CHAPTER 182: THE UNITED EARTH CONCORD’S FOURTH MEMBER

There was silence. Arroyo’s face revealing nothing. Then, the blank façade gave way to a genuine warm smile, "Yes, I will sign the Universal Earth Concord bill and commit Guatemala to the principles it outlines."

Now it was my face’s turn to break into a smile. "Nice! You had me worried," I admitted. "I wonder if the members of the council can get along with each other well enough to come to any decision or advice, honestly. I’m not worried about you, but I don’t even know who else is going to be there, yet. I mean I can guess maybe half of the first members based on where we’re working, but after that, it could be North Korea, Russia and China for all I know."

Arroyo laughed. "I don’t know who’s going to be running Russia, but unless you’re planning on taking out the leadership, I don’t see those other two joining anytime soon."

My laughter joined his own, "I’m ok with that until we get the first council filled, anyway. But hey, that’ll be your problem. I just sit back and wait for some consensus, if it comes too late, oh well..."

"Well, you’ll hear my opinion within whatever time constraints you give us, at least, if you care to hear it."

"I do. I’ll let Joe, my communications person, know to put you through any time. Unless I’m in the absolute middle of a crisis or something. Right now we’re at Mexico, Ukraine, Colombia, and Guatemala. We have a bunch of requests, actually though."

"Want some advice choosing?" Arroyo asked with an amused twinkle in his eye,

"Sure, El Salvador, Ecuador, Haiti, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Thailand, Angola, Paraguay, Central African Republic, Mali, and The Philippines. Any favorites or unfavorites from that group?"

"Paraguay asked to be a member? That’s odd."

"Why is that odd?"

"Well, the party in charge there, the Colorado Party, has held power since World War II, except for one five year period. One of their former Presidents, President Cortes, pretty much runs the show from behind the scenes since they have term limits that prevented him from running again. The current President is his close friend and puppet, Pedro Santiago. Cortes is the richest man in the country and getting richer by the day. He is said to buy votes in congress for things he wants done. They have a pretty solid grip on power there, so its odd they would call for you to come in."

Joe, what are the circumstances with the Paraguay request to join the UEC, I asked mentally.

The request came from President Santiago. I don’t see any formal discussion in Congress about it, certainly no bills passed. It might be just the President’s request. He doesn’t really seem to have the legal authority to commit to it though. Interesting, Joe replied instantly.

"President Santiago made the request, maybe he did something that he thinks will upset Cortes, and wants UEC protection before Cortes finds out," I suggested.

"That’s possible, I suppose," Arroyo agreed with a furrowed brow. "I can’t imagine what though, or why he would cross him. Cortes pays him an off-the-record monthy ’retainer’ and paid for most of his campaign"

Joe’s voice spoke up again in my head, I found several messages and phone call records between Cortes and Leandra DeCampos Villanuevo that might be relevant to the situation

"Could it have some thing to do with Leandra somebody?" I asked Arroyo.

His eyebrows shot up and he looked straight at me, clearly quite surprised. "Leandra DeCampos Villanueva?" he asked.

"Yes, that’s it. Does she have something to do with Cortes?"

"I hope not. That’s Santiago’s wife. Why do you ask?"

"I’m told there were some phone calls between her and Cortes that might have something to do with a falling out between Cortes and Santiago..."

"Hmmm. That would do it. There have been no rumors about anything like that I’m aware of. Cortes does try to keep his personal life pretty quiet though... He’s divorced for some years now. Not especially handsome, but he is very, very rich, I guess. How do you know... nevermind, you seem to know everything."

"Rumors about what?" I asked, I had no idea why phone calls might cause trouble.

Arroyo looked at me quizzically. "Are you... married Timothy?"

"Married? No way, I’m only..." I almost gave away my age! That was close. "...I’m only single." I finished weakly.

He tilted his head as if trying to process that. "I see. Well, if you were... married, you might understand why Santiago might be angry. But, you mentioned Haiti, they don’t have a president currently, who requested UEC membership there?"

I was thankful he changed the subject, "The Transitional Presidential Council, with co-signature from the Prime Minister."

He nodded. "I would add Haiti. They have never recovered from the earthquake fourteen years ago. They need help to restore order and perhaps get their criminals off the streets. Their last president was killed in office three years ago. There troubles are starting to affect the Dominican Republic next door. It seems you might do much good there with lesser effort."

I nodded, "I will consider it strongly. Eventually, I hope to have every country as part of our alliance. Then the council positions will rotate, but for now, I actually get to choose the first council by choosing the first countries we add. Hopefully, that gets the council off to a good start and it can stay orderly."

He nodded agreement, "Then you might consider a staggered roll-over as terms expire instead of having them all replaced at the same time. Then you have some stability and experience at all times."

"That’s a good idea. I’ll do that. I can send someone over to pick up the UEC documents whenever you like to make it official."

"They’ll be ready in an hour."

"Excellent," I replied. A fourth country now added to my growing Earth alliance. "And from the rest of the list, any more advice?"

"I’ll think about it and get back to you tomorrow morning. I’ll need to do some checking around to get a feel for some of the national leaders that I don’t know personally to see how they might fit in on your first council."

"Sounds good, I’ll check out Haiti, while you get that done. Do you want me to be present in Guatemala when you make the public announcement?"

"Yes, that would be a good thing. Shall we do it tomorrow as well?"

"Tomorrow’s good," I agree, "speeches and ceremony type of thing?"

"Yes, just so."