Chapter 37

With Korea providing protection that allowed me to remain unseen I did not think in my wildest dreams, I would ever need a contingency plan to escape a lunatic setting off one or even five nuclear weapons with me being the target. Now having escaped, I was feeling like a rabbit that had been flushed from his burrow with predators all around looking to go to ground again and disappear.

The problem with wanting to disappear after having been in the public eye, is that it is next to impossible to do so as there are simply too many people who are capable of finding those who want to be hidden. Even with planning and proper precautions, the rich and those in the public eye can be found by either watching for activity around your properties and known hangouts or your bank accounts to indicate if you are present.

If neither of those two options accomplish finding the person you want, then of course if your resources are great enough you can simply look for personnel that are known to work for your target and then simply monitor them until they reveal the target. Trailing other targets was how the United States military located Bin Laden.

Then again arriving at night aboard three helicopters might have given something away circling the island, as one helicopter would unload their cargo and people only to be followed by a second then a third.

Thankfully, no one arrived that night being that we arrived well past midnight and the only thing I was looking for was a bed to sleep in. What I found upon landing were several of my security people as well as a couple who were the caretaker of the island for the previous owner.

I did manage to find a bed right after I had a meeting with my security people who had flown ahead. Once the meet and greet was over, I was directed to the main house, while the rest of my entourage went to what was being called the Yacht club. Being tired I never questioned having a bunkhouse named as 'Yacht Club' and right then I did not care.

The next morning at breakfast I discovered that the 'Yacht Club' supposedly had been closed down after the death of the island's previous owner had in fact never been closed remaining open to the town's residents. Setting aside my breakfast, I opened up the file Sven gave me that contained all the details about the previous Yacht Club and how many boats were normally there. Even the pictures in the file showed a number of boats that I counted to be approximately thirty-five. Looking out at the docks I owned now, I easily counted over sixty boats with a few being larger than the rest. Someone had been taking advantage of the death of the previous owner.

My first call was to my Real Estate agent and it brought a smile to my face that I woke him up. Explaining the situation to him, he stated he would find out what happened. I stated that was fine, but I expected him to call me back in two hours with not only what happened but how it was going to be resolved.

Before then there was the matter of the collateral to deal with. I was not happy because instead of fewer than eight I was expecting, Sven along with Thor reported I had twenty-two visitors. My count had been eight and that was what I had been expecting; Steve on the other hand had managed to find a number of gamblers who were in government who after losing were in positions that if they had to clear their debts in full would cause problems. So that was how I found myself with fourteen pieces of collateral from Asia and eight pieces from Europe, all with different due dates. If people did not pick up their children, I had no idea what I would do with them. Who knows maybe I could turn them into caretakers on my other islands.

Adding my guards to the total, I had over sixty people, and there was only enough room for maybe thirty if they were really friendly. I had no intention to get that friendly with anyone and I gave the problem to Sven to deal with.

As for myself, I had other plans and for the first time in a long time, I was going to go swimming in the ocean. Sure, I had the ocean around me while I was in Korea but at the time, I was focused on making some money. Now I had the money and the time, I also had a beach, totally deserted just for me.

Okay I will say this was a new experience for me as I had never been in water this clear before. Even without a mask the visibility was incredible, better than any beach in California; when we lived there. I had no idea how long I was in the water, but I did notice Sven had brought out a chair and one of those portable awnings and was now simply watching me swim. Even with him waiting for me I took my time heading in and only did so after I had found an octopus that wanted nothing to do with me and inked me to let me know I was not wanted.

Emerging from the water I could see that Sven was relaxed, walking up to him I asked him the status of the dock. He stated I was invited to a dinner meeting that evening with not only my agent who was already airborne and flying in but also the mayor, city council, and most of the concerned citizens who had boats at the dock.

This had to be a new record for me as I had been in Italy less than twelve hours and people were upset with me. Sure, they did not have nuclear bombs to attack me with but the day was still early. Asking Sven if my day was open for the meeting, he stated my schedule was as clear as the ocean I just came from.

As to the second problem, Sven stated that it was also just as clear as the sea I was swimming in and as far as the twenty-two pieces of collateral, I was screwed. He said that he had gone through their contracts and they were all correct with a time of retention of no more than a year. My happy mood after my swim was dissipating as Sven gave me the total of what their parents owed and it was over a half a billion dollars of my money. Since I was now responsible for the eighteen girls and four boys, I asked Sven what he was doing about my problem. Smiling, Sven stated he was working on renting more accommodations up the road, until those arrangements were made.

By the time the meeting rolled around that evening, at least a few problems were solved. The first being the additional accommodations for my men not on duty, as there were several houses overlooking the road to the island that would lend themselves to unobtrusive monitoring stations in addition to providing three bedrooms each holding two men. Thankfully, the rooms were large so space was not that bad. The one thing I wanted that I could not get in that arrangement was moving the collateral to the housing due to their ages.

The meeting that night went about as well as anything I was doing on the island as my agent stated that the selling agent had told him the docks were unused and I planned to maintain them as a private docks as I wanted my privacy. His announcement as to my intentions went over like a lead balloon. The reason being a lack of other options for the other boat owners because in the bay there were a total of four docks and the two that I owned were the largest. Not only were they the largest but one of them was the only one big enough to take larger yachts with a deeper draft which meant that the owners would have to berth their boats twenty or more miles away, where now they were in walking distance of their homes. With those issues, the meeting went long and although I was not a very happy person allowing people onto the island, I had a nice income from the docking fees alone. I also gained the use of two sailboats as their owners were too old to make use of them and they did not want them sold while they were alive. With the chance to put six people on each of the boats, Sven smiled saying to me when we left that my quartering problems were solved.

I agreed with the only hang up being no one would be moving before sunrise, as the docks were not lit so falling into the water was a real possibility. The morning was good enough to start moving people out of my house. Over the next couple of days, Sven handled that or I should say that Sven gave the work to one of the other men. Sven and I had other things to do such as finding me a mask and snorkel along with lessons and gear to go scuba diving as I found a cave that could only be accessed with scuba gear and a light, neither of which I owned.

On a more serious note, my business empire had a serious need to reestablish several leadership positions as the mangers who were in charge of my accounts including all four of my independents were now dead or at least unaccounted for. The word Sven received from Korea was that they were all dead having been based around the clinic. With the city being nuked and their proximity to the epicenter, Sven stated his opinion they were dead and gone and I needed to make new arrangements.

I agreed with him though I did think it was rather shitty just forget about them since they were there at my request. As the situation stood right then, I was being told the best idea would be to bring in a forensic accountant team and have them locate everything that was either missing or unaccounted for.

With everything going on in the world with the war and all, it took Sven a week to find a company that would take on the project. They assured me they had seen bigger problems and it was all a matter of time to find what was missing. The negotiations took more time but at the end of the day, I was comfortable with what they said they could do with the only downside being they had to have access to my accounts so they could begin their investigation.

With investigators on the trail of my money before North Korea blew up my advisers, I was out of things I needed to do, and for a while, I simply went about my old life of practicing my martial arts as well as my new hobbies of swimming, snorkeling, as well as scuba diving. The problem was of course was the collateral, since we were on a small island of only ten acres or so, there was no place to get away from everyone and after the first morning going through my forms, I was watched from the trees by no less than three kids. None of them was brave enough to bother me but I did have an audience, which increased to five on the second day, by the end of the week I had twenty kids watching me and now they were not even trying to hide.

The second week I unofficially/officially opened my own martial arts studio. Cecily, the spokesperson for my guests, asked for a meeting where she relayed their request not only join me, but for me to teach. At first I was just going to refuse as I had run a studio outside of a couple of times Steve had me cover for him and the other instructors, the number of times I did that could be counted on one hand. When I thought about everything Steve had done for me, I figured teaching others would be a fitting tribute to my friend, teacher, and mentor.

There was more of course: with questions such as, if and when they would be returning to school. I informed her, Thor, who she knew, was arranging for tutors, as the local school was not set up for twenty-two additional students. When he had the tutors in place he would let her know, until then if they were bored I would find things for them to do. Most of those chores centered around helping out maintaining the island as well as cleaning and cooking, which surprisingly few of them knew anything about how to work in a kitchen.

Another request was for permission to swim at the same time I was in the water. Asking why she needed permission, I was told several guards were putting off the kids while I was in the water. I told Cecily that I would find out why they were being denied time to swim with me.

Talking to Thor, I discovered I had the beginnings of a personal cult as the eight men I had worked on in Japan had taken it upon themselves to start calling me 'Deific'. The first time I heard the term was with the first group of volunteers and one of them referred to me by that term. Looking up the term, I found the meaning to be someone with god-like powers and it was an adjective. The way Thor and the other men used the word it was more like a title.

So long as their use of the word did not cause problems, I was fine with them using it as they saw fit. As to their swimming, I stated, as guests they could swim along the western side of the island. The eastern part was another matter as the docks were there and I had no idea if the boat owners could drive a boat and possibly injure or kill them.

Life on the island settled down and for nearly a month extending all the way into October, life was quiet as I was forgotten with the nuclear war in Korea ongoing but winding down with that the crazy son of a bitch blowing himself, his capital, and five hundred thousand people into the atmosphere with one last nuclear bomb. Now it was time for all the big boys to pick up the pieces and decontaminate the entire Korean peninsula plus parts of China, Japan, and Russia. If the Eco-nuts were to be believed then the western part of the United States, Canada and possibly Mexico would have to be added to the list of countries to be watched for contamination.