Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 2035

  Clark O’Neil keeps me waiting for twenty minutes as he wraps up his conversation with a businessman on the 30th floor of the Marriott Tower bar.

  When he finally walks over, I can’t help but notice the ease with which he moves in the glitzy high-rise, a man who seems entirely comfortable in this world of billion-dollar deals and towering skylines. The view outside the windows is nothing short of mesmerizing—the golden lights of Dubai glinting against the deep blue desert horizon. It’s almost surreal. And Clark, well, he fits right in.

  "Great-grandfather made a fortune during WWII by leasing his fleet to the U.S. Army for troop transport to Europe. That money funded not only my education but also my children’s. Quite the investment, if you ask me." He smiles, a half-smirk, almost as if the whole thing is too easy for him. "At the war's onset, while soldiers were enduring sleepless nights at the front, fighting off the crabs, I was in Miami with my associates, trying to figure out what to acquire. We knew the government would likely intervene heavily—or god forbid nationalize—strategic industries. Our task was to invest in defense tech startups or smaller companies, pennies on the dollar, in sectors that would either be nationalized or heavily supported."

  "We were a small firm, so buying 1% of Raytheon wasn’t feasible. The real challenge was predicting when standardization would take place. What would they prioritize? They couldn’t afford to produce twenty different pistols, so we made sure we knew the FN Five Seven would be the one chosen. You had to be five steps ahead. Would Colt be selected for the service rifle, or would it be Steyr? Countless phone calls, dinners just twenty minutes from the Pentagon, paying off escorts who cost $10,000 a night to seduce generals and ask questions afterward." He shrugs, unapologetically. "That’s where most venture capitalists got caught, though—too sloppy in their methods. Most of the time, you had to use your head. We wouldn’t need stealth bombers or exoskeletons. What the boys and girls fighting in Europe needed were A-10s, F-15s, B-1 Lancers, Bradleys and MATV's with those new 20mm cannons."

  I try to absorb what he’s saying, but it’s hard to keep up with the sheer audacity of it all. “Is that how you knew to invest in Colt?” I ask.

  “No, I’m just saying that’s what I would’ve done. It's not illegal to buy stocks. You simply visit a broker, pick a company in a highly valuable sector, and proceed from there.” His tone is casual, but there's something darker beneath it.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Clark pauses to take a sip of his drink, letting the silence stretch between us. He’s a man who thrives in the spaces between words, in the details that others miss.

  “I spent few hours every night, my face buried in a WWII economic book. That’s how I learned they’d need to reorient their factories to prioritize military production—converting civilian lines into military ones, just like they did during the war. In WWII, they even had piano factories producing parts for B-29 bombers. Did you know that?”

  "Yes, someone mentioned something similar," I answer.

  He cuts me off, his voice tightening with a trace of excitement. “Automation, robotics, 3D printing—those were our targets. They scaled production rapidly. Startups capable of quickly ramping up to produce military supplies—whether it was ammunition, armored vehicles, or medical supplies—could secure massive contracts. I’m telling you, that’s how I made half my fortune. That and timing the market. If you knew when to jump in, you could buy up shares at a fraction of their value, then sit back and watch the returns roll in."

  "Then came logistics," he continues, eyes gleaming with memories of the days when it all felt like a high-stakes game. "Shipping and trucking companies. They had to massively expand the infrastructure to support the supply chains, transportation networks, fuel storage, and defense bases."

  "They?" I ask, half-smirking.

  "They, we," he snaps, his words edged with annoyance. “Don’t be a smart ass. You know what I mean. By the time the draft came around, while people in my circle were too preoccupied trying to get their kids into the Air National Guard or the Coast Guard, I was focused on investing in support services—the things no one thought to prioritize. Cooks and kitchens for military bases that needed expansion, boots, the essentials. The real money was in the infrastructure that kept the machinery of war running smoothly, not in the glamorous stuff. People were too busy chasing shiny, high-profile investments, but I knew the real value was in the basics, the groundwork that everyone overlooked and those were sure investments."

  He pauses, eyes momentarily softening. "When the heat got too high for some of the things I’d been involved in, things I was starting to feel the weight of, I focused on that. The basics. And you know what? I actually started sleeping at night. In my own bed. At home. Can you believe that?"

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE: The interview was conducted a few days before O'Neil’s disappearance, which remains a subject of speculation. Following a sudden and mysterious reappearance, he was presented in front of a Chinese court, where the details of his and a few Chinese businessmen and colonels of the PLA's involvement in wartime investments and international maneuvering were scrutinized in a highly publicized trial.