The President would have loved to twist the arms, but what was important for the country was the admission of guilt. He could have taken a $1 reparations payment as long as the Americans admitted that they did something wrong. President Roth sent his reply: The $750 million would be an acceptable compromise, but the salvage fee should be higher than 10%, so he offered them 12%. The reply came five minutes later. Once the submarine was tugged out of Puerto Rican waters the US would pay Puerto Rico $894 million based on the insured cost of $1.2 billion. President Roth prepared himself to spend it as fast as he could; elections were less than a year away. University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus El Colegio de Agricultura y Artes Mecánicas de Mayaguez (loosely translated: ``The Mayaguez A&M'') is the oldest and most prestigious engineering school in the Caribbean basin. The school shamelessly took advantage of affirmative action programs in every major high-technology corporation in the US, which ensured the engineering labs were always equipped with state of the art gear. Almost all of its engineering professors were educated in the US or in England. The only native professors taught liberal arts and earth sciences. The Mayaguez Campus is a nice and expansive area east of the center of the city. The two main gates face the town, plus smaller gates at the opposite end give access to back roads. Most of the engineering faculties are within campus grounds, except for the Chemical and Civil Engineering faculties, who are located in the back of the campus, across from one of the back roads that circle the perimeter. The main reason the Civil Engineers were there was because of their road materials labs; these were so noisy and messy that the University gave them their own corner where they could make their mess without others noticing. The Chemical Engineers were relegated to that same remote area, the legend says, in case some crazy student blows up the building. All the other engineering faculties were clustered on the south most hill of the campus, the one that overlooks the secondary athletic fields. Mechanical Engineering had the top of the hill, and a combined monstrosity that held the general, electrical, industrial and computer-engineering faculties was on the northern slope. The only other buildings on the crest of the hill were the student aid office and the ruins of a building that fell after an earthquake many years off. The only remaining part of the building was the arc above the main door, and it eventually became the centerpiece of the coat of arms of the school. The monstrosity was called the Cesani building. It consists of an array of smaller buildings and a tower, connected by walkways. Later more classrooms and labs were added to the sides of the walkways to make most use of the space. The end result, the monstrosity, had most of the qualities of a maze. The lower level of this building had a row of tiny laboratories, barely big enough for a doctoral student and a professor to sit down, since most of the room would be taken over by equipment of some sort. Lab #4 had a small table pushed into one corner. It held a battered IBM Thinkpad laptop, a package with half a ream of laser printer paper and a pyramid (which took most of the table's remaining space) built with at least 100 cans of Coca Cola. There was a laser printer somewhere in the mess of boxes of manuals, discarded computer parts and spools of network wire and fiber optics cables under the desk. An industrial machinery table occupied the rest of the lab. It was a massive table with air cushions built into the legs that isolated it from the vibrations of the ground. Level bubbles were built into the sides of the table to help in keeping it perfectly level. Half the table was used to hold electronic measuring gear (connected through fiber optics to a data relay box, which then connected to the laptop through its universal serial port). The other half was used to the specimen. The specimen was the product of three years of postdoctoral research: It was barely the size of a cigarette pack (could be made smaller but they ran out of money) and it packed enough power to run low power devices for an incredible amount of time: the laptop was connected to an earlier model of the specimen and had been running nonstop for a week. The current model of the specimen would be able to power a small car for 8 to 10 hours, depending on the efficiency of its aerodynamics and the gearing of the transmission. If they played tricks with energy recycling devices they could recharge the battery with the energy of the brakes whenever these were actuated. That would give it an extra hour or two of juice. The project was secret and funding was not really an issue. The main reason it was located in the lower corridors of the faculty was to keep a low profile. Only two people worked in the project, and both had signed confidentiality agreements. In exchange for their complete silence they would be listed as principals on the patent (which would be registered as property of the Republic of Puerto Rico) and their tenure at the university would be guaranteed. ** Two days later, President Roth, flanked by the Dean of the Mayaguez Campus of the University of Puerto Rico and by the two academics, announced in a press conference the revolutionary invention. Patent registrations had already been filed and approved in the United States, Germany, England and Japan. The patents would credit the inventors and would become property of a new organization, the Caribbean Center for Technology, based in the grounds of the campus. The purpose of the CCT was to help student scientists pursue inventions and technologies that would help launch a technological renaissance in the island nation. Exclusive patents generated under its supervision would fund the CCT. The battery design was licensed to Apple, Dell and IBM for immediate implementation into their mobile computer models. Preliminary tests showed that using the new technology would yield laptop computer batteries a tenth of the size of the current generation, while at the same time being able to hold a charge twice as large. Representatives of the major car industries did not hesitate to inquire on the availability of the battery design for automotive applications. The CTT (under mandate by President Roth) answered that yes, the design was available as long as a fraction of the vehicles were assembled in Puerto Rico. President Roth had instructed the CTT to hint that such a move would easily be followed by some kind of tax incentive for the construction and operation of the car factories. Daimler Chrysler had been toying for a long time with a concept car they internally referred to as the ``Third Country car.'' It was made out of injected plastic and the chassis was a composite honeycomb assembly that was much stronger, lighter and cheaper than a conventional steel unibody. The only problem they had was that the cost advantages of the chassis and bodywork got shot to hell with the inclusion of the engine, which had to be very energy efficient, light and cheap. Their market studies told them that if they could manage to produce a car that could be sold for $3000 or less (once the production lines were optimized), they could easily setup factories in China and India and sell a ton of them. Except that they did not have a power source. An electrical power package would have been very nice, but the batteries used for the current generation of electrical or hybrid cars would cost too damn much and would be too heavy for the car. That is, until the battery patents were announced. If the battery was of a negligible weight, then maybe they could opt for bigger electric engines and the gear needed to charge the battery quickly. A delegation from Daimler Benz visited the CCT and shared their plans with the engineers. After a quick call the delegation was invited to visit the White House in the Old San Juan island fortress. ** The German-American delegation was shocked. They had expected to maybe take a good look at the technology, hopefully even see some engineering mules in action. But in two days they had in their hands a preliminary agreement to replace the aging San Juan metropolitan bus fleet (the ``AMA'' buses, for Autoridad Metropolitana de Autobuses, operated by the government) with newer buses that used the same construction as the third world car, and with the batteries designed in Mayaguez. The leader of the Daimler Chrysler group silently cursed himself for not thinking ahead of the trip. They could have easily sold them into more ideas, but the bus factory had merit: they would get rid of their stinking diesel buses, and the new ones would be much nicer and cheaper. In addition, they could sell the excess production capacity to other countries in the Caribbean, and once production kinks were smoothed out they would even consider selling some in the United States. President Roth, as hinted, promised a special tax exemption for the bus factories (which would be located in the south of the island to help with the unemployment situation there) and also told them that if things went well they would be very interested in building the ``third world car.'' President Roth did not want to flood the island with $3,000 cars. The island was already too crowded (there were 1.8 cars per person) so in order to introduce these cheaper cars he would have to create an incentive for people to ditch their gas-guzzlers. Lower demand in gas also meant more oil that he could sell to other countries. Also, if the oil deposits dried-up prematurely, it would be life or death to make sure that the island did not rely on oil as much as it did back in the commonwealth years. The recharging of the batteries could have been an issue, but CCT had promised him a 1-hour battery supercharger within 3 months. He also had to consider using a special adapter for the cars, and allowing car owners a recharging outlet in their homes that bypassed the electrical meter. That meant free electricity if you purchased an electrical car. It would be expensive, but with the newer generation of oil-firing thermo-electrical centrals the pollution from the added demand for electricity would be much lower than the pollution from so many million cars, most of them poorly maintained. Guaynabo Republic of Puerto Rico Now with less than a year from the second presidential elections, President Roth resigned himself to not get much done until the campaign could be sorted out. He had good strategists, and his Chief of Staff, even if he started with his left feet, was not too bad. The only thing he needed was for the opposition party to get their acts together and run the primaries. His own party did not run primaries since nobody bothered to challenge his candidacy. The day before the deadline for candidate and new party registrations, elements of a then-unknown terrorist organization tried to attack the Cerro Maravilla (Marvel Hill) telecommunications center, where over 20 years earlier it was the site of a massacre that evolved into the worst political cover-up in the history of the island. The terrorists struck on the anniversary of the massacre. It was not a closely guarded secret that after President Roth won the Presidential elections three years earlier, he had ordered a full review of all strategic infrastructure assets. Cerro Maravilla had always been in a shit list because of the massacre, so he quietly ordered to have its functions moved to alternate locations, and to leave the building powered and the antennas intact. Roth knew it was a matter of time before some idiots decided to blow up the Cerro Maravilla station just to try to grab attention. He was amazed it had not happened before but he knew it was just too damn tempting to pass.