Molly said, “Thanks for helping; I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. What is the dog’s name?”
“Skyez, pronounced Sky-zee,” but then she added that when the puppy was adopted she would probably be renamed.
I asked her where the name Skyez came from and she replied, “Well it was supposed to be just Skye but since she was the last puppy in the litter we added Z to the end to be creative.”
Well, I thought to myself, that was a different way to name a dog. Therefore, I joked with Molly and asked, “Did the mother have twenty-six puppies at one time?”
She smiled and sort of laughed and said, “No, she just had six. I guess you have a nice sense of humor, and again, thanks for helping me today.”
Michelle, I noticed, seemingly inpatient with me playing with the dogs and wanting to move me along, said, “Mr. South, we can go to the orientation room now if you like.”
“That would be fine, Michelle. Has my attorney, Mark Anderson, made it here yet?” I asked, although the door attendant had already told me he had not.
Michelle looked on her list before replying, “He has not checked in with me yet.” She then turned her attention to Molly who was fiddling with the other cages, getting the dogs out. “Molly, I will send one of our assistants out to help in a few minutes. I need to get Mr. South to the orientation room because he is scheduled before you.”
She glanced at her watch and told Molly she had a little over two hours to go. “You are on at about 8:20.” She then turned to me and asked me to follow her.
As we were leaving the area, I looked back at Molly and the dogs, realizing that after what I was going to do today, Molly and her Labradoodles would probably not make the show. Too many other things of greater interest would be happening at that time and neither she nor The Network had any idea what was about to take place.
The other thing I thought was that Molly would probably never forget who I was for the rest of her life; and she would always say that I helped her or, then again, maybe not.
Chapter 2
6:20 AM EST New York - The Network Morning Headlines Studios
Michelle led me down the hall of the studios to a holding room called the Teal Room. Why it was called this, I did not know. The room was relatively small with a few couches, chairs, a TV monitor, telephone, and miscellaneous tables with an array of beverages and snacks on them. The most striking images were the pictures on the wall of famous guests; and of course, the hosts of the shows past and present. At the moment, there was no one else in the room. I assumed Mark, my attorney, would be here soon. I was somewhat hungry so I grabbed a donut and a cup of coffee. I poured in some coffee creamer and sat down on the couch facing the door to wait for what would come next.
As I sat looking around the room, I thought of all the people I had seen on this show in my lifetime; realizing of course that they, like me, probably sat in this same room waiting for their interview. Some interviews I had seen on this show were depressive, others upbeat, and then some were plain disastrous. These anchor people became good at getting people to slip up and say things they should not say. That was a definite concern of mine today.
Brad Williams was the one interviewing me today. I knew he was an egocentric who thought that the world revolved around him. According to some, he had not earned his place at The Network, but due to family connections, he was groomed for the job and, almost overnight, held the top anchor spot by the time he was thirty-one.
Brad was not a big person. He stood about five feet eleven, weighed around a hundred and sixty to seventy pounds, and was in good shape. His English heritage showed in his dishwater brown hair, brown eyes, and rather sharp features. He was, I thought, about forty-eight years old, but I was not sure. He had been voted best-looking man on TV a few years ago by a popular TV magazine and had won several awards. Moreover, for all intents and purposes, he was the most watched news anchor in America. He was also the most ruthless.
For the past two weeks, the public relations company we hired and my attorney rehashed each word of the questions I would be asked by Brad, and my responses to them. We had insisted that we get a copy of the questions prior to agreeing to the interview and were given a list of them. We went over each one and then decided at what point I would drop the ‘bombshell’ into their laps. We were sure that they were not going to like it. That was part of the plan. Push Brad to the edge and get him to lose his temper.
I pulled out the list of questions and started reading all the notes prepared for the interview. In my mind, I rehearsed the answers and my lead-in, when I would change the whole outlook of the interview. I still had my doubts about what I was about to say and what it meant to me, my family, let alone the rest of the world. This entire situation had begun with a job interview. I was in this particular predicament because I was a Christian. I suppose that over the years, my faith in God had prepared me for today, but I still did not understand why I was chosen. I guess, as the messengers had said, I was selected a long time ago; longer than I could imagine, and that very soon I would understand. I had to get past today first then they would explain more to me. So here I was, operating on absolute blind faith, in front of a national – soon to be worldwide – audience to announce something to the world nobody was going to be ready or willing to accept.
I reached into my other breast pocket and pulled out another sheet of paper. I unfolded it then read it thoroughly. I would be handing this to Brad, the Anchor, after my statement, or as I called it, my “bombshell.” I reread the information printed on the paper. It was very detailed and the contents should be easily understood. Once I stated what was on these pages, winning the two lotteries back to back would seem pale in comparison to the gift I had been given.
The door opened and Michelle entered, “Your attorney is here,” she said as she stepped aside and Mark Anderson walked in. I refolded the paper, putting them back into my breast pocket. I got up, walked over and shook Mark’s hand, “Good morning, Mark. Did you have a safe trip?”
Mark simply answered, “Yes. Let me get a cup of coffee and then we can talk.”
As Mark was getting his coffee, I moved over to the two easy chairs, which faced each other in the far corner, and waited for him to come over and sit. Mark Anderson was a bit dumpy, not at all what you would expect for a high-priced defense lawyer. Standing about five eight, balding, and well over 300 pounds; no matter what he wore he would look dumpy. However, his firm in Chicago was the largest defense firm in the country, specializing in federal prosecutions, primarily, as well as high profile criminal defense.
When we had first approached Mark and his partners, we informed them of our fears since winning the lottery that the Government may try to investigate my winnings, being that it was close to impossible to have won. After listening to us, he asked directly if we had fixed the lottery and we told him no. He then said he needed a twenty-five million dollar retainer and we said fine; and at that point, he was all in. I then figured we had hired an attorney, but then Gabriel and Ariel wanted to speak with Mark alone so I went back to the reception area and waited.
After we left Mark’s firm, I asked Gabriel about what had transpired while I was waiting. Gabriel told me that he had outlined with Mark the basic plan and then questioned his faith in God.
It turned out that Mark was Jewish, even though his last name did not indicate that. He was very religious and was definitely a Christian Jew. Mark was also a leader in Cicero, Illinois and quite respected in the Jewish Community in Chicago. Gabriel went on to say that Mark, like me, understood that he was chosen by God to be a participant. Mark would be either with me or watching over me almost 24/7 over the next few months as our plans unfolded. I was to listen to him and take his advice.
Mark also connected us with a public relations advertising company. We were going to need one to get our plans to work. Based on Mark’s recommendation, we hired Anthony and Williams Information Services. They initially had some difficulty
understanding what we wanted, but quit asking questions once we offered a ten million dollar retainer. Therefore, we laid out our plan and they started putting the pieces together the way that we wanted. However, they had very little knowledge of our real overall plan, except for the steps we outlined that we wanted them to handle.
Mark was able to convince Anthony and Williams to do as we told them, no questions asked. I guessed that he was used to having a PR firm handle the media to feed information in the favor of his criminal clients. So for the most part, all the media exposure we needed and other things that were to happen in the next few days, were being orchestrated and handled by Mark Anderson and Luke Willard, President of Anthony and Williams.
Mark sat down, took one sip of his coffee, then looked up at me and asked, “Are you daydreaming?”
“Yes, just thinking about the past few days is all.”
“Do you think this room is wired?”
“I doubt it.”
He shook his head and said, “Well, let’s keep our voices low anyway. I assume you are ready and prepared?”
“Yes, and I just hope you are too. As we have discussed, they will probably edit the interview and will not broadcast it and kick us out of here. It is very important that you transmit the video to Luke at Anthony and Williams, immediately. Without this being done, none of this will work.”
Mark looked at me. He did not seem sure whether he should say anything or not, he asked, “What exactly are you going to say in this interview that is so important that you need me and all this setup?”
I looked directly at him and said, “After what happens in this interview, everything will begin to make sense to you, Mark; as well as why it is so important that you are here.”
Chapter 3
1:35 PM CEST Brussels - The Waldger Group Corporate Headquarters, David Matthews’ Office
David Matthews III sat in his office surfing the web and various news media services. For a Monday, not much was happening of any consequence, anywhere.
David’s job, working for The Waldger Group, was to find interesting things that were occurring that may or may not affect world stability. The company he worked for was not a recognized government, but a group of people who, for the most part, acted like a government. They were not elected, but acted very much as if they were.
The Waldger Group had far reaches into every country of the world. They held most of the media outlets, movie studios, press, and many of the world’s largest corporations, banks, and natural resources within their clutches. Many governments and their leaders were also answering to The Waldger Group in many circumstances. The Waldger Group itself was well known, but held no accountability, except to itself.
David and his staff browsed the world’s information services to make sure that nothing that could affect them slipped through. His staff consisted of over three thousand people working around the clock on twenty-four hour shifts, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Most of his staff spoke and read at least three languages each and kept their pulse on every breaking news story and event worldwide. Information was key and the quicker they got the information the faster The Waldger Group could affect the situation.
Since David could remember, he had always been a geek. He acted like one and stereotypically looked like one. He was only five feet seven inches tall, skinny, with unruly brown hair, black eyes and wore dark- rimmed glasses. He realized early on that knowledge was the real power, not being a jock.
David graduated from MIT at the top of his class in the late 70’s and was immediately recruited by the U.S. Secret Service. After twenty years of service to the government, he left the caverns of Washington, D.C. and then came in as an outsider to head the information gathering service of The Waldger Group. Over the years, with the advent of the Internet, he was able to find out and stop many a problem, person, or persons who might destabilize their investments and power.
Located in Brussels, Belgium on the hundred and twenty acre campus, which was Waldger’s Worldwide Corporate Headquarters, David’s group kept a constant vigil on what was happening worldwide. When something interesting came up, they started monitoring it. Every resource was used: from the news media, internet blogs, and even underworld connections.
They had several Sequoia, a20 petaFLOP/s (quadrillion floating operations per second) system based on Blue Gene technology supercomputer running programs which would, based on key words and instances, bring data to one of the workstations for scrutiny by one of his staff. If someone were to enter into a blog or send an email that said, “I hate the President,” the software would read and pick up that information, no matter whose internet service was used, and then relay it to his servers. The system would then display not only the comment, but also the entire blog. It would then list every person on that blog, including IP address, as well as their personal information; address, affiliations, education, and any other information that was available.
David’s systems also had the ability to monitor cell phone calls, hard line telephone and radio communications. It was based on certain key words and even voice stress.
Once received, data would be processed into a category or categories, and then sent to an analyst. The analyst would check to see if there was any threat or if it was just frivolous. If it seemed relevant, then the information was pushed up another level until either it was confirmed to be a threat or not. If the information was thought to be an issue of concern, then David would get it. David’s job was to take whatever steps necessary to protect The Waldger Group.
David had many resources available to him to protect The Group. One call from him and a law enforcement agency from just about any country in the world would be knocking on the door of any suspected attempt to undermine The Waldger Group, its leaders and or its assets.
This system had been used by several governments and still was used on a contract basis, especially after the terrorist attacks on the United States and England after 911. It was also used to track rogue governments. The Group became aware of their plans long before a group, a government, or a terrorist cell put them into action.
If you were not born in a cave and still lived here on earth, you were in their system, somewhere.
David had considerable interest in only one story today – the lottery winner – who against all odds had won two national lotteries in the United States. He knew that the odds in winning both lotteries, back to back, with the same numbers, were absolute zero. He knew that Jack South would be on the Morning Headlines today. He was hoping that the questions being asked of Jack by the anchor, Brad Williams would shed some light on how he pulled it off.
David also knew that Jack had retained a criminal defense firm and a public relations firm to the tune of thirty-five million dollars. That made no sense unless Jack really needed to have a criminal defense team for future use. He thought that possibly, as far reaching as it may seem, Jack South had figured out a way to defraud the lottery and had retained the attorney and the PR firm in order to keep the winnings.
However, through their sources, he knew that the lottery had not been tampered with, and that no one, not even Jack, was any closer to the lottery mechanisms for the drawing, than buying a ticket from a convenience store. He knew that it was not likely that Jack ripped off the lottery systems. Therefore, David was still trying to figure out why Jack needed a defense lawyer and public relations firm.
His superiors had locked onto this event and he was instructed to use whatever means to figure this person out. David then contacted The Network’s President, Joe Biggman, whom they controlled, and made it clear to him that it was important for his anchor, Brad Williams, to get to the bottom of this Jack issue. Mr. Biggman said they had a contract with Jack listing specific questions. David did not care, but instructed Mr. Biggman to have Mr. Williams get the truth. David then assured him that if there were a legal problem, the Waldger Group would take care of it.
David also had others monitoring every step Jack had made
for the past few weeks. Whom he had meetings with and whom he was talking too. David also knew that Jack had moved his family out of the country for safekeeping and put a considerable amount of money for them in offshore accounts. However, David knew where Jack’s family was and was monitoring that situation.
There was one thing that haunted David, and that was Jack’s two advisors, friends, or accomplices, Gabriel Massinger and Ariel Roberts. For some reason, according to his resources, these people did not exist anywhere on any database. They had lifted fingerprints from glasses left after a meeting between them and Jack. They also took unauthorized high-resolution pictures of them. They ran the prints and pictures through almost every major database in the world, but to no avail. They just did not exist. There was no address, no occupation, not one piece of information was uncovered over the past few weeks. They had wracked their brains, and exhausted their resources and had come up empty.
As far as Jack South’s background went, he was checkered, at best. Prior to winning the two lotteries, he was pretty well broke and did not have a current job. Jack also had a questionable criminal record going back to his teenage years, but not much as an adult other than a couple of traffic tickets. Jack, it seemed, was a happy go lucky person overall, with five kids spanning two generations. He had been married three times and each divorce had cost him more than he could ever recoup. His relationships always seemed to go nowhere.
He raised his kids without their mothers and they were, for the most part, pretty successful. One child’s background was similar to David’s. He was a computer guru. The other son was an officer in the U.S. military.
He had checked Jack South’s federal tax returns for the past several years and felt that if they needed leverage they could get the Internal Revenue Service after him. That is, if he became any type of threat or un-cooperative. As far as The Waldger Group was concerned, a person worth half a billion dollars needed to be controlled and not allowed to upset the balance of power. Unlike other lottery winners, Jack South had quietly hidden away most of his winnings and hired the best to take care of his money, freedom and image.