Land of Promise (3 page)

Alan looked down at the napkin again and added a small triangular dark blotch. “Now right here, where the borders of South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya all come together, there’s a patch of land, perhaps 14 or 15 thousand square kilometers, about the size of Montenegro, that is
contested
. This is just some unpopulated marginal cattle-grazing country that is a hot soggy sponge in the rainy season and a scorching hot griddle in the dry season. There are only a few villages, and most of those are just seasonally occupied. This whole dispute dates back to disagreements on border surveys that were conducted in the late 19
^th
Century. The ownership of this Ilemi Triangle has never been firmly established. It is essentially a polite ongoing tiff between South Sudan and Kenya. The South Sudanese have the strongest claim to the land, but the Kenyans have primarily administered it for more than a hundred years. Meanwhile, Ethiopia is mostly out of the picture, since they have the weakest territorial claim. This triangle is no man’s land, but two countries still claim it as their own.”

Meital cocked her ear and asked, “So if this land already has
two
claimants, what makes you think that a new sovereign entity as a
third
claimant could just step in and take it?”

Alan turned his palms upward and said, “This is where it gets interesting. They’ve never resolved their border dispute because it would surely mean a proverbial loss of face for either South Sudan or Kenya if they concede any or all of the Ilemi Triangle to the other country. And in the world of diplomacy, loss of face must
always
be avoided. So they continually delay even
starting
to negotiate about it. But I believe that both countries could be persuaded to drop their claims of sovereignty and grant the Triangle to a third party, on humanitarian grounds.”

Rick gave a doubtful chuckle, and then asked, “Could it work? Is it doable?”

Alan responded, “I do believe so. It’s the
pretty way out
, for both countries. You see, neither of them would suffer a loss of face, and both national leaders would surely be seen as great magnanimous humanitarians. And the current presidents of both South Sudan and Kenya are Christians, so I think that they’d be predisposed to be persuaded. And there would be no political blowback at home for either of them, because the Ilemi Triangle has virtually
no
significant resources and hardly any permanent residents -- just a few nomadic herdsmen who infrequently pass through. So there won’t be any whining ‘dispossessed’ villagers. It’s a big fat ‘win-win’ for both countries.”

After a pause, he added, “I can make some discreet inquiries with my father.”

Rick asked, “Do you think he’d be sympathetic?”

“He’s a Christian, and he’s always had a heart for Israel. He’s always been fascinated by how Israel got its independence. He had me watch the classic 1960s movie
Exodus
twice before I was fifteen years old. If anyone will want to see this happen, it will be the Member of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Clive Oakes Pilcher. He’s just one notch down from nobility, so he has a lot of influence in England. He’s now been retired for three years out of the Foreign Office, but he still has some amazing diplomatic contacts, particularly in East Africa.”

Rick said, “That sounds great. But please be
very
discreet. You should do a video chat with him via your account on the Unseen server in Iceland.”

“Right you are: encrypted only. Will do. I’ll get him set up with Unseen, straight away.”

Meital urged, “And in fact, all three of us should limit any unencrypted contacts to just pleasantries and talking about the weather.”

Rick whispered, “Yes, that’s wise. We’ll keep everything hush-hush, from here on out. When we schedule any meetings, they will be to discuss ‘art and antiques investing.’”

Alan asked, “And what about our
über
boss, Harry?”

“I’ll definitely have to talk with him about it. Either he’ll fire me on the spot, or he’ll want to be in on it. At least we know he’s a Christian, but of course he’s famous for his snap decisions. It could go either way.”

Their conversation went on so long that they stayed for lunch. They first ordered a smoked salmon pizza, and then at just after 3 p.m., again feeling hungry, Rick and Meital ordered Portobello mushroom burgers. But Alan didn’t order any more food because he had early “Dinner and a Blu-Ray” plans at the home of a co-worker and his wife, who lived in Murrayfield. He gave a conspiratorial wink, and left at just after 4 p.m.

After he left, Meital asked Rick, “Do you think he’s up for it?”

Rick dipped his chin and said, “He certainly has the right attitude and enough discretion to be trusted. And I can vouch that he is a saved man. I just need to drag him to the gym and convince him to lose some weight.”

As Rick was settling their bill with his ScotBank card, he had a grin on his face. And just after he waved goodbye to Meital, he whispered to himself, “Wouldn’t that be something!”

Chapter 2: Unseen and Seen

“When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.”
-- David Brin

Edinburgh, Scotland -- March, Three Years After Declaration of the Caliphate

Alan’s chat with his father via the encrypted Unseen video service confirmed his opinion that the neighboring nations might be willing to cede their claims on the Ilemi Triangle, and he gained his father’s support of their project. They scheduled another chat for the next evening, and Alan invited Rick and Meital to sit in.

The second Unseen chat started out with introductions, and then Clive Pilcher launched into a discourse on the background of the 21
^st
Century Thirdist movement, often comparing it to the Ottoman Turkish Empire. He mentioned, “The word ‘
Islam
’ means submission. It is derived from the Arabic word
istaslama
which is a verb that has a literal meaning of ‘surrender.’ The whole outlook of the religion and the word
Islam
itself implies that both Muslims and non-Muslims must surrender, regardless of their willingness. Anyone outside of this is a blasphemer and only fit for death. This belies all of the often-spouted “religion of peace” claptrap. It is the word
Al-Salaam
that means ‘peace’, but the word
Islam
means to surrender. Islam is truly a religion of jihad and death.”

Then he said, “We, as protestant Christians, are now on our own, because the Catholics foolishly signed their Quiet Minarets Agreement, which promised them 99 years of ‘no Sharia law’ and ‘no political ambitions’ on the part of the Thirdists all along the northern periphery of the Med, all the way from Portugal to Greece. But God help them in 2144, when that agreement expires -- or
sooner
if the Caliphs decide to renege on the deal. The Vatican was incredibly naïve and shortsighted. Here we are, being confronted by a ruthless enemy that has a strategy spanning multiple
centuries
, and the Catholics are only thinking about the next couple of generations.

“Here are how things line up: The Thirdist Islamo-Fascists now control nearly 38% of the world’s countries, about 28% of the world’s landmass, and 29% of the planet identifies themselves as Muslim. India still has a Hindu majority, but it now has the largest population of any country in the world -- it has even surpassed Indonesia.

“The Thirdists, known in Arabic as
Ath-Thàlith
-- which just means ‘Third’ -- is the Third Branch of Islam, or “The Third Way.” Unlike ISIS, which rejected modern technology, the Thirdists embrace high technology. They see it as a tool for subjugation. The Thirdists have fully subsumed
both
the Sunnis and the Shiites under their black flag that is emblazoned
3-12
, which of course stands for the 3rd Way of the 12th Imam. By 2100, it is anticipated that they will control about half the world’s population and nearly half the world’s land mass. The Islamic demographic shift in Western Europe has been ongoing for decades. The fertility rate for Christian women is around 2.6, but for Moslem women it is 3.1. If you look at that from a millennial perspective, they are
winning
. And the immigration figures are even worse. The past 20 years have been disastrous. France, Germany, the UK, Italy, and the Netherlands are now being flooded with Muslim immigrants with high birth rates, and Scandinavia is not far behind.”

Rick nodded, and Clive continued. “Before the advent of the Thirdists in the late 2020s, this is how things lined up between Sunni and Shi’a-dominated countries: The Shiites dominated in only Iran and Bahrain. Meanwhile, the Sunnis controlled other Muslim nations worldwide, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Pakistan. Then there were the wildcards: Iraq and Lebanon, which were equally divided between the Shi’a and Sunni factions. Both of those nations were at war almost continuously since the 1990s and would have continued fighting, if not for the emergence of the Thirdist movement. As I’m sure you know, shortly before the Caliphate announcement, there were a series of secret conclaves between the Thirdist, Sunni, and Shiite faction leaders, and what emerged have been called the Greater Good of Islam Agreements, which effectively tabled their differences until the entire world is under the Thirdist Caliphate’s domination, with power-sharing in some regions to be determined at a later date. Even the hardline Shiite Twelvers caved in to these agreements, which sent diplomatic shockwaves around the world.”

Meital asked, “What about the Western world?”

Alan’s father answered, “While Thirdist extremism has been on the rise, the Western nations have been in decline. The United States and most European nations have been bankrupt for more than 30 years. In essence, a century of overspending caught up with them, and now they are all in severe Austerity Mode, and that mode is expected to continue for another 50 or 60 years. The International Debt Instrument Reconciliation and Restitution Tribunals (or I-DIRRTs) carry the force of law, and the UN slaps immediate sanctions on any country that doesn’t make their tribunal-mandated payments. At home, the indebted countries can’t get away with anymore bail-ins, or there will be open revolts. So this has meant that their military budgets have shrunk to miniscule levels. And they are, of course, also regularly threatened by embargoes by the Islamic oil- and natural gas-exporting countries. Even though Islamic nations provide only 40% of the petroleum for the West, the threat of an embargo is still substantial. Bowing and scraping at the feet of the IS by Western nations has become ubiquitous. Even Russia, which is a natural gas exporter, is under constant pressure from well-equipped Thirdist guerillas from Albania and the Stans, all along their southern periphery. They have their military tied down in endless counterinsurgency warfare. And they are saddled with some economic and transport infrastructural constraints that date back to their Soviet Union days. For example, their big Baikonur Cosmodrome is located in Kazakhstan. They have billions invested there. And they have always lacked warm water seaports. A lot of their oil, grain, and container transports are tied to ice-free Black Sea ports in Georgia, since their own ports on the Sea of Azov often get ice-bound. So unless the Russians bow and scrape before the Caliphate, then they will lose access to their year-round ports and perhaps even all passage through the Bosporus Strait.”

Alan chimed in, “The Russians’ quest for warm-water ports dates back to the Napoleonic era; it is still of vital strategic importance, and the WIS knows it. As long as they hold Istanbul, then they can call the shots. The Russians have always been at the mercy of their climate and geography. And since they know they can’t win a protracted all-out war with the IS, they’re locked in ‘bow and scrape’ mode indefinitely.”

“What about China?”

“Being farthest removed, the Chinese apparently still feel pleasantly isolated from the Thirdist threat. Basically, they are the
last
country on the IS global shopping list. So the Chinese content themselves with getting a lock on as many global markets and raw materials as they can. They have bowed out of any confrontation with the IS. That will probably hurt them in the long run, but for now they are just happy not to be in the crosshairs of the jihadis.”

Clive Pilcher concluded with, “Everything that I’ve seen leads me to believe that the IS threat will continue to expand, and the number of persecuted will continue to grow worldwide. It is high time for a dedicated refuge nation. If you can orchestrate it, then I’m willing to devote myself to this, as long as my health allows me.”

Rick offered, “In this orchestra, God is the conductor: We are just a few instruments.”

Alan added, “We just need to trust that the score for this symphony was written before the foundations of the Earth -- that this is a land of promise, like Israel.”

“Well then, let’s conclude this meeting with a prayer” Clive suggested. “We’ll trust that God reveals His will. He always does.”

Chapter 3: Corporate World

“The West has beaten back the totalitarian pretensions of both Hitler’s would-be master race in Germany and Stalin’s would-be master class in the Soviet Union. But it now stands weak and unsure of itself before its three current menaces: first, the equally totalitarian, would-be master faith of Islamism from the Middle East; second, the increasingly totalitarian philosophy and zero-sum strategies of illiberal liberalism; and third, the self-destructive cultural chaos of the West’s own chosen ideas and lifestyles that are destroying its identity and sapping its former strength.”
-- Os Guinness, in
Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel, However Dark the Times

Edinburgh, Scotland -- May, Three Years After Declaration of the Caliphate

Harry Heston, the founder and CEO of GlobalMAP, was a legendary figure in mergers and acquisitions who was often cited in the press. He founded the company when he was 29 years old, following six years of enlisted and Warrant Officer service in the Navy, where he served as a fleet-level Intelligence Briefer and then four years with Morgan Stanley in M&A. He had a Mensa-level IQ and an almost impeccable record in picking companies for acquisition. The common saying was, “Nobody picks winners like Harry Heston.” His personal net worth was estimated at somewhere around 17 billion New Euros (NEuros).

The “MAP” part of the company name stood for Mergers and Acquisitions Partners, but for the past 25 years, GlobalMAP had expanded in three directions: capitalizing on their ongoing success in M&A, creating a multibillion NEuro-denominated hedge fund, and operating as a parent firm for dozens of spin-off companies that had seen stellar performance. Now in his sixties, Harry Heston was still called a Golden Boy, even though he was now a grandfather.

Oddly, Heston had his surname legally changed to that of his favorite actor shortly before he joined the Navy. His original surname was shrouded in secrecy. He had been raised in a Mormon family, but rejected Mormon theology as an adult. Eschewing all concepts of salvation by Works, he became an “All Grace” Baptist. GlobalMAP was first headquartered in Draper, Utah, in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains. The company abruptly relocated to Scotland immediately after the country gained independence.

At the time of that move, the press revealed that Heston had bought an option on a 120,000 square foot office building in Edinburgh’s Morningside district a full year before Scotland’s independence plebiscite. This large, long-vacant building was the former home of the defunct KillaApp software company, which experienced a meteoric rise and fall from 2025 to 2029. Though local zoning limited the building to three stories, it had a large basement parking garage and occupied an entire city block. As a conciliatory gesture toward the city council, all of the building’s façade except the indented entrance drive was carefully designed to look like rows of 18
^th
century buildings, positioned cheek-by-jowl and painted with an artificially aged patina. The overall effect of the building was surprisingly pleasing to the eye and helped maintain the district’s historic character. After GlobalMAP moved in and renovated the building, a new zoning variance allowed the addition of a partial fourth story with a glass atrium near the center of the building’s rooftop.

The building was ideal for Heston’s purposes because it had ample parking that was protected from rain and snow, it had been purpose-built with power and HVAC facilities to house a large number of computer server racks, and was extensively cabled for data to every office space. It also included a restaurant and gym (both originally designed to keep the software developers there productively 14+ hours per day), so the building was self-contained.

GlobalMAP had an international workforce of more than 3,000 employees, many of whom telecommuted from 16 different time zones. The company’s logo was a white dove with wings overstretching the globe, and their motto was “Where global finance and global market intelligence intersect.” However, among employees, the jesting alternate version was “Where global finance and global market intelligence
collide
.” There was a deep divide between the financiers and the market intel geeks within the company. But Harry Heston was a bit of both.

Heston was not well liked by the Scottish press. GlobalMAP’s move to Scotland was initially heralded as a sign of economic revitalization. But then the welcoming spirit soured when it became clear that Heston disliked socialism in any form (including UK socialism) and Scotland’s lingering bureaucracy. One of the main sources of friction was the mandate that within one year 25% of the company’s Scottish-based employees had to be Scottish citizens, and then 35% within five years. Heston met this requirement two ways: By hiring all local janitors, cooks, and baristas, and by encouraging his high-level employees to apply for Scotland’s Economic Citizenship program. Under this program, anyone who invested 750,000 NEuros in Scottish real estate or who invested 1,000,000 NEuros in a Scottish bank qualified for Scottish citizenship. For more than 80 employees, this was as simple as exercising some of their stock options, selling stock, and either buying a large house or investing the proceeds in a local bank. Rick Akins was told that his hiring was not preferential, but his Scottish heritage
did
help meet the artificial quota.

The other key cause of friction was an article that Heston wrote for his company e-letter titled:
Braveheart or Slaveheart?
In this essay, which bemoaned Scotland’s lingering reliance on UK-style socialism and the Scottish “couch potato culture,” Heston wrote: “Here we have a promising brand-new nation, but the people are still slaves to the old UK mentality and bureaucracy. Instead of breaking free of their shackles and starting afresh, they are still queuing up to suck at the welfare teat. If it were not for the steady stream of North Sea oil revenue, Scotland would be an economic basket case.” Scottish news websites soon reprinted the article, along with scathing editorials that derided Heston as “an ungrateful wretch” and as a “Careening Cowboy Capitalist.”

Getting an appointment to see Harry Heston was usually difficult, since his days were packed with meetings. All his personal meetings were scheduled by his secretary, Jane Vo. This tiny Asian lady worked for Heston since he’d started the company, and she was a key player in the company. She was respectfully referred to as “Mrs. Vo” by everyone in the company -- even Harry. The standing joke was that if Mrs. Vo ever called in sick for a week, the company’s ventures would come to a halt and their stock shares would plummet. There was also conjecture that Mrs. Vo’s stock holdings made her a billionaire in her own right.

Mrs. Vo’s office was on the third floor. The fourth floor could only be reached via a private elevator that was guarded by a pair of tall and muscular security guards who wore Bespoke suits and sat behind an armored desk.

Rick approached Mrs. Vo’s desk with trepidation. It was said that these meetings could either be career-makers or career-enders, depending on their outcome. As he approached her desk, she looked up from her curved keyboard. He said, “I’m Rick Akins, from the Database Fusion group, and I’d like to schedule a meeting with Mr. Heston. I’ve been doing a study on forming an entirely new nation-state. I’d like to discuss that with him, along with the attendant investing opportunities that this new country would create. Please relay that to him verbally, without leaving any e-mail trail.”

Mrs. Vo nodded and pointed a laser pen to scan Rick’s badge. “We’ll let you know if and when time becomes available. Thank you.”

As he returned to his office on the second floor, Rick wondered if he’d get a meeting any time in the next month, and if so, how much. Heston’s meetings were often notoriously short, rarely took place sitting down, and he expected a rapid-fire rundown of facts and figures. When Rick got back to his desk, he was surprised to see a red-flagged e-mail pop up on his screen. Opening it, he read, “Mr. Heston will see you next Tuesday at 11 a.m. Clear your schedule: You may be staying for lunch.”

Rick smirked. “Those key-logging gnomes know
everything
.”

Before Rick accepted the job at GlobalMAP, he had been a U.S. Air Force Captain in the USAF Cyber Command (AFCYBER). His specialty had been database fusion and data mining. Air Force tech recruiters tapped him while he was in his final year of college in Texas at Rice University, pursuing a Masters in computer science. Their Direct Commission program included a hefty “critical skills” signing bonus that paid off nearly all Rick’s college debt. Just a week after graduating, he attended the USAF Direct Commissioning Selectee Orientation Course (DC-SOC), which was commonly called the “Direct Commissionee’s Charm School.” It was held in two eight-week cycles each summer on the campus of the USAF Officers Academy near Colorado Springs. This was an intensive series of short courses in military law, drill and ceremonies, military etiquette and courtesy, military report writing, along with some fairly superficial background courses on military history, strategy, Air Force warfighting doctrine, and weapons systems. Most of his classmates were destined for either USAF drone programs or the Cyber Command. Any of them who had already earned postgraduate degrees came into the service as First Lieutenants rather than as Second Lieutenants.

Not surprisingly, Rick’s first and only duty assignment for his six years in the Air Force was The Hole -- the USAF Cyber Command’s “Cyber Warfighting Platform” at Offut Air Force Base, ten miles south of Omaha, near the town of Bellevue. This extensive underground bunker was built early in the Cold War and was the former home of the U.S Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), and even earlier it had housed the Strategic Air Command (SAC). In 2025, after USSTRATCOM relocated to Colorado, AFCYBER relocated from Lackland Air Force Base to Offut and took over most of the empty office space in The Hole.

There was a delay of six months after he graduated while Rick waited for his full-scope security clearance Special Background Investigation (SBI) to be completed. He spent most of that time working on online officer development courses. The next five and half years while based in Eastern Nebraska went by in a blur. He was hip-deep in joint service data mining, database fusion, Computer Network Exploitation (CNE), Computer Network Attack (CNA), and database exploitation, at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. He always lived on base and never had much of a social life. He held a Top Secret security clearance with SCI access and was read onto numerous intelligence and cyber compartmented programs.

In his second year at Offut, the Ebola DRC pandemic made its outbreak in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was the world’s most devastating pandemic since the Black Death. It depleted the world’s overall population by 15% overall and a devastating 60% in Africa. Hardest hit were the sub-Saharan regions that had already been decimated by HIV/AIDS. The new Ebola strain had a 45% mortality rate in Africa’s general population, but a 95% mortality rate among those who were immuno-suppressed. .

The worldwide economic effects of the pandemic were profound. The prices of many commodities went into slumps, and currency inflation briefly abated. Demand for durable goods such as automobiles, appliances, and factory machinery sagged. Skilled workers and even manual laborers were more highly valued. Drone aircraft and autonomous ground vehicles became increasingly important.

The Ebola DRC outbreak also gave a huge boost to the growing dominance of the Thirdist movement. For the five preceding years, the Thirdist mullahs had been prophesying a global pandemic “in the near future” that would cleanse the world of unrighteousness. They called the predicted pandemic “The Great Cleansing.” And when it
did
come, they smugly crowed about it.

Rick felt relatively safe at Offut since pandemic precautions were scrupulously maintained by the active components of the US military. But he lost one aunt and one grandfather, both on his mother’s side of the family, to Ebola DRC. The pandemic had nearly burned itself out by the time Rick was promoted to Captain, in his third year of service. And by the time Rick left the Air Force, new Ebola DRC cases were no longer reported in 190 countries, with just a few isolated hot spots in China and Mongolia.

Even before he left the Air Force, Rick had been eyeing GlobalMAP as a potential employer. He liked the fact that it had an outspokenly Christian management team. He also thought that CEO Harry Heston’s pro-gun stance was admirable. Rick had read that Heston often joined his security guards at the shooting range. And the thought of moving to Scotland, now perhaps the freest nation on earth, appealed to his libertarian sensibilities. Rick considered himself a Life First libertarian, meaning that the sanctity of life was paramount to individual liberty, and hence true libertarians could not consider themselves “pro-choice” if that choice resulted in the death of a baby. To wit: The baby’s life trumps the liberty of the mother or the whims of a eugenicist government. Rick also considered himself a staunch individualist. He rejected collectivism and all “progressive” schemes, including taxation -- especially progressive taxation that penalizes the most productive members of society and seeks to redistribute their wealth for political gain.