Chapter 7

After our morning breakfast club meeting, we met with our contract lawyer, Shane Bolden. Shane pointed out a couple of minor ambiguities in the contract Johnson and Tailor Construction’s lawyer had prepared. The ambiguities did not seem significant to me and I was considering just signing the contract.

Shane said, “I am aware of minor ambiguities that resulted in major fiscal judgments against both plaintiffs and defendants. My belief is that the entire contract should be stated in clear precise language, so both parties to the contract understand their obligations before they sign the contract.”

Alicia asked, “How long will it take to fix the contract?”

Shane passed a thumb drive to Alicia and said, “The thumb drive contains my edited copy of the contract with the edits marked. If J and T’s lawyer agrees with my wording, then all he has to do is accept my edits and reprint the contract. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to do that. The only holdup will be if their lawyer disputes my wording.”

Alicia said, “We will pass your changes back to Edgar. If these are the only changes his lawyer makes, we will sign the revised contract.

“Thank you for your quick turnaround, Shane. We will be sure to run the final contract through you to ensure nothing else was changed in the process of accepting your edits. We have several issues coming up that may have a legal aspect that we will need you to review. We aren’t at the point where we can define the issues, but we will be in contact with you in the coming months.”

After Shane left, Alicia contacted Edgar about the changes. We dropped the thumb drive off to him and he would give it to his lawyer. We received a printout of the final contract from the lawyer. After Shane reviewed it, we signed the contract and gave it to Edgar. He signed the contract and gave us a copy.

We talked with Shane about handling the legal aspects of our buying and leasing real estate. He told us that he was willing to do so if we insisted, but he didn’t have the knowledge and experience in legal aspects of buying and managing commercial properties. He recommended that we contact Missus Naomi Molinari. We did so and hired her to represent us in all aspects of managing our real estate properties. We also learned that her husband, Cotton Molinari, was her business partner and the firm’s lawyer. We hired him to handle the legal aspects of us setting up our businesses.

The inheritance affected several of our planned personal, business, and meeting activities. After we had dropped off the thumb drive with Shane’s edits at Edgar’s office, we started revising the affected activities. We also had to create a few new activities and to revise our schedule. Those efforts took the remainder of the day to complete. We deferred the decision about which businesses and properties to sell until after the second meeting.

While we had been in Chicago, Madge and Phyllis had created a Project schedule for all of our personal activities. Since the meeting took precedence, they had linked our personal schedule to the meeting schedule. That allowed us see how the meeting would affect our personal efforts. It also meant that since none of the meeting tasks were dependent on our personal tasks, we didn’t have to explain why one of its tasks was delayed.

The next day, we signed the contract with J and T Construction, and then we returned home and started to look for a company to manage my new businesses and a property manager for the real estate I inherited. We wanted someone local and agreed that for this purpose downtown Seattle would be local; even if it wasn’t as local as we would prefer. We would, of course, have Shane review the management agreements before we signed them.

I wanted a single business to manage all of the businesses I inherited. We didn’t have a problem with the management company dividing the workload among its employees, but we did want a single company to be responsible for the overall management.

We considered having the same business management company manage the companies we would create, but we decided to manage those companies ourselves. If doing so became too big an effort, we could always have them take over the management of one or more of the businesses. It took us several weeks to make the decision of who to use.

Madge was familiar with the reputations of most of the nationwide property management companies. During the next two weeks, we interviewed several companies that had an affiliate in Seattle. We decided to go with her recommendation. I signed a two-year agreement to use them as my property management agency for all of the properties that I received from the inheritance. It seemed like a good deal to me for the management company had affiliates within a hundred miles of my properties.

There was discussion about whether we should have the property manager, the business manager, or us be responsible for managing the local properties we were buying as Minnus Enterprises. A good case could be made for any of the three options. We finally decided to use the property management company. It seemed to us that they would probably be more in tune with leasing our real estate and monitoring the activities of our tenants. There was one exception. We decided to have the business management company manage the properties on which we would locate the dairy, chicken, and hog farms.

Madge had been correct when she told us we were in the lull before the storm. During the three months following our return from The Seeker, we were very busy.

Once we found our business management company, the first thing we did was to find someone to coordinate the meeting effort and our future business activities, her name was Danielle (Dani) Paladino. Dani realized the job was too big for one person, so she hired a former coworker, Kiara O’Rourke, to assist her. Both ladies were married. Kiara and her husband had three kids at home; Danielle and her husband had two grandkids and two on the way. The future grandkids weren’t due until well after the projected end of our second meeting.

For all intents and purposes, we were ready for the second meeting a week before the meeting was scheduled to start.

J and T Construction had leveled the locations for the two meeting tents and the area the field kitchen personnel would use. We received the meeting tents’ components five days early, and Alibaba’s representatives had the two tents set up on schedule. J and T completed the construction of the walkways between our house, the meeting and the field kitchen tents, the army and Altairian bivouac areas, and the guard post our visitors would use to enter our property. They had also constructed a guard shack at the entrance to our property and a small parking lot for our personal vehicles. Adjacent to our parking lot was an area for the army buses to load and unload their passengers and to wait for a bus that was loading passengers to leave. I did learn two important things while watching the construction crew work. Non-skid paint was nothing more than regular paint with some sand mixed into it. The paint had to be rolled on with a roller because the sand would damage a paint sprayer.

The army’s field kitchen and support staff had arrived, and set up a tent for their kitchen equipment, a very large dining tent, tents for their supplies, and tents in which to live.

The podium, tables, chairs, heaters, cameras and video monitors, projection equipment, sound system, standby generator, and other equipment had been delivered, installed in the tents, and verified as operational.

The only things left to do were the mess sergeant ordering the perishable foods and Plim Sanitary Equipment completing the installation of the porta potties. Everything was due to be completed by Saturday.

I almost forgot. A week after we had eaten dinner at Denny’s, Katie, her boyfriend, and two daughters were given their tour of and ride in an Altairian shuttle. The Upchuck Kits were worn, but not needed.

During this time, we started a couple of businesses.

We created an acronym using the initials of our first names for our first business, JAMP Enterprises, LLC. We had decided JAMP Enterprises should own all our assets to include all of the stock and businesses I had inherited.

JAMP wasn’t fully organized until after the second meeting ended. We were surprised when Shane told us that we wouldn’t incorporate our LLC. He explained that most people referred to setting up an LLC as incorporating it, but technically, the term incorporate only applied to a corporation. He said the correct term for setting up an LLC was organize. Cotton liked to be accurate in everything he did.

JAMP Enterprises would be our parent company and it would own all of the subsidiary companies we created. We decided to wait until after the second meeting to transfer of ownership of the companies I inherited to JAMP. Before doing that, we would have to determine if and how the transfer would affect management of the businesses by our business management company. If I only held stock in a company, then we would transfer ownership of the stock to JAMP. We did discuss creating an investment company to be the owner of the businesses and stock, but decided to wait until we started receiving revenue from leasing our properties. Until then, JAMP Enterprises would own those assets.

The first subsidiary we created was Minnus Enterprises, LLC, Ltd. We had to wait until the organization of JAMP Enterprises and Minnus Enterprises, LLC was complete before transferring ownership of Minnus Enterprises, LLC to JAMP Enterprises. Our lawyer, Cotton Molinari, told us Minnus Enterprises, LLC’s structure and purpose was less complex than JAMP Enterprises, so he could complete its organization rather quickly. Once Minnus Enterprises, LLC was fully organized, we could begin transferring ownership of all the local real estate that we had purchased for leasing as embassies to Minnus Enterprises, LLC.

Cotton had advised us to do things that way for legal and tax purposes. He told us that he was setting up JAMP Enterprises in a way that would protect it from any personal lawsuit that might be filed against us. He also explained that the subsidiaries would be operated autonomously by their respective management, which would operate according to our written guidelines and direction. If a subsidiary’s management failed to comply with our written guidelines and direction and if a lawsuit was filed against the subsidiary because of their mismanagement, the damages to JAMP Enterprises and its subsidiaries would be limited.

His wife, Naomi Molinari, became the President of Minnus Enterprises, LLC. She would negotiate the leases for all of our properties, and would oversee the use of the properties.

Our business activities were getting more complex in the process of us trying to simplify our personal effort in the activities we had to complete. In the long run, it should be worth it for we knew we wouldn’t be able to manage everything by ourselves. The four of us seemed to find it difficult to let others act on our behalf, but we would just have to get comfortable with doing that.

The first problem Minnus Enterprises, LLC had was with the addresses of the properties we bought. Several of the properties significantly exceeded ten acres. We believed ten acres to be more than adequate for an embassy, so any property larger than twenty acres was subdivided into two or more lots. For the county and tax purposes, the lots were a single piece of property. However, the post office required unique property addresses. The Post Office agreed with Naomi’s idea of labeling each of the subdivided lots as a Suite. Adding Suite A (or B, C, etc.) to the street address solved the problem.

President Betty Kelt had played her cards well.

When she returned to Washington, she had initiated a bill to fund the remodel of the mess halls on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and pushed it through Congress in two weeks. That was unbelievably fast. I think she let the key members of Congress know why the alliance agreement was so critical and that the base would be needed to house the delegations. If she did tell them, it was the best-kept secret in Washington D.C. The only way I could see them keeping their mouths shut was if Betty had scared them so much that keeping their mouths shut was their only viable option. Betty had demonstrated over her career that she could be a hard bitch when necessary. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if she promised to have any Congressman who spoke when they should have kept their mouth shut kidnapped, killed, and their body disposed of in a way that they would never be found.

Once Congress approved the emergency spending bill, and a remodeling contract was announced. The winner of the contract immediately started the remodel work on the first mess hall to be remodeled. The remodel was proceeding quickly, until eight weeks before the meeting was to begin.

At that time, Betty announced that she had learned of a viral infection in all three of the mess halls. The remodeling effort would be delayed until the base’s health experts had isolated the type of viral infection and developed a plan of action for eradicating the virus. In the process of eradicating the virus, mold was discovered in the structural members of the mess halls. The bases health experts identified the mold, and informed the base commander that the mold was a serious health hazzard and due to the extent of the contamination the mess halls had to be demolished.

That resolved the problem the delegates wanting to eat at the mess halls during the second meeting. Betty estimated that by the time Congress got around to funding money for construction of three new mess halls, a contract was in place, and construction began, the third meeting would be in progress.

We heard it was a decision helped along by Betty explaining to the health experts what would happen to them if the remodeling was completed before the second meeting ended. At least that is what Mary told us for none of them ever mentioned that conversation publically.

Paul mentioned that all of the base personnel who were required to eat in those mess halls were given the option of eating in field kitchens or receiving a separate rations payment that covered the additional cost of eating on the local economy. He also told me the staff that operated those mess halls would be used to support the delegates’ field kitchens on the base and the one here at the farm. When I stopped to think about the number of people who would be eating in the field kitchens, the decisions made sense.

Six weeks before the meeting began, Betty Kelt sent out a message to all of the nations that had been invited to attend the meeting. The message informed the leaders of the countries that two things had just been brought to her attention.

First, the FBI had sent her a report to inform her that radical groups known to use violent tactics had been located in the Seattle area. Delegates that made reservations in the local hotels needed to be made aware of the potential of them and their staff being attacked by these radical elements.

Second, she had been informed that currently there was very little local hotel and motel lodging available during the time frame of the meeting. Delegates who had not already made arrangements for local lodging may not find lodging available when they arrived.

She told them that the US Government was arranging for temporary field lodging on Joint Base Lewis-McChord for any delegates that did not want to live in the local lodging or could not locate lodging.

She later told them a field kitchen would be made available on the base to the members of all delegations, since the base’s dining facilities were closed due to a health issue. She told them that there was limited parking on the base and at the meeting location, transportation between the base and the meeting location would be provided by the US Government. The arrangements would be made available to the delegations at no charge to the delegates or their staff.

The day Betty sent the messages, she ordered the army to set up a tent city at the base, set up a field kitchen to feed the delegations, and to provide a shuttle service between the base and our farm. Time was limited for the army to accomplish these three tasks, but they completed the tasks two days before their deadline date.

On the Friday afternoon before the meeting, the first delegations started arriving at SeaTac airport. Only a few of them had local lodging, and the rest were met by buses from the base. Those without lodging were transported to the base and assigned to tents in the temporary field lodging, and the location of the field kitchen was pointed out. They were told that on Monday morning they could catch a bus to the meeting in the parking lot across the street where they had been dropped off, the last bus to the meeting location would depart at six-thirty in the morning, and the field kitchen opened for breakfast at four-thirty in the morning, Monday through Friday and at six on Saturday and Sunday.

By noon Sunday, eighty-six percent of the delegations had contacted us, as Betty’s instructions requested them to do, to let us know that they were in the area and would be at the meeting Monday morning. We assumed the remaining fourteen percent had either: not called, hadn’t arrived, or wouldn’t be attending the meeting. We did get a few additional phone calls that evening, which we let go to voice mail.

After lunch, Dani and Kiara used their checklists to ensure that we and the tents were ready for the delegates to arrive at eight tomorrow morning. Since we hired them, they had identified all the tasks that needed to done before the meeting started and organized the completion of the tasks. With the two of them coordinating everything, the preparations went very smoothly.

There was nothing more for us to do, so we met with Dani and Kiara to discuss them helping us to organize our personal business activities. We informed them that while they assisted us with that, they would have to also assist us with preparing for the third meeting. We told them we expected a one-year delay before the third meeting started and that meeting would probably take two years to complete. We also told them their jobs were secure for we would need assistants after the third meeting ended to help us with our personal business activities. I think they were very happy knowing that their jobs were secure. We were comfortable with telling them their jobs were secure for Mary had told us they would be with us until they retired.

Mary had already made it known to us that when the Altairian Embassy opened, she would be placed in charge of the embassy. Since Earth wasn’t accustomed to dealing with a Zldat, as her bearer I would be given the title of Ambassador. My ladies would each be given the title of Vice Ambassador. We would share the duties of Ambassador with me having the right to veto any decisions my ladies made or directions they gave, and Mary could overrule all of us. I may not be very smart, but I’m smart enough to know not to go against any decision my three ladies made. Perhaps that is my survival instinct kicking in.

We decided to wait until the embassy was closer to being ready to open to let Dani and Kiara know that one of them would continue working for us supporting our business activities and the other would be tasked with coordinating all embassy activities. They didn’t know it, yet, but they had work as long as they continued to perform in an acceptable fashion, and Mary’s comment indicated they would.

I learned that there would be occasions when Mary would have to travel to other planets and I would go with her as her bearer and the Empire’s Ambassador to Earth. At least one of my Co-Ambassadors would go with me and so would either Dani or Kiara. We would probably have them go on alternating trips. A position that provided me with all-expenses-paid travel to other planets seemed like the ideal job; I couldn’t envision a better job for someone who liked to see new places and have interesting and pleasurable experiences.

Mother Nature and our planning would make the weather miserable for the delegations, if the weatherman’s predictions were accurate. Their misery would be exaberated by our tent, since it was intended for summer weather. Monday was in the last week of October and the weatherman was predicting at least two inches of rain during the coming week and up to four inches in the following week.

Winter was starting and snow was a possibility. The high temperature during the day might get up to fifty-five degrees (thirteen degrees Celsius) and the low could be down to forty degrees (four degrees Celsius), at our elevation. The best part was the third meeting was tentatively scheduled to start at this time of the year and it would probably last up to two years, so the weather conditions would probably be worse during the winter months and hot during the summer months.

I wanted the delegates to be uncomfortable in order to shorten the duration of the meetings. However, I also felt that there should be reasonable limits to the conditions the delegates had to endure. My wives and I needed to reevaluate how far we had gone in creating an uncomfortable environment for the delegates. A heater and insulating the tent’s sidewalls would improve conditions to tolerable without making the delegates comfortable.

The breakfast club showed up for dinner Sunday evening. There was a great deal of tension and excitement in the room. I asked Mike if his Sergeant at Arms and his helpers were ready. He said they were and he had reminded them that their goal was to keep the peace among the delegations without busting heads open, breaking bones, or inflicting contusions and bruises. There had been discussion as to the proper attire for the Sergeant at Arms and helpers. Altairian armor seemed like overkill, but it did provide the option of subduing a person without injury by stunning them without seriously injuring them. Since we Facilitators were in charge of the meeting, we decided to split the Sergeant at Arms’ helpers into two groups. Most of the helpers would be in the army’s utility uniforms and no weapons; four would be in Altairian armor with weapons and would only respond to instances that seemed to the Sergeant at Arms as potentially violent. We Facilitators hoped that any disagreements would be limited to verbal confrontations. If that provided to not be the case, we would support the Sergeant at Arms’ use of Altairian armor to include stunning the delegates causing the disturbance.

Before going to bed, we checked the road along our property line. There were four news media trucks parked on the edge of the road, and they weren’t blocking traffic flow.

My ladies and I went to bed early. We did so even though we thought we would be too wound up to immediately go to sleep. Surprisingly, we all immediately fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up until five-thirty. I suspect Mary had something to do with that.

DAY 1:

Today was the big day. The first day of the first of two meetings that would most likely lead to an agreement between Earth and the Empire. Who besides the delegates was I trying to fool? Mary’s experience in the Time Continium assured us that an agreement would be approved. All we had to do was survive the next three or four years.

The breakfast club met for breakfast to discuss the last-minute status of what was and would be happening. As expected, we were all nervous and excited because the day we had all worked toward was finally here.

Alicia had invited the Sheriff of Snohomish County, Orion Healy, to join us for breakfast. We had met with him earlier in the month to make arrangements for Sheriff’s deputies to control traffic. We had arranged with the county to lease a couple of their patrol cars and we were paying several of their off-duty deputies to use them to patrol Lowell-Snohomish River Road and prevent people from using it as a parking lot. We felt that he should be here to supervise his deputies this morning; after that, things should run smoothly.

We had bought the land across the road from us, but the rain we had been having made it totally unsuitable for use as a parking lot, not that we would have used it as such if it hadn’t rained. Between now and the third meeting, we would begin construction of the shuttle landing area, which would include a road and parking lot on the back third of the land. However, we hadn’t decided if the parking lot would be open for public parking during the third meeting.

We had paved a small portion of the farm near our house to park our personal vehicles and to allow for the army buses to load and unload the diplomats. The Sheriff’s deputies had also been given permission to park their cruisers there, but that area wasn’t large enough to be used for parking more than a dozen vehicles.

I said, “Sheriff Healy, I noticed the media had four news trucks parked out front last night, and this morning there were a large number of vehicles parked on both sides of the road. Have they been causing a problem with through traffic?”

“Not so far, Jeb. There was more than enough space for two-way traffic when I arrived this morning. I know that was a concern of yours, so I talked with my deputies about that after I arrived. They are going to keep an eye on the situation. Any vehicle that parks on the road will be ticketed and towed. I made a couple of our local tow truck drivers aware of that, and I noticed them parked off the road about a quarter-mile from here. If it becomes a problem, I’ll have the county install no parking signs along the road, until all of your meetings are over.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. Are your deputies aware that food and drinks from the field kitchen are part of our deal?’

“Yes, I briefed them on that perk, and the deputies told me the food is as good as they get at our local eateries.”

“Mike, what’s the status of our security patrols?”

“I briefed this morning’s shift to make sure they would be especially vigilant for unauthorized people in our restricted areas. We will be keeping a close lookout for any media reps that just happen to accidentally stray into those areas.”

“Good. Any problems with issuing the area passes for the media?”

“Not so far. The two camera crews set up their camera in the delegate tent and routed their cables to the media tent and to the broadcast trucks. Almost all of the reporters with authorized entry have shown up and are in the media tent. So far, things look good, and hopefully, none of them will deviate from the instructions we gave them.”

“Paul, you and Aaron will be sitting with Simon, Mark, and the rest of their delegation to answer any cultural or social questions that may arise. Is everything ready on your end?”

“Yes. All Aaron and I have to do is change into our dress uniforms and we will be ready.”

“Simon, has the delegation from Altair that Ship Commander Shimlt mentioned arrived?”

“Not yet, Jeb.”

“Is that going to cause a problem?”

“No, we are authorized to represent the Empire and they will only be observing what happens in the meeting. If we have a problem, we can always contact Ship Commander Shimlt. I personally don’t think the delegation will come for it is only a meeting to determine if there will be a meeting to negotiate an agreement.”

I looked to Alicia, Madge, Phyllis, Dani, and Kiara and said, “Ladies, have I forgotten anything?”

Dani said, “No. you covered everything we talked about.”

“All right, does anyone have anything else to add?”

As I looked around the table meeting everyone’s eyes, all I got was negative head shakes. “Then, I suppose we should all change clothes and get ready to start the meeting. We are scheduled to start at nine, so let’s meet back here at eight forty-five.”

We all stacked our dishes in the sink, and then Alicia, Madge, Phyllis, and I headed upstairs to change clothes, Dani and Kiara headed to the downstairs bathroom to change, and everyone else left to go to their tent or shuttle. Once Dani and Kiara had changed clothes, they left to go to the meeting tent.

I should mention that Paul had arranged for our security force’s normal tents to be replaced by large heated military cabin tents designed for subzero use. Each tent had an insulated wooden floor and was partitioned into two-man rooms by canvas curtains. Each room was set up for two people to include a standard military bunk bed, two wall lockers, a table, and two chairs. Any additional furniture was to be provided by the tent’s occupants.

The buses had started arriving and unloading while we had been eating. The Sergeant at Arms and his helpers were seating the delegations at tables in the tent. There were no assigned tables, so they started by guiding the delegations to tables at the front of the delegate area and worked to the rear of the tent. The delegates were informed that they should note the location of their tables for they were to use the same tables for the rest of the meeting.

It was eight forty-five and we were ready to head for the delegate’s tent.

I said, “Simon, it’s time for you to get your delegation to your tables.” Everyone left leaving me and my ladies at the house. We would follow them in five minutes.