Frozen Assets

'Ledger entry, April 3, 1949.

Baroness Katharina Lehnert arrived by east-bound rail this week, accompanied by a small but well-armed militia. Their train almost collided with a refugee train racing towards safety on the Atlantic shore. Of late, the eastward line has been co-opted by westward routes flooded with passengers of the great Exodus from Germany, Poland, and even so far away as Estonia. Non one travels east now, for that is where the sounds of madness flow from beyond the Tsar's dark curtain.

The cries of desperation are so palpable and terrifying that simply recalling them sends the hair on my forearm arching towards the ceiling. I scribble my notes in this ledger -- my final entry -- as there are no longer any numbers to add or deduct, just these words of warning. For if you are reading this, then you are surely doomed. Your see, when the Baroness arrived, she abandoned her family's millions in bank notes and gold bullion stored inside my institution's vault. Instead, her militia filled their train cars to the stack with arms, rations, and medical supplies; which are now the world's only currency.

With my institution's fiduciary responsibilities obsolete, I shall depart on the next train west. Perhaps if I run, I might even stow myself onboard Katharina's armored transport.'

-- Helmut Tenberken, Manager, Freheit Finanzierung