THE AGREEMENT

By Richard Rowley

This story is set one hundred and fifty years into our future. Globalism is accepted as the best way this planet can support ten billion humans as well as the animals and plants we presently have. The United Nations has been superseded by The Agreement. Nationalism of nations to protect their own without reference to other inhabitants of our planet is no longer accepted. These books imagine a different world. Nations have lost some of their sovereignty. Global management and governance authority is vested in The Agreement.
Weapons of war including of defence are now only manufactured under licence to The Agreement and are controlled by that entity with the support of member nations. All member nations contribute a percentage of their GDP to fund The Agreement.
The individuals you will meet are exceptional. People who are elected to control the activities of The Agreement. But like any group of people, they have personal lives and relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9781669881544

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Copyright © 2024 by Richard Rowley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/09/2024

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CONTENTS

Prologue - Fear

Chapter 1  Col And Royale

Chapter 2  Jo

Chapter 3  Naman And Sha

Chapter 4  Pope

Chapter 5  Hil

Chapter 6  Roald

Chapter 7  Dalton

Chapter 8  Siatin

Chapter 9  Misu

Chapter 10  Ivy

Chapter 11  Beijing -The Conference

Chapter 12  The Conference

Chapter 13  A Kidnapping

Chapter 14  Another Kidnapping

Chapter 15  Nominations For President

Chapter 16  Ten Weeks Later

Chapter 17  And The Winner Is

PROLOGUE

FEAR

T HE YEAR IS 2170. Only fifty years ago the planet was in a dire situation. Fear was rife. Fear from health pandemics. Fear from threats of war. Fear from government corruption. Fear from neighbours lying to achieve personal benefits. Fear from the impacts of greed. Fear of the failure to address global solutions to protect Planet Earth. Fear of privacy invasions. The total lack of trust in governments. The quest for money versus planned survival. Every community fearful for their own surv ival.

The media corporations and the political classes across the planet had lost authority and respect. Their history looks grim. Their future maybe even more so.

The first two covid health pandemics in the 2nd millennium had been managed with less than 20 million deaths. Since then, two more world-wide health pandemics left over one hundred million people dead and over four hundred million unable to care for themselves for a period of over one year.

In the 20th century there were two world wars as well as several power disputes and civil wars. During the last hundred and seventy years two more significant world wars and more than twenty internal or border wars, continued to dominate international affairs. Millions of civilians had been killed. Every government was fearful of its own people’s anger and personal greed. Fear of another world war was debilitating.

Many of these skirmishes were for control of resources that would have significant value to their protector’s populations, or to the victor’s economies. More critically, they were driven by nationalism whereby one nation believed it was more important than their neighbour and needed more resources for itself. The simplest way to achieve that was merely to take it. Nationalism was the hook that carried political power.

These hostilities opened doors for further terrorist and armed insurrection activities. The challenges were not limited to poorer nations. About sixty years ago, following the last world war, the governments of the largest economies on the planet, in Russia, North America and China, were each respectively challenged by their own people. These were civil uprisings that represented the most impossible challenges to manage. Civil unrest at an unprecedented scale.

The peoples of these nations were seeking paid work so they could feed and house and look after their families. They wanted a fair chance to be successful. Whereas the military forces of those countries had always seen their greatest threats coming from each other, or at least from other nations, they were each confronted by a population so enraged and so ungovernable as to leave them simply struggling to remain stable. Their armaments and their trained forces were not designed to be turned on their own people.

This had become an historic turning point. Fear was the operative word. The leaders of each of these countries were in fear both from their own populations and from insurgency groups, while the people themselves were in fear of their personal health risks and of their neighbour’s greed and envy. The protection and entitlement of a way of living enjoyed by a privileged minority all but disappeared. The status quo was no longer promising a hopeful future for the majority.

The failure of capitalism’s profit drivers, combined with governments’ failure to understand they had a duty to fund a defensive health strategy for their whole community, had left the world without a comprehensive health plan. They no longer had a capacity to protect people from deadly diseases. The WHO (World Health Organisation) was not funded to be proactive in this sphere. While some country’s political elite still believed health was an individual responsibility, the large majority now accepted it was in the interests of the whole community to provide investment and safeguards to protect each population from pandemics and contagious health challenges.

Investment into research was a critical part of this responsibility. Slowly, it had been recognised that governments needed to invest, in tandem with the private sector, and widely, whether the recipients could afford the cost or not, because ongoing sustainable protection for the whole community was only available if everyone was protected. The profit driver alone was too slow to accommodate this need. A key issue was gaining the trust and confidence of their populations. Governance was not possible unless a substantial majority wanted it. It could not be left to chance.

Before the last world war, there had been a side-show of power between the holders of veto powers at the United Nations and those who were buying military strength from those vetoing powers. The UN had become irrelevant in managing conflicts between nations. Their capacity to use armaments to challenge oppressive regimes of any sort was virtually excluded by the powers of the veto. In addition, their failure to agree on common actions to restrain recalcitrant actions was negated by the rights of veto.

Extremist religions, extremist nationalistic and tribal leadership, and extremist power imbalances within communities were the cause of many people losing faith in their governments and therefore their hopes for a better future. Religious leaders pounced on these opportunities to strengthen their power base. Their impact was to encourage people to ignore their political leaders and seek survival, faith and hope from their communal beliefs. Fear was encouraged to persuade allegiances.

Even more communities were no longer willing to stand up for the oppressed. Rather, they sought shelter and protected themselves and their own positions. The easy acquisition of arms and weaponry made it difficult to police and impossible to stop insurrections without risking the lives of many more innocent people. Survival was a daily challenge for most people.

The constant fear of another world war was pervasive.

At the same time many countries on the planet were not able to recover from the weather storms and droughts and resulting flooding, destruction, and mayhem. Particularly with the changing climate and its impact, both on the coastal communities with sea levels rising, and the hinterlands with droughts and wildfires, all over the planet. Despite international conferences and agreements to confront climate change that was then mostly attributed to the people living on this planet, they had made little difference. The conclusion had to be that climate change was substantially a natural phenomenon which they needed to manage. It had taken more than a century of time to reach this position. The human cost as well as the financial cost was enormous.

These challenges at last, focused most leader groups on the planet to realise they needed to work together to maintain a balance and ensure all their activities are conducive for establishing long-term needs for a healthy planet as a permanent environment for every living thing. Although not secure, the international focus on protecting the planet and working together is now more widely accepted. Notwithstanding this general agreement, there continues to be substantial disagreement and debate about how to ameliorate the damage, how to fund it, and how to reach agreements that could be trusted and binding.

As one leader described this situation, it was finally making the populations on this planet realise they needed to collaborate and assist each other to survive over the next millennia as if they were being attacked or infiltrated from a distant planet by a civilisation that sought to take this planet for their own use. He had drawn a parallel between the challenges we were now actually facing and the prospect that at some unknown time ahead, we might need to defend our planet from an invader.

That reality is not as farfetched as it was once believed. The recent discovery of several individuals whose bodies had been taken over by a process whereby their understanding of space and of the universe we live in was so superior and unknown to ours that they were suspected to be the subjects of some incredibly progressive experiment from another world. Many denied this possibility. The fear was that it was just the tip of an iceberg which we could never confront. However remote in our lifetimes, it makes us realise that this danger will require all of us to be vigilant and to work together to defend planet earth. Retreating into our national borders is now seen as fraught. One nation could not succeed on their own.

Consequently, and probably foreseeably, many leaders of countries, of religions, of ethnicities, and of communities now understand that acquiring an advantage by hoarding resources and defending them with armaments is a travesty. Making your tribe controllers of their geographic footprint will not protect them. Building walls and buying weapons will not protect them. Weaponizing trade to prevent food from being grown and harvested and sold to the people who need it is problematic. Their real enemies are themselves unless they learn to work collaboratively. Whether the resources are land, water, air or even people, these are not capable of being owned or even retained for another generation at the expense of the present population on the planet.

This conundrum was realised as pivotal. National boundaries are one major barrier. Unfortunately, we will and must continue to argue and debate and challenge every move we make. Fortunately, there is now agreement to do so. But failing agreement, the need for a process that is binding and fair and accepted by everyone is critical. No group can have a veto right to prevent a solution.

Hence the existence, in the last fifty years of a dominant international governance authority, simply called The Agreement.

Fifty years ago, the United Nations organisation was wound up. It was integrated into The Agreement; in particular, its governance was totally changed to ensure that the weight of voting represented both the population of each member and the size of their respective economies. The veto control by the few large countries who retained that power over the UN’s proceedings, thus preventing actions even against the wishes of the great majority of members, was cancelled. This was one key factor. The other main one, was the need to value proportionately, the countries who paid the most to make the organisation work, to ensure they hold representative power. The structural changes of national governance during the decades starting in the year 2120 was pivotal.

The United States, the largest and most powerful economy on the planet, had restructured into three politically separate groups of states. They remain fully aligned and powerful working conjointly in defence and foreign affairs but are still becoming more independent of each other in defence and in domestic concerns. The Cantonese speaking Chinese had rejected the very staunch communist construct, after a century of warring, and were now non-aligned with the remainder of China. Their position was decided within their democratic community rather than for them by an absent elite Communist Party in Beijing. The southern cities in China, aligned with Taiwan and Hong Kong, were also now separated from northern Chinese Communist Party governance.

The Chinese states are still a very powerful and important. As with the American states, the Chinese states are strongly loyal to each other in foreign affairs and boundary defences.

The United Arab Emirates changed its membership. Countries such as Egypt, Iran, and several African states had joined together to support their populations. In Europe, Russia and Germany and several previously non-aligned countries have regrouped to support each other’s resource needs and manufacturing productivity.

All of these changes were a direct result of the understanding that the traditional national boundaries designed when the mobility of people was constrained, had become irrelevant or at the very least, less important. Those boundaries had been critical in the management of economic and political power between nationalities. Using regulatory and trade sanctions as well as negotiating trade preferences, governments had previously stopped companies trading when they determined these companies were not aligned with their national principles or strategies.

The underlying strategy that changed this historic dependence on strict boundaries related to the need to create a global economy that was more efficient in looking after everyone. The need to provide a basic level of access for everyone, including provision of food and shelter, but also looking after the planet for all its inhabitants, human or other, had been recognised as too important. On the other hand, the need for nations to compete and succeed was still protected. Everyone could never be equal.

The failure of many members to accept they needed to contribute to the solutions with financial support proportionate to their GDP combined with a recognition of their population size had been another critical challenge. Importantly, there was the underlying realisation, especially by the larger powers, that controlling armaments and selling them to any buyer who afforded them, was suicidal. At least three of that group of countries had been protecting their power and their financial strength by this warfare manufacturing support process. They would, at the United Nations, veto any actions that might prevent another arms deal or that might challenge their control of essential resources. Although they had nuclear energy, they sought to limit the distribution of that technology to others. In addition, it had always been understood that interfering in the governance and policies of other countries was generally not acceptable. The global strategy required change.

However, this protection of national interests would no longer be tolerated. If there were serious offensive actions and activities occurring inside another country, rather than taking unilateral actions, the proper course now was to file a case with the governance of The Agreement where all parties, including the offenders, would be bound by their determinations. Failure to adhere to these would invite a concerted action from the whole international community to seek correction of the position, notwithstanding the inconvenience. This was the agreed process but in practice, it has not yet needed to be fully implemented. The realisation that war had become too destructive was now looking more ingrained and so far, at least, the members were seeking a managed solution to any international issues.

At last, the old order of power broking by the best armed against the weaker is unacceptable. There is a clear need for and acceptance of this latest effort to protect the planet and all inhabitants, including all-natural life on it. This is a key purpose of The Agreement. It has taken hundreds of years, far too many for most people, to reach this point, and consequently the damage is nearly irreversible. Some life forms will still die, and some inhumanity will still occur, but on a global scale, the potential for change is immense.

The Agreement design is intended to sideline some national competitiveness. In addition, many who were most recalcitrant argued they were still playing catch-up and felt they would be disadvantaged by the change. The events of the last hundred years had eventually culminated in multinational commitments. That included acceptance that we needed to adapt to the climate changes and not cling to the belief we can reverse them.

It had been agreed that in principle there was no future in a competition between nations for absolute control. The powerful economies would still deliver better outcomes, but the planet needed to provide for and cope with the ten billion people as well as the animals and plants. It was going to require trust and perseverance. History suggested, very strongly, that this was an impossible dream. Many scientists suggested the planet would not support more than half that number of humans.

The counterfactual is unknown, but best guessed as being catastrophic. In reality, no one wants to find it. The Agreement is now their best hope.

The leaders of The Agreement are committed to four yearly meetings in person when they are to commence the determination of the membership of the Council, other than the Chairman of the Council who is chosen halfway between each four year’s elections, and the individual leaders within the Executive Office of The Agreement. In addition to a chairman role in the Council, there is a President with an office, staff, and budget to enable decisive and immediate responses. A Conference for these purposes is due within the next two weeks.

Please meet the several members of this leadership group who are, effectively, some of the most powerful persons on the planet in 2170. They are the main characters in this story and their backgrounds and belief systems are all part of the international reality in this time.

They are:

Col, current Chairperson of the Council. Australian businessperson accompanied by his wife Royale. Retired space commander and senior Southeast Asia Governor.

Jo, a graduate of a London University with two doctoral degrees, one in jurisprudence and the other in Psychology. A key support role to Col with a substantial knowledge of The Agreement rules, protocols and regulations.

Naman, current President. Retired University Professor with his wife Sha. Residents of Switzerland.

David Pope, former Chairperson of the Council, Asian representative.

Hil, financier and New Yorker, Member of The Council.

Roald, Businessperson, Member of Council.

Dalton, from New York, American businessperson, Member of Council.

Siatin, from Russia, contractor in international security for The Agreement.

Misu Pope, University professor, Chinese, living in Canada, Member of Council and Leader of Immigration and Emigration plan.

Ivy, from England, representative of European Union and Member of Council.

CHAPTER 1

COL AND ROYALE

T HEIR YACHT HAD left Sydney in Australia and was bound for Beijing. Col is confident that he and his wife, Royale, will be in Beijing in time for the Council meeting having allowed an extra day in case of weather changes. The Conference would start the day after that.

This boat can carry one hundred and sixty passengers, twenty robots, and twenty staff, in relative luxury. Sing-Quant Inc. is now running three thousand of these passenger boats all over the world and is renowned for its service and safety. They are also the largest operator of international space-passenger craft for the upper end of the market. However, although Col was entitled to space flight, he preferred sailing. The sea is his favourite playground! And he knows Royale fears space flight.

Sitting on the deck and reading his electronic mail direct from the satellite services, keeps him in touch with head office and with the Southeast Asia Governance Group. The seven countries in this grouping have over one quarter of the planet’s population. His role is to represent them at the Conference, along with two other appointees. However, at the Council meeting being held on the day before, he is Chairman. He has brought Royale with him to help him to gather influence and set the direction for their work. Mixing with the members is more important than the meeting itself. Royale is an Australian celebrity in her own right, having won Olympic medals in three sailing events over two games some twenty-five years earlier. As important as are her attributes as a network builder, Col enjoys her language skills, and her visible intellect which he assumes works in his favour as well. He enjoys showing her off!

Col didn’t enjoy the boat a lot more than space travel, but it gives him credits with the people who voted for him. In fact, this seven-day trip is one he looks forward to. This is a rare but very pleasant opportunity. He gets time with his wife, time to reflect and think and plan, and a feeling that for once he can substantially control his life. This is as good as a holiday for him. He is always in control. Being in control is his modus operandi. He doesn’t like to think he is weak or would tolerate weakness. It is his way all the time.

Royale does not share this view of her husband. Royale is not afraid to present her views and to state her positions whether he agrees or not. She is an independent thinker. She is most afraid of her husband’s capacity to go off-track when he thinks he could benefit personally. She is aware that he is not currently performing as well as he should be but has quietly resolved to keep her peace and wait until there is an opportunity to refresh their joint commitment. He remains a challenge!

She guessed he is likely to have formed another relationship with a younger woman. That was the pattern of their lives over three decades. What she didn’t yet know, was who it was this time. She had found out about Jo and Col from friends, and the last time was with a French woman who made the mistake of calling him when Royale was in bed with him. He had tried to deny anything, as usual, but she just knew he was lying. Eventually, after some very awful scenes, he had agreed there had been a liaison but vowed he still loved his wife. Royale had reached a level of understanding about Col that allowed her yield to his charms and promises so long as he kept her reputation protected and respected her to pursue her own life as well as supporting him. He knew when the times to apologise and concede arrived, and then he made clear his determination to protect her. However, because of his present behaviours she was again alert to the possibility that he was up to his old tricks. She was very determined.

From the outside, this boat was much longer than the internal passenger capsule. The internal capsule that contains all the passengers, was developed to stay upright and smooth no matter how rough the water, but within some limits. He wasn’t sure what they were, but he had never been on one when they exceeded them. So, the journey was always very comfortable. All energy on board was either from the wind, the sun or the boat speed itself which generated and stored electricity from the forward movement. No nuclear or older fossil-fuelled generators and no pollution. These were a key to reducing the demand for air travel and making sea travel a little more enjoyable and relaxing. The newer electric and ammonia driven boats were much faster, but Col wanted to stand outside in the wind and enjoy the fresh sea-air, something that was very precious in this era. The faster boats’ passengers were totally encapsulated but for many travellers, very efficient.

Col’s father had told him about Beijing, and of many other cities around the world, poisoning the planet’s atmosphere and water before the advent of The Agreement. His father was always taking his son to the transport museum in Sydney to see the old aeroplanes, ships, motorcars, and trucks. They were now regarded as primitive, and Col was perpetually amazed that they had been able to provide the capacity to move enough goods to feed and shelter all the people on the planet. He now realised that was never the plan. The plan in those times was to make money by selling to people who could afford to pay a profitable margin. The level of tolerance that existed for the well-off to help themselves and so long as the rest were not too poor, they would have to fend for themselves, still surprised him. And that philosophy was now, he believed, totally unacceptable.

The idea that there was some value in ensuring every person could eat sufficiently, could have safe and healthy shelter, and could travel pretty much unrestricted, was never even considered by those former political leaders. Even allowing for the growth of the population, and for the huge progress in managing the movement of goods only when essential, it was incomprehensible to him how far the developments had gone towards destroying the planet, before people even started to address the underlying issues.

The shocking evidence of more than three quarters of the people on the planet almost starving and dying prematurely, while not more than a quarter of the population was wasting and greedily consuming as much as they could, was now seen as almost criminal. His father told him that because so many on the planet had then been starving and living in poverty while at the same time the planet entered a phase of unsustainable consumption, shocked Col. The historic response to keep them working and subjugated so the cost of having them was reduced to the minimum possible, was incomprehensible. At the same time millions of cars that ran with petrol or diesel motors were being used daily to transport one or maybe two people at a time. Roads and parking buildings were built at huge cost to provide for this insanity. Unbelievable!

History was evidence of the very slow learnings gathered from experience, especially when the leaders were not experiencing the realities of the majority. He knew they still had these issues in some of the non-participating countries, but he was sure at least none of the countries in The Agreement were still of that ilk. At the same time, he was personally envious of the people who had lived such an elegant and exciting lifestyle. He could easily imagine himself being very happy in that time. Indeed, he often wished as much. He was finding the challenges of this more holistic world very draining on him personally. Not that the new protocols and principles guiding them stopped some people living extremely well, but for a political career it was certainly limiting.

It would be a great step forward when the member states were all able to prove they had housed and fed all of their populations, and at the same time provided basic health care including mental health care, funded by insurance and taxation and provided on a citizenship entitlement basis wherever on the planet those people may now be residing. However, the cost of these achievements was still far too high and the fundamental issues that could reduce health care costs included these examples; improve over-arching issues such as potable water supplies, reduce pollution of the atmosphere, and make drug marketing of anti-social drugs, including alcohol, completely disappear. There were many more improvements needed.

Col was regarded as an expert in managing the distribution needs of the member countries. It was a significant agreement when each country sought to have sufficient domestically produced food and goods to sustain their populations for one year at a time if they needed to. But that could never happen in practice. Col was the person who led a response by ensuring there was appropriate food supplied to every community whether they produced it or not. However, it was a goal that was having an immense impact on the demand for supply systems investment. The wars, the storms and weather events and the pandemics had changed the shape of global business relations. The supply-chains of the past had long since developed into a strong inter-community focus with very high demand for longer supply infrastructure investment still being sought. In addition, the transport of medical supplies had been guaranteed, no matter where they were produced. The old concept of intellectual property rights being monetarised and even weaponised for enforcement of privilege for the wealthy was an anathema to the principles of The Agreement. On the other hand, intellectual property investment needed to be promoted by supporting profitable margins and efficient distribution. The globalisation of intellectual property protection rights had been problematic. That one country developed a new breakthrough had previously meant other countries would often ignore their legal protections. Now these lawfully protected rights were global within all the member states, the marketing and distribution was merely limited by the size of the investment needed.

Presently he was searching for a solution to the me-too-housing conundrum. Rather than moving supplies around the world so everyone could aspire to have a western-culture-inspired home, he was seeking to get approval for each country to provide and protect their shelter requirements with resource from their own geography or very close to there, whenever possible. The ongoing storms and earthquake damage had required some global regulation of safe housing, but typically the standards needed were localised. He was staunchly in the category of people who did not ascribe to the view that everyone was equal. He accepted wholeheartedly that we are allowed to be different both in our living standards and our hopes and aspirations. On the other hand, he also accepted that wealthy families could import food and building materials if they paid the proper price for the resources and the transportation. His expectations of member countries were that they needed to protect their cultures, their religions and their community traditions provided they also ensured there was no shortage of food, medical supplies, appropriate shelter and infrastructure for transport and energy. He was relentless and tough in seeking to deliver these outcomes. He was not one for politically correct or woke behaviours. He needed the leadership of The Agreement and of the member states to have courage and conviction to implement the principles and protocols without favour.

His own story was one he repeated often. About fifty years earlier there had been a third world war. That it was called the 3rd World War for two reasons. One because it was the third, following the first two in the 20th Century. Also, it was called third world because it had been started by the demands of some third world countries one against another. The root cause seemed to be about fervent nationalism, combined with extreme religious faith systems and a realisation that they were suffering more and falling further behind other countries. These were countries with very substantial poverty, lack of governance, of resources, and of law-abiding cultures counterbalanced with too extreme levels of fundamentalist religious zealotry and despotism. These countries were often then referred to as third world.

Those countries had spent many years shedding people by encouraging them to travel to the better economies to seek their futures. At the same time, they had bought and been provided with weaponry to protect their control and power over their communities. Even when this resulted in a destruction of their way of life, and more of their people starving and dying. In this cynical way the sheer weight of their numbers and the disease and lack of education that came with them, had led to forceful intervention by some countries against the emigrating hordes. As had become normal, there were many others who automatically defended their right to seek water, food, shelter, and security. They argued those were the fundamental rights of every person on the planet. Hence the wars had been seen as an opportunity to support those migrating and at the same time seek to repress the economic power and advantages of the interventionists; those who were seeking to stop the migrations. The western alliance nations versus the communists had been drawn into the war, one on each side, provoking another level of warfare that had never previously been seen. Eventually the lack of any hope for improvement meant the third world communities had nothing to lose by fighting and killing. The superpowers took the opportunity to turn the conflict into something it was never intended to be, and the subsequent carnage had been horrific.

The warring had gone on for a long fourteen-year period during which many millions of people were killed, and millions more were maimed and severely damaged. It had been very difficult to resolve because there were no leaders of the hordes of migrants, who were willing to sacrifice their lives to stay on course, but who had no loyalty to any one outcome or leadership group. The movement of millions of people had inspired many power-seeking war-lord types to use this unrest to seek a better position for themselves and these were also impossible to negotiate with or to understand the outcomes they needed so there could be a settled peace.

The superpowers had wasted their efforts as the underlying reasons and unrest would never be solved by bombs and rockets. Eventually, a majority of both insurgents and immigrants realised they had lost and the survivors of them were settled into camps before being returned to their countries of origin. The governance of those countries had been overwhelmed by each of the superpower armed forces. It had been a nightmare time. If there was an unseen benefit to that awful fourteen years of death, it was the realisation that unless we looked after every person to a fair level of hope and opportunity, this would recur again and again. Any progress could be swept away, and we would need to regroup and start over. The failure of the governing classes to understand the needs of these people and to ensure their general agreement, was not just a political option but a critical necessity.

Col’s grandfather had been one of the literally hundreds of leaders to eventually secure the process and the conversion to peace. His descriptions and stories from that time were etched into Col’s memory forever. That their negotiations had been the embryo of the talks to achieve The Agreement was clear to him. The wealthy nations had required a substantial restructure of the lawful rights to utilise the resources on the planet, a change to the rights of people to migrate permanently, and significant economic commitment by them to stabilise an otherwise impossible quandary. The end game was a leap of faith that had previously always seemed impossible.

Rather than spending their wealth on buying security from each other with weaponry that could destroy the planet, they had finally accepted that the real security they all needed was to ensure the planet could provide for all living things so long as we work together. That security would follow not from fear of each other, but from fear of destroying the key features of the planet that conspire to deliver us a life support system that we are unable to otherwise provide. It had finally been reduced to a simple equation about everyone’s survival. While it was accepted that everyone is not equal, it was also accepted that everyone was entitled to be respected and supported if there was to be a lasting human civilisation.

During this period the former United States of America morphed into two main groups as well as a third smaller one. Together they were now referred to as The States of North America. There was one group with a significant population group including the states of New York, Illinois and California which had abandoned the Constitution, a lawful impediment to a productive and ambitious future. The other major group included Texas, Florida and many of the southern and mid-western states relying on the Constitution combined with their very conservative religious culture, to protect them. However, together, as they were still regarding defence, foreign affairs policies and trade as a unifying precept, they remained one of the three largest economic communities and were a vocal leadership participant in The Agreement.

Col was ambitious, not for personal power in The Agreement, but for financial strength to provide him with a lifestyle better than 99% of the population. That was always his key driver. His pride and therefore his energy and drive were still founded in that ambition. At the same time, he was personally able to connect with many of the Asian leaders and to understand their needs and their opportunities. To his relief, he found many of them shared his personal beliefs. They also wanted personal wealth. He had resigned himself to an acceptance that they could work well with him achieving the objectives of The Agreement in their countries so long as he could provide them individually with some financial security, well and above what they could themselves. He had accordingly won their confidence and loyalty. He was not at all phased by using his budget to smooth their pathways. He also was promoting their leaders within the Council of The Agreement. Col knew the future depended upon bringing these countries into the fold rather than pretending that they could find their own way. He wanted to obtain financial support for these leaders from Asia, and especially including Indonesia with whom he had a very strong relationship and where he personally was also heavily invested. He was sincerely of the opinion that his interests were not in conflict with theirs. He also persuaded himself that this was acceptable as a means of achieving the outcomes he needed.

However, he had not disclosed this to anyone in The Agreement leadership group. He didn’t believe they would cope with his vision for himself, though he still believed that he needed to achieve his vision so that he could achieve theirs. He couldn’t allow the obvious conflict between his personal ambitions with the principles of The Agreement, to get in the way. He was blind to the contradictions that he represented because he was focused on achieving the greater good.

He was not the president of The Agreement. However, he was Chairperson of the Council for two more years. He believed that with his senior executive, Jo’s support and skills at his side, he could achieve his personal ambitions as well as look after the role of Chairing the Council. He was, as ever, confident, and personally looking forward to the challenges both for The Agreement and as well the opportunities for his own benefit.

Col was no stranger to looking after himself. He was mostly in Sydney in Australia or New York where the head offices were. He also had homes in San Diego and St Petersburg. In his personal life he was demanding and selfish. He would not have agreed with anyone who suggested otherwise. To him that was his right. It was, after all, what his ancestors had fought for; the right to be free and successful. He was happy to ignore the criticism that might follow. He regarded that as petty.

As Chairman for the next two years, he was frightened that the general membership of the conference will again refuse to move with the tough decisions, as they did with the commitment to invest in the atmosphere, and therefore his remaining time as Chairperson will prove as fruitless as the last two years have. He needed to see a President nominated by the Conference who would ensure the work of the Council could start to move forward again. This was a time to exercise a judgement and choose a person who would be courageous enough to act unreasonably for the common good. That person would need to provide the economic strength and advice to ensure the new programme would be afforded. Col was very sure he had the courage to wrestle the result he needed if he had the support of the new President. He had not ruled out the possibility that he himself might be nominated for president. That would certainly be acceptable to him.

Col had accepted advice that by intervening in a dramatic and unreasonable or unexpected way he might gain the impetus for change that he needed. He knew there were many who would argue that they could not afford to move yet. On the other hand, he wanted to see progress while he was still at the helm of the Council. This conference must be that opportunity and he was not willing to wait any longer.

Col now believed that acting unreasonably was necessary. Acting reasonably would protect the status quo, but that was not moving forward. He firmly believed they could not stay here for another year. The new era for balance was now. He was ready. He was going to do everything he needed to do to ensure success. And he had a personal and private arrangement with others which depended upon him succeeding. He needed to make it work. He had made a significant promise to some Asian states, in addition to his personal Asian supporters, via Francoise, which would ensure their support. In an effort to keep them believing in him, he had allocated a sum of money meant for emergency funding of storm damage, to allow them to pay for research and to gather information and support for the new water changes being debated. This was a bit unusual but was, he believed, within his remit. He knew some of this money would end up in the private accounts of his friends but would argue, if he had to, that he wasn’t responsible for how the money was spent. The easiest way was not to tell anyone.

He spoke into his chord, (personal co-ordinator), asking it to connect to his office executive. Jo was smiling on his screen almost immediately. They acknowledged each other. Col had relied on Jo for the past five years. She was the most powerful person in his business life. He knew she would have views but more importantly, have clear reasons for them, and that she would not discuss these first with anyone else except him. She was very well remunerated. That was a key to loyalty by Col’s standards. He believed money was the key and he took it for granted that accordingly they were an equal team. They were like a golf couple. It was known in his culture as a Tiger, after some golfer and his caddy had broken all the world records for over a decade about a hundred and fifty years ago. Col didn’t really know what a tiger was, as they had become extinct before The Agreement, but he knew they were a mean machine of a cat that could kill at will. Their photographs were impressive. He and Jo didn’t kill, but they were pretty mean as a political force in this part of the world’s governance. He wanted to win like the namesake of this colloquialism. He liked that he might be known as a Tiger. He also accepted that Jo was a critical part of his success.

Did you see the item about the Council member at a restaurant in Beijing last night? Jo asked. He had, and as they discussed it, he realised they were being listened to. His chord had a frequency to show him if the signal was intercepted. It was very high tech and not common. Jo would not have that feature on her chord. He mentioned the sheep in the mountains, their signal to stop talking, and they both stopped the call. He could then look to see who the interloper was. It was a name he didn’t know. He secured it into his action list and turned off the machine. Ron Black was the name, and the address was in Nairobi, capital city of Kenya in Africa. He was now required to leave the chord for five minutes, and then re-start it on the emergency frequency to allow him to report it and to carry on with his work. He also knew this might be the start of another attempt on his role. Jo would have to know all the details as soon as he could deliver them.

The boat had made very good time. No pirates had even got close, and the weather location system worked perfectly. He was impressed to see the large ships that were cleaning rubbish out of the oceans had made a real difference. He was excited to see the difference. Gone were the islands of plastic and refuse. Non-degradable for over two hundred years and killing animals and fish but no one had been willing to pay to fix it. The Agreement was really working in some very important ways.

He would be in port within two hours, and the hotel was a thirty-minute trip. Royale and Col were on the front deck watching out for the lights of the buildings near the coast in Bohai Bay. It was a wonderful evening. Warm and strangely peaceful although the noise of the water and the wind was very real. Royale had asked him to come out here because she wanted to know what was troubling him. She needed to find a place where they might converse securely. They were always aware they might be spied on. Col had told her about the spying incident when he found his call with Jo was being recorded. Royale didn’t believe that was the real problem, but realised he was not about to go any deeper into his concerns or worries. They both knew this was how the next year would be. Enemies within the state are harder to manage than any others. Guard information first and lives second. We are all dispensable.

These grand ideas about the state being paramount were all very well, but neither of them was about to seriously believe they might need to make this sort of decision. Surely that was the dramatic call to loyalty from a besieged leader. Wasn’t it? But Royale wasn’t diverted by that. What are you worrying about Col, she asked again. Why are you so pensive and removed from the present in your thoughts? Col said he was anxious about the next few days, and he was keen to speak to Dalton. Anything more at this stage is conjecture, he told Royale. I am sure we can handle it. Don’t worry. I don’t believe I will ever be a success as Chair of the Council unless this conference appoints someone like Roald or myself to take on that challenge. I have spent two years already and we are just sitting tight. We are making progress elsewhere, but we haven’t addressed one of the most important issues. This proposed Water Plan is now critical. We must get more money into our budget and get this water specific development advanced quickly. It is so critical. That is my worry.

Royale looked at him carefully, thoughtfully enough for him to notice the hesitation, and then she asked, Do you have the support in your immediate team to cope? For example, are you sure about Jo? I know we have had our differences about her, and I realise she is very important to you, but are you sure you can absolutely trust her? She has a particular partner issue that seems unresolved. She has a new friend in France who wants to control her. Is she the real deal you think she is? Did you put her through the security clearance process as we discussed several months ago? How did that go? Royale was also remembering the affair Col had admitted he had with Jo. That was long since gone, but nevertheless had left her with an emotional scar. It was strange to her that Col and Jo liked each other so much when she believed Jo and she were so very different. Her instinct was to feel betrayed by Jo as much as by Col.

Col was surprised by all these questions. He hadn’t ever thought about the possibility of Jo being a weakness in his team. He still had enough ego to assume that Jo would never do anything to harm him. He remembered the affair too, and he also knew Royale was still hurt by it. I have, until right this moment, he answered. I have never considered any other possibility. I absolutely have trusted her. And I still do! I don’t know why you are making this an issue now.

It sounded so stupid. He knew that he had to be objective in assessing the security risks around him, but he had never even considered Jo as a risk. It didn’t just sound stupid, but now as he reflected on Royale’s questions to him, he knew it was indefensible. He realised for the first time in recent years that his affection and emotional connection with Jo had skewed his normal guarded countenance. He had suddenly understood that he was being stubborn and that had another of his employees done the same he would have found it difficult to forgive them. Indeed, they would have been on the slide.

Yet, he hesitated. He knew he had not finalised an offer to extend Jo’s contract that was due to expire, and he knew she was unhappy with him for not being transparent. He also realised the history of their relationship had been canvassed in the media, but he had managed to neutralise it. It was a shock for him to be reminded this was exactly the sort of omission that could damage him. Royale was watching his eyes and the nerves around his mouth for any signs of his thinking. She knew he was considering her questions very carefully. I am not saying I know anything, but I do know how women think. I also know that Jo understands her value but has a very honest view of your weaknesses. I don’t think you would assume the same of a man, so I ask you not to do the same for Jo. I am just being careful. I want to look after you, and to look after us. Remember it is not just Jo, it is all the close friends she has, and your friends with her too.

You are a regular mate! I am so stupid. Of course, I must give her the same assessment and consideration for all possibilities as everyone else in my close team. I haven’t. I shall attend to this immediately. Oh my god, how stupid of me. Col turned to face her and smelt the perfume on her in the breeze. Thank you darling. I love you, and he walked off towards their room. Royale watched. He had still not talked of the real worries he was feeling and struggling with. She knew this would need to be discussed again, and sooner than later.

Col was more alert to the sensitive side of his life since they lost their daughter from a rare disease several years earlier. But his main life driver had always been his passion for the power of the free market, if one allows it to work well, to deliver improved living standards for all life on this planet. Money was very important to Col. He was acutely aware that the former green political movements had made little progress in changing the mindset of the world when more people on the planet were struggling to live comfortable and healthy lives. Their DNA had been about saving the planet from the devastation created by the capitalist systems and spending more of the taxes on subsidising the poor. They loudly professed an interest in all people, but their action copy was to put the planet first and accept some millions of people might be severely disadvantaged. It was now clear to Col that the regulator needed to be acutely aware that the global economy was an imperative to the successful delivery of The Agreement’s principles, thus enabling the balance between all life, both animal and plant, to the needs of our atmosphere, our oceans, lakes and rivers, and to a need to tolerate the religious and cultural beliefs of the people. He was struggling to imagine how this might play out, but he knew strong financial management must be a part of it.

At the same time, he needed to encourage his belief in the enterprise of individuals and teams as being pivotal to success. Individual freedom to achieve the best outcomes at a personal level was not a compromise of principles. The two were interlocked and essential. Producing food, shelter and health to everyone was and remains an almost impossible challenge unless individual businesses and people were determined to achieve it. Too often the regulations were stopping innovation as an unforeseen consequence of the need to control greed and the so-called rights to be free. Col recognised that freedoms must be constrained and regulated otherwise the natural biological need to control others would frequently become counterproductive. His preference was always to be on the self-responsibility side of the divide. More importantly he did not subscribe to the view that centralising the management of our resources would deliver the outcomes we plan. The challenge is to strike a balance between the immediate needs and the longer-term strategies that would ensure sustainable progress.

This tension between innovation and development on the one hand and protection of the weaker people on the other was the Achilles heel of The Agreement; as it had been created from both communist and left-wing dictatorships, as well as of democracies and liberal socialist countries. Col was decisive. Unless we could rely on the best human teams to work together and produce and support the delivery of the key essentials including food and shelter, we would end up with another even more destructive and perhaps final war. The power of our destructive forces was now so compelling as to spell catastrophic! The very reason we are all on this journey in The Agreement is to prevent that, he often repeated to himself.

He also is acutely aware that Jo has made a substantial contribution to his own international reputation using her skill and the intellectual strength to deliver his messages in a way that is more easily accepted and absorbed by their audience. European males of his age are no longer trusted. Young women with a combination of looks and intelligence were now very persuasive politically. He knew that. He was ashamed to admit that because he trusted her so much, he had failed to adhere to the protocols and have her clearance completed in accordance with them. He knew she would pass but he was also aware that if she was not cleared it left him exposed. And he realised that this conference might be the time for someone to expose him. He needed her to attend to this immediately. He also knew it would not be an issue in terms of her loyalty. On the other hand, he was aware his wife was starting to challenge his underlying behaviour. He didn’t believe she knew what he was planning, and he would have to be more careful to shield himself from her interrogations. She seemed to know what was going on inside him even when he