Chapter 321: Obtaining Our Next Home

Sunday, October 1 to Sunday, December 31, 2006

The Democrats were having so much fun seeing the massive trouble that Majestic Countdown was causing the Republicans that they didn't want the scandal-creating leaks to stop. The Federal Government's paying us $36.8 billion required an appropriations bill this time, giving the Democrats an easy opportunity to derail the settlement process. [[The previous $18.4 billion had been paid out of spare money the Government had lying around! It came from the CIA's black accounts. Public estimates of the CIA's annual budget range from $15 to $1,200 billion. They paid our $18.4 billion out of spare cash, so I suspect the $15 billion estimate was on the light side. The CIA didn't have another $36.8 billion spare though.]]

The Democrats blocking the appropriation for our payment was publicly discussed, so it was reasonable for Majestic Countdown to hear about it. In response, he switched to leaking Democrat scandals. I'd discovered many of those but hadn't sent them because I was concentrating on the other assholes, so I revisited my previous discoveries and emailed them this time. (The venality of politicians apparently has little to do with their political affiliation; being in power only increases their opportunities for venality and the price tag they affix to it.)

Swapping to the Democrats came at a good time, because it was getting harder to find dirt on the Republicans. I imagined that they were SCREAMING at each other and their lawyers to clean up their computer files. I'd started sending faxes increasingly often because most of the juicy computer files had been deleted. I'd even had to spend a day wandering around DC memorizing people's passwords and encryption keys, usually obtained by logging them out of their computers when they were away from their desks and watching them log back in on their return. File encryption was being widely adopted, although the initial enthusiasm for it diminished when Majestic Countdown somehow proved capable of decrypting protected files.

The Democrats had been a little slow about protecting their files, but they got the idea VERY quickly when Majestic Countdown proved to be an equal opportunity leaker. Their easily accessible dirt rapidly reduced, but not as fast as their obstruction to the settlement process, which evaporated the morning my first seven Democrat leaks were sent.

On the topic of snooping, just days before the attack on our home President Bush had publicly called for a significant law change that permitted the use of military force within the US against civilians in the event of "serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition ... the President determines" [to quote from the proposed bill].

Some very unusual reporters were able to remember what the President had said a few days earlier, and they grilled him on how he could possibly call for a law permitting military attacks against American civilians when what had happened to the Andersons so clearly showed what a disaster such a step could lead to.

The President, like all politicians do when they are cornered, just answered with some empty, meaningless crap. Soon after, his bill was passed into law. The President now had the power to order to military to attack us, provided he deemed us to be an "or other condition" (I'd write "whatever the fuck that meant," except it clearly meant whatever the President wanted it to mean). Nixon hadn't got away with bugging his opponents, but Bush was now legally entitled to get our armed forces to attack with deadly force anyone he wanted them to, his only restraint being public opinion after the event. It wasn't a happy situation.

Despite the Government's quiet legal maneuverings, the attack on our home had been in breach of our first settlement agreement, thus entitling us to rejoin the Government to our lawsuit. The implementation of the second settlement was reasonably straightforward (we had practiced), but a few things are worth mentioning:

Various homeowners around us, our security guards, the emergency service guys, and the two Rangers who'd intelligently decided to point their guns at the CIA agents rather than us, all got their payments immediately, and thought we were wonderful people.

As did Benton County, although the county residents had to wait an extra couple of weeks. Their $2 billion payment required a referendum which had to be planned and then carried out. It was worth about $30,000 per adult, so there were a lot of vested interests. For example, many property owners thought it should've been kept on a property ownership basis, as they would've gotten an average of $67,000. The voter participation rate for the referendum shattered the previous record, making it the highest in Benton County local government history.

Amusingly, church attendance rose appreciably too. This was particularly amusing because Benton County has the lowest church attendance rate (25%) of all the counties in America. I'm not sure why attendance rose leading up to the referendum, but religious people are by definition irrational, so who can guess what they're 'thinking'.

[[I was curious about this so I just researched it, finding out that although religious people may be irrational, the church bosses can be very rational indeed. Attendance hadn't risen. That false impression had been created by several articles in the local papers about Benton county and surrounding churches talking about their rapidly increasing attendances. The claims/lies had been made by those churches as part of their just-launched recruitment drives in an attempt to portray themselves as popular and thriving, and therefore a good choice for any potential new members. It was done with an eye to all the spare cash members would shortly have. Some church leaders are very 'astute' - if that's the right word.]]

Unsurprisingly, the payout method that won the day was essentially "per person aged 18 years and over living in Benton County", which could've been a nightmare as every man and his very old dog would've claimed to be a Benton County resident. The councilors were smart enough that they worded the option that everyone voted for more specifically than just "Benton County resident". They included qualification criteria that the claimant had to provide. Naturally there were some court cases over it, but they were simple.

Every adult getting $30,000 was a wonderful boost to the local economy. High-quality restaurants, for example, were booked out weeks in advance. People had to drive into neighboring counties to spend their money because the local businesses were swamped.

Each of us got our $250 million immediately too, but it just got banked. Not even Julia had made a dent in the first $125 million payment yet, so the second payment made no practical difference. I got a very nice roast chicken dinner out of it though, so I was happy.

My $250 million bonus inspired the Fishers to try again. If the 75th Rangers and Delta Force hadn't been able to bust their way in, the Fishers didn't have much chance. Our guards and the cops were providing EXCELLENT service these days. I subsequently took out a restraining order against the Fishers to further discourage them and to make it even easier to remove them if they came anywhere near me again.

Tempting as it was, we couldn't treat Dad's family the same way. Several members of his family were appearing far more often than they used to before we were rich, especially his parents. Funny how being "successful" is so closely related to being popular. There weren't many advantages to being Ron rather than Mark, but one of them was being able to avoid socializing with Dad's family. In an amusing symmetry, the other main advantage was being able to socialize very closely indeed with another member of Dad's family: Carol.

The CIA's car was given to charity, as usual. In the future, the CIA will probably rent from Hertz every time they conduct an operation against us. We'll be happy with that, because Hertz doesn't rent out helicopter gunships.

^

Then we had to decide where we were going to move to. We had a list of criteria:

• We wanted a LARGE property. Large enough to be able to have an exterior wall far away from the main house to give us more security, and so the staff accommodation - it looked like we'd need permanent staff - was distant from the families' dwellings. Donna had another reason but it's slipped my mind. I'm sure she'll remind me.

• On top of a hill so no one could easily spy on us. Our existing place had proved deficient in that respect.

• No nearby neighbors, partly for our security, partly for their safety.

• We wanted fantastic views and all the other things a billionaire family's property should have. We'd publicly admit the previous reasons, as this reason wouldn't be good PR.

We'd made a big deal during the second settlement negotiation about how violated and imperiled we felt, and we'd gotten the Government to agree to drop everything and build us a very safe home at their expense and at top speed. But, in truth, the last criterion listed above was the main reason we wanted to move. We wanted a fantastic house, and we saw no reason why we couldn't use the Government to make sure we got it very rapidly rather than the one to three years it'd take doing it the usual way. Publicly we'd continue to push the "unsafe" button to justify what we wanted done, but no house was going to be safe from the Government.

Our preference was to stay in Corvallis, or within commuting distance of it, as Prof and Dad wanted to keep their jobs, and it'd be good if Julia, Carol and Donna could keep going to the same school. Plus we like Corvallis, and thanks to the Government's uncaring negotiation style, Corvallis liked us.

Most of the locations we had in mind for our new house had no existing road access, so the easiest way to check them out was by helicopter. We booked a large one, for the four parents, Julia and me. We weren't worried about having the four parents in a helicopter together. Unless the CIA planted enough explosives to kill us directly - which they could do to us at home - I could make sure we got down to the ground safely. I could fly us all the way around the world if I wanted to. It'd take about fifty hours, so it wouldn't have been too onerous. It'd be best not to surprise our pilot that much though, or the airforces of several countries.

Ava came too, mostly because we had a spare seat and she'd never had a helicopter ride. We'd bought some large-scale topographical maps and we had fun checking out the various places we'd identified using our local knowledge and Google Earth, or that simply looked interesting while flying around. We spent four hours on it, keeping good notes of each location we liked the look of, and hovering just above them while rotating for 360 degrees to check out all the views - helicopters can be quite good when they're not being used to attack us.

With the Federal Government committed to provide us with land and access to it, even if it was a national park, we had a lot of choice. There were practical constraints though. The middle of a national park wasn't suitable as the access road would've been too much of a desecration and the commute too long. We didn't want to be in the middle of a wilderness an hour or two's drive from Corvallis, even though there were some awesome locations in the Cascades.

We still found many locations that we would be very happy getting. Their views weren't "Cascades-awesome", but they were still pretty damned good as far as we were concerned. There's lovely natural forest around much of Corvallis. There's even a lot of forest IN Corvallis, because if you look at the city itself from any of the nearby hills you see trees more than houses, which makes it a VERY pretty city.

The mayor and several local Benton Country councilors had asked to come to thank us for our largess again. We'd delayed them with the excuse of getting our home repaired first. Then, to their surprise, we invited them to dinner.

Our second settlement agreement had been made public, just like the first as we were deliberately acting opposite to how the Government does; they keep things secret, so we don't. Therefore all the provisions that dealt with our changing homes were public knowledge (the contract stipulated that the Government had to build our home no matter where in the world we moved). We'd been so hugely generous to our local community that they were very sad about our possibly leaving town.

By now we'd given many interviews (not me obviously, but the parents and girls), during which Dad had said, "We HAVE TO move! Where we're living now is too unsafe for us and too dangerous for our neighbors. Either of those helicopters could've crashed onto private homes killing innocent people, and they were equipped with ROCKETS AND MISSILES, for Christ's sake! You saw what damage a single burst from their machinegun did to Mark's living room and kitchen. They even had MORTARS set up to lob shells in our general direction.

^-- "I have to protect my family. We've already lost Mark because of the Government and we don't want to lose our girls. So we have to move to a new home which is made FAR stronger than where we are now. And there's no way we can live next to neighbors because we'd never forgive ourselves if anyone was injured or killed because we were living next to them when the Government attacks us again."

"Surely you don't expect another attack?"

"They smashed the last settlement agreement, so why not this one? 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.' The Government has committed violence against my family twice now. I'm not stupid enough to trust their word anymore, because their word isn't worth shit. Everyone knows our Government is run by liars and criminals. You heard the DHS lie when they'd kidnapped Mark, and you heard the CIA and President deliberately lie when they said the Army's attacking us was because of one bad CIA employee. ALL they know how to do is break the law and lie about it. So we have to move away or innocent people could get killed. It's a huge pity because we like Corvallis, but the safety of my family and innocent people has to come first. The Government obviously doesn't care about killing its own people, because if Fort Dodge had a leak they would've killed tens of millions of us. Because they don't care, it's even more important that we plan for the Government doing another insanely violent attack."

No one was willing to argue with Dad that he should trust the Government.

On a related note, if the Government did attack again and killed us all, or if we all disappeared without trace for three months, then MAF would inherit from us, including gaining the right to sue the Government for our deaths. In addition, the most recent settlement agreement has a clause that the Government's breaching any condition would make them immediately liable for the greater of either double the most recent settlement (so a total of $73.6 billion) or whatever damages the court orders in our imminent $242 trillion suit. In other words, that lawsuit will continue to hang over their heads even after the case finishes.

Despite what we were saying to the media, we didn't believe we'd be attacked again. All the advice we'd received was that no one in the Government's side had taken the first settlement agreement's "Leave us alone" clauses seriously. We'd signed the agreement and everyone from the President down had immediately forgotten about us. Now the President was desk-bangingly wild that no one had taken leaving us alone seriously. He'd written some VERY strong memos, and YELLED at various agency directors, to make sure they yelled down their chains of command. Majestic Countdown's leaks might have had something to do with that.

When the Mayor of Corvallis and various assorted local politicians arrived, had finished their various "Thank yous", and while we were having pre-dinner drinks, Mom explained, "You know we're moving. We have three types of choices: somewhere near Corvallis so Prof and Steven can keep their existing jobs and we can continue to enjoy being part of this community..."

The Mayor injected a comment about how wonderful Corvallis was going to be to live in, especially now that it had funds for so many community improvement programs and blah, blah. The sort of stuff that mayors are required to say.

Mom resumed, "All good points, which is why staying in Corvallis is our preference. It's not as simple as that though. As I was saying, our three types of choices are: somewhere near Corvallis, or if we make the break from this town, then anywhere else in America, or leaving America entirely. I'm sure you appreciate that there are strong arguments for emigrating. If the CIA is willing to declare World War III on our neighborhood because of a bowl of cereal, then it's too dangerous for us here, and we can certainly afford to go anywhere else we want.

^-- "The pros and cons of our leaving the country aren't in your jurisdiction, so let's concentrate on what is. We can't live in Corvallis's urban area because there's too much chance of innocent people being killed if we're attacked again. But we could live somewhere in Benton.

^-- "We'd have to choose a location far enough away from neighbors so they aren't likely to be at risk, it needs to be on a large property because we want a wide perimeter and we're going to need a substantial, permanent live-in security force. We don't want them living in the same building as us, so we need enough land for several dwellings." We do need some guards, and having them living on the property makes sense, but they were only ever going to be useful against the usual threats rich people have to be protected from; our guards would never be able to protect us from the Government. We also want a large property so we could have a detached office to run our various business and trust operations from, but we mainly wanted it for the sheer luxury - we were stinking rich and wanted to enjoy it.

^-- "It also needs to be on the top of a hill to make it much harder for the evil CIA to spy on us, and for us to be approached unawares." And also so we got better views.

^-- "You know from our latest agreement that the Federal Government will be responsible for providing our property and running the road and utilities to it, so none of those is a concern. It's the public's reaction and zoning issues we want your opinions on. Here are the locations we've identified as being suitable for our needs."

Mom showed them a couple of topo' maps. Not the original ones we'd marked several possible locations on, but a second set of maps that we'd marked only with our two favorites and a third one for pressure reasons.

Mom added, "The two locations labeled 'A' and 'B' are our preferences. We've shown 'C' on the other map because it's in Benton County, even though it's so far from town that Prof and Steven would quit their jobs. If they do that, we could move anywhere else in the world that has universities and lawnmowers."

I need to explain the geography of Corvallis a little. Imagine it's inside a square slightly larger than the city itself. The square's top left (NW) corner is the largest hill visible from town, inappropriately called "Dimple Hill". It is 1,491 feet above sea level. Central Corvallis is at roughly 240 feet above sea level, so Dimple stands about 1,250 feet above Corvallis (all subsequent heights will relative to central Corvallis).

Running east from Dimple, along the top edge of the imaginary square, is a ridge that descends for 1.4 miles to a saddle about 390 feet high at its lowest point. 0.3 miles farther east is the top of another small hill, 600 feet high, on top of which is "Chip Ross Park". Another 0.3 miles east and the land is down to 200 feet high, and is level enough that it has roads and some houses. Farther east, for another 2.5 miles, is just more flat land, mostly used for farms. That completes the top edge of the square that defines Corvallis. The flat land continues farther east until it meets the river, but it's too far away from Corvallis to consider in this explanation (the river runs immediately alongside Corvallis in the middle of the city but then it turns sharply toward the east, so it takes a considerable distance for the northern edge of my imaginary square to meet the river).

Dimple hill is the top left corner of Corvallis, Chip Ross Park is top slightly-left-of-center, and they are the first two hills of any significance north of Corvallis.

Running south from the 1,250 feet high Dimple Hill is another ridge that descends 0.4 miles to a saddle at 730 feet, then rises 0.2 miles further south to an unnamed peak at 810 feet. 0.4 miles farther south, the height has dropped and the land is leveling off so roads and houses are starting to appear. Nowhere farther south appealed to us.

There were three locations around Corvallis that had possibilities for us: Dimple Hill, Chip Ross Park, and the unnamed hill on the city's west side. The first two were both excellent locations, while the third was acceptable but not nearly as good.

There were several reasons why the latter choice was a distant third, such as the property's east-west orientation rather than the preferred, sun-friendly north-south. But the main reason was its being too closely overlooked by Dimple Hill. Someone only needed to be about a third of a mile away to be able to look down on our hypothetical home on the unnamed peak. That may sound like a reasonable distance, but our property would extend at least a quarter of a mile in that direction, so they'd be able to sit one to two hundred yards away from our wall on the side of the steeply rising Dimple Hill and easily look down on us, and even listen to our conversations and yell their thoughts at us. During nice days there were always people climbing up and down Dimple Hill, so we'd be an object of curiosity for hundreds of passersby. This possibility could be made to work, but we much preferred the other two options so didn't mark this one on the maps we were showing the mayor and councilors.