In this instalment we learn a little more about the spooks interested in the Elders and why.
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Internal Memo “Triple-A” Secrecy Level: don’t copy, destroy after reading
From the office of the Director, Klytemnestra Industries:
RE: Climate Trials investigation
To all concerned:
The initial investigation of Mikhail Bookchin by Panoptes International and Oprix Investigations indicates that some sort of large-scale organization is involved in producing and marketing The Climate Trials. Unfortunately, they are unable to get beyond this initial insight and identify the people involved. Management has concluded that in order to do that it will be necessary to “push the envelope” beyond where these two corporations are willing to go.
To that end, we have engaged a new partner which has a greater loyalty to the mission. Unfortunately, that loyalty comes at a significant financial cost. To that end, I would like accounting to create a mechanism whereby some easily transferred but non-traceable payment may be made. I have been informed by our new associates that it is too difficult for them to hide the transfer of large amounts of paper money, so they are want to take payment in the form of rare metals: gold, platinum, rhodium, palladium, iridium, etc. With our connections in the mining industry, I suspect we could invent some sort of plausible excuse to buy sufficient quantities of one of these materials that can use to pay our associates.
I’d like our legal team to work at creating the highest amount of compartmentalization for this project. I don’t want any outside contractors, or junior members working on this project. I only want department heads involved! We need to make sure that no one in the middle or lower levels of this project have any idea of what is really going on.
All future information will come verbally and the Director will not be personally identified in any future communications. Anyone who asks you to do something will be identified by a password: “J.J. Clarke”. Follow the directions immediately without question. Failure to do so will result in immediate dismissal from the company, or worse.
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Mikhi got an email shortly after the 7th instalment of the Climate Trials.
Just a “heads up” about a new development. One of the major legacy fossil fuel corporations, Klytemnestra Industries, has developed a relationship with a corporate “black hat” mercenary security agency---the Ruka. Unfortunately, you are their target. We’re not sure what exactly the Director at Klytemnestra wants the Ruka to do for him, but this should be taken very seriously, as these are very scary, very bad people. Don’t worry; though we are “on it”, there is the odd chance we may miss something. So, if you do see something that’s somewhat odd, we encourage you to use your new phone to let us know---either through text or voice. Email might have a time lag, so please don’t use it. Please do not “talk yourself out” of calling us. Many people ignore their instincts in dangerous situations, much to their eventual dismay. The Ruka are not to be trifled with, and it’s best if we choose what’s important or not, not you.
Much as he liked to project bravado, Mikhi was about as freaked out by this as anyone else would be. The emotion of fear didn’t change his analysis of the situation, though. What he was doing was a good thing, so he felt that running a few risks was justified. Moreover, his experience with the Old Ones suggested that if any group was capable of dealing with some of the baddest of the corporate black hats, it would be them. He took a couple shots of vodka and went about his day.
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I've been looking a that the numbers and it turns out that these weekend literary supplements are quite popular with readers. That's good news! But just like anything else, they take work to create. If you have the money (and Dao-only-knows lots of folks are hurting), why not give me some financial support? It's easy to do through Patreon and Pay Pal---and it will give you a warm glow.
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A couple weeks following, Mikhi got a request, and two days later Ian showed up and drove him to the Holy House for another service/meeting. There he met other people knew: Isabeau and Mir. This time, a short, elderly Chinese man with a bit of a smoker’s cough had them sit on cushions on the floor. He told them to just sit until the they couldn’t sit anymore. As they did, most of them naturally started to slump. When this happened the old man just went around and gently moved their bodies back to some semblance of good posture. After about twenty minutes people started getting up, putting the cushions in a pile, and then helped themselves to some tea or coffee at a table in the rear.
One woman started crying uncontrollably. A helper grabbed a towel and walked over to dry her tears, then got her to stand up and walked her outside the building to a bench in the back garden.
Shortly afterwards, Mikhi got up. At this point Isabeau told him that he was wanted in the basement.
It was mostly the same crowd as last time. Mikhi had questions. They were happy to answer.
“What was that all about?”
The tall, thin, elderly black man was the first to answer. “Several things all at once. On one level it’s part of hiding in plain site. We are part of a huge conspiracy against the status quo. That’s got to be a scary thing for certain people to contemplate. Anyone who looks at us today will see a meditation class held by a religious cult. That’s something that easily fits into people’s existing categories of thought. They either see it as a harmless “New Age Group”, or, at worst a potentially-dangerous, religious-based conspiracy. If the former, no problem. If the latter, the category “religious-based” puts us into the category of “nut jobs”---which means that any serious investigation will dismiss the idea that we might be subtle in our methods. That means that they will only look for crude methods: automatic rifles, suicide bombers, etc. They won’t find any of that, so they will dismiss us as harmless.”
An incredibly well-built, middle-aged white man with dark hair and glasses also spoke. “On another level, it’s good training for all of us. We are all very intelligent, creative people who are involved in complex work aimed at trying to deal with serious social problems. This requires a sort of mental resilience and flexibility that only comes from disciplined self-study. What you were being taught upstairs is the absolute essence of spiritual practice: thinking about thinking. Each person who was sitting on a pillow with no instructions at all was engaged in self-reflection. Each tradition: Daoist, Buddhist, Sufi, etc, are at their essence not much more than attempts to encourage people to pay attention to their own minds and learn from what they see.”
Mikhi asked another question. “But what about that woman? Why did she start crying?”
The short, slight, very white, very thin, elderly woman joined in, “You’d have to ask her for the answer that makes sense to her. But her physical response happens so often we are prepared for it. We have some towels on hand and keep an eye open to see it when it happens. It could be she had some sort of repressed memory or experience that she finally allowed herself to respond to emotionally. Or, it could be just another ploy by one part of the mind to distract another part from seeing the world as it really is. More likely, it’s a bit of both. Human beings are different from one another, and while there are generalities that allow people make inferences from the outside---we all really do have to ‘figure it out for ourselves’. We try to expose people to the idea. If they want, they can then create some sort of personal practice for themselves that they can do on their own. We also have people with experience and wisdom who they can talk to about this stuff if they want. But we always emphasize they are on their own journey and no one can do the work for them.”
“Is that why you asked me to come here?”
“Not really. This is a useful thing to do, so we hope you might gain from it like everyone else. But Isabeau is teaching you taijiquan, which has some similar elements to it---the dissecting your body with your mind, for example. I would recommend you try sitting for some time, but there’s no sense going for lessons---you’ve probably learned all you need to know right now from the introduction upstairs. Isabeau can help you with any specific questions you might have.”
The tall, smooth-skinned, Asian-looking man (Chinese? Mongolian? Tibetan? First Nations?) changed the topic. “We’ve asked you here in particular to talk about The Ruka. We think we now know what they have been asked to do and have come up with a plan to neutralize both them and their client. We thought you should know about the details because you are the person they are fixating on, and you might notice something important that we wouldn’t---especially if we let you know what’s going on.”
“The person who hired them owns “Klytemnestra Industries”. He’s a nasty piece of work named Ongalf Ve Kata. Most people just call him “Ong” or “Kata”. He’s an immigrant from the Balkans who came with his family as an infant. “Kata” is a shortened version of his family’s original name “ Katastréfo”.
His business history consists of buying marginal fossil fuel companies and squeezing as much as possible out of them by breaking unions, ignoring as many pollution and safety regulations as possible, and, funding conservative politicians to get “sweet-heart deals” out of government. This business model involves creating a lot of nested shell companies registered in Delaware, buying up assets with outstanding environmental or social liabilities, stripping anything of value from it, and, then walking away, leaving the government, community, other investors, or, contractors to deal with the mess. If you have a leaking tailing pond, coal ash dump, tapped out oil well, etc, the odds are good that it was owned by a company that was owned by another company, etc, that funnelled profits to Klytemnestra Industries and Ong Kata.”
“It’s not entirely clear why he’s been so successful in ignoring various laws and regulations, but we suspect that it’s partially because he is in a specific industry niche. It helps immensely that his career has been mostly during the neo-liberal consensus where most governments have been concerned about “freeing business” by cutting support for regulators and allowing corporations to “self-regulate”. We also suspect that he has ties to organized crime, which would explain his knowledge of and ability to work with The Ruka.”
Mikhail then interjected with a question. “OK. He’s a bad guy. But who exactly are these other guys, The Ruka?”
“The word is an Eastern European term that means “arm” or “fist”. It’s one of the international riff-raff of ex-military, ex-intelligence service members who decided to go “free lance” after the end of the Cold War. They’re the sort of thugs who provide security at illegal coltan mines in the Congo, kidnap and murder union organizers in Central America, etc. They work in a continuum from things like providing trained helicopter pilots and machines for “low intensity wars” in Africa, to hacking computers in the USA to get dirt on politicians so their rivals can force them out of office. Like any other modern consulting company, they generally consist of a very small number of individuals who have a large database of experts-for-hire whom they tap for specific projects. Because much of what they do is illegal, they charge extremely high fees, work through shell corporations, and, of course, launder their proceeds.”
Mikhial then asked, “But why does Kata care about the Climate Trials so much?”
“His business model specifically makes him most vulnerable to any attempt to seriously deal with climate change. He’s a ‘bottom-feeder’ who buys the most marginal assets: oil companies with lots of wells that are no longer producing but need to be cleaned up, coal mines that have slag heaps leaking acid into the environment, tar sand mines, shale oil and fracked gas systems. He can get them for a lot less than a legitimate company because he knows that he’s going leave the community, contractors, and, other investors ‘holding the bag’. Other businesses that are bigger and try to at least appear ‘legitimate’ have to factor in the cost of clean up.”
“Moreover, all fossil fuels don’t cost the same amount of money to produce. Saudi Arabia has oil that cost about $10/barrel to pump out of the ground and refine. Northern Alberta has tar sands that cost as much as $85/barrel to dig up and process using natural gas. Shale oil is somewhere in between. As a result, various estimates have argued that in order for marginal reserves---like the ones Klytemnestra Industries hold---to be profitable global price of oil needs to be at least $60/barrel. In a time where use of oil is declining and all fossil fuels have a carbon-tax premium added to it, customers are going to be driven away from unconventional fuel of any type to the very cheapest producers---like Saudi Arabia. Since they can produce at $10/barrel, they can make a very tidy profit at $50/barrel where as Klytemnestra will go bankrupt at that price---no matter how badly they gouge workers or the community where their production facilities exist. Kata’s entire business model is threatened by the Climate Trials and he knows it.”
“There’s another side to this.” A small, stooped woman who appeared to be in her eighties with a head of very thick hair spoke. “Kata is a very damaged psyche. His past behaviour shows very pronounced psychopathic tendencies. He doesn’t use rational decision-making. He takes crazy risks that no normal manager would. He doesn’t make long term plans. He gets away with things simply because he is willing to ignore the long-term consequences of his activities and because he has zero inhibitions about the use of force to get what he wants. It’s only because he has been working during the neo-liberal consensus---which means he has never really had to deal with regulatory agencies---that he’s been able to work this way. But beyond that, he’s also managed to dodge several real bullets simply because of dumb luck. Unfortunately, this has convinced him that he is a genius and anyone who gets in his way deserves whatever he gives them.”
Mikhi didn’t like the sound of this. “Do you have any idea what he wants the Ruka to do?”
The elderly, skinny, black man spoke again. “Generally they are hired to do things that are very illegal---what intelligence agencies sometimes call “wet work”. We think that they’ve been hired to either kidnap you to find more information about us, or, to simply kill you. Generally, we think the kidnapping route makes more sense---but as has been pointed out, Kata is something of a loose cannon, so it’s important not to project our rationality onto him.”
“Then what do you plan to do?”
The very well-built man with dark glasses answered. “We’ve increased the counter-surveillance to make sure we know what their operatives are doing at any given moment. We’ve also brought in our very best practical-defence people and organized them into body-guard teams---they’re watching you 24/7 right now. That’s for the immediate risk. In addition, we’ve come up with a strategic plan to neutralize the problem permanently.”
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