Chapter 3
2018
John Bettle was late in years and was dying. He had the look of a man that was once vibrant and powerful but had lived a few years too long. He could act normally at times but then would tell crazy stories over and over that included sorted details about many of the major world events in his lifetime. He seemed to be rambling, like some older people do, almost rebooting and telling the same stories over and over again. The strange part of the stories were that he would talk about being involved in them, how he profited from them; the oil shortage in ’73, Black Friday, the crash of 2008, and even some political stories of Kennedy, Nixon, and Carter.
John was 6’ 2”, his hair had thinned, going nearly all grey; his face was gaunt, and he was thin as a rail. He bent slightly as he walked. John had been fighting different cancers for years and had finally found one he could not beat. When he pondered his life, all he had on his bucket-list was to see Melanie Price again, and now she was almost here. The excitement gave joy to a man who had not felt joy in a long time. He was extremely wealthy and could have anything; yet nothing seemed to give him joy anymore. All he felt was guilt because of his past dealings, and the wrath of God scared the hell out of him as he faced death. He had done and seen so many bad things, all in the name of power and greed.
The private hospital room was dated but clean. The large hospital bed was surrounded by IV stands, monitors, an over-the-bed eating table, and a rolling pedestal walker, close by in case a walk was needed. There was a pull-out monitor arm overhead that had two monitors on it, along with one key board. The back wall was full of plug-ins, oxygen outlets, and multiple cords going everywhere. There was a big lounger in the corner for guests but John had not had any during his current visit. He had gotten himself into a specialty drug trial that required daily doses of the drug Genth17 that could only be administered in a hospital setting each day; it was good to have connections! The drug was given morning and evening via IV for 2 hours each time. Along with Genth17 John was getting an IV bag every day. To move around, John used the walker that looked like a pedestal on wheels, and of course, if anything was being administered at the time his mobile IV station went with him everywhere. He could droop over the pedestal to help hold his weight when he went for walks. He needed help going to the toilet; he hated needing help going to the bathroom and showering – being sick sucks.
In preparation for Melanie’s visit, John had taken a shower. Now a shower for most people is not a big event, but for John it was like running a mile. Just standing up and moving the towel around made him sweat. It was almost funny when he thought about it; showering made him sweat so much that he needed a shower once he got calmed down from his shower. It wasn’t funny however, not much was funny anymore.
The entrance took both by surprise. When he saw her she was an older version of someone he once knew, still beautiful but with wrinkles in certain spots. Her grace was still apparent, her athletic gait still visible. She had worn a dress, size 4, because she knew he liked them. The light yellow day dress came to about two inches above her knee and was belted. Her slender body and long legs wore the dress well.
She saw a dying man, like the look her father had before he passed. The difference in their ages, not of great importance when they met, was now so visibly apparent. She had aged gracefully, he had gotten old.
“Hello Jonathan, I am here. How are you?” she asked.
The sound of her voice almost lifted him off the bed. Memories raced through his mind, almost like having his life flash before his eyes, but the only images that flashed were memories of her.
“Melanie,” he said slowly, “I am so glad you came. You look, so, wonderful! Please, come and sit beside me”
She was reluctant, she had not seen him in years and he looked so ill, so weak. She wanted to run and never come back but something was holding her in the room. She wanted to help him, to care for him, she walked over and gave him a hug and then sat beside him.
As they talked, it took just a few minutes for her to realize that she had wanted to see him so bad, she had missed him so much. They had always been able to talk for hours. Emotionally he touched her in a way that no one else ever could. She became at ease, felt safe, cared for, and knew that life without him had come to an end, at least for what sounded like a short time. They talked about everything. His wife had passed away five years ago, her husband three. His children were all successful, abundantly so. Her daughter was finishing up her law degree at Harvard. Both were sinking into a calm that two friends get to as they catch up and reminisce about past joys.
A nurse came in and they stopped talking for a second and then, without warning, Jonathan seemed to reboot to another world. He grabbed Melanie’s arm and asked her, with urgency, “have I told you the story of how I created investment plans? I made so many people wealthy! Not hard though, when you know world events before they happen” – then he just trailed off, murmured something, and dozed off.
She sat there dazed and confused. The nurse noticed he was asleep, said “I’ll stop back” and started to leave. Melanie followed her into the hallway and said, “It was so strange, I was just talking to him and he just changed, starting talking about some investment thing, and then fell asleep.”
The nurse’s tag said Abigail. She was a mid-thirties black lady that poured out happiness through her smile and talked in the southern belle style. She smiled and said, “he does that honey, the doctors are not sure why, Alzheimer’s, dementia, but he can tell some whoppers! My favorite is how they disgraced Nixon because he was ending the Vietnam War, Piece with Honor and all that - said they did it because it would cost them a bunch of money if the war ended. Can you imagine? According to him, Nixon was telling the truth when he said, I am not a crook? HA, wouldn’t that be a hoot”
After the nurse left Melanie did not know what to do. Jonathan had arranged for a place for her to stay but she was not sure she would. As she was standing in the doorway, contemplating her next move, he woke up again.
“You’re still here, thank you. I would have been very sad had you left. Will you stay with me a while longer?
“I am here to see you Jonathan, I will stay,” said Melanie, “before you fell asleep you started talking about investments or something. The change in conversation unnerved me.”
“I am so sorry, that is part of the reason I asked you here,” he said as he took a sip of water to relieve his drug induced dry mouth, “I need to tell someone my story before I go crazy or die. I can’t control myself, I am not sure what’s happening to my mind and I can’t let this go to my grave. I have done some terrible things, Melanie. I need to cleanse my mind and allow it to relax. Will you help me work through this? “
“I will Jonathan, how can I help?”
“Please grab a notebook and pen from the closet. I have some things to say and I want you to be able to take notes.”
She came back and sat beside him. Her feelings for him were of sadness and pity. He was now like her father, or uncle, but she felt no sexual tension.
He started to tell her stories that were so crazy, so farfetched that she did not even take notes at first, she was humoring him; these were the rantings of a crazy man. As she listened to him something came to mind that had bothered her for years after her internship ended. During the internship she had been tasked to watch, listen and read about six major world events that her employer was watching for. All she did was try to find any information or discussion about them. When she did hear news of one of them, she passed it along and it created quite a scurry of activity in the office. The strange thing was that event was the only one she was watching for that did not eventually come true. All five of the others came true within the next year. How could they have known that an African ruler would die, that the Lebanese Magazine Ash-Shiras would be the first to release information about the Iran-Contra Affair, and Black Monday – why had she been watching for news of a stock market crash that would not happen until
a year after she left? She can remember the notes she was given about the market crash. “We need to know of any news or discussion relating to an impending stock market crash in Hong Kong”
She remembered connecting her research to Black Monday when it happened. October 19, 1987, the markets around the world lost huge value starting in Hong Kong and spreading to Europe and then the United States. By the end of October the Dow had dropped over 22%. Why had she been watching for news of a market crash starting in Hong Kong a year prior to it happening? She remembered William Froiberg’s words from her interview. “Our job is to see world change coming and prepare an investment strategy to maximize returns. We have a long history of predicting world events, and profiting from understanding what will happen when those changes occur.”
Now, years later, Jonathan is telling her that they made things happen, not watched for them. Was her internship research to make sure no one leaked the changes they were planning to create? Is that why the one item she heard about did not happen, because it got out somehow and they could not risk implementing it? Just as she decided it was time to take notes, Jonathan stopped and asked her, “Melanie, are you hearing me?”
“Yes,” she responded, her mind clicking back into the moment at hand, “yes, Jonathan, I am here.”
The stories were about a worldwide organization called The Mastermind Group, or MMG for short. Jonathan explained, “It was established in the mid-50s by private citizens to foster closer cooperation among the core industrialized nations of the world as the world started coming together after WWII. The most immediate purpose was to draw together the highest level of business and political leaders, along with the wealthy, to work together to promote growth and commerce across the globe“. Continuing he told her, “Napoleon Hill had called out the need for a Mastermind Group in his 1937 book, Think and Grow Rich; this group was THE world-class mastermind group.”
“MMG had been created to bring the world together, to share resources; the original idea was pure in thought. The purity would not last long, however. As worldwide power grew, greed took over and eventually a black ops unit was created. Murder and manipulation were not supposed to be part of the MMG charter and most members were not aware of this dark side. Most still thought the group had the world’s best interest at heart. Black Ops was on a need to know basis, those who found out and opposed would perish. Those who were not aware had plausible deniability; they could not talk about things they did not know.”
Even though she kind of felt that all of this could be real, she found herself unable to believe them. “You know Jonathan, your stories sound so real –you almost have me believing that a few hundred people can control the whole world!”
As he leaned toward her his face tightened, his eyes narrowed, and he took on a powerful presence. The clarity of his response startled her. “My dear”, he said, “from before the time we knew each other until present day, I have been involved with, or have close-knit knowledge of, most of the historical moments of our life time. I knew about them before they happened; established a plan for how the markets would react to them, and set a plan in motion to capitalize on the changes. A few times, I was the one that saw the opportunity and helped design the entire plan to take advantage of a worldwide situation”. He continued, “in 1987, I established the parameters to set up black Monday. That event did not just happen; we planned it, created it and benefited greatly from it. It was an enormous success for all of us that knew it would happen. You were asked to watch for it, to be sure none of the plan leaked. We planned that event for three years. We pumped up the market, driving it up, so we could crash it down. We made money on the push up, made money on the way down, and cleaned up with the bounce back up.
“The tech bubble of 2000 was not our creation but we saw an opportunity. We played with the market; if you control most of the financial sector, world exchanges, and the brokerage firms; and control the news that surrounds it, you can influence the markets in a spectacular way. Getting people to invest in a sure thing is easy, removing the sure thing is easy; knowing when the change will happen is like printing money!”
She realized for the first time since he had started talking, that during his lucid moments, he was still a strong-minded person, and that he was speaking the truth. It almost seemed like there was nothing wrong with him.
“Let me detail one Run that I am especially proud of,” he said, startling her, “the time was 2010 and the market had just shown a huge rebound from the 2008 crash. MMG had made huge sums of money via the sub-prime bubble. Nothing like taking a market weakness and creating a frenzy, pushing things up and up, and then sliding out undetected, selling short, and then announcing that the bottom was falling out. Once the bottom is found, and things start to rebound, you buy back in low; then have the MMG controlled media tell the world things are getting better, and ride back up to the previous market level.
“Now, let’s get back to 2010. We created a market blip that dropped the market hundreds of points in just a few minutes”. He said with a smirk, “It happened at the time we decided, it created a few minutes of chaos in the market, and rebounded before most people even knew it happened. It had been calculated that a large enough drop, at a specific time, would create a scenario that would trigger computers at high frequency trading firms, ours included, to start selling the long positions they held. As the market sees the drop, a domino effect follows and markets dive. As stocks dive the market also sees opportunity and starts buying at some point. We were ready; we sold short on the way down and bought long on the way back up. Since we control many of the brokerage firms affected, we could pass the losses on to investors and we could buy low on a personal level. On top of that we got commission on all the activity! The investigators determined that a large mutual fund firm sold an unusually large number of E Mini S&P 500 contracts which exhausted available buyers at the time, causing the computers to start aggressively selling. No punishment was levied and no one needed to give back any money.”
“Wow”, she said. Her head was spinning; she knew this man and knew he would not tell her these things if they were not real, at least to him. She felt herself collapsing inward, she was being overwhelmed. He mentioned one event she had been wondering about for years, so the others she had been watching for were true? Murder of a world leader? Market manipulation? Iran Contra? “Tell me more”, she said weakly, not knowing if she really wanted to hear it.
He explained - “The MMG is extremely influential and indirectly controls 85% of the world’s wealth. Their agenda is the accumulation of wealth and control of world power while explaining to the world that the new normal and globalization is good for everyone. The ideology put forward at a Mastermind Conference is that what’s good for banking, and the big businesses the MMG control, is good for the world. Not content with owning unimaginable amounts of money and property, they use their wealth to acquire even more power for themselves. They also have leaders in the media as part of their groups. Like a victor in a battle or coup; the powerful, and the group in control, can write the history however they wish.”
“The objective of the conferences is to project the corporate ideology to appear rational and present it to the world for mass consumption. To show that MMG is just a think tank that takes no real action but instead educates the membership on world issues so they may have a positive global impact. They meet regularly, in public, but things are so well arranged that no one knows of the inner workings and the only news that is allowed out is controlled by the MMG held media. Presidents and world leaders are invited. World visions are shared.”
She could see passion in his eyes, and hear it in his voice. She was about to ask another question, when he cut her off.
“Can we continue tomorrow?” has asked as he slumped in his bed, exhausted.
“Certainly”, said Melanie, a little surprised and confused, “I will be back in the morning. Nine o’clock?” She asked.
“Yes, yes, nine o’clock”, he
said sliding off to sleep. As she rose to leave he curled up into a fetal position, she heard him mumbling under his breath, “have I told you the story of how I created investment schemes? I made so many people wealthy.”
It was still early in the evening when she left Jonathan’s room. She decided to walk across the street to get a bite to eat at the Canadian Honker restaurant. She got the walleye sandwich, a recommendation by the waitress, and a drink. She started adding to her notes. She had taken so few notes at the time because she had not believed at first; then, when it appeared the truth was coming out, she was so overwhelmed that she forgot. Like waking from a dream, she knew she needed to get this down before it disappeared. Could this be real? If so, what else is there – “My dear”, he had said, “from before the time we knew each other until present day I have been involved with, or have close-knit knowledge of, most of the historical moments of our life time. I knew about them before they happened; established a plan for how the markets would react to them, and set a plan in motion to capitalize on the changes.”
She was so intent on processing her thoughts that she did not notice the man that had followed her in and was seated at the corner table, watching her. He wanted desperately to see what she was writing.