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About the Author
DAVID PALMER is a retired management
consultant who specialised in strategic business planning for twenty-five years.
His professional life has been about staring at the far horizons and trying to
anticipate what threats and opportunities are likely to emerge in the decades
ahead.
He has published articles for the
locally based Business Directions magazine, and the internet publication
of an essay entitled A Thesis on the Nature of Religion on the Centre for
Globalization Research website. He has also written and self published a
non-fiction book on mature-age entrepreneurship entitled Creating your
Self-Employed Third Age Career. In addition he is the author of hundreds of
consulting reports and dozens of management training courses including a dozen
undergraduate and post-graduate university courses in his role as a part time
university lecturer.
In his spare time he has travelled to
over forty different countries across five continents.
Armaginning
is David’s first novel, drawing on his technical, strategic planning knowledge
which includes the extensive use of forecasting methodologies, his travel
experience and his two business degrees and recently completed Graduate Diploma
in International Relations.
Prologue
“Two and half billion dead?” queried
Cinq. “Are you sure?”
“Give or take a hundred million,” said
Henri.
“Over what timeframe?” asked Cinq.
“About fifty years,” replied Henri,
matter of factly.
Cinq thought for a moment. “And if we
intervene?”
“The numbers will be about the same, but
we think we could get through the whole thing in about fifteen years.”
“And you’re pretty sure that it’s going
to happen whether we intervene or not?”
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” said Henri.
“We ran hundreds of projections using a whole suite of scenarios. No matter what
policy choices the various governments of the world make, it’s still going to be
very ugly – it’s going to happen no matter what. The only thing the council
needs to decide is whether it wants to remain passive or whether it wants to
actively intervene so as to come out of it in the best position for our members.
It’s as simple as that.”
“When?” asked Cinq.
“We think that the first real signs of
serious disruption will start to emerge around 2030,” replied Henri.
Cinq buried his chin into his chest and
stared at the surface of the great oak table in front of him. He pondered the
magnitude of what his chief policy adviser had just told him. He knew Henri well
and he knew he was not prone to exaggeration or hysteria. If Henri said
something was likely to happen you could pretty well take it to the bank. But
two and a half billion deaths – nearly one third of the world’s population –
that was a pretty mind-boggling prediction to accept. Cinq frowned, the furrows
creating deep canyons in his usually smooth imperturbable brow. He thought for a
few more moments. Then he sighed in resignation.
“Alright,” he said. “You’d better call a
special session of the council. But do it discretely. I suspect some of our more
nervous members are going to have trouble accepting this.”
“Yes, sir,” said Henri, and rose to his
feet before turning and quickly exiting the luxuriously appointed boardroom.
Cinq turned and gazed at the wall length
large screen command display at the end of the room. It was clear at that
moment, but soon it would be alive with symbols, lines and pictures depicting
the most frightening scene the world had experienced since the Black Death. He
knew that it was to him, more than anyone else, that the rulers of the world
would turn to guide them through the coming holocaust. And if Henri was right
with his timing, Cinq and his Global Strategy Council, most commonly known as
the GSC, only had about twenty years to prepare for the ordeal ahead.
Old Timers’ Dreams
According to the old timers, Americans
really believed that their country had a manifest destiny – that it was
something special and unique. But, as Purdoe now knew, it was much more complex
than that simple belief first suggested; other peoples had dreams too and they
loved their homelands and their traditions as much as he loved his. And the path
to learning that fundamental truth had been a painful one.
The empire was gone now and much of the
country was in a state of disrepair. The great naval fleets were home and the
foreign bases closed. The boys and girls were home too, although many were still
hurting. Inevitably, some had not come home. They now slept in foreign fields.
But a new day was dawning and the future
looked bright. Yes, he thought, it was good to be an American and living in this
great land in 2063. He was no longer a religious man but he still found himself
mouthing a silent approbation: thanks for a second chance.
Purdoe hadn’t always been this humble.
In his younger years he was so sure of himself, his beliefs, his place in the
world and, most of all, of his destiny. He had always known, or thought he did,
that he was destined to do great things. It took him a little while to work out
what but he was always sure that there was some great task that he had been set
on Earth to perform.
His upbringing helped a lot. He was the
second son of a respectable middle-class couple, the Purdoes, who lived in the
small mid western city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His dad, Hank, was a local realtor
and a respected member of his local church, Echo Hill Presbyterian Church. Mum
Julia, was a librarian at Prairie High School. She was also on the Lim County
School Board. His brother Rob was, for the earlier days of Purdoe’s high school
years anyway, the star quarterback for the school football team. He later went
on to college at Iowa State University where he was officially enrolled in
Entrepreneurship in the Business School but it is probably more accurate to say
that he majored in girls, parties and football – and not necessarily in that
order. Purdoe was a bit overawed by him but, on the whole, Rob was good brother,
as big brothers go. And, although Purdoe didn’t get to share in too much of the
good things that came his brother’s way by virtue of his local near-celebrity
status at school, he was not ostracised by Rob as many younger brothers are.
In many ways it was a pretty typical
American upbringing. He was born at St Luke’s hospital on 4th July
1997 – no one had any trouble remembering Purdoe’s birthday – then day care,
kindergarten, pre-school, primary school and high school followed; the usual
lifestyle of a middle-class American lad. His own sporting ability was not as
spectacular as Rob’s, but he was pretty good at most sports he tried. Cross
country running was the one sport where he really shone but it did not seem to
have the same attractive appeal to the opposite sex as his brother’s gifts.
Academically he was no slouch either and regularly came in within the top two or
three in his classes at school. Rob was the apple of his dad’s eye, of course,
but Mum more than compensated for any shortcomings in parental attention,
although she didn’t dote on either of them and Purdoe was never a mummy’s boy.
College is where he really shone. He
started out in the economics faculty at Cornell College, but after his first
full academic year he found that discipline rather dry, the maths in particular.
Except for one subject that fascinated him – the history of economic thought. It
ran almost totally contrary to his liberal and Christian upbringing. It was
laced with juicy provocations like Marxist theory which served up abundant
fodder with which to engage in lively debate with his straight-laced, free
enterprise loving dad and, of course, his now expert entrepreneurially
disciplined brother, Rob. Purdoe was not necessarily an antagonistic person but
after years of subordination to both his dad and his big brother his
increasingly independent self relished the opportunity to argue authoritatively
with his senior family members. Purdoe loved it.
Year two looked like deteriorating into
a more intensive round of the same boring mathematical rigour that had dulled
his initial enthusiasm for his chosen discipline. Then, quite unexpectedly, his
campus was paid a visit by an increasingly prominent figure of national and
international standing. It was former Vice President Al Gore, the aging
eco-warrior was at that time in his late sixties. By 2014 Gore had shot to
national and international prominence again as the increasing impact of global
warming began to sink into the collective psyche of Middle America. Gore spoke
passionately of the need for international cooperation to frame an effective
response to the threat. He urged his young audience to dedicate their lives to
saving the planet. This was the call that Purdoe sensed was his destiny. Like so
many other starry-eyed youngsters, he pounced on the chance and cast a steely
eye around for a path that would take him to his fate.
His opportunity came equally
unexpectedly. Brother Rob had broken his collarbone falling off a balcony in Des
Moines and was home for a couple of days rest and recuperation. His class had
arranged a visit to the University of Wisconsin (UW) Business School for a
regional business game playoff. Rob was team leader so he had to be there but he
could not drive, so Purdoe agreed to chauffeur him. It took them both to Madison
for a couple of days but left Purdoe largely unoccupied during those long hours
when Rob’s team was plotting its strategy and preparing for the next round of
the game. He filled his time wandering around the university campus. That’s when
he stumbled across the International Studies faculty.
It was everything he was looking for. It
had programs in African, East-Asian, European and Middle-Eastern Studies – the
whole world at his fingertips. The curriculum included core units in
international relations and international political economy – a practical and
contemporary extension of his much loved history of economic thought. It also
contained foreign language units. It even had an international institute with
affiliations with universities around the world. He could do some of his
electives in foreign lands in exotic places like Thailand, Indonesia, China and
France. Purdoe was hooked. His destiny was set, or so he thought.
He moved up to Madison and enrolled at
UW. His studies went well and he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in
International Relations with a major in Mandarin. But, like most teenagers, he
had been so engrossed in his own world that he had not really noticed that
Hank’s real estate business had been struggling as a result of the credit crunch
of 2008 and the ensuing perilous state of the home ownership market upon which
the family’s livelihood depended. Both Hank, being the stoic mid-Western
Presbyterian father that he was, and Julia, the loyal and equally dependable
wife, shouldered the burden of the family’s deteriorating financial situation in
silence. They made sure that the boys’ rents were always paid and that their
allowances were always in their bank accounts when expected. But between the
dwindling commissions from the sparse home sales and the modest librarian’s
salary that never seemed to keep pace with inflation, just keeping the boys in
school was a significant burden that neither boy knew or understood.
They had even feigned delight when, at
the end of his studies, Purdoe joyfully announced that he had won an AIESEC
(International Association of Students in Economics and Commercial Sciences)
internship to the China desk of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra,
Australia. They had hoped that on graduation Purdoe would get a job in Cedar
Rapids and be able to help contribute to the family budget. At the very least
they had hoped that he could become financially self-sufficient. But this new
opportunity, although paying a living allowance, rent subsidy and air fares, did
not leave much over for just being a normal young consumer living a modern
American lifestyle (or an Australian one either, if the spending guidelines were
anything to go by). Nevertheless, they encouraged Purdoe to take up the offer,
and grinned and bore it.
Purdoe’s twelve month stay in Canberra
was a blast. He liked the Aussies. They had a quirky irreverence about them and
seemed to delight in thumbing their noses at authority. As a bonus, Canberra was
just a few miles down the road from the snowfields of the Australian Alps and
their ski resorts, so he spent most of the winter months skiing. In summer the
Aussies seemed to think nothing of piling into some old jalopy and driving a few
hundred kilometres to Sydney or Melbourne or down to the east coast beaches.
Canberra was like a cemetery after five o’clock on any weekday afternoon and
totally dead on the weekends.
The work on the China desk was
interesting too. Purdoe was amazed at the audacity of the Aussies to poke their
noses in world affairs and have a modest impact on most things when all logic
and rationality said that such a small country should have had little, or no,
influence at all. They seemed particularly adroit at playing China off against
the United States, and vice versa, and coming out keeping both happy but being
in front on the transaction themselves. ‘Having two-bob each way’ they called it
although what that actually meant, Purdoe never really did find out.
But it all came to an end at the
antipodean summer of 2019 when Purdoe went home. He wanted to go on to
post-graduate studies but by this time Hank and Julia felt that they had carried
the burden long enough. It was time for Purdoe to grow up. He was devastated by
news of the family’s financial plight and was immediately wracked with guilt.
Why hadn’t they said? He could have put off AIESEC and gone out and got a job.
But done was done. He, at least, was grateful and was determined to be a burden
no more.
He started looking for a job. But it was
not that easy. There weren’t a lot of jobs for a graduate in international
relations (especially one with a major in Chinese studies and a vocational
specialty in Australian affairs) in a small city like Cedar Rapids. Or even in a
state capital like Des Moines or Madison for that matter. And competition for
places in Washington was fierce with most of the best opportunities going to
people with family connections to government or with an Ivy League degree.
But fate had not abandoned him. In true
American style, the cavalry rode to his rescue (and not for the first time
either) in the form of a US army major, with cavalry corps badges on his
uniform, on a recruiting drive for Uncle Sam.
“Oh yes,” he said. The army could
definitely find a place for a tall, healthy, bright young graduate with a major
in international relations. They had lots of jobs that needed skills like that.
And that’s how Purdoe became a soldier.
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