The success of the SUV that Old Wilson had designed for the general was such that Rick had authorized a fleet of twenty more to be ordered. This fleet was for the RBG Security team's use. They were just as rugged as the one belonging to the General, but not as luxurious inside. The general had a humidor, wet bar, premium sound and video system, massaging and heated seats as well and genuine leather upholstery . The fleet was build to the same exterior standards as the general's, bullet proof glass, amoured body all around, machine guns hidden behind the front grill and in the rear bumper. They even had a small rocket laucher secreted in the roof. Needless to say, they were about three times heavier than a normal vehicle, but well worth the extra protection. A passsanger would not even feel more than a slight bump if a genade or landmine went off under the SUV. Therefore, it was these SUVs that took the group to the courthouse on the morning the trial was to begin. The theme of this
After the court case was over, the group returned to Ting Gap for a victory celebration. Matthew had planned a backyard BBQ for the event. They were all in a joyous mood. They had at first thought that the case might go on for a few more days, but in the end, it came to a satisfactory conclusion swiftly. The party went on for several hours. After a while, Brandon came in with a bit of news. Mr. Knight had sent over a copy of the holdings that the Judge had awarded RBG LLC. It was an eye opener for everyone. It contained not only the office building in Shanghai, but a number of others as well. The rent off of these buildings was considerable. Not to mention other properties, such as ocean front villas, and a beach resort. The cash deposits were adding up into the billions as well. Rick wondered why someone so rich would resort to such unscrupulous means over a dollar. He would never understand some people's greed. Then there came a big surprise to Debbie. As she was going over the a
The group spent a pleasant evening together on the lido deck, and dinner was superb. Even Matthew commented on how good it was. Lois was in seventh heaven. She had never experienced such luxury. But she knew that it was only temperary. She did not obsess about it. But she did enjoy it to the fullest. The biggest change that both Debbie and Rick saw in her, was the way she treated the staff. She did not bark orders at them, but treated them with kindness and respect, always saying "Please" and "Thank You". If anything could change their minds about her, this surely did. The next morning, everyone woke up and gathered once again on the lido deck for breakfast. The first thing that they noticed was that the boat had stopped moving. Then they all realised that they were docked at a pier, in New Taipei City. Old Wilson said " The city is divided into two sections. Taipei City is on the north east, and New Taipei City is to the south west. It is divided by the Tamsui River. I chose this
Originally, the group was only to stay in Taipei for the day. But with the problems facing Rick's Great Aunt Su Ma, Rick decided that he needed to stay a bit longer. He and Debbie decided to give everyone the option to stay, or be flown back home. Most opted to stay, but Rebecca had to get Harry back for school on Monday. So Old Wilson arranged for her and her son to be taken back to Shanghai, and for Larry Watters to be picked up and flown back. His presence would be needed to help design the renovations on the old school. Rick went back to see his Aunt Su Ma, and had a long talk with her about what she wanted to do about everything. He gave her the choice of staying in the old house, or coming back to Fing City and living with him and Debbie. She chose to stay put. Next was to start the demolition on the place. Rick also wanted to give it a proper name. Calling it the old school just seemed wrong somehow. Su Ma suggested Heping. The word means 'peace' in Mandarin. So the old
After returning to Fing City, Matthew got started on his task assigned to him by Rick. He combed through all of the security reports supplied by the general of incidents connected to the various offices that ,in the end, all had a common theme. In almost every case, the problems were caused by local competitors and/or their associates. Everything from slander, to harrassment was in evidence. Then Matthew discovered something that stunned him to his core. All of the local competitors had one other thing in common, they all were part of world wide comglomerates. Without execption, either their parent company, or the families involved were directly linked to a bigger group. This was big. Very big! This gave Matthew a difterent avenue of search. His thinking now was that the problems that RBG Group were having was a conspiracy aimed at subduing RBG Group world wide. As one of the largest comglomerates in the world, Matthew knew that they would have enemies, but all that had happened wa
Rodger Yates had been watching the business news on his cell phone when he saw the announcment about the change in board members of the New Global Bank. From his previous research, he knew that this was the bank used by the RBG Group. He thought that maybe this was his chance to find his informant. He continued to search for any one of the new members who he could possibly use for this purpose. Several other men from the group that had been at the last meeting in London also saw the news. They started their own research into this matter. Rumors started to circulate about the new CEO. It seemed that this Mr. Matthew Moore had some financial issues of his own. He was reportedly deep in debt. One by one, the men started calling Rodger to discuss this with him, and to make sure he was aware of the situation with Mr. Moore. After having a conference call with the entire group, Rodger instructed that this Mr. Moore was to be the target. He seemed ripe for the plucking, given the righ
Rodger arrived at the villa with just two body guards. He did not want to intimidate, just impress. As he got out of the car, Li Fan opened the door to greet him. He asked Mr. Yates guards to remain outside. Rodger signaled them to obey. Then Li Fan led Rodger into the living room, where Matthew was waiting for him. Matthew stood up and said "Welcome to my home, Mr. Yates! I'm so honored to meet you." With that, he stuck out his hand to shake. Rodger replied "Oh,no! It's my pleasure to meet you!" As they shook hands, Rodger was looking around the opulent room. He commented "This is such a lovely home! Such luxury! I'm quite jealous." Matthew said "Oh don't be. I find that if you want people to respect you, you have to give them something to respect. My home is my ticket into their world. The rich only respect money, or at least the display of what it can do." Rodger said "I know what you mean. If one doesn't have money in this world, he is a nobody. I find that having t
Old Wilson and Rick had been watching the scene unfold on the monitors. They both agreed that Matthew had played his part well. Rick said "If I did not know Matthew better, I would have thought that he really was betraying me!" Old Wilson laughed and replied "Yes, he did very well. And we have the first bit of evidence on the Chief's list of proof. That with the video and voice recordings prove industrial espionage. But only against Rodger Yates. If we want to expose the whole group, we need more. Somehow, we need to lure them out in the open, or get Yates to call a meeting to get them all together in one place. We'll have to work on this." Later that day, Rick was sitting in the middle of the playroom floor, with all of his children surrounding him. This was one of his happy places. The boys were chatting away with him and each other, while the girls were crawling around. Little Ella came and crawled into Rick's lap and just wanted to cuddle with her father. When Rick stroked
It was a sad day for Rick. Today, he was to bury his beloved mentor, Old Wilson. Old Wilson had been frail, and his health had declined slowly. If someone didn't see him every day, they would notice a vast difference . But since Rick would go down to see his old friend regularly, he did not realise just how bad Old Wilson had gotten. It was on such a visit that Rick found Old Wilson sitting in his favorite chair out in his back garden. At first Rick just thought he was asleep, as Old Wilson would nap out there almost every day. But after sitting down beside him, Rick finally realised that Old Wilson had passed on. It broke Rick's heart. Old Wilson had left instructions as to what he wanted done after his death. He asked that Rick bury him next to Ruth, his wife, and their son, Christopher. It was out in the countryside, north of Fing City. Rick had made all of the arrangements, and that morning, he and Debbie headed out. He had made the announcement of Old Wilson's death to the com
After the kidney transplant, Debbie's health improved tremendously. She had regained her strength and stamina to the point that she was able to resume her duties at RBG LLC. Over the years, she had expanded offices in all of the major cities in the south. Every big company clamoured to have RBG LLC handle their accounting needs. It became a status symbol to have Debbie work for them. After such a huge expansion, Debbie and Rick had set their sights in a more global presence. So they started with Cairo, Eygpt. Since Anita had done such a good job organising that pharmaceutical office years ago, it had become the premier branch of RBG Pharmaceuticals. So it was a natural place to start the global expansion of RBG LLC. Rick and Debbie spent several months in Cairo setting up the branch, and even acquired a residence in Eygpt. It was an expansive villa right on the banks of the river Nile. Larry had designed it to reflect the location and local culture. The villa was named 'Alhudu
As time flew by, Lois had been in Jelang and had been doing very well with her shop 'Second Chance'. The local population had, for the most part, forgotten about her sordid past. She was a valued member of the business community. Last yesr, she had been nominated to run for the local Chamber of Commerce Chairman. She was of course flattered to be nominated, but was very surprised when she actually won the position. It was the peak of her life to have been given this post. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine that she would reach such a height in her life. Even though it was just in a small village such as Jelang, the fact that she was overwhelmingly the popular choice humbled her even more. Rick and Debbie both were just so proud of Lois, and even came to her investiture ceremony, along with all of the rest of the Thomas family. Howard had really been putting his all into the Thomas Shelter. Along the way, he met a very nice lady, who had come in for an interview fo
The day dragged on as George frantically looked for his missing man. Since the man had no pockets, he didn't have his cell phone on him. So he could not call the general to tell him what was going on. He had all of his contact numbers in his phone, so he had not bothered to memorize any of them. After a long afternoon of being interrogated by the police, they at last let him make a call. He decided to call the resort, and if nothing else, he could leave a message for his boss. After this was done, the jailer put the man in a cell to wait for further instructions from the police Chief in charge. George finally went to the front desk to ask the desk clerk where the nearest police station was, thinking that it was a place to start looking, and to file a missing person's report. The desk clerk then remembered to give him the message that had come in for him, and it just so happened to be from his missing man. George went and sought out Matthew and Rick to accompany him to the p
After ensuring Su Ma had everything that she needed, the group left to return to the yacht. They were to spend the next few days at sea. Everyone was back on board, then they set off for their next port of call, Manilla, Philippines. It was an exotic port, and nothing like anything any of the group had experienced before. They had a wonderful time seeing all of the sights. Then they set sail for Singapore, Malaysia. This trip was a smorgasbord of many different cultures and sights, not to mention landscapes. Singapore was a bustling city, full of high end shopping centers with branded stores, as well as the local cultural sights. Museums, art galleries and the like. The kids especially liked the Singapore Zoo. It was filled with all of the animals that they had studied in school. The adults were partial to the Singapore Botanical Gardens and the National Orchid Garden. They all enjoyed the trip to China Town. It was a taste of home for them, but in a different way. There was really
The years had flown by. The Greens had expanded their businesses in every direction. The most profitable were the ocean shipping company and the pharmaceuticals. Medical supplies was running a close third. Rick was planning a big suprise for the kids' ninth and tenth birthdays next month. They had grown so much, and still all of them got along so well with each other. Li Fan had gone on to be a managing director of one of Rick's local offices, and he was proud of his work. His son, Ricky, was looking more and more like him every day. Alice was a very good mother. Ricky had grown up with the Green children, and seemed more like one of the siblings, rather than just a cousin. George and Anita's daughter Leah was also part of the "tribe". Since George paid close attention to the security of Ting Gap, Leah had grown up in the house as well. It was an exclusive daycare that Rick and Debbie were proud to provide for the two kids. All of the Green kids were very protective of them
General Han gathered all of the evidence that he had collected and called his friend at the police station. They sent the fraud investigation team over right away to go over the documents. They agreed with George that this was an embezzlement case, cut and dried. After informing Debbie and Rick of their findings, Debbie called a meeting of those involved. The head of personel walked into the conference room, stopped dead in his tracks and turned to flee. He was stopped by the security guards at the door. He was made to sit down and shut his mouth. Next, the other two culprits walked in together, chatting with each other. They sat down across from the upper managment team and waited. George introduced everyone. "Mr. Waits is the head of personel, this is Mr. Floyd, head of accounting, and that is Mr. Grooms, the managing director. Gentlemen, this is Mrs. Green, CEO of RBG LLC. The man next to her is Mr. Green, Chairman and owner of the RBG Group. Then we have Mr. Moore, Vice Pr
The crowd outside the venue were so excited to see their favorite stars and public officals as they arrived at the gala. The men dressed in tuxedos and the beautiful gowns that the women wore were worth standing in the night air to see. All of the attendees made use of a step-and-repeat banner set up for press photos. These glamour shots would been seen all over the media in the coming days. But the most stunning had been Debbie in all of her finery. Her jewels shone like the stars in the heavens. They cast a glow around her like nothing else could. The evening was filled with surprises, and a lot of money was raised for the Green Children's Foundation. Brandon was thrilled with both the turnout and the donations total. It had been a very successful night. The day after the gala, everybody at the Green villa slept in late. They only got up in time for a scumptous brunch prepared by Chef Matthew. It was well worth dragging themselves out of bed for. Then everyone started to get
Once again, the Thomas family came together for a family weekend. The highlight of the weekend was of course the gala for the Green Children's Foundation. Since Jonathan and Betty lived in Beijing, they were to be included in all of the festivities as well. Rick and Debbie loved having their family around them, and this weekend was no exception. Rick and Debbie's Beijing villa was not as big as Ting Gap, but no less opulent. After all, Larry had done the design work and supervised the work himself. It was large enough to hold most everyone coming from out of town. Lois, Rebecca, the Old Thomas', Howard, Heyward and his wife , Aunt Alice and Li Fan and of course Matthew and Brandon. So the Green mansion was full to the brim. Matthew decided to cook on the first night of the gathering. Dinner on that Friday night was a master piece of culinary delights. Matthew rarely got to indulge himself in the kitchen of late, so he went all out to prepare a meal fit for a royal banquet. His dish