Chapter 17

Dana said, “Err, Ward, you don’t have to do that. Cathy explained the Mission to us while we were linked.”

“Okay. Since everyone is now on the same page, does anyone have a problem with my Mission?”

Barbara said, “No, we all agreed while we were linked that the world will be a much better place if your Mission is successful, and we are all willing to help.”

“Thank you, ladies, for your vote of confidence. Frank and Jim have volunteered to help me with two parts of my Mission. Those parts are financing it and taking on the task of fixing the factors related to respecting the privacy of others, which I refer to as Task 2.

“As I explained to Frank and Jim, the Guidance Council is providing me with superior technology that I can ‘invent’ and sell on Earth, and the proceeds will be used to finance my Mission.”

Our ladies had numerous questions about the implementation of Ward’s Mission, and he answered most of them. He had to admit that he hadn’t gotten around to determining the best way to complete several parts of his Mission, so he couldn’t provide answers to all of their questions.

As the number of questions died down, Helen raised her hand to get our attention, and then said, “There is something about all of this that I just don’t understand. This morning you guys said the US Government would not approve of Ward’s Mission and would probably declare him guilty of a crime. I can’t see anything about his Mission that would be criminal, especially since it will improve our society. Why do you think the Government will respond in the way Frank and Jim described?”

Ward fielded her question by saying, “That is a good question, Helen. As Cathy told you, my Mission has four parts. The government would object to what I think of as Task 1, Service to Your Fellow Man.

“The Guidance Council’s plan for correcting the factors related to Task 1 is for me to consolidate all of the individual governments into a single federation of nations. The governments of the federation’s countries will be staffed by honest people who are interested in serving the people they represent.

“I agree that that will be a good thing for it will eliminate the corruption and greed that is currently common in all of the world’s governments. I suspect it will also put an end to the many wars that we fight amongst ourselves.

“Unfortunately, the politicians and people who work for the current governments will not want my organization and me to take over their jobs. It is a crime here in the US to support the overthrow of the US Government. If I am a citizen of the US when they learn about my intent, they will arrest me for treason, and if necessary, they will extradite me from whatever country I am living in at the time if I am still a US citizen. If they learn that the eight of you are supporting my efforts, they will probably do the same thing to you if you are still US citizens.”

Helen said, “I suppose that explains why the guys want to move our facilities, investments, and other financial affairs out of the US, and why you think we should surrender our citizenship.”

“Yes, that’s right, Helen. Although, the way we plan to structure things, there should be no visible links between my political activities and your families. However, there will be the commercial links between our businesses, and if we publicly remain friends, there will be personal ties.

“I fear that will constitute enough of a link for the US Government to take action against your families. You won’t be guilty of anything and they won’t be able to prove any guilt, but they will harass you to bring pressure to bear on me. Knowing our politicians, they may even manufacture evidence to prove you guilty of whatever trumped up charge they file against you. Perhaps it would be aiding and abetting the overthrow of the US Government. It isn’t right, and if they protect their self-interests as I think they will, their actions will prove that they need to be to be removed from their positions.”

Sara asked, “How do you see our efforts helping you?”

“That’s complicated, Sara. To start with, we need to focus on our business activities for the next few years. Once the businesses are established and stable, I see your families becoming the public face for our Task 2 effort.

“We may have to provide motivation for a reporter to invade our private lives, but knowing the media, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Considering the media, I suspect future circumstances will result in situations that the media will want to investigate. If so, there will be no need for us to fabricate a reason for them to invade our privacy.

“I see their invasion occurring in a way similar to the preacher in the story Frank told us about last night. Once they invade your privacy, I see your family taking a public stand on the media invading your personal lives, especially since their only reason is to earn money by printing the salacious details of your life together. Not that I consider your lives to be salacious, but the media will lie about your lives to gain the support of their readers and viewers.

“I will not have started my political activities, so it should be safe for me to help you with lobbying for the legislation that will create the ‘Invasion of Privacy for Profit’ laws that the Guidance Council suggested. In fact, I might be able to use my activities in supporting you to justify my future actions against the world’s governments when those activities become public knowledge.

“What I see as my main part in supporting your effort is to purchase a small newspaper in our new host country, and to turn it into an investigative paper that targets politicians, the socially elite, and celebrities. I will do that through shell companies and intermediaries in order to keep my ownership of the paper a secret.

“The newspaper will invade the personal privacy of the people it investigates and publish all of the lurid details that it can prove to be true. By then, your family will have taken control of the Task 2 efforts. What my paper will do is exactly what we are opposed to the media doing, so I think it will infuriate the people being investigated to the extent that they will support your Task 2 efforts. I think the powerful people that have not been investigated by my paper will have things to hide, and in hoping to hide their secrets, they will be motivated to support your efforts.

“Once the legislation is close to being passed, I will work through intermediaries to start destabilizing the host government. Before the legislation passes, my newspaper will publish many embarrassing stories about the political leadership.

“While you are working on the legislation, I will have the newspaper publish exposés on the public activities of the leadership that will reveal many embarrassing details about their political activities. This combined with my other activities will help to destabilize the government. While you are working on the legislation, I will work on establishing a new political party that will work to gain control of the host country’s government.

“However, before I begin my campaign to overthrow governments, I will also need to define a new governmental structure and policies that will replace the current structure and policies. I will need to create a support structure and train people to replace the dethroned government and its politicians. Starting our businesses and getting Task 2’s legislation passed will both be major undertakings. I don’t think I will be able to begin a focused effort to destabilize the government for at least fifteen years from the time I arrive in the country.

“I will also need to adjust my plans for the host country in which we will be based. We will then expand to other countries. We will need a large power base before we are able to start destabilizing the large countries and those with strong, stable governments. Did Cathy tell you that the Guidance Council expects Task 1’s portion of the Mission to take over five hundred years?”

Jim, Frank, and their wives were all stunned by that revelation. Frank said, “I knew it would take a long time to complete your Mission, but I didn’t think your timeline was that long. How long do you think it will take us to complete the privacy task?”

“That is debatable, Frank. You will need to expand your efforts to most of the countries in the world. If the world’s politicians and celebrities actively support your efforts, then I think you may complete the task within fifty to a hundred years. If support is lacking or you meet stiff opposition, most likely from the media, then it could take more than a hundred years. I think it is best to plan on Task 2 requiring over a hundred years, so we will need to create an organization that will carry on the effort after we are gone.

“There will always be people who think that it is okay to invade someone’s privacy because their actions will be good for the majority. So I believe that once the basic goal has been achieved, the organization will need to reinforce people’s beliefs that invading an individual’s privacy is wrong, regardless of the reason given for invading their privacy.”

Barbara weighed in again with, “It sounds as if we will be international celebrities by the time we get the new businesses organized and start lobbying worldwide for the privacy legislation. It seems as if we will become a target for the media and for all sorts of kooks. What do you think, Frank, will it be worth it if this is true?”

“Jim and I have talked with Ward about his overall plan. That is why it took us so long to come to a decision to help him. If getting the legislation passed was the only thing he wanted to do, then I would say it wasn’t worth the hassle and risks we would be incurring.

“In Ward’s overall plan, this legislation is integral to his success in the other parts of the plan. For example, the controversy we create in some of the countries will be an important step in Ward’s plans to destabilize governments. The contacts he makes in helping us to get the legislation passed will also help him in the other two tasks. Therefore, if we take into consideration that our efforts will lay the foundation for his completion of the other tasks, then yes, I do think it will be worth the hassle and risks. What do you think, Jim?”

“I agree with you, Frank. There are several politicians and celebrities that I would like to see go down in flames. In some cases, I don’t like their positions and actions. In other cases, I don’t like their personalities or their public positions. Unfortunately, I suspect they will be long gone by the time Ward and his organization is in a position to take them down. However, they will be replaced by similar people who are likely to be close duplicates of the current people.

“On second thought, he might have his newspaper invade the privacy of the politicians and celebrities I don’t like to help us with our Task 2 activities. Besides, if we handle this right, we may get copycat organizations in other countries that will reinforce our efforts. We may eventually enlist them as part of our effort.”

I had been watching Sara. She had a puzzled look on her face, and she finally asked, “I’ve heard several comments about an organization. Do you have one now, and how do we fit into it?”

“I suppose you could say our three families are the only members of my organization at this time. For the past years, my family has been laying the groundwork necessary for beginning the Mission’s activities and recruiting additional members. Your two families are our first recruits.

“I created an organizational chart showing my perception of our organization.”

I distributed printed copies of my chart to everyone, so we could discuss the organization.

“Currently, the Inner Council is a small two-part organization, Sara. One group provides the planning and coordination of the Mission’s activities, and the second group executes the plan’s activities. We can discuss details of the structure later, but there is an Inner Council, which I think of as four Task Cells and a Mission Control Cell. One of the Task Cells will control Task 2’s efforts. If I recall correctly, Mary is currently penciled in as Task Cell 2’s leader. However, I plan to transfer control of the Task Cell to your family. Whomever you select to be your leader will be a member of the Mission Control Cell.

“During the coming years, we will recruit many people. Some of our recruits will be part of the Inner Council and the rest will be part of the Task Cells and their Action Groups. Keep in mind we don’t plan on starting Task 3 and Task 4 in the near future.

“Due to the length of time to complete the Mission, we will eventually need someone to replace us. The optimum replacements for the Inner Council will be our children. The Guidance Council wants me to gather a harem and impregnate them so I have a very large family.

“I prefer to have multiple wives than harem members. Currently, my wives are the members of my Inner Council. We will raise our kids and train them to become future members of the Inner Council. My wives are working at finding me more women to increase the size of my family. We agreed that the Inner Council should only grow when we need additional people to support our activities. This has limited my wives’ effort at finding us new wives. There is also an Action Group for each Task Cell that will be guided in their activities by the Task Cell members: currently, the four Action Groups have no members.

“As I said earlier, I have divided my Inner Council into a two-level organization. My wives and I will be the main members of the Mission Control Cell, and the group will control the four Task Cells. There will be one Task Cell for each of my four tasks. My current intent is for the eight of you to be my Task 2 Cell’s members and your Task Leader will be part of my Mission Control Cell.

“As we increase our Mission activities, I expect the Task 2 Cell will add members to their Action Group, which is likely to grow in size to several thousand people in the bigger countries. Hopefully, my kids will be old enough to assist me as Inner Council members by the time the organization gets to be that large. Otherwise, the organization will be too large for me to handle. Right now, my three women are enough for me. I hope my family size remains less than ten wives, but Cathy is talking about me having more than twenty women.”

Jim jokingly said, “Don’t look at us like that, Ward. We’ll help you with your Mission, but your harem is all yours to care for and satisfy.”

After a few laughs, Helen stood up and said, “Please excuse Michelle and me. It’s getting late for the kids, so we need to see that they have their baths and get tucked into bed.”

Ward looked at his watch, and said, “You’re right it is getting late. We covered a lot this evening. We have things going on at home in Santa Monica that need our attention. I suggest we plan on another meeting soon. By then, we should have a better idea of the country we need to move to and the city we will use as our base of operations.

“Jim, I will talk with you and Frank tomorrow. I would like for you and your wives to determine the best country and city for us to use as our base of operations. I will give you a packet of information tonight that contains my criteria for selecting where we will set up our base of operations.”

“Let’s plan on meeting at my home on Friday of next week, bring your children. We can turn your kids loose with mine and let them get to know each other.”

I think Ward ended our meeting, because he wanted all of Frank’s and my wives involved in the discussion with him and his wives. Before he left, he gave me the packet of information that he had planned on discussing tonight. He told me that Frank, I, and our wives should review the search criteria for locating a new home, and he would call us tomorrow afternoon to discuss the search for a place where we could set up a base of operation. Ward and his wives said goodnight and left for home. Although, I did hear Mary say something about dancing, as they were leaving.

Once they were gone, Frank and my wives took us to bed to apologize for our frosty evening yesterday. As I was drifting off to sleep, I overheard a comment. It was something about Cathy telling our wives that they needed to get pregnant and have as many kids as possible. I was asleep before I heard the rest of the comment.

The next morning, Frank, Barbara, Dana, Sara, Helen, Sandy, and I went through the packet of information Ward left with us; while Michelle watched our children.

We identified Ward’s criteria and used them to define a database that we could use for selecting a country as the best location for our new businesses. At least half of us would be too busy managing our business activities to conduct the search. We decided that I would be in charge of the effort to find us a new home. But when I was too busy with other things, Sara would be in charge of the effort. Sara decided we should enlist the aid of Sandy and Helen to assist us.

I had to be in the office today to start turning my tasks over to Frank. I also had to provide Sandy and Helen with guidance while Sara finished turning her tasks over to Norma. Once we had completed the transfer of our current tasks, we would work at home. Helen had an arrangement with our neighbor to watch our younger children, when she had to join us in the office during the day. So our neighbor would be babysitting our younger children, as needed, for the next week; so Helen could be in the office with us.

Sara, Sandy, and I carpooled to work, while Helen followed us in her car. Helen would help us for as long as she could, and then she would return home to be there when the kids started coming home from school. Sandy and Helen normally worked at the office using laptops connected to the company intranet; so they set their laptops up on a worktable in my office.

While I started Sandy and Helen on a search for a suitable country to move our operations to, Sara went to her assistant Norma’s office to transfer her duties to Norma. Frank was busy, so I stayed in my office.

While Sara was busy with Norma, I said, “Helen, create an Excel spreadsheet that lists all of the countries in the world. Sandy, we are only interested in countries where English is the primary language, so I want you to research the dominant language in each of the countries. We only want to consider those where English is the primary language used in the country and its government. I’ll make a prioritized list of the characteristics we need in a host country.”

I was adding a few criteria to Ward’s list of criteria. The revised list of characteristics to be considered included English speaking population and government, stable government and economy, educated work force, and a culture similar to that of the United States without the problems the US had with crime, race, etc.

I had finished my list when Sandy said, “Hey, guys, come look at this. I did a search on the Internet and found a chart listing sixty English-speaking countries. Actually, it’s fifty nine when we delete the United States. The list includes each country’s general region and population.”

Helen and I took a look at Sandy’s list. I complimented her by saying, “Good job, Sandy. This saves us a lot of work.”

Helen made a suggestion, “Jim, it seems to me that we will need a country with a fair-sized work force, and I don’t think we should live in a country that is socially unstable. Many of the countries on this list seem to have a great deal of social unrest.”

Sandy said, “Let’s add Jim’s list of criteria as spreadsheet headings and rate each country by population size and our impressions of social stability. That should eliminate a lot of the countries.”

Since Sandy was thinking along the same line as I was, I said, “I think that is a great idea, and we also need to look at the crime rates. Can you please download the list and turn it into a spreadsheet. The add column headings of Country, Population, Size, Culture, Government, Crime, and Acceptable to your spreadsheet. Then sort the list by population.”

While Sandy was doing that, I said, “Ward, Frank, and I talked about the size of the country. We feel there should be enough people to provide an adequate work force and still be small enough that we would be able to influence the government. We also feel that a stable society, a sound but unpopular government, and low crime rate would be desirable.

Sandy asked, “Why do you want me to add Population and Size? Aren’t they the same thing?”

“No, not really. Population is the number of people and Size is the number of square miles or kilometers.

“We decided there should be at least one million people in the country, but less than ten million people. So for those countries with a population between one and ten million people, enter a ‘Yes’ in the Population column. For the rest, enter ‘No’, and then sort the countries using the Population column as our sort criteria. For those having ‘No’ in the Population column, add ‘NO’ to the Acceptable column.”

Once Sandy sorted the list by the Population criteria, the number of acceptable countries had dropped from fifty nine to seventeen. We went through the seventeen countries evaluating them for Social Stability, Culture, and Government adding ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ as appropriate. We sorted the list using our four criteria, and we ended up with a list of three countries. Sandy changed ‘Yes’ to ‘No’ for the appropriate countries in the Acceptable column. When we evaluated those three countries based on Crime Rate, the only acceptable country was New Zealand.

“Sandy, after lunch please print fifteen copies of the spreadsheet, so we can discuss it with everyone when Ward and his wives come by tonight. It would probably be a good idea for us to print out copies of Wikipedia’s description of New Zealand also.

“I think we’ve done enough work for this morning. I’m in the mood for Chinese food. Would anyone like to go to lunch with me?”

I knew that it was a rhetorical question, since they both loved Chinese food, so I called Sara and Norma to see if they wanted to join us and they did. I told Sara that we would meet them at Feng’s Place, which is where we always went for Chinese. Helen followed us, since she would be heading home after lunch.

When we were seated at Feng’s, I asked Norma, “Our favorite is the Special Combination Lunch #2, do you have any food preferences?”

“No, I like most Chinese dishes.”

I ordered the #2 lunch for five people. This gave us Feng’s Beef, Feng’s Special Chow Mein, Parchment Wrapped Chicken, Wor Wonton Soup, Cashew Nut Chicken, Sweet & Sour Pork, Spicy Minced Pork with Long Beans, Steamed Rice, and Oolong Tea. The price per person was a little on the high side, but the food was plentiful and delicious. While we waited for our food, we talked about the new corporation.

Sara said, “Jim, Norma was asking me about the products we will be making once we get established. I was so shocked at the announcement the other night that I forgot to ask what Ward is designing.”