Chapter 523

“Tashi Delek, Minister Jogi,” Arthur greeted the older man that wandered in. He was a little on the florid side, with the red and enlarged nose of a regular drinker; but for all the signs of favoring his alcohol in the evening, the man’s eyes were sharp and bright at the moment.

“Tashi Delek, Clan Head Chua,” Jogi sat down with a sigh, the bureaucrat attendants following soon after. There were a good half-dozen of them, outnumbering the pair of his own helpers beside Arthur in the form of Mel and Uswah.

Rick was still in the Tower, taking his time, enjoying himself. A little frustrating, that the man was allowed to do that, to cultivate and upgrade himself while Arthur had to come out here, doing a task he never wanted.

Even if he tried to give as much work as possible to others, there were certain things that just were not possible to delegate. This meeting was one of them, what with it being the exit meeting. His last – likely – contact with the Bhutanese people for a while.

Made him amused, since they could change the Minister at any time, certainly after the next election if not sooner; but here he was, still shaking hands and making nice.

“Your Clan and yourself have fulfilled your part of the agreement, quite admirably too,” Jogi said to start. “A lot of new recruits being taught by your people, a lot of spaces set apart for our men to learn. Everything is quite admirable…”

“But?” Arthur could hear the but.

“Your investments in the country are somewhat low. Below what we would expect.”

“The MacKenzie group have bought quite a few pieces of land and are in the midst of upgrading not just one but two of your firing ranges. I know they’re discussing at least two more.”

“That is them, not you.”

“We’ve got a partnership in the matter.”

“A partnership with the Americans is always tricky,” Jogi said. “You know how it is, no?”

“I do.” Arthur had received more than enough lectures from Casey, the way US corporations like to break into countries, acting as though they were doing the country a favor by bringing their investments, their money over. Putting up factories – always the minimum level necessary to make a savings – while poisoning the air, dumping their refuse and never promoting locals. Preferring to bring their people from overseas rather than to train those here, so that all that knowledge was kept locked away.

No surprise that the Chinese had blocked them so adroitly last century and the early parts of this one, stealing technology and forcing the transfer of knowledge. It was just a pity that Malaysia had never done that – but their government never had the balls or the intrinsic demand in the country to allow such blatant disregard.

“The MacKenzie’s are playing fair for now. We have the right to buy them out if they become a problem,” Arthur said, simply.

“And they you?”

“No.” Arthur smiled grimly. “One advantage of being small, right now. They have to play ball with me, or there’s nothing to be had.”

Jogi nodded slowly, eyes narrowing. “Still, we would want more from your Clan. If not, I’m not sure we can continue to allow you to operate in the country.”

“We’ve already established the Clan buildings in your Tower.” Mel leaned forward, her voice calm and a touch curious. “You cannot remove those.”

“True. But we can choke you of newcomers. We can take over your buildings, if we want – those you have added, they are Bhutanese are they not.”

Arthur shook his head. “I can remove them. All your loyalists.”

“And leave empty buildings behind? How will that affect your Clan rankings?” Jigo asked, adroitly.

“Who knows?” Jigo’s eyes narrowed, searching Arthur’s face for a hint, before he grunted in realization that Arthur truly had no clue. “More importantly, two thirds of them are empty right now. We need to train people up to take them over, and that won’t happen if you shut down on us.”

“Why would we help you grow your Clan, if we get nothing from it?” Jigo said. “You want to train your people, grow yourselves; but what do we get out of it.”

“Isn’t that the point of all the slot s and training your people are getting. We’ve got dozens of people coming in who aren’t even part of us,” Arthur said.

“Minimal. We are a poor country, you know,” Jigo said.

“And we’re a poor Clan.” Arthur opened his hands sideways. “We just started two years ago. We’re still getting our footing, and only now seeing some of our strongest coming out of the Tower in KL. Once we get more, they’ll come to help out here.”

“If they don’t go to your other Towers. Kuching isn’t it? Dhaka? And where to next?” Jigo said.

Arthur opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted as Mel placed a hand on his arm. He fell silent as she spoke to Jigo. “Tell us what you want, plainly. We can’t promise anything, but this dancing around is not useful. Especially not with my Clan Head.”

Arthur wondered if the man was asking for a bribe. He did not think so, this was not the right kind of atmosphere for such a thing, but you never knew. He’d been surprised before, after all.

“If you cannot spend financially, we want a timeline.” Jigo gestured to one of his people who extracted a small file folder and pushed it across. “Our suggestion.”

Arthur took the folder, flipped it open and scanned it. Mel leaned over to read, while Uswah kept an eye out for trouble. He read fast, memorizing the details easily thanks to his Traits and noting what they wanted. It broke down, relatively easily, in the end…

“You want us to commit to the opening of each of the Clan buildings in the various Towers. The number of people being trained within, and how many of our people are coming over.” He frowned, tapping the bottom. “Also, a certain stone extraction amount and dollar investment.”

“Yes.”

“Unacceptable,” Mel said. “The timeline can stay, though details can be argued. But you are asking for the same thing, in multiple ways with the rest. If we have a large number of our Clan members exiting, we will meet your stone requirements. Same with the investment objectives, as we’ll have more funds to do so.”

“Not necessarily, you could take the stones you extract and spend them in one of your other Towers,” Jigo said. “Exploiting our Towers for your own gain. Like the Americans and Canadians, mining our land and leaving behind detritus and poisons alike.”

“Except the Tower stones are renewable.”

“So we believe, for now.”

“What we do with our stone, with the funds we make after we exit the Tower and after it’s taxed is none of your government’s concern,” Mel insisted.

“I beg to differ.”

Arthur sighed, rubbed his face and receiving a glare from Mel. He understood that doing so gave away the game, his exhaustion with this argument. However, just because he hated it did not mean he wouldn’t negotiate to his best ability.

“Threatening us doesn’t do you any good. We both know you can put a stop to our expansion here, but you also get nothing out of it,” Arthur said. “I’m also going to add, that this is the last time we’re going to have this conversation. We already had one negotiation and now you come back, not even a year later and want to renegotiate the contract?” He sniffed. “Do it again, and we walk. And I don’t care what we might lose.”

“Threatening us…”

“Not a threat. A promise.”

“Every contract has a time when we can renegotiate,” the man said, angrily. “You cannot expect us to be happy with things forever.”

“Fine, so let’s work out a decent period. But we don’t do this again and again, yes?” He waited till they nodded in reluctant agreement before he relaxed. “And Mel’s right, we’re going to find a middle ground here, between what you want and what we need.” A pause, before he added. “I see a lot of possibility with you all, more than even in Dhaka. We can do a lot, if we work together.

“Will you work with the Benevolent Durians?”