Revolution - Book Three of the One World Government Series

By George Walley

The Chinese have started mining on the Moon for fuel and the Americans are desperate to catch up and do so also.
The other nations of the world line up behind one of the two super-powers, recognizing that the winner of this race will be the ultimate ruler of the Earth.
The Hochsterbergs, a group of influential people who are intent in creating a fairer society with a singular government, are initially discredited, but rise again to make a third player in the game of world domination.
Into this situation are dropped the friends, Edward (MI6 Management), Tom (ex MI6 operative), Dday (a good-timer) and Mary-Lou (Tom’s sister and mother of tearaway Mikey).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781471774294

Book preview

Revolution

Book 3 of the One World Government Series

Revolution – Book Three in the One World Government Series

First Edition

Copyright © 2021 George Walley

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-716-13951-2

2015

Chapter 1 – 28th May 2015

‘We have breaking news that Chinese officials in Beijing have confirmed that they do indeed, have a manned base on the moon,’ Alice Grant announced on the BBC One o’clock news, through her semi-circular glasses. ‘This follows last night’s release of photographs from an American space probe showing a cluster of buildings in what is the Hercules Crater, which is located in the Mare Frigoris.

‘China confirms that the base has been manned for ‘some’ months and that it is part of a project to evaluate the feasibility of harvesting Lunar mineral resources.

‘White House officials have confirmed that President Sebantes has been in talks with General Secretary Hu Jintao and that the leaders want to investigate the possibilities of mutual scientific cooperation.

‘We hand over to our Science Correspondence, Phil Nugent.’

The picture changed to another studio, a huge picture of the moon dominating the background.

‘For a number of years, scientists have been aware of the potential of Helium-3 or HE-3 as a source of very significant energy. The problem has been that Helium-3 just isn’t available in any quantities on the Earth, but that isn’t the case with the Moon. Recent estimates have suggested that Helium-3 could be as abundant as 0.01 parts in every million. Now, to the average Earth dweller, that doesn’t seem an awful lot, but if we swap those figures and say that scientists now conservatively estimate that the moon has approximately one million tons of Helium-3 and that twenty-five tons could power the European Union for a year – we are potentially looking at a power supply that will suffice, at the current global capacities, for forty thousand years!

‘Of course, the investment required,’ Phil Nugent continued, ‘is going to stretch into the trillions of pounds. But is that such a gamble? The dollar barrel of oil has been consistently increasing, the all-important price barrier of two hundred dollars per barrel was breached earlier this year and pundits suggest that it will never return to that figure or below.

‘The reality of Moon energy is very real and today’s revelations from the People’s Republic of China have upped the ante in the energy race. President Sebantes is likely to be deep in consultation with his advisers as this development might be the pivot that takes the People’s Republic of China into the prime position as the World’s most dominant super power.

‘This is Phil Nugent, for BBC News.’

‘And now for today’s other news...’ Alice Grant visibly relaxed as she started on the more mundane business of the day.

Chapter 2 – 29th May 2015

In Edward Yardley’s opinion, the London Underground was pretty dreadful at the best of times. It was just too small to cope with the amount of people who wanted to use it and Friday afternoons were the worst. Taxis were marginally better, but he got frustrated sitting there, in a traffic jam, watching the digital display demonstrating how fast he was becoming poorer. Buses, he hadn’t used them for twenty years or so, in those days they'd always contained at least one lunatic per bus and there was no reason to suggest that there would be any less today.

That was why, an hour ago he’d taken the decision to walk to Marylebone Station from his office in Marsham Street – a walk that took him up by Buckingham Palace, along Green Park, through Hyde Park and then along Seymour Street and onto Marylebone.

The weather had played an important part in his decision; the summer had already delivered a blistering May and the forecasts were suggesting that June was going to be equally hot.

Buckingham Palace had looked solid and unmoveable; it always did. Edward took some pride in the fact that the tourists never failed to be in awe of both the building and the ceremonious ritual of the British Royal Family.

He’d wandered on through into Hyde Park, he was continually surprised by the amount of people who used the parks, not just Hyde Park, all of them were always full. They always attracted people, throughout the year; jogging, cycling or like him, just strolling at a modest pace - enjoying the fact that they weren’t being herded from A to B by some sort of mechanised people transporter.

He wasn’t in a rush to get to Marylebone. Trains left for High Wycombe every fifteen to twenty minutes and it didn’t really matter which one he took – at this time there was no avoiding the forty-five minutes of being squashed up with a bunch of other people who didn’t want to be squashed up to him.

The racket which was London seemed muted in Hyde Park, the taxis and cars still blasted their horns on Park Lane, a group of youths shouted whilst playing an impromptu game of football; the jumpers and rucksacks denoting goal posts. These were normal noises that were lessened in impact because of the Park. Even the growing hub-hub of Speaker’s Corner was mellow in comparison to the relentless battle that London required on a daily basis to get anywhere.

On entering the Speakers Corner area, Edward Yardley was suddenly jolted from his thoughts; one of the speakers had attracted his attention. Not just attracted his attention; grabbed it, dominated it. The man towered over his audience, looking down on a quickly expanding crowd and Edward immediately recognised him.

It’d only been three weeks earlier that this man had stood on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral. Police and bailiffs were advancing on the shanty town of tents that had been the homes of the protesters for the previous few weeks. The protesters had an annual pilgrimage to the Cathedral in their stance against corporate greed. The past few years had seen ugly battles as the protesters had refused to be moved. This year something much more worrying had happened – the man in front of Edward had stood up on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral and had ordered the protesters, the strength of his oration had been more of an order than persuasion, to go without violence; to be arrested, if necessary, without struggling.

Edward had been involved in a meeting about the unexpected change of tactic, it had immediately created sympathy for the protesters and the police had been reported as heavy handed. It was a tactic that had been used in the past, most infamously by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Historically those that had thought themselves to be in control had found control slipping away – such tactics needed a different set of reactions.

They’d identified the man as Gregory Ramiel and Edward had been surprised not only that this man had gone to the same school as himself, but that he had previous dealings with the now deceased elder brother, Daniel. Edward wanted to physically shiver to eradicate the memory of his dealings with Daniel Ramiel back in 2001, it had ended with the death of one of his best friends, Martin Hollingrake.

Edward reverted his attention to the man on the podium, it was obvious from Gregory Ramiel's proportions that the man was physically big, rather than just perched upon a high soap box. His hands gestured and his body flowed with the intonations of the speech.  There was an incredible richness and authority to his voice. He was, Edward remembered, thirty-three-years-old, dressed in a dated, dark charcoal pin-striped suit, or rather the flared trousers and waistcoat of a dated, dark charcoal pin-striped suit. Beneath the waistcoat was a shirt of pink and green swirls, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

He was speaking about the Chinese, their lack of human rights – not earth shattering stuff, no doubt there'd been thousands of people who'd got up on their soap-boxes and preached about the devils of China, but Gregory Ramiel was really pulling in the crowds; already there must have been sixty or seventy people who had stopped and were listening to him. The nearer speakers, who had been in competition, had started to give up and join his crowd, as this man’s voice projected further not just covering his growing audience but pulling yet more people to him.

‘The Chinese policy of one child families is against the laws of nature.’ His face was weathered but strong and the strength demonstrated in his cheeks and his jaws extended through his thick neck and down into a powerful body, so different to brother. ‘Who has the right to say that we can’t reproduce? It is our primary objective! It is the most important thing that we are put on this planet to do. Mankind has evolved ‘Reason’ and whilst ‘Reason’ is so often a wonderful thing, in this case it is a terrible thing. It is a thing that has made one group of humans decide that another should not have more than one child per family.’

Edward worked for the Home Office, not the Foreign Office, but he read the papers and knew about the Chinese policy, it had been in place since the late Seventies and if he remembered correctly, it only affected 35% of the Chinese population, so whilst he congratulated Gregory Ramiel on his delivery, he wasn’t that impressed with the accuracy of its content.

‘And has it worked? In 1978, when they introduced this policy, China had a population of 975 million, this year it’s estimated at 1.3 billion, that’s an increase of 25%, so on the face of it, it’s been a failure. But without the policy, it’s estimated that an extra 250 million Chinese children would have been born that would have taken it to 1.55 billion which is an increase of 37%.’

He had done his research, Edward reflected, good for him!

‘The World population in 1978 was about 4.4 billion; today it is 6.8 billion, a growth percentage of 35%. I’m not here to say that we should stop the Chinese’s policy,’ Edward was surprised, he thought that was the point of the speech, ‘I’m here because, sadly, China has been the only Government that has recognised the exponential increase in World population and the fact that something has to be done.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Someone called out from about ten yards to Edward's right.

‘Well that’s an interesting one.’ The tall man replied leaning forward, a smile spreading across his broad face. ‘The Chinese policy is against the Laws of Nature, but it has been proved to be marginally effective. Marginally, because birth rates are not increasing, that’s not the major problem; it’s an altogether much nicer problem than that. World population is increasing because year upon year the average age of death rises and that’s worse than exponential.

‘At the moment the average age of death in the industrialised countries is increasing at a staggering rate. When looked at in global terms, this rate is seen as much reduced because of the huge quantities of population that live in non-industrialised areas that have not benefited from the wonders of medical technical advancement. So, what do we all know about technology?’ Ramiel’s hands reached out to the audience. ‘We know that technology always gets cheaper and when it does, it becomes available to a wider slice of the population. There’s going to be a lot more of us around. I’m not decrying this; it’s a wonderful thing and the sooner that we all live longer, the better. My point is that we need to address this problem.’

‘How?’ A voice from a sea of heads, questioned.

‘By standing up and admitting that we do have a population problem, that we’re running out of water, that there isn't enough energy to keep us going much longer. There are far too many different reasons why most governments are not going to do anything – indeed the severity of the problem might lead some politicians to think, ‘I’ll be retired before it becomes a major problem’ and just ignore it.’

Edward inwardly smiled; he knew and had known a few politicians who’d used that line of thinking.

‘What seems important to me is that we work together. Governments are small groups of people saying that they are carrying out the will of the multitude – if we are going to get things done, then we definitely need to be a multitude, but a multitude with one direction. Too often, diversity of opinion is seen as weakness and is an excuse to think more and do less. We need a society that knows what its prime objectives are and work towards them as one – that is not saying that we should not be democratic, I would insist on using technology to bring democracy to all.’

In Edward’s experience a subject with this lack of substance shouldn’t be entertained by, what was now, a crowd of over two hundred people? Gregory Ramiel just wasn’t saying very much.

‘There are too many people and whilst I don’t know what to do about it, we should do something and we should do it together!’

It was puerile, student babbling. Not worthy of consideration by people who really wanted to contribute to a better world, but people were listening to him, appreciating him. It was, in Edward’s opinion, one of the best examples of oratory winning over content.

‘Recognition of the problem. A solution for that problem. A realistic course of action. A resolute attitude to attain that solution. That’s what we need.’

Was that Bakker? For a split second, Edward was sure that he had seen the tall figure of Jim Bakker, his boss from the Home Office. Edward tried to scrutinise the area in which he’d seen him, trying to look between and behind those standing in that area.

‘And who’s going to deliver?’ another headless voice demanded from a different direction.

‘That’s something else, I don’t really think I can answer right now - but I’m sure Mr. Edward Yardley here, will be very involved.’

Edward’s stomach lurched, was he just named? He immediately doubted whether he had heard it correctly. He had the impression, but only the impression that the speaker had looked directly at him when he had mentioned his name, admittedly Edward had been distracted looking for another glimpse of Bakker and couldn't be sure. The rest of the audience hadn’t seemed to have reacted. Maybe he'd imagined it. It wasn’t like him to imagine things. It wasn’t like him to spend time listening to people ranting at Speaker’s Corner. What if the speaker had mentioned his name, was his boss there or even a journalist in the crowd - probably? His career was progressing quite nicely at the moment; he'd been at the Home Office since graduating from Oxford in 1984. Over the last twenty-five years, his responsibilities had continued to grow; he now held the Grade 5 title of Assistant Secretary and was considered to be a shining light for the future. But the Civil Service was fickle and the smallest inkling of a connection between him and some anti-Chinese antagonist might just cause the type of investigation that could stain a currently unblemished record. Bakker was a demanding boss, at the best of times, but now wasn't the time to cross him. Something had gone wrong in the African Water negotiations, Edward wasn't sure what exactly had happened but Jim Bakker had been like a bear with a sore head, ever since. Anyway, did he really mention his name? It now seemed very improbable, but he was damn certain that he’d seen Bakker there.

____.____

Marylebone Station had resisted the large LED monitors that seemed to be on every wall of the other main London rail termini. That said there were numerous small screens peeping out of the various bars and burger bars.

As Edward passed them the familiar face of Alice Grant, the anchor woman for the BBC’s Six O’clock News was illuminated on each and every one. The BBC had established a monopoly on broadcasting in public over the last few years and unlike Euston or Waterloo where her face would have been illuminated on two or three gigantic screens, at Marylebone she just peered out at the travellers from every different angle.

The captions underneath detailed Alice’s explanation of why this was the most severe water shortage that the South East area had experienced, since records began. Meanwhile the graph that dominated the studio behind Alice Grant showed that annual rainfall was not as much as the previous two years but certainly on average for the decade.

Edward Yardley squashed into the 18:18 to High Wycombe – he could have waited for the 18:35 and rushed to get a seat but in all likelihood, he would have ended up being just as squashed – it was just part of travelling!

Chapter 3 – 30th May 2015

Mark Bertigone sat back in his reserved seat. He was travelling First Class on the train from London's Kings Cross Station, in an hour and a half would be arriving at Bedford. He was on his way to see his parents. As the train rolled out of the sunlit station and into some short dark tunnels, he reflected on the past twenty-four hours. He'd ended up sleeping with an American girl called Pam.

She hadn’t been there when he had woken up; not even a note! It looked as if she had determined that the relationship wasn’t to go any further – was that a good thing or not? She was obviously a businesswoman of some type, had she told him? He couldn’t remember. She'd travelled quite a bit, knew her way around the world. They'd met at Nightingales, a fairly popular London club at the Sloane Square end of the King’s Road.

Pam had been introduced to him by his father's old buddy, Toby Matthews. Not the sort of place he would have expected to bump into Toby Matthews, but it did demonstrate that there was still a spark of life in the old git. Within an hour he knew that Pam would be sleeping with him that night - he’d pressed the right buttons right from the start!

There was likely to be a bit of fallout from Rachel, he remembered her storming out of the nightclub at about one thirty. On reflection, he should have played last night in a slightly different way. It wasn’t that he and Rachel were in a current relationship. They had been, but that had finished a couple of months ago. There'd been talk of them getting back together and that wasn’t a bad thing. Rachel was nice; but after last night, if it ever did happen, it wasn’t going to be soon!

He’d been commanded to visit his parent’s house by his father, Cecil, Lord Bertigone of Stevington – what did he want? It wasn’t that he ignored his parents; he probably popped down to Stevington two or three times a year and he kept in contact with his mother by phone on a weekly basis.

He guessed that it was going to be about his father suggesting his involvement in the family company. BZG was a huge sprawling textile empire that Cecil controlled with tyrannical megalomania. Maybe at the age of sixty-four Cecil wanted to hand over some of the reins? Mark had enough on his plate; his law firm had seen phenomenal growth over the last two years with satellite firms opening in New York and Tokyo. On top of this, Mark was working closely with Lloyds Insurance on a new package for protecting Stock Brokers from liability claims; but that didn't mean that he was going to totally ignore his inheritance.

It seemed bizarre to him that three years ago he'd dropped out of his accountancy course at Oxford University after realising that he was never going to spend a life analysing other people’s figures – he wanted to be creating those figures. Soon after a friend had turned up on his doorstep with a tale of woe; the friend had invested in the Stock Market and lost a lot of money. Mark looked through the company accounts and became convinced that the advice from the stockbroker had been terribly flawed. He'd employed a lawyer to prove that his friend had been given incompetent advice from his stockbroker. It had been easy; the stock-broking company had capitulated, making a substantial compensation claim to his friend.

From that point on, Mark hadn’t looked back, his law firm worked exclusively on claims for poor advice from stock brokers and within those three years the whole concept of stock broker advice had changed from Mark’s lawyers proving the incompetence of the brokers, to that of the brokers having to prove their competence.

Mark was now working with the Insurance market to create policies to protect those stock brokers from legal action, by the time the stock brokers had complied with all the red tape insisted upon by the Insurers, they had their hands tied so tightly that any advice given was so blatantly obvious that the punters could have worked it out for themselves.

Mark might have single handed turned a very profitable service industry into a very unprofitable one, but in doing so, he had made himself a wealthy man. What was more, he had a lot of other things that he saw as equally lucrative possibilities for the future; these did not include running a textile empire!

____ . ____

His father’s man, Melvin opened the front door to the seven bedroomed, Stevington Manor. Immediately Mark’s mother was there - her arms outstretched, her large body threatening to encompass and suffocate him.

‘Darling, how are you? Gosh, you’re looking good, have you been using that gym? I’ve got some of your favourite ham for lunch. Your father’s in the garden, but he’ll be in soon. What are you going to have to drink? G and T? Come on, sit down I want to hear all the news. I do envy you being in town, it’s so dull here.’

She had dragged him into the expansive drawing room and was backing him into a sofa. ‘Oh, Melvin,’ Melvin appeared, ‘be a dear and fix us two G and T’s, you don’t mind do you - I just want to hear all of Mark’s news.’ Melvin dutifully approached an oak side table that contained various bottles. Every time Mark returned home her exuberance was the same, as if he hadn’t been home for years.

‘Well, Mark,’ his father, Cecil entered the room wearing loose fitting corduroy trousers and a checked shirt, ‘good to see you - good journey?’

‘No probs, what have you been up to, out there?’

Cecil explained about a piece of fence that needed replacing in the paddock. The trivia and pleasantries went on during a cold meat and salad lunch which was dominated by large baked potatoes. It was at the end of the meal, whilst his mother was collecting the plates that Cecil Bertigone broached the subject.

‘I've been thinking of various different ways of introducing you into BZG.’ Mark had been right. ‘I've even talked it through with some of my people. I've come to the conclusion that the best way to grab your attention is flinging you into the very centre of the organisation. To work with me, initially learning the business and then slowly taking bits off my hands – what do you think?’

‘Sorry Dad, I’m making my own way and it’s going fine. You can’t really expect me to drop everything and move out here to learn about textiles, it’s just not going to happen.’

‘You and I together, Mark. I had no intention of you moving home. Christ, your mother is dewy eyed enough on the weekends you visit – none of us could cope with that on a daily basis. You can work from where you want, but we'll be working together, we'll be discussing BZG issues on a daily basis, there'll need to be trips to our factories, or potential acquisitions. Some of the meetings we'll both need to be physically there, some just one – as you pick up the ropes, hopefully more you than me. But you choose where you work from; initial thoughts?’

‘Sorry Dad.’ Mark was quite capable of negotiating with Cecil, in fact he was damn sure that if he showed any weakness at this point, his father would be ordering him around the rest of Cecil's life – Mark needed to be seen to be helping out. ‘It’s a thanks but no thanks. I’m staying in London and I’m doing my own thing, I'm up to my eyes with these new offices that I'm opening – moving over to International is really taking all my resources, Dad.’

‘I need you, Mark, BZG needs you. I’m approaching my sixty-fifth birthday and I want to back out gracefully, but I can’t. I need you to look after our interests.’ There was no way that Cecil Bertigone wanted to ‘back out gracefully’, Cecil didn’t do ‘backing out’ – he’d be in full control until the day they wheeled him out in a box.

‘Dad, my position stands. However, you’re right, your interests are mine and I should be a bit more aware of BZG. Look, if you’ll provide me with the full portfolio of companies running under the BZG umbrella, along with each company’s management accounts for the last three years, then I’ll have a look at them and get back to you.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s something. You might have a bit of late-night reading though.’ Mark was all right with that, management accounts he could assimilate and digest in no time at all, he always had found them easy to read and other people’s deceptions, obvious to identify. ‘It’s just that at the last count there were a few more than eighty companies within BZG.’

Mark was impressed, although he was damned if he was going to let Cecil see that he was. ‘Eighty companies all making textiles?’

‘BZG is vertical; we have companies that do various associated dealings, not directly textiles but all helping our textile operations. I’ll give you an example.

‘There's a small company on the border of Lancashire and Yorkshire in a town called Denshaw, called W. B. Prucocks and Sons Limited. It's what’s called a Worsted Spinner; very high quality. Spinning the best quality yarns that will go into luxury goods such as Pashmina scarves, cashmere jumpers, that sort of thing. Fourth generation family company – nice chap Jeffrey Prucock, met him on a number of occasions. He's in debt to his wool broker, Hinchliffe's, one of ours. They'll turn the screw over the next few days; Prucock will have to bring in the Administrators. Who will he choose? He'll go for