The Awakening - Ordo Tribus XI by Ethan Santiago

  Chapter 8 – Money Talks

  Somewhere in Paraguay

  Morris Stark marches in through a huge marbled building and toward the main quarter of the building. Two huge bronze doors opened. Inside is a big hall with marble floors. At the end is a big marble desk. It feels like he is approaching a throne to meet a supreme ruler. And Morris is sure that the chief sitting at that marbled desk designed it in order to look like a throne suitable for the Supreme Ruler of the world. No one really knows the real identity of the chief except for Morris and few of the top aides. They don't even know whether the chief is a man or a woman. The chief is wearing a black robe with a hood that gives the bearer an air of superiority. It makes Morris feels like he is meeting a ruler from the ancient times. Behind the chief is a big banner with a crest whose design intrigued Morris.

  Morris once asked the chief what the crest represented. It was explained to him what the animals are. The top of the crest shows a red dragon with tail like those of the popular depiction of the red devil. It was adopted from the British Red Dragon that the chief saw on some monarch's crest. The weird looking beast below it has the body of a leopard, feet of a bear, and a face with color of a leopard but shape like the head and mouth of a lion. This is taken from the Christian revelation, Morris was told. The feared beast with red dragon giving him the power, that's why the red dragon is shining light onto the leopard-bodied beast in the crest. Below the crest are the words Nova Roma (New Rome).

  Morris is pretty sure the chief does not believe in God and is doing this more as a mockery against the Christians. The chief has talked about creating a New Roman empire, which will rid itself of the burden of morality. And where the Superhuman will rule the world with the population as its slave. The chief promised to conquer and get to far reaches of the world without sending a single of their own army. Not that they do not have an army. Their private armies are increasing here in this private secluded area with all sorts of modern weaponry and surveillance equipments. The chief has said that they will succeed where Hitler failed. They have established the base in this hideout, which they called Nueva Germania (New Germany), although it is not located in the district of Nueva Germania that the early German settlers’ built and later abandoned. This facility is mostly underground and people who does not know about the place would think it is just a big empty dirt land.

  The chief asks Morris to be seated so they can begin discussing their business.

  “So any progress on getting Iceland on board with the MDI and Common Market Treaty?” The chief asked.

  “Unfortunately we are having difficulty because there is widespread public opposition. They have switched to a more proportional and direct democratic system of government so their people can more easily block legislation even if we managed to get our man in their government.”

  “That is why I have asked you to push through the parliamentary system in the Philippines. It would be good insurance and easier to control in case those voters’ education drive incites the people to be more involved.”

  “We are having success in that country. I've talked to the president of the Philippines. They are marketing it as a fight to correct endemic problem of corruption in that country. A change to a Parliamentary system will be better. There is increased support among their people. But there are also some people who are campaigning against it, saying it will reduce voters’ voices. But the president is confident he can silence those voices.”

  “Good. What about our file on Bolivia? Their government is uncooperative, refusing to privatize their electric utilities.”

  “The government is fearful of a repeat of Cochabamba water privatization riot of 2000.”

  “Dammit, that's why we pay them the big bucks. For them to convince their people privatization of their utilities is good. Let them rack up their expenses and claim the solution to efficiency is privatization.”

  “Looks like their president cannot be relied upon anymore.”

  “Perhaps it is time to overthrow him.”

  “But they just have an election.” Morris explains.

  “I am not talking about elections. Forget their election. Do what has been done numerous times before. It is easy to manipulate the people to revolt, either by inflaming existing ethnic animosity or planting a scandal against their leader to rile people up. So if it suits us to play the democratic part we will; if not, we can influence their army to stage a coup. Their generals have enjoyed windfall from our investment advice maybe it is time they do their share.

  “And if that fails?”

  “We can create conditions that would let other countries’ armies invade them for us. Perhaps an allegations of supporting drug trafficking in U.S. Or let them die in a plane crash like the Ecuadorian president who tried to interfere with oil business in his country.”

  “The former might be an option since he has stopped using air travel right now. Perhaps he is aware of what happened to Ecuadorian and Panamanian President before.”

  “Speaking of plane crashes, how's the Senator's flight?”

  “He decided not to fly.”

  “I already have a backup plan. I have asked one of my assistant to data mine the Senator's internet surfing habits through The Node, and gather his preferences on women and everything. We have gathered the type of woman that he likes. So here it is.” The chief push a memory chip to Morris. “He provided very specific details of his ideal woman. I want you to find that woman. The rest of the plan I'll leave it to you. Get this done quickly because the U.S. Senatorial campaign is underway and we want to eliminate candidates that could stand against our plans.”

  “Consider it done.”

  The chief decides to stand up and walk about, stepping down from the platform on where the marble table sits. “Maybe it is time to get our IMF chief to help us on opening some of the water utilities. Offer countries a loan if they open their utilities to privatization. The more loans we give to them, the more we can dictate their policies. We can also use some of our charities like the “Safe Water World (SWW) charity.”

  “Indeed.”

  “What about the professor in Queen's University?”

  “The motion have been set to neutralize him.”

  “Good, we want control of that cure.” The chief says.

  “Our insider at the Securities Exchange Commission has informed us that one of the staff is looking at investigating one of our subsidiaries for insider trading. A lot of our recent investment advice to our supporters is from that subsidiary. But I am already taking care of that. The employee would likely be relocated or assigned huge volume of job to make sure he would have no time to poke his nose around other business.”

  “Good. And that actor who has been stirring up trouble against my investment firm, intoxicate him and get him arrested for a DUI. We'll see how his career will do after his mugshot is plastered all over the paper and TV.”

  “And the hacker from Italy has been arrested for murder,” Morris reports to the chief with a devilish smile.

  “Monitor his friends from Italy and Spain also. Search their files that are stored at The Node. Maybe they have music that we can charge them with. The music labels have been our allies in introducing warrantless surveillance and internet censorship even before we had to activate our MDI plan. In fact it was the Phonographic Industry Organization that proposed marginalizing the internet technology 'Usenet' and using child pornography as a tool to convince politicians to censor the internet. Like they have said, 'Child Pornography is great in getting politicians to start blocking sites.' Their help was certainly appreciated, but the Ordo Tribus XI attack allowed us to bypass the slow process of political maneuverings.”

  “Indeed, the industry was ahead of us in mandating ISP to act as a listening post, for surveillance of all user activities.”

  The chief sits back on his tall chair. It has a big back rest like a king’s or emperor's throne. “Jon Manney, the agent for our client Hedingthon needs our help in convinc
ing India not to back out of their arms deal.”

  “Perhaps it is time to remind them of the possible threat. Kill their ambassador in balls of fire and plant evidence or intelligence pointing it to Pakistan having a hand on that. We'll see if they will still hesitate to buy more arms after that.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Morris says.

  “What is the situation on trying to influence the Canadian election?”

  “Our selected leader for the Liberal party is doing well. You were right when you foresaw the fall in popularity of the NDP government. We are also pouring our support behind our favoured guy in the Conservatives to win their leadership race in case the race goes the other way. If NDP fall, we will attempt to market one of our insiders as their replacement leader.”

  “What has the Liberal leader committed to so far?”

  “To get rid of legalized drugs. Unfortunately, their legalized drug laws have successfully eradicated drug related gangs. As you know, their condition of legalization is that addicts have to go buy and use it at the specified drug sites. The sites were used to educate them also about their rehabilitation option. Our spin for the Liberal leader is this is not in line with the U.S. war against drugs and they are affecting the U.S. fight negatively.”

  “What did the Liberal leader say?”

  “He is agreeable to that and seems happy to have our support. So we might be able to get back that revenue stream in Canada and reactivate our gang cells.”

  “Also ask him to get rid of their public broadcaster. They have been involved in investigative reporting that is too close for comfort for some of our conglomerate members.”

  “I'll think of ways to spin it. Maybe market it as a fairer competition for private broadcaster if they don't have to go against a subsidized institution. I'll use the Free Market ethos on that one. I can use the socialist or leftist label but that is not as effective as before. Our chosen leader also agreed to privatize their utilities and their publicly funded discoveries. Some of our corporate partners are looking forward to taking ownership of those technologies. And like you have said, we also want to take hold of any technology that could affect our investment in oil.”

  “And about their cyberdefense?” the chief inquires.

  “We have convinced the Liberal leader to abolish their National defence cyberwar division and rely on the U.S. for that. So he'll make sure that is done once he wins.”

  “Good, that agency has been on the tail of our cyberwarfare division.”

  “Our cyberwarfare division has now successfully included the sleeper code on the latest updates of all our apps. Each app is of very high quality attracting a lot of downloads. They are registered under different names to make users think they are all from independent developers. With the push of a button we can push through our zero day virus. This is only necessary for tablets that are not manufactured by us. Our new tablet lines have those sleeper codes already embedded in the hardware. We just have to send the trigger code to activate them. By the time the virus software discovers it, it will be too late. We are also able to hijack apps on our competitor's market and replace them with an infected copy. Although it is harder to infiltrate apps that are open source since changes made to introduce malware can easily be detected. But we can do without infecting the open source apps.”

  “Put more pressure on the Colombian President. We want them to disband their small farmers' co-operative. Thanks to that bothersome ex-president Dean 'Good Riddance' Davis. He expanded our war on drugs in the U.S. I've originally designed that to weed out our competition. But that freaking Davis launched an all out war arresting most of our runners and syndicate's bosses, effectively shutting down our operation in the U.S. Then he was not content and went after our supplier in Colombia. Again the previous president's war to weed out our competitors there became Dean's crusade to rid Colombia of drug trade. He then offered small farmers alternative farming and gave them the idea to improve their sales through the co-operative 'Colombian Small Farmers Co-op.' Not only did he take away our revenue from our drug syndicate, he also created a serious contender against our World Food Inc. Now the farmers want to challenge the Colombian president decision to disband them by asking to let them vote? Bah! Ask the president to speed up abolition of that co-operative. Just pay some farmers to voice discontent and make claims of corruption at the board.” the chief ranted.

  “Yeah, I remember you mentioned surpassing the influence of a British merchant from the 18th century who have monopoly on opium trade being smuggled to China through their East Indian Company. Former president Dean Davis might have derailed that goal but things are picking up again. And if we can convince the next Canadian Prime Minister to make drugs there illegal again, we can revive our syndicate there also.” Morris said.

  “Very good.” The chief gathers all the things from the desk.

  “How's your investment doing?” Morris, sensing the meeting is coming to a close, asks.

  “Excellent, I am expanding our oil investment for Stochmex. It will be a major source of funding for our covert war. It will play an even more vital role than the U.S. oil monopoly of World War II. The monopoly partnered with German's business, sharing the patent on oil and machinery including those from the U.S. auto industry. The U.S. oil monopoly also helped Germany stockpile oil before the start of the war. But this time we have our own company we can rely on. We have signed joint partnerships with Arif Group of Saudi, a major construction and oil exploration firm with ties to the royal family there. It has surpassed the Bin Laden Group, a holding firms with worldwide investment and projects. The Bin Laden Group dominated Saudi's construction industry and has strong ties with U.S. industry and holding firms. We have promised Arif a much bigger bounty if they join us and they seem happy to be our partners.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Yes, just make sure that the new electric car is buried deep and shunned forever. We don't have control over the patent of their new battery. We only have control over the patent of existing batteries on the market. But our oil stocks are rising fast again after that accident. Our investment in oil depends on the demise of that car and its battery. Do everything to protect our multi-billion investment.”

  “Understood.”

  “Also, you might want to keep an eye on the new solar technology. It could affect our oil investment. But I have acquired the patent to the new portable nuclear technology. So we can control its distribution or non-distribution. Apparently it could reuse used nuclear fuel and have a cooling system that is inherently self-controlling. It is a technology adopted and improved from the passive cooling of old Canadian nuclear technology of early 2000.”

  “Glad to know we have already acquired control of that technology before the public get wind of it.”

  “Yes but there might be some loose ends that need to be tied up to make sure nobody has a copy of the design. By the way, we could probably use that activist Idia Alea's help. Since she has voiced opposition to the new solar technology for what she calls 'silicon and nanoparticles pollution' she could be our ally without her knowing it.”

  “I'll try to feed her some information and let her do the sabotaging.” Morris grins.

  “Very well then. Here is the dossier of all the people identified to be possible threats.” The chief hands Morris a memory chip. Some are minor threats including those who have searched The Node using some flagged keywords like your name. Use the Motherland Defence Initiative to shadow them online or offline or to lock them up for good. Our network of state of the art Superjail across the country and around the world are almost complete. It could use some residents. Let the war against all those who would stand in our way begin.”

  “I am switching our surveillance and censorship into high gear. As the saying goes, 'He who controls the information controls the world.' and our infrastructures are ready for an all out information war.”