Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

away, and he is a friend.”

Andy replied, “Freilich! Kein Problem.”

“My father will watch the store and your baggages.”

Before they left, Andy picked up his overseas bag, which held his most valuable possessions, including the SIG’s extra ammo and accessories. He slung the bag’s strap over his shoulder. “This Gepack goes with me,” he explained.

Kurt nodded and said softly “Ich verstehe” as he took off his oil-stained canvas apron and handed it to his father.

As they prepared to leave the shop, Becker became momentarily flustered. He did not know whether he should hand the coin back to Andy before they left the store or hold it himself. Andy pointed to Becker’s front pants pocket. Kurt obliged.

They walked down the street to a smaller store with barred windows with a sign declaring: “H. Kurtz, Goldmunzenhandler.” A neon sign that read “Silber/Geld Bullionhandler” shone in the window.

They had to first knock on the door and then be buzzed in after a clerk recognized Kurt’s face. The small store was unusually crowded with both buyers and sellers. “We take a number, I guess,” Kurt joked.

They had to wait nearly fifteen minutes while other transactions were completed. Once at the counter, Kurt and the coin dealer exchanged friendly greetings and then, as he handed over the coin flip, some rapid-fire German that Andy didn’t catch much of. The only portions of the exchange that Andy understood were “Ja, ja, alles klar” and the word “Schatzung,” which Andy remembered meant “appraisal.”

Laine watched as the coin dealer examined the coins with a loupe, weighed each of them on his scale, calipered them with a Fisch coin gauge, and finally brushed their edges against a touchstone, but not without first asking, “Wie bitte.” He looked up with a smile and nodded, declaring: “Ja, die sind echt.”

For Andy’s benefit, the coin dealer switched to English: “These coins are, yes, genuine. They weigh, both by the book of coins and by my scale, point one eight six seven troy ounces of the fine gold. That is almost one-fifth of ounce troy for each.” Pointing to some figures on a chalkboard behind him, he said: “Today, spot gold in London is 9,112 euros per ounce. That makes these coins worth both together 3,402 euros.”

Kurt thanked the coin dealer and handed him a fifty-euro note for the appraisal.

As they walked back to the bike shop, Andy marveled at how the gold had held its buying power, while the U.S. dollar had become so worthless. Once back inside, Kurt declared to his father: “Three thousand four hundred euros!” Turning to Laine, he said, “I am still owing you one hundred euros difference, or the same in goods from my shop.”

“But, Kurt, you had to pay for the Schatzung.”

“I am not worried about that, Herr Kapitan, for tomorrow gold bullion it will be higher and the euro will be lower, just as sure as the rising of the sun.”

Back at the store counter, Andy asked: “Haben sie Landkarten?”

“Ja.”

Laine asked, “Fur Frankreich?”

“Ja.” The shop owner pulled out a Michelin large-scale road map of France that had a heavy cardboard cover. “These maps are now twenty euros.” Becker also opened up a similar road map of Germany. Taking it over to the shop’s photocopier, he said, “Also, you will need to have our little corner of Germany. No charge for this.” He made two photocopies of the western end of the map and handed them to Andy, who slipped them inside the cover of the map for France.

Laine said, “Okay, that leaves me eighty euros credit. So I’d like to use that to pay for your time to help me attach the racks and trailer hitch.”

Becker nodded.

“Then we have a deal, for the two gold Hahnmunzen. Klar? ”

They shook hands.

Andy left the store an hour and a half later, after the bicycle modifications and packing had been completed. As he was packing, Becker gave Andy a box of heavy black plastic trash bags to use as waterproof liners for the panniers, handlebar bag, and the now half-empty overseas bag. The latter initially went into the almost-full trailer, for fear that Becker might spot the SIG ammo and accessories. Laine would have preferred that his sleeping bag and bivouac bag stuff sacks be strapped to the top of the cargo rack, but the gooseneck of the trailer was in the way. So they, too, went in the trailer.

Kurt and the old man both shook Laine’s hand before he wheeled the bike and trailer out of the store.

The younger Becker waved and said, “Viel Gluck!”

“Thanks, but I’ll need more than luck,” Andy replied. “I’ll need God’s Grace.”

“Well, then . . . Moge Gott mit Ihnen sein!”

Andy took the Saarbrucker Strasse out of Landstuhl, heading west. Getting accustomed to the feel of the bike and trailer took some adjustment. After the first few uphill grades, he decided that he should carry less food and water. He kept three liters of water but poured out two other one-liter bottles. He decided to gradually reduce by half the amount of food in the packed trailer.

15 Der Pilger

“To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mind-set to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic.”

-Ted Nugent

Bruchmuhlbach-Miesau, Germany Early November, the First Year

Andrew Laine kept on the secondary roads as he headed toward the French border. He stopped when he reached the first dense stand of timber, loaded the SIG, and put it in his holster.

The L395 expressway had surprisingly few passing cars and trucks. Laine passed through the town of Bruchmuhlbach-Miesau late in the afternoon. Just after turning southwest on L119, the terrain again got hilly, and Andy was feeling exhausted. Paralleling a major railway line, the road was heavily treed on both sides. It was a long day of riding, and his muscles were unaccustomed to the new strain.

Andy started looking for a secluded place where he could camp for the night. He wanted to stop before he got to Homburg, which was a sizable city. Huffing and puffing his way up a grade, now in low gear at barely more than a walking pace, Andy was surprised to see three young men burst from behind the screen of trees. They came running at him to intercept, with their boots thudding on the pavement. Before Andy could either pick up his pace or turn, they were upon him.

All three of the men had shaved heads. Two of them wore black flight jackets, while the third was in an obsolete Flecktarn camouflage pattern Bundeswehr jacket. All three of them wore what looked like Doc Martens boots, or something similar. One of them grabbed the bike’s handlebars while another shoved a one-inch diameter tree branch through the spokes of the front wheel. Laine wasn’t going anywhere.

The one standing the closest taunted, “Wo willst du denn hin, Pilger?” His breath stank of beer.

Andy jumped off the bike and backed up five steps. He held his hands just out from his thighs, showing his palms to the men.

The tallest one made a show of flicking open a German parachutist’s gravity knife. He held it up and cackled.