The Atua Man: A Novel

Jason sat at the large country table in the family room of their apartment in Stanford House staring at Lillian’s computer. He read the MySpace chats from the night before that ranged from speculation that Lillian was having an affair to Lillian’s bizarre activities with Alex and their drive to Chester. He loved how Lillian had outthought and outmaneuvered Gary and the ISD.

Melanie’s mobile phone rang and slid across the table, almost falling off before Jason could grab it. He checked the caller ID—it was Lillian. He was glad to hear her voice,. “Everything alright?”

“Much calmer this morning. There’s a car that’s been parked across the street a couple of houses down with two men in it. I think they followed me and are still watching us.”

“Don’t go out unless you have to. Perhaps you could sic your dad on them.”

“You have Sir William waiting. Do you need help opening Skype?”

“No. Thanks for reminding me.”

Jason ended his call and opened up the Skype program on Lillian’s computer. As soon as he did he got the message that Sir William was online waiting to speak with him. The camera was kind to Sir William; he was a tanned, athletic man in his early seventies with short white hair and a gold earring in his left ear. He sat in a paneled office with flattering light, surrounded by bookcases filled with important looking law books. The image Sir William presented was one of wealth, wisdom, and the assurance of a professional who knew what they were doing.

“Sir William, thank you for meeting me like this.” Jason spoke into the computer screen.

Sir William Boyd, a senior partner at the law firm of Norton, Boyd & Gladstone, saw Jason, a harassed-looking man, anxious and worried. Sir William and Lloyd Harvey, Lillian’s father, had grown up together in the countryside between Chester and Liverpool. Sir William became Lillian’s godfather when she was born in 1961.

“Jason, what’s going on?” Sir William was concerned.

“I’ve been doing some things that the board doesn’t understand and they want to stop me.”

“Like appearing in a cancer ward out of thin air?”

“That’s being distorted and I plan to give the world a complete explanation. But first I have to deal with my board. They’re isolating me and want to silence me. Frankly, I think some of them would like to throw me in a dungeon.”

Sir William thought about that for a moment. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m afraid of what it’s doing to Alex and Lillian. They had to escape yesterday. This is ridiculous.”

“Can’t we meet in my office?”

“No. This is the best I can do. Lillian made sure our internet is separate from the Ministry’s.”

Sir William opened a thick folder.

“Have I screwed myself completely?” Jason asked. “Can we redo the trust?”

“It will be difficult.”

“Is it even possible?”

“Not so fast. Remember, you were off setting up healing centers in the far corners of the earth, and didn’t want to be bothered with, as you said, the ‘organization.’”

“I know. I know. Don’t you have any secret clause hidden away somewhere…?”

“I’m afraid not. You let Tony Bass dictate what he thought would be an efficient board. That’s what you wanted—someone to take the burden off of you so you could write, teach, and heal. I counseled you to be more engaged in the process and tried to put articles in the deed that would protect you, but you let Tony modify them so that the board has total control over you.”

“As the settler, Jason, you were the only person endowing the trust. At that time no one else put anything into the trust. You were calling the shots. The original endowment was for the purpose of promoting universal healing. All your assets at that time were transferred from you to the Ministry, or the trust. They’re the same thing. It’s all very standard and Tony organized the trust into the various departments so that the Ministry could efficiently fulfill its purpose. You wanted the trust to exist in perpetuity and, against my advice, inserted that only a unanimous vote by the board could dissolved it. Upon your death the trust will support Lillian and Alex for the remainder their lives but not Alex’s offspring. There is nothing we can do about that part of the trust.”

“Are you saying that there is something else we can do?”

“I did my best to protect you, but you were not the easiest client to work with,” Sir William said.

“I was thinking how close we all were. How we all had the same vision.”

“Tony and I had our biggest differences about your future material,” Sir William continued. “I argued that you should keep the rights to whatever writings, videos, and unknown breakthroughs you might discover in your future experimentations. In other words, anything you created or developed from that moment on, and all the revenues generated, would remain with you and not the trust. But you trusted Tony back then. So right now, you, and all that you create—your image, name, new discoveries—belong to the trust. Since it owns all of that, a majority vote by the board can forbid you from any and all public activity that has any connection to St. John Ministries.”

“What if I simply quit? Retire. I could take the family and move to the States, back to Hawaii and live on the beach.”

“How would you live?”

“I’d get a job of some sort.”

“You couldn’t teach, write, or heal without the board’s permission.”

“What if people were healed just by being in my presence?”

“Now you’re splitting hairs. But I would imagine the board could demand that you stop and if that meant that you could not go out in public, they could demand that you remain cloistered. If they went that far we could fight that last demand in court.”

“I’d buy a boat and take the family to the South Pacific.”

“With what? You’ve got no money outside what the trust gives you.”

Jason got up and paced back and forth before Lillian’s computer.

“Jason, sit down,” Sir William demanded. “I can’t talk to you when you float in and out of the picture.”

Jason laughed at the irony. “You have no idea … So is there any way out?”

“I was able to add a few clauses in your favor. One—you, Lillian, Melanie, Dorothy, and David, as founding trustees, can never be kicked off the board.”

“But David resigned, remember?”

“Doesn’t matter. His seat is always there for him if he ever decides to return.”

“Secondly, though members serve a life term, a director can be removed by a two-thirds vote if their actions are shown to undermine the purpose of the foundation, and/or if they abuse their fiduciary duty. And thirdly, your vote on the board counts as two votes. So unless Tony and his supporters can stack the board, you have a powerful say in what takes place.”

“That’s golden!” Jason says. “How did Tony miss that?”

“He didn’t. He was going to walk and I told him to go ahead. I told him you really didn’t need a trust, so he took control of what he could. Given what he’s doing now, Tony may assume that you don’t realize the control you have, given the lack of interest you’ve shown in the past.”

“Do the other trustees know about that two-vote provision?”

“Yes, it’s all in the trust deed. Do you know how the board is split regarding your current activities?”

“Four, maybe five would vote with Tony. If Dave comes back, the three of us, Lillian, David and I would be four votes. Deedee, I’d have to assume would be with us, and Melanie could be toss-up. I don’t know. We could be deadlocked. What happens then?”

“I, or someone from our firm, would cast the deciding vote, following as close as we can the articles of the trust deed and the mission statement of the Ministry.”

“What if I die?”

“The current board would control all the assets and Alex and Lillian would be taken care of according to the trust provisions.” Sir William then leaned into the camera on his computer and said, “If you die, and there is a body—or if you’re killed, the provisions of the trust are very clear and it would be extremely difficult for Mr. Bass or any other board chairman to deny support for Lillian and Alex or force them to do or say anything they wouldn’t want to.”

“What if I disappear?”

“If you disappear, and nobody can find your body, Alex and Lillian would be at the mercy of the chairman. He could determine that you were still alive and run the Ministry according to his agenda, as it appears he wants to do now. He could force Lillian and Alex to go along with his program and they would have limited legal recourse.”

“So until Dave gets here I don’t have the votes to go against the board. And until I have the board’s support my family is at risk.”

“May I make a suggestion,” Sir William says.

“I don’t agree with all that you teach, and I absolutely recognize the incredible scope of your healing Ministry, but I would advise you to follow one of the principles you teach—the one about non-resistance. Don’t resist Tony. He’s a fighter.”