Fanis is a bodyguard for a Chinese art
dealer, Kera. Kera is also Fanis’
cousin. Given that she had devoted most
of her life to Chinese artifacts, she grew apart from friends and as she
climbed the ranks. Due to this, the need
to trust someone with her life became more and more important for reasons she
wouldn’t explain and Fanis never asked. Fanis
loves the job because it allows him to travel the world. Even before this job, he saw a new country
every year. Now international flights
out of Heathrow were common occurrences as they were based out of London
despite both of them being born and raised in America of Greek
descendents. Kera comes out to him and
says, “Guess where we’re going.”
“I literally have no idea.”
“Turkey!” she said with a big
smile and a cheery voice.
Greeks traditionally do not like
Turkish people. Although it’s watered
down in America to be non-existent in many cases, it isn’t a foreign concept
for Kera and Fanis. Both of their
parents have houses in Greece, which means they are surrounded by locals. They each have family currently living in
Greece and interactions with them during their childhood summers in Greece
definitely got a bad picture painted about Turks. To Fanis, however, he had met a handful of
Turks and only one he didn’t like. The
success rate was probably higher than any other nationality that he met if he
was paying attention. Due to this, he
couldn’t care less about going to Turkey.
In fact, his parents had taken him to Ephesus as a child so he had
already been there. On Kera’s part, she
couldn’t care less. Despite her blood,
Chinese heritage was stronger in her as she had dedicated her life to it. Although Fanis was the body guard that was
allowed closest to Kera, he was not the only bodyguard. She enlisted a former MI6 agent as well for
this trip. On the plane, Fanis and the
MI6 agent were speaking. Fanis ribbed
him about Christopher Steele and how he entrapped and lied to allow the DOJ and
FBI to spy on the Trump campaign.
The agent responded, “It’s not
our fault that your FBI didn’t vet the information.”
“Yes it is because Steele knew
he got the information from Russian disinformation agents. He colluded with Russians to accuse Trump and
his campaign of colluding with Russians.
It was all ridiculous.”
“The FBI knew all this.”
“I know, he told Kavalec at the
state department 10 days before the first FISA application on Carter Page. She found holes in his story and passed it on
and they ignored it.”
“I’m not sure what you’re
getting at.”
Fanis took on a less combative
tone and grinned, “No, I’m just messing with you. I know that the FBI hated Trump so much they
wanted to believe any negative information was true. That’s why they didn’t bother to go through
the Woods procedure.”
“It’s worse than that chap”
“What do you mean?”
“Also before the FISA
applications, the FBI interviewed one of Steele’s Russian sources. Even with their bias and obsession to find
negative information about Trump, they still deemed the source
untrustworthy. They accused him of
lying. They didn’t use that term. They
said something like ‘added his own interpretation of the facts’ but basically
lying. Yet, they still believed him when
Steele revealed him as a source.”
Fanis contemplates this for a
second. It seems like the more he finds
out about this case, the worse it gets.
They arrive in Istanbul and Kera goes up the Fanis and cheerfully
declares, “Did you hear the McConnell’s ancestors were slave owners?”
Fanis smiles and says, “Did you
hear McConnell’s response?”
Kera frowns and says, “No”
knowing that it’s probably going to be bad news.
Fanis responds, “He said that he
finds himself in the same position as Obama.
They are both descended from slave owners, and both are against reparations”
“So it didn’t scare him off like
most Republicans linked to any hint of racism”
“Nah, I guess some Republicans
are growing a spine”
“Pity”
They check into their hotel and
Fanis questions why they find themselves in Muslim countries so often. Muslims aren’t always too keen on doing
business with a woman. Sometimes Fanis
has to pretend he’s the one selling when really he’s got an earpiece in
repeating what Kera tells him. Turkey is
not as strict as other countries but he’s still on edge. That’s why the agent is there with him. They get some sleep and the next day they go
meet with an art buyer. The agent is on
one end of the building guarding the exit.
Fanis is much less official in his job.
Whereas the agent is standing by the door, Fanis is at a café actually
drinking. A man approaches him and looks
at his casual clothes and says, “Ah, American”
“Yes I am” Fanis declares
amicably.
“You like Trump?”
Fanis had been travelling the
world his entire life. He could probably
count on one hand when someone randomly brought up politics on a first
encounter. Now, it happened all the
time. Donald Trump had managed to make
the whole world obsessed with him. This
obsession made them stupid. It wasn’t
just the DOJ, CIA and FBI but lay people as well. It’s like they forgot how to think because
they hated Trump so much. Still though,
he never denied that he was a Trump supporter so he told this man that too. The Turk replied, “Yea, I like him too”
“Really? I don’t get that reaction a lot.”
“Well, it’s not that I like
him. I just think those who hate him are
evil so I support anyone that the evil people don’t like.”
“We have an expression for that
in America. We say ‘the enemy of your
enemy is your friend.”
“Yes, this speaks true with me.”
“The question is why do you
think those against him are evil?”
“Well, they pretend a Turkish
company was a terrorist so they could attack Mike Flynn.”
Fanis was confused. He inquired, “What do you mean? Mike Flynn was prosecuted for lying to
congress about his conversation with Russian ambassador Kislayek”
The Turk gave him a strange look
and explained, “That’s only one charge.
He was also charged with being business partners and lobbying for a
Turkish business that the FBI says was linked to Turkish government but that’s
not true.”
“I’m not familiar with that
one.”
“He signed a deal for a lesser
sentence on the lying if he agreed to be a witness.”
“Well he was facing bankruptcy
and they threatened his son to sign that deal.”
“I didn’t know that but that
just adds to my point.”
“Which is what?”
“How evil these people are”
“Well, making the deal isn’t
evil, it’s the fact that they set him up.”
“That’s what I mean. They lied to him. He made the deal but they’re still charging
him as a co-conspirator, not a witness.”
“Does this have anything to do
with FARA violations?”
“Yes, usually FARA is an easy form
but the one they gave Flynn was so complicated he paid a lot of money to a
lawyer to fill it out correctly.”
“Why did they back out of the
deal? Did they give a reason? Wow, four years ago, I never would have asked
that question but my faith in our intelligence agencies to act professionally
is disappearing.”
“Yes, they want him to say that
he didn’t accidentally lie but he purposely lied on the FARA application. They want him to say he knew the firm he
worked with was working for Turkish government but Flynn’s new lawyer Powell
said they weren’t saying that because that would be a lie.”
“So did Flynn know?”
“I don’t even think the firm was
linked to Turkish government. I think
FBI made it up so no, Flynn didn’t know and he may be right that it wasn’t.”
“So the government knew but
Flynn didn’t. I wonder why?”
Now it was the Turks turn to be
confused, “They’re the government, they know everything.”
“Maybe, but there’s other things
that have come out that makes it seem like they are spying on Flynn. I think there was a FISA on Flynn, which means
they were also monitoring this company he was working for.”
“This would not surprise me.”
“Yea, I just hate that nothing
happens to these people that lie to set people up. The courts need to punish these assholes for
lying to them. They lied saying the
information was verified. They lied that
the FBI was the source and not Russians.
It was all bullshit.”
“Well, something happened with
this case”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“I’m surprised you don’t’ know
this as an American”
“One, the mainstream American
media defends Democrats and hides the truth.
Two, I live in London now and three, there seems to be a law in America
that you can’t defend a Trump supporter publicly.”
“Well, the judge in the
case. A judge Trenga says that the
government has not shown any evidence that he was an undisclosed Russian agent
or lied on the FARA. Basically said the
whole thing was silly.”
“Hmmm maybe this is a turning
point. Avenatti was indicted. Judges are standing up to the
government. Republican Senators are trolling
and fighting back against liberals that attack them and call them names. There might be a turning point now.”
“Well I hope so.”
“Me too.”
Fanis turned to him and said,
“Hey, where can I get some good dolmathes and Kebabs here.”
The Turk smiled, “I see you use
the Greek names. Here in Turkey, it’s
Dolma”
“Yea I know and we pronounce
‘baklava’ differently but I’m not much of a sweets guy. We spend so much time hating each other, we
don’t’ realize that the differences in our cultures are so miniscule. We just argue on who took it from who.”
“Are you Greek?”
“Yes my grandparents were and
moved to America. I was born in America
but I went back to Greece every summer as a kid. We still have my grandfather’s apartment near
Athens.”
“Well, I agree that it is time
we stop being enemies”
Fanis put out his hand and the
Turk shook it. He commented, “I guess
this is a good start.”
The Turk merely smiled
back. Kera’s meeting was over and she
came out the exit near Fanis. Fanis
radioed in to the agent to come back around the building and got up. He left the money for his drinks on the table
and walked toward Kera. The Turk also
pulled out a phone but Fanis ignored it.
Fanis’ pace had to quicken when a van pulled next to Kera and the door opened. A man grabbed Kera who was 5’5” and easily
manhandled. Instead of being pulled into
the van, the man was being dragged out as Fanis reached out and grabbed him by
the neck and yanked him out of the van.
This was done not before the man grabbed Kera by the arms and pulled
toward the van. This sudden change
forced him to let go but there was enough force to knock Kera to the
ground. Fanis mounted the man and
punched him in the face with his right hand as his left hand grabbed his shirt
and pulled his head up. The driver and
another man rushed out of the car and the non-driver tackled Fanis to the
ground as the driver went after Kera.
Fanis reached his arm out and slapped at the driver’s leg which swung
colliding with his other leg tripping him down.
Kera fell down and was initially
shocked. Once she saw two more people
run out, she knew this was a planned attack.
She shot up and ran looking back to see a Turk trip and fall. She hailed a cab and hopped in it hoping that
it wasn’t going to be a mistake.
Fanis was struggling with the
man on top of him trying to lock in a triangle choke but avoiding giving him a
direct shot to his face. The driver came
over and kicked Fanis in the side. His
arms dropped and now punches were being rained down on his face. The agent had arrived and he pulled out a gun
and fired it in the air. All this did
was have the Turks grab Fanis and throw him into the van. The agent ran at them but the car drove
off. A syringe was injected into Fanis’
arm and everything went black.
Kera arrived at a hotel. She went inside and had a drink before
leaving and getting a cab to the hotel she was actually staying at. She was worried about Fanis but this is why
she hired him. He would provoke people
and if the situation ever came down to him or her, he wouldn’t hesitate to make
sure to sacrifice himself so she could get away. He even told her to run and not try to help
him or hesitate because that just increased the chances of him sacrificing
himself for nothing. What she was
thinking about as she was drinking was why she didn’t feel worse about it. She got back to her hotel and she bolted the
door.
When Fanis woke up, he found
himself tied to a chair with no clothes on.
There was a man before him and he had a pair of pliers. Fanis looked down and saw his fingers were
individually tied to the arm rest. He knew
what was coming and he took a deep breath preparing for it. The man said, “Where’s the girl staying?”
“Your ass”
A fist collided with Fanis’
face. He smiled and said, “You hit like
a girl.”
This brought about three more
shots to the face. Fanis was actually
hoping they’d knock him out. The man
calmed and said, “Let’s start simple.
What’s your name?”
“I forgot due to the physical
abuse”
“Come on, what harm is a name?”
“Ronald Reagan”
“Is that your real name?”
“Are you serious? You don’t know who Reagan is? Most people in the world know about American
history. How do you not?”
“So, you’re American?”
“No, I’m Greek but like everyone
in the world, I know about America”
“I really don’t see what’s wrong
in telling me your name.”
“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t
ask.” Fanis replied with a smug grin.
The man grabbed the pliers and
gripped the nail on his pointer finger.
He menacingly stated, “Name? You
lie, I rip it off.”
“George Patton.”
“Did you lie?”
“Please learn about people you
hate you ignorant motherfucker”
“Last chance”
“No, that is not what you
said. You said if I lied, you’d rip it
off. I lied, now you got to uphold your
end of the bargain.”
The guy looked confused. He’d been torturing people for a while but
nobody had ever asked to have their fingernail removed. They’ve lied forcing him to but never
specifically asked. He pulled the pliers
and ripped the nail off. Fanis screamed
out and started cackling as he cried out in an excited tone, “Wow, that’ll wake
you up in the morning. Good thing we can
do it 19 more times. I was getting kinda tired talking to you.”
“Name?”
“Seriously though, you’re a
little too dumb to mess with. I don’t
know if you have this in Turkey but school choice is very important. There was a school in the Bronx. It is in the
poorest district in America. This is
based on median income. It is the lowest
in any congressional district in America.
90% of the kids get free lunch as part of a program because they’re so
poor.”
“Name!” the Turk screamed
“Every kid in the 8th
grade aced the Regent exam”
The torturer pulled off the nail
on his other pointer finger and Fanis tried to hold back but did scream out as
it is very painful. He continued, “The
math regent, they passed Algebra I. It’s
graded on a number 1-5, they all got 5’s.
I wish they had more charter schools and school choice in America.”
The man punched Fanis in the
face. Fanis pronounced, “I know I know,
you probably went to a shitty public school.
The ones in the same area as this school, only 34% of kids even took the
damn test. And 82% of those got a
passing grade. So it just shows you how
shitty the public school systems are and how good school choice is.”
Blood was dripping down Fanis’
face from the punches. The man dragged
the chair toward the back of the room and leaned it against the wall. He slapped a cloth over Fanis mouth and
poured a jug of water over it. Fanis
resisted the urge to struggle but when the cloth was removed he coughed
violently. Water boarding was no picnic. The torturer snapped, “Where’s the girl
staying?”
“Fine, I’ll stop talking about
your school”
The torturer pulled out a gun
and held it to Fanis’ head and said, “Where is she staying?”
“Oh, you have a gun. You know that New Zealand mosque shooting. Like 50 Muslims died and then the retarded
government made a mandatory buyback program for assault rifles. The definition was very loose so it is most
guns.”
“Last chance”
“There’s 1.5 million guns in New
Zealand. Only 700 people complied with
the buy back. I mean it’s ridiculous; if
people don’t care about the law to not murder, why would they care about
breaking the law to own a gun? Gun
confiscation only hurts law abiding citizens.”
The torturer put down the gun
and grabbed the pliers. He bent down and
grabbed a hold of Fanis big toe nail.
“Where is she staying?”
“You’d think New Zealand would
know how stupid the gun ban was considering Australia tried that not too long
ago and the amount of guns increased.
Don’t they know that considering Australia is so close?”
“Last chance”
Fanis looked at the man kneeled
down and bending over to grab his toenail.
He couldn’t help himself and uttered, “That’s right bitch, bow down”
The torturer screamed out in
frustration and pulled off the toenail.
He grabbed a bag and put it over Fanis’ head. The bag smelled rancid. When Fanis realized that’s all that was going
to be done, he exhaled. Although having
a horrendous smell so close to your nose wasn’t fun, it was a lot better than
having your fingernails pulled off and water boarded. Fanis actually relaxed. Although many people feel like solitary
confinement is torturous, Fanis was a loaner and actually enjoyed being alone. He immediately started day dreaming.
When the agent saw the van drive
away, he hopped into a car and hotwired it.
He followed a couple cars behind but just to see where they were
bringing him. He immediately started
making phone calls for people connected with agents in Turkey or influence in
the government. After a while, people
came and they strategized how to take the building. After their strategy was laid out they executed. Luckily for them, there were only a couple
guards that were quickly taken care of with well placed shots. They invaded the compound and searched it. They were drawn toward loud banging and
screaming and approached cautiously.
What they found surprised them.
The torturer went upstairs
hoping the solitude would get to his prisoner.
He was tasked with getting information from this man on the whereabouts
of the Western Chinese dealer but now he found himself more frustrated than
he’d ever been. He started grabbing
things and throwing them to the ground knowing that his prisoner couldn’t hear
him in the basement. He threw chairs,
books, even electronic equipment.
Suddenly there was a yell as someone was speaking in an authoritative
voice. He turned slowly to find a gun in
his face. He put up his arms and Turkish
police placed hand cuffs on him and escorted him out of the building. The agent then searched the house and it
wasn’t long till he found Fanis. He
pulled the bag off Fanis’ head and saw him squint as his eyes adjusted to the
light. The agent noticed the blood and
grimaced at the obvious signs of torture.
He looked at his hands and realized three finger nails were missing. He untied him and helped him to his feet. Fanis leaned against the agent. This forced the agent to look down and saw
his toenail was missing too. Fanis was
going to need help. The agent helped
Fanis and said, “You need a hospital”
“No, I don’t, just get me a
hotel.”
The agent knew the
procedure. Nobody was going back to the
hotel that Kera was at. They checked in
to another hotel and Fanis lied on the bed.
He picked up the phone and dialed someone in London. That person then called someone in
America. The American called someone in
Beijing, who called someone in Hong Kong.
The person in Hong Kong called Kera to see if she was okay. Kera asked about Fanis and found out that he
was fine. The sequence reversed itself
and got to Fanis that Kera was resting comfortably in the hotel. The next day, she met him at the
airport. Kera ran up to Fanis when she
saw him and gave him a big hug. At this
point, Fanis was recovered. He hugged back
and gave a wry smile. They got on the
plane and Kera said, “What happened?”
Fanis gave an account of what
happened to him. Kera knew better than
to try to apologize. This is what Fanis
signed up for and he was happy to do it.
She knew that the last thing Fanis wanted was sympathy. That’s why she responded to his experience,
“I almost feel bad for the guy who tortured you. I mean dealing with you when you’re in a
smart ass mood is pretty fucking devastating”
Fanis laughed and Kera
giggled. Fanis offered, “You know Trump nominated
a new FED chairman”
“Yea who is he?” Kera replied
with absolutely no interest in her voice
“She is someone that thinks we should go back to a gold standard”
“What does that mean?” she
boringly replied
“Right now we have fiat
money. The dollar is worth what the
government decides it is. They print
money whenever they want. There’s no
qualifications to it. With the gold standard,
dollars are redeemable for gold. That
means that all the dollars in the economy needs to be backed up by gold. So, if you want to print more money, you need
to find more gold first.”
“Well, that can be
corrupted. They can just lie and say
they found more gold.”
“True, but at least there’s some
standard that can be checked. Now, they
don’t even need a standard. Much easier
to abuse it now than if there was a standard.”
“So what’s the point?”
“Right now we have a spending
problem. Democrats want to print money
to pay the debt but that will cause massive inflation. Germany did that to pay war reparations and
people needed wheelbarrows to carry their money to buy things it was so
worthless. More recently, in Venezuela,
they are using their bills to make products because it’s not worth anything and
going to be worth even less by the time they go out to get what few products
exist.”
“So, if it’s so bad for the
economy, why do it?” Kera stated with a little more interest now.
“If you owe money, inflation is
good because the amount you owe goes down the faster inflation rises.”
“So if inflation is higher, than
your interest rate, you actually owe less and less.”
“Right, and America has 20
trillion dollars in debt.”
“And Germany had a huge debt for
reparations, so they did it to reduce theirs as well.”
“Keep in mind, it resulted in an
epic collapse of the economy and people were so desperate for someone to change
it, they elected Hitler.”
“Yes, yes so fine they can’t
print indiscriminately, so what?”
“That means they can’t spend as
much because there’s only a limited amount of money. The well is dry for the printing press.”
“Oh so the government has to go
on a budget.”
“Yup”
“I don’t know though, I have a
lot of student loans. It would be nice
for it to be devalued” she said with a combative smile.
“Yea, fuck over the savers to
help those in debt.”
“The people that are in debt
don’t care.”
“Yes they will when they’re
making less and have no purchasing power with the money they do have. Banks won’t loan money. No new businesses,
catastrophic economic collapse.”
“Yea, why give money when the
amount of the loan is going to decrease and you lose money on it?”
“Exactly”
“Alright so it’s bad for
Democrats who like to spend money. But
being stingy is bad too. I see both
sides.”
“There’s a reason it’s never
worked in the history of the world”
“Different times and we’ll learn
from history and do it better.”
Fanis shook his head, “You’re
smarter than that.”
“And you know me well enough to
know I’m fucking with you.”
Fanis nodded his head and turned
away. They arrived in London and went
back to their flat. Fanis took it easy
for a couple of days as his foot still hurt every time he stepped on it. His fingers also hurt when he gripped
something. After a couple days, the pain
was nagging and very manageable and he acted normally. He never found out nor cared to know the
motive behind the attempted kidnapping.
Was it orchestrated by the people who bought the art or was it a third
party? Kera was determined to find out
but she wouldn’t share it with Fanis because he asked to be kept ignorant on
any shadiness in her business. To him,
he always wanted her to be his innocent little cousin.
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