Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

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

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

With the drama of the economic news, riots, and the terrorist attacks, the newscasters had plenty to talk about. In Europe, the focus seemed to be on the terror attacks, while in the United States, the emphasis was on the galloping inflation and the riots. The volume of news was so overwhelming that the day-to-day clerical bureaucracy at the post slowed to a crawl. Several times in the past two days, Andy had to nearly shout, “Hel-looo! Can you please get this outprocessing finished for me?” to get the various “clerks and jerks” to turn their attention away from their laptops, computer monitors, televisions, and text screens on their cell phones.

Andy and the clerk next turned their attention to his quarters clearing papers, making sure that he had all the proper clearance stamps. They were variously stamped in blue and black: “CIF,” “Cleared Finance,” “S2 Outbrief,” “No Mess Charges,” and “PMO.”

“Where’s your ‘YOYO’ stamp?” the clerk asked.

“YOYO?” Laine asked suspiciously.

“That stands for ‘You’re on Your Own,’ pal.”

“Very funny.”

That afternoon Andy went off post to go to the local Raiffeisenbank branch. He got in a long queue in front of the counter with a sign above it that read: “Geldwechsel/Change/Cambio.” After twenty minutes he came to the front of the line and began to pull out his remaining afghanis, U.S. dollars, his few remaining U.S.-dollar- denominated traveler’s checks, and Iraqi dinars that were left over from his previous deployment. They made a fairly large pile on the counter. The teller seemed unfazed. Obviously, in recent weeks he had seen much larger piles of cash.

“Euros, bitte,” Andy asked quietly.

As the teller began counting the stacks of afghanis, Laine countersigned all of his traveler’s checks. He then pulled out his passport and his military ID card and set them on the counter, knowing that they’d be needed next.

The teller clucked a “Tsk, tsk” after he did the Wechselkurs calculation.

“The exchange of dollars rate, I am afraid, sir, is very poor.”

“That’s understandable,” Laine replied.

After clearing the counter and handing Andy back his ID, the clerk said matter-of-factly, “Five hundred and eighty euros.” Then he asked Andy, “Cash or EC card?”

“Cash-Bargeld, bitte.”

Andy already had another forty-five euros in his wallet. Together, those notes totaling 625 euros would barely cover the cost of a two-hundred-mile bus ride or a dinner at a decent restaurant. Such were the ravages of the recent inflation.

Next, Andy walked across the bank lobby to the indoor Geldautomat ATM machine. He tried both of his credit cards, with the same result: the message “Credit Card Transactions Suspended” flashed on the screen. “Oh, joy,” Andy muttered.

Back at Rose Barracks, Andy Laine was told that there would be no scheduled military flights for at least a week, possibly longer. At the rate things were deteriorating, he dared not just wait and hope that flights would be resumed. Even if flights were resumed, active-duty personnel might have higher priority than someone traveling on an Army Reserve ID card. Or, worse yet, civil order could collapse in Germany, just as it had in the States, and flights might not resume for months or years. Andy wondered how he’d get back to the States and, once he did, how he’d be able to travel to New Mexico.

He had the vague idea of heading west through Germany to the coast of France to see if he could find a ship of any description heading to the U.S., or perhaps even to Mexico or Canada. Just before close of business at the post headquarters, he made arrangements to get a flight back to Ramstein. There, in the U.S. military’s largest complex in Germany, he’d have the best chance of getting transport out of Europe.

Two more frustrating days of hurry-up-and-wait landed Andy at Ramstein. The BOQ there was full, so he was sent to the nearby Sembach Annex. Seeing Laine’s red Army Reserve ID card, the desk clerk asked him for a copy of his orders. “I don’t have any orders,” he said. “I’ve just been released from active duty and I’m trying to get home.” Even after seeing Laine’s DD-214, the clerk was belligerent. “No rooms without orders for reservists.” It was only after threatening to call the clerk’s manager that Andy was finally given a room.

Shepherding his rapidly dwindling cash, Andy bought food for dinner entirely from vending machines. Because the inflation was so rapid, the vending machine prices had not yet been raised to match the store counter prices. The news on television was all bad. Flights were all still grounded and most trains and buses were not running. Some runs on grocery stores had begun in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. There were also some large street protests and riots building up in the larger cities throughout the European Union. Reserve police and military forces were being mobilized throughout the EU and in the UK. There had been a widespread power blackout in Greece caused by a labor union dispute. It was also reported that no long-distance calls were getting through to the United States except, oddly, to Hawaii.

Andy turned off the television and called a couple of acquaintances stationed in K-Town, begging favors. One of them phoned an hour later to say that they had found him a ride.

Early the next morning, Andy got on a five-ton supply truck that was headed to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Following the end of U.S. military presence in France, this was the westernmost Army installation in USAEUR, the U.S. Army’s European command. Beyond there, he truly would be in YOYO territory.

The next morning was depressingly foggy. Laine did not feel his best, since he had slept so poorly the night before. The Specialist E-4 driving the truck to Landstuhl was envious that Laine had ended his service and was headed home. “Sir, I still got 112 days and a wake-up,” he said forlornly. “I don’t know what things’ll be like by then. My family all lives in Atlanta. You’ve seen it on the TV, right? There’s big dang riots there. They say half the city is on fire.” Laine decided that it wouldn’t be helpful to mention that this was the second time that Atlanta had burned, so he made no reply.

The truck, he learned, was mainly filled with MREs. It was just one of many truckloads of MREs from as far away as Wiesbaden that were being sent to the Army hospital, since local transport of food for patients and staff had become intermittently disrupted. Even more MREs were being sent to various Air Force bases and to U.S. embassies. The big MRE shuffle was part of a “contingency stock leveling” measure, just in case food supplies and grid power were to suffer more severe disruption. “It’s like some kinda siege mentality, sir,” the Specialist commented.

At just after ten a.m., Laine was dropped off at a Strassenbahn stop not far from the hospital complex, and the driver left with a wave.

Andy stood alone at the tram stop, feeling overwhelmed. The fog was beginning to lift, and he could begin to see hills of the Palatinate Forest in the distance, stretching to the south. After a few chilly minutes, a streetcar approached on Eisenbahnstrasse. Andy put on his duffel bag using both shoulder straps. Then he picked up his flight bag in his left hand and his overseas bag in his right hand. He waddled to the streetcar. The weight of the duffel bag pressed the holstered SIG uncomfortably into his lower back. When the door opened, he asked the driver, “In Richtung Landstuhler Stadtzentrum?”

“Ja, klar, klar,” the driver answered, gesturing him in.

Laine stepped up into the streetcar, which was nearly empty. He thumbed in his fare card and then awkwardly sat down, placing two of his bags in front of him and hunching out of his main duffel bag.

An elderly German woman was sitting across the aisle from him with the seat beside her piled with string shopping bags. A long-haired Dachshund sat in her lap. The streetcar lurched and picked up speed.