The Richard Jackson Saga: Book 13 : Regicide

by Ed Nelson

  The Royals proceeded down the length of the room allowing everyone to give their greetings. The first event of the evening was dinner. It was a light repast so not as to interfere with the dancing.

  May-ling and I kept each other company through dinner, we both were strangers in a strange land. Instead of withdrawing for port and cigars, the men had to put the best face on it and start to dance.

  I knew better than to expect them to play a twist. It was all dances from the 30s and 40s. None of that jitterbug stuff minds you. Waltzes, rumbas, and sambas. No adventuresome tangos.

  Though one naughty young couple tried a black bottom to a rumba. Kinda weird. An elderly man spoke to the girl, and they settled down for the rest of the evening. Her grandfather I suspect. If it had been her father, there would have been words.

  May-ling and I kept to waltzes. She accepted other requests for a dance all evening but only those that were sedate. When she was dancing, I would look for a young or not-so-young lady that stood against the wall looking as though they would like to dance.

  My dance partners were all pleasant and enjoyed the dance, but I could tell it was the dance they enjoyed, not me.

  At one point I ended up where the Queen was sitting surrounded by her ladies in waiting. The Queen thanked me for being thoughtful and asking those without partners to dance. I didn’t reply that it was better than standing around. I’m not a complete fool.

  May-ling’s tiara was the talk of the evening, at least in the female set. They wanted to know the details. She would answer technical details and that it came from The House of Garrad, but not that it was a present from me.

  I was thankful for that as it would send the wrong message.

  One dance I had the young lady got very close, so close she could tell my interest. She returned the signal with a slight grind of her hips. When she asked where my room was, I was delighted to tell her.

  After that dance, I was pulled over into a corner where the men were talking business. I was quizzed as to my plans and what opportunities they might have. I played it close and only gave general answers.

  I did give my card to one gentleman who told me how his company was testing different materials for high heat resistance. They thought they might find a market in the US with the space program.

  As the night wore on people departed the ballroom. I escorted May-ling to her room. Ann had not attended as she was still in deep mourning for her son and husband. May-ling and I were able to get away with the black armbands.

  I did have a late-night visitor. Lady Grey was a pleasure in all senses of the word but there was no real interest between us.

  The next morning, I was up early for my run. May-ling was just coming in from hers. She stopped and asked me if Jane and I had a good time last night. She saw her walking down the hall early this morning.

  I had felt embarrassed but decided I shouldn’t. May-ling and I had an understanding, she didn’t want me, and my feelings for her came and went. She was a friend and that was it.

  In reply to her question, I gave a simple, “Yes,” and left it at that. I don’t know how May-ling felt about that response. She didn’t talk to me for three days.

  After showering and putting on my second outfit for the day I went down to breakfast. There was a small hung-over crowd there. Most were sitting by themselves morosely drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette.

  Being the kind person that I am, I gave a loud cheerful, “Hello everyone!”

  None responded in kind. There were some mutterings that I pretended not to hear. What rude people!

  Since no one was up to a good conversation, I went to the archery and gun ranges. I spent most of the morning practicing them. My archery was in top form, and I doubted it could get any better. I wished I could enter the Robin Hood event at Sherwood Forest again. I bet I could do better than a bronze medal.

  My ability with the long guns had improved dramatically. Pistols were okay. I could hit anything within ten feet. In my experience that was all you needed with a handgun, or a shotgun for that matter.

  When I expressed that opinion to the Range Master, he gave me a long look.

  “As you American say, you have seen the elephant.”

  I had but what I considered interesting was that I was still considered an American, even though I was in the British armed forces and hadn’t used my American accent in so long I may have lost it.

  The Mandarin I spoke even came across as British.

  The next day my business mail started catching up with me. I now would spend the time between lunch and dinner reading and responding to my correspondence.

  I did get an update from General Booth. It appears that they had identified a product that had the heat resistance necessary, so now we could consider having a reusable spaceplane that could land on a runway, rather than a capsule that would have to land in the water.

  I had a chuckle when I recognized the name. It was the same company that I had met at the Ball.

  They had also established that a company in Dover, Delaware was making space suits designs for NASA. NASA was being so slow at making decisions that they were desperate for cash flow.

  General Booth recommended that I look into investing in that company to ensure a supply of suits and have us as a preferred customer. I made a phone call to London to my business office instructing them to contact my broker and buy at least five percent of ILC.

  Once the purchase was in hand, they were to provide a loan at a low rate to stem their cash flow problems. Another box ticked.

  That made me feel good until I read the report from his eager young researchers who had listed all the obstacles that had to be overcome before we could have a successful flight to the moon. It was enough to make you want to cry. Instead of crying, I sent back a request for what had to be done to overcome these obstacles.

  Who would have thought you would have to have exercise bikes in space? Once you thought about the lack of gravity and loss of body mass it made sense. There were hundreds of these details that would have to be addressed.

  One good note was that the concern about food poisoning in space was being addressed. A group headed up by Pillsbury was investigating how to keep foods from going bad. They had a program underway called HACCP. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point concept.

  I didn’t see what the big deal was, they had to establish things like the fact that chicken can go bad quickly, so the entire processing cycle had to be in a building that was a giant refrigerator. I thought they had always done it that way. I guess not.

  Things were proceeding well in Spain. The maintenance program was up and running. They had decided that it would need US expertise for a long time, so Don Pearson would continue to rotate people in and out, along with their families.

  I would allow him to continue his little boondoggle. It wasn’t him directly benefiting and he obviously could see a benefit for some critical employees. I just hoped it didn’t work its way to other departments.

  In the meantime, Fra Tomas was happy to report that with the nuns added to the teaching staff and the deacon approved by the Bishop were now able to say a mass for me every day.

  Also, the Bishop would still like to meet me. I had no trips to Spain planned.

  There was the usual stack of congratulatory cards to sign. This was even after the bulk of them had machine-signed signatures.

  They always included a sample of the many letters that I had received from the general public. This was to give me a good idea of my public image.

  Currently, I was Satin incarnate, and would I marry their daughter? Satan because I was helping those godless Chinese.

  They had never listened to a priest at a Chinese funeral, they could go on with the best of them.

  Marrying their daughter was what any right-thinking young man would do, to ensure that his new family lived the life they deserved.

  Chapter 34

  The IC Chip business was skyrocketing. The first manufacturing units wer
e coming online at three different licensees. They were sold out for months in advance. This allowed them to borrow more money to increase production.

  Companies had been identified that could build the CRT, keyboards, printers, and mice. My brokers in London were quietly buying an interest in each company. I didn’t want to go over fifty-one percent and have majority ownership in any of them.

  Once this was accomplished orders would be sent to them from the assembly company, in which I owned forty-nine percent. Employees owned the balance.

  The assembly company would sell to the umbrella company who would install the software purchased from the various companies that wrote the programs. These programs would come together as a suite called Workplace and run by a View operating system.

  I owned a significant portion of each of these companies. We would keep the whole thing honest looking by putting out bids for the various products. The bids would be written in such a way only our companies could qualify. I learned this by watching how the US Federal Government let out their Request for Proposals.

  The RFP would have statements like, “must have previous experience with the Corp of Engineers” when they had only ever worked with one company.

  These companies would eventually be taken public. Since the only relationship they had was that I owned a minority portion of them, my lawyers assured me that there should be no monopoly concerns.

  My sister Mary had taught me that when the word Monopoly appeared you should always be concerned.

  I was feeling comfortable about how things were going and was happy with my life at Balmoral.

  I had even played several rounds of golf at the Castle golf course. It is a nine-hole course with eighteen tee blocks to give a different look on the “back nine,” It is a short course of 4,825 yards with par being 67. It is beautiful and well maintained.

  It is open to the public but had restricted playing times. As a resident of the Castle, I was allowed to play with no one else around. They provided a caddy who I tipped well. The tips were to keep silent about my scores. He told me my 49 one day blew the course record out of the water.

  No one needed to know that.

  Life was all settled and at ease, I was feeling rested for the first time in months when things changed. The ladies wanted to go home.

  Haoran was still on the loose, but they wanted to go back to China. They had called the Empress and she agreed with them. They couldn’t hide forever.

  A grim fact was that he couldn’t be caught unless they exposed themselves as bait. After I made certain that they understood the risks involved I agreed to fly them home. I certainly wasn’t going to stay here if they were gone.

  The place is lovely, but I too wanted to get on with life.

  It took two days to put everything together. For once it wasn’t fleeing in the middle of the night hidden in the boot. The boot part had never happened but that is what it felt like.

  The trip was long, boring, and uneventful. Just like I liked them. There was a small convoy waiting which escorted us to the Forbidden City.

  Empress Ping was delighted to see us. She received us in the formal throne room. I wondered why she was doing this when it hit me. The crown had arrived. It was stunning. It matched the British crown. The main diamond wasn’t as large but there was a cluster of 200 plus carat diamonds as a centerpiece.

  The ladies had to try it on. It fit all of them. May-ling sent for her tiara so she could show it off. Again, all the ladies had to try it on. From the wistful look I saw on Ann’s face I knew what her Christmas gift would be.

  Still no news on Haoran.

  We were tired from our journey so took it easy for the next two days. Easy meant no public appearances. Behind the scenes, it was one briefing after another.

  Why I was invited to attend them I don’t know. I knew better than to decline an ‘invite,’ from the Empress.

  I along with May-ling learned more about the inner workings and the state of the Chinese government than I ever wanted to know.

  What did impress me about them was that the Empress was an active participant but didn’t pretend to be the holder of all wisdom. She would listen to her advisors and even take mild criticism of her thoughts.

  I noticed that the criticism never went beyond mild, after all, she could have their heads. Unlike Queen Elizabeth, her parliament was the figurehead, not her.

  Every decision that was made had one central thought. How can we create a larger middle class in China? She had studied the West and understood that it is the middle class that is the true wealth of a nation.

  The poor have little to give. The rich if you stripped all their wealth couldn’t support the country. Only with a large middle class could enough wealth be created to have a self-sustaining economy.

  She understood that a ‘rising tide raises all boats.’ She also understood that all boats needed to rise, not just the wealthy. The wealthy could only hire so many servants, create so many jobs.

  Once a person is rich, they can’t spend the money fast enough to have it trickle down. The trickle-down effect would only work when it was trickling down from the middle class to the poor.

  I had never thought of it this way, but it seemed that the truly wealthy of a country were a detriment. They locked up the wealth of a country, not because they were greedy, but because they couldn’t spend it fast enough.

  As one of the wealthiest people on earth, this gave me a headache. I needed to keep my money flowing. Tying it up in stocks and bonds contributed to my growth but didn’t allow enough to trickle down.

  I needed to spend more building things. By putting the money in motion, it would help create the middle class which was the true support of a nation.

  I needed some time to sort this out. I’m sure that others had looked at this. There had to be a middle ground between capitalism and socialism. I’m thinking of socialism in the pure sense. Taking social responsibility for all citizens, not as a means of central controlling authority to aggrandize a few as the communist have done.

  After sitting in on these meetings and having these thoughts I realized that I was confusing myself. I had to sort these thoughts out. I needed to identify a path for myself that would help people in a good way, not make them dependent.

  I suspect if there was an easy answer it would have been written about a long time ago. I had never heard of it in all my reading. Did I need to reinvent society?

  Once I got to this point, I started laughing. What an ego, I reinvent society. It would have been better if I hadn’t had that laughing fit in the middle of a presentation of projected grain shortages.

  I had to apologize to the group and told them my mind had wandered in a funny direction and that it had nothing to do with the grain shortages. As a sign of my contriteness, I would donate ten shiploads of grain from the Canadian wheat fields.

  Thus, my laughing fit cost me several million dollars. I chose the Canadian wheat fields because they were still family-owned farms. The US had a new term, agribusiness. Large companies taking over the farming industry. It was helping the Canadian middle class or US big business.

  I thought I had begun to identify a route to take.

  Later in the day when it was just a small group consisting of the Empress and her top three advisors, I explained what had led to my laughing fit. I called it a fit because it wasn’t a chuckle or brief outburst, but a true belly laugh that continued.

  They agreed that I had identified the crux of the issue they were facing. The biggest question was how to funnel funds to a small middle class and have them spread it around, rather than hoarding it to become wealthy.

  The American founding fathers had a similar problem. Theirs was how to spread power to all the population rather than an entitled few. They had to dance between the power of the mob and the power of the few. They had some success but even they had missed out on slavery and women.

  If we could do as well, I would be satisfied.

  What is this, “if w
e could do as well?”

  What was my role in all of this?

  Chapter 35

  After wrestling with these thoughts for a day or two I realized that smarter people than me had thought about these issues for a much longer time.

  Since no magic bullet had been published there probably wasn’t one. Even if one were published it would only be an unproven theory. All I know is that by creating infrastructure other people would have a chance to use it to improve their lives.

  I wasn’t going to give my money away. I would offer low-cost loans and issue bonds on their behalf. I would expect to get my money back and hope to beat inflation.

  That would be better than letting my money sit in stocks or the bank gathering interest. I could buy bonds issued for infrastructure in places that needed it.

  Even my money for the space project could be considered infrastructure. Since I would be paying for it directly and the risk was much higher, I would expect a greater return.

  The only thing I was involved in that I could see having an immediate direct impact on people's lives was the IC Chips, the computers, and software. They were pure money-making ventures. Maybe they could improve people's lives. Time will tell.

  In the meantime, the backbone of my fortune Jackson Enterprises with its container and freight divisions would support me as I made a dumb decision or two. By dumb, I meant throwing my money away on a bad project.

  After reducing my complicated and probably messed up thoughts to something that I could understand without needing a Ph.D. in Economics and another in human behavior, and another in Politics, etc.…I had a meeting with the Empress's Chief of Staff.

  “We had talked about the US Interstate system and implementing it in China. Has a decision been made to proceed?”

  “The Empress wants to do it. We just don’t have the funds.”

  “What does it take to issue a bond?”