When they arrived, Charley made his way to the office of Master Sergeant O’Reilly. “Tony, did you get the gear I wanted?” he asked.

“Charley, where’s your faith, old boy? You know I did. But I gotta tell you, the price has been bumped a little on us.”

“What do you mean ‘bumped a little’?”

“Oh, like about double.” Tony smiled.

“Double?” Charley shouted. “Double! Are you crazy?”

“Hey, come on, Charley,” Tony O’Reilly said. “I don’t set the prices. I take my ten percent and, other than that, charge you just what it costs me. You know that. Prices on everything have gone through the roof. With the West Coast and Asia both gone, where are they going to get these things anymore? These tents were made in China, and chances are we won’t be getting any more of them, either.”

“Okay, okay,” Charley conceded, waving his hands in the air. “How much?”

“Well, Charley, it’s five hundred bucks a tent. The mess gear adds about five hundred more. Times a thousand setups makes an even million dollars.”

“Whew!” Dave Busby whistled. “A million dollars for some lousy government surplus?”

“One million in cash,” said Tony. “No checks. The banks aren’t clearing checks right now.”

“Tony,” said Charley, “you know I don’t keep that kind of money around. Everything I have is in banks or brokerage accounts.”

“Charley, old friend, everything you used to have was in banks and brokerage accounts. If that’s all you’ve got, you’re in trouble, pal. Have you got any gold?”

Suddenly the crisis assumed new meaning for Charley. Up until then, he had been the strong one, the caring friend, the dispassionate observer. He had a house, a car, some trucks, and two hundred thousand bushels of soybeans in a warehouse. But seeing millions of dollars of his liquid assets—stocks, bonds, insurance policies, contracts, even bank accounts—disappear overnight changed things dramatically. If his assets were frozen, or perhaps lost forever, he would still survive. But his attitude of cool detachment would have to change.

Charley sat down on the corner of Tony’s desk and folded his arms across his chest. “How much is gold worth today?” he asked.

“My people are selling at three thousand an ounce, right now, and buying at twenty-eight hundred. Tell you what. I’ll round it out for you. We can do the deal for three hundred fifty-seven ounces, if you’ve got it.”