Waste Not, Want Not Chapter XV

The following day found Paul arriving early at Albert Hyak’s office in his very elegant building.
Albert was at the open door when Paul came down the hall.
“Good morning Paul! I hope the brisk weather is beneficial for you!”
“Good morning Albert! You look bright eyed and bushy tailed!”
Coffee was waiting on the desk with two hot cups on a silver serving tray.
The two men sipped their coffee.
“Very good,” said Paul.
“So tell me about your trip to your new property,” said Albert.
“I think it is promising. There is apparently a large, deep cavern on the place. I didn’t get a chance to look at it.”
“Yes, you told me of your ordeal there! Take your time, get healthy before you go back.”
“I am doing fine. I will make another trip soon. There are some problems with the place though. There is a group of people, squatters really, that live there and cultivate the place and run the cattle and just carry on the business of the ranch. They’ve been doing it for a number of years apparently,” said Paul.
“Why they will just have to go! Can’t have them about…”
Paul replied “It’s not that simple. They are known in the community and causing a sudden disruption of those families could draw unwanted attention. We need to think about this.”
“Hmmm,” grunted Albert. “I see what you mean. Well, what do we do?”
I am working on it,” Paul said, though he was momentarily perplexed. But he would never let that be known.
“There is no big hurry right now, things are still settling down here. The new administration hasn’t got going yet and we need to bide our time a little while anyway,” said Albert.
So for the next few weeks Paul returned to business. As he expected it looked like a good year already. He had laid a solid groundwork in his various enterprises and stocked the company leaderships with men he had known for years, and then their sons.
He had a far flung business empire with gasoline retail outlets, transport, refineries, drilling companies, exploration companies, geologist, the works, a fully integrated business model in petroleum.
He was fond of saying that his organization “ran like a well oiled machine!” He had a poor sense of humor but he found his weak pun hilarious.
His companies were autonomous. Their CEO’s and boards had full responsibility for their operations and shared handsomely in the good times and rode out leaner times, of which there had been few lately.
Paul did keep a sharp eye on things. He knew what was going on in his companies. When he found something going wrong he acted quickly. He was known to richly reward good management and accomplishments. He was also known to be ruthless and relentless when he found something he had to fix.
At the moment he was concentrating on his facilities at Oak Ridge and Yucca Flats. There was a surplus of radioactive waste building up in their lead lined under ground silos. This added extra urgency to his Waste Not, Want Not plan.
After a long day Paul decided to go home and relax for a change and maybe go to bed early. He fixed a quick dinner, poured a drink and watched the news before he went to bed.

Waste Not, Want Not Chapter XIV

There was one party Paul would not miss. The night of the biggest wing ding he found himself at the must attend affair at the Cohen House, with the dowager heiress Dolly Cohen as the hostess.
Dolly was the descendant of a prominent Jewish family whose ancestor was among the small number of Jews among the founding fathers.
Dolly had been a social maven since the days of Camelot, Jackie and J.F.K. She was not partisan. She paid homage to whoever was in power at the moment. But she knew everybody and everybody
came to her parties. And she knew how to throw a party.
Paul stood in the crowded drawing room sipping a martini and surveying the party goers. He had renewed his acquaintances with the President, Vice-President Cheney and had met some of the cabinet members he did not know.
The swing jazz band was playing and he was looking for someone. Then he saw Albert Hyak. Albert was a tall, distinguished man with grey beginning to frost his curly dark hair. He was of a Lebanese family, very wealthy and with contacts worldwide. Albert saw Paul also and walked to him.
“Paul! Glad you are back home!” Albert extended his right hand for a hearty handshake. “Let’s go outside where we can talk.” With that the two walked out onto a terrace which was dark except for the moonlight.
“So tell me where you’ve been.”
“Well, it’s good to be home,” said Paul. “Albert, I was on a bit of a hunting trip, and I looked at a possible useful site for WN2.” (WN2 was the abbreviation of the code name Waste Not Want Not.)
Albert was one of them, the Defenders. Paul was the founder.
The Defenders was a group of wealthy, influential and powerful men who shared certain viewpoints. So much did they believe in the correctness of their vision and of their agendas they were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain near total secrecy, not only their actions but even about their very existence.
These men shared a virulent hatred of communism, they were still locked in the cold war and were not convinced it was over.
They also looked upon themselves as those best able to guide the world to a future they envisioned as best. They were strong American nationalists, they would call themselves “patriots,” but they were not fond of Jeffersonian democracy.
They had formed an organization to secretly store nuclear materials, bombs, components, fissionable materials, technology and equipment and any thing they thought might be necessary to jump start the nuclear capability at short notice.
It was apparent that the inventories and oversight of the overall programs were amazingly lax and amazingly easy to circumvent.
The Defenders had no trust in the new Russian democracy, they felt it was just a matter of time before a resurgence of the communists, or something worse, once again took over the reins of the Russian government.
They were also very much afraid of rising Chinese power. They continued to refer to the Chinese as the “Red Chinese.”
In their opinion many secret defense projects which had been abandoned were worth keeping and developing. So they combined their vast combination of wealth, influence, power and experience into creating something approaching an under ground government ready to step in if events, as they saw them, required it.
The Defenders said they were saving for a "rainy day.”
Their program carried the code name “Waste Not, Want Not!”