Chapter 2
YEAR 2016
There is an island in the Pacific, away far from the territories of the Samoan islands, and off the Tongan Kingdom.
In what used to be a sandbar, now, Irene Arceo, wakes up staring at a beautiful sunrise of the Pacific. An island she built for herself, her private territory, her own little kingdom.
She hired people with experience from the Dubai Palm Island project, in order to get some insights and knowledge on how to build her own private island.
With it also comes a price of protecting her sovereignty, and she needs manpower guarding it.
She is Filipino by birth, but her parents moved to American Samoa for a project that his father was hired for. The project enticed his father because he could bring his family along. She is an only child.
She may be an American Citizen, and for all she cares she is American and hardly knows anyone from her birth country except for her relatives. She has not set foot in her birth country since her family left for American Samoa.
Staring at the sun, she ponders her next move.
Is this going to be a trend, Duterte won, stupid people. If this is a trend. It looks like Trump will win, people are so stupid. I need to rethink my actions, my next move.
“Ernest?” She turns around, walks towards the door and walks out of her room.
On the speaker, Ernest replies, “Yes ma’am,” the speakerphone system is installed throughout her mansion.
“Stop everything.”
“Stop what?”
“I mean all of our pledges to those democrat idiots,” she pauses to ponder on the right words, “I mean we need to put on hold all of our humanitarian aid to the democrat owned foundations.”
She turns and walks towards the living room.
“All of them?”
“All, and find out how we can reach the Trump team.”
“Are we jumping ship ma’am? And what do I say to our friends.”
“Anything,” she pauses, “tell them we are in a financial bind right now, maybe overspending on this beautiful island.”
“Bankruptcy, may not sit well with them,” Ernesto confused on what to say, “perhaps we can say something else.”
“No! Of course not. Tell them we are realigning our investments.”
That should tickle their mind for now. I don’t think Duterte will tango with us. And if this trend keeps up in the US, I should prepare for the worse.
“Also Ernest, tell them that, that we are realigning our donations, and reviewing our benefactors and our stakes on several foundations, and we are also meeting old commitments that have been neglected, and we are following up on those, and will be working closely on those benefactors that we have left out over the years.”
She could hear the keyboard strokes over the speaker phone, as Ernest types her instructions.
“I’ll have someone draft the best language for each foundation. Will there be anything else?”
“That will be it for now, Ernest, thank you.”
I have to plan my next moves carefully. Fighting the powers that be is a futile cause. Those idiots still do not get it. I am not the black widow for nothing.
Maybe it’s time to withdraw, I need to consider myself first, find a legacy to pass on to. Let them kill each other out, and see who stands in the end. My money is on Trump, yet he will not take any.
Politicians might be good with publicity, but they are against a good publicist, a showman, and a billionaire, rolled into one. Trump.
They are all being led into his snare, yes Donald, I can see your trap.
“Romee, I’ll have breakfast out here,” Irene said to her servant, as she stepped outside.
She walks towards one of the tables on the lanai, to where a chair is facing the rising sun, and takes a seat. She likes this spot, because of her view of the beach and the blue ocean.
She calls her island the ‘Isle of Tua’ her little kingdom, you cannot find it in any maps, or look it up with Google map or with any web map app.
It is either scrubbed by the people who edit the final images for the web maps. Of which they are paid extra on the side, a confidential side job if one may call it as such.
And a clever tactic used by the allies during World War II, fooling the Axis powers of the Allies base camp and strength.
In charge of this operation is an old timer, a veteran of such war, Bernard Shaw. Over 90, he looks like a 72 year old, and even walks like a 63 year old person.
His job was to fool anyone that the island does not exist should someone start to look from above and below. Along with it the security, of which the responsibilities he passed along to her grand-daughter, Anna Shaw.
The man made island is designed to take a 3,000 square meter house that is 32,291.6 in square foot, and that is only the ground floor.
Beside it is a large hangar, housing her VTOL executive jet, and a V-22 Osprey inspired turboprop executive aircraft.
Both aircraft are VTOL which means Vertical Take Off and Landing, that means they can lift off like a helicopter but fly like a standard airplane.
These types of aircraft are a necessity for her security, she cannot build a large runway, it would be too conspicuous from prying eyes in the sky.
Two Blackhawk helicopters with a redesigned rotor blade, housed in a less conspicuous hangar. The redesigned rotor blade has less vortex flow output, minimizing the turbulent air flow, and maximizing lift.
And four attack choppers custom built for her needs with a redesigned rotor blade similar to the Blackhawks. Each parked separately and hidden from view. These choppers are not off the shelf type.
Shaw saw to it that the island itself is camouflaged well. From the top, all you could see is an ocean, and a little sandbar.
He also requires everyone to stay on the roofed pathways. These have lenses that take advantage of the chatoyancy effect, it renders anything that is not aligned to the pathway lines virtually invisible. And that means anyone walking under these lenses.
In fact the whole island is surrounded by these invisibility lenses, and at sea level all you would see is the horizon.
The buildings are camouflaged with the color of the horizon, and at night the walls of the mansion darkens. The walls are lined with neodymium doped glass that alters the color according to light strength.
RADAR(RAdio Detection And Ranging) can not read the island, however there is SONAR(sound navigation ranging) and LiDar(Light Detection and Ranging) that can. With that chance, an alternative was to leave.
The island also has two bays, where her yacht and submarine are anchored. Each bay has five self righting boats, based on the coast guard’s. And two stealth boats with self righting capabilities and retractable weapons bay systems.
It may not be enough for a long siege, but enough to at least get her to safety quickly. Shaw’s motto was just that, “Get the queen out quickly.”
The island is designed so that the bays would not be easily eroded during storms or monsoons. But this side of the world does not get bad weather maybe once or twice in a year.
The island is secured with mercenaries, the Gurkhas. Her bodyguards are Swiss, like the Swiss guards of the pope. Similar qualifications, the only difference is their loyalty is only to her.
She has a refueling ship with an X-bow hull design well at least two of them publicly, the ship can accommodate her aircraft, it has a landing pad and can sink to accommodate her yacht.
The ships might be on standby or docked somewhere else, in this case when she is at her island both are somewhere in the pacific waiting for instructions for any rendezvous. Both are in different locations.
The ship is armed with weapons, hidden from view, the crew are former soldiers. Inside the ship is a war room, where the ship’s weapons systems are controlled.
Romee has finished serving her main breakfast just as he was about to go back in for her fruits. Her bodyguards were all over the place surrounding her.
Anna came running from the beach with handheld radio on hand. “My Lady,” Anna greets her, “Good Morning. We may have some surprising issues.”
A staccato of gunfire is overheard in the distance.
“Bloody hell,” she orders the guards on the two way radio, “don’t hang the fish please. Not just yet.”
“No one comes here, without any intel, about this region.” Bernard Shaw arrives like a ghost. “Can the Gurkhas give you a description?”
Both Anna and Irene, turn their head towards Bernard.
“Jesus Christ Tito Burns,” Irene scared shit out of Bernard’s sudden appearance, “that ghosting, appearing like a ghost out of nowhere thing still scares the hell out of me.”
She calls Bernard Burns, because she is reminded of a cartoon character in the Simpsons called Mr. Burns. This was when she was a child and she drew Bernard’s head and it looked like Mr. Burns.
“Thank you my Lady,” Bernard finds it amusing that at his age, he can still play this trick on her or even his grand-daughter, “and Good Morning to you.”
“I can handle this gran.” Then she barks more orders on the radio, “ugly duck, this is mother goose, where and what should I read tonight, over.”
“Tito Burns, just sit down and eat with me, I’ll have Romee have you bring some food. Just let her do her job.” Bernard obliges and informs Romee of what he’ll have, and orders one for his grand-daughter too.
“Roger that mother, this is gosling 5, at the wolf’s bed, maybe we can try four blind mice tonight. The ones that wear lab coats. Over.”
“Can you be more precise? The one that the wolf ate or the other? Over.”
“I’d prefer to have more than one story, mother, the three that the wolf ate and the one that was spared. Over.”
“Oh maybe we can call in the jester now. Over and out.”
“Right,” Anna sits with them, “white blokes, three of them, yeah, they might be dead, and one I’ve sent in for questioning. JESTER will handle this.”
JESTER is her investigation and interrogation crew, it means, Judicious Enquiry of Subject Testing Evaluation and Report. As meaningful and fair it sounds, these guys are anything but that, they are only fair when it comes to their own and especially their queen.
“I don’t like this, I mean they should not know about this place and the only way they know about this is someone told them from us, I presume.” Irene replies.
“We shall dig into this and find out.” Bernard was concerned about the developing issue.
“I’d say we move you out of here my Lady.” Suggests Anna firmly.
“Yes, we should move you out of here, my Lady, but first we need to check on the horizons for enemies.” Bernard agrees with Anna.
Irene responds, “And I concur.”
