Chapter 30

The Brits Become Accustomed to the Yanks On The Hill.

Everyone had a blast watching Karen learn how to drive on the left side of the road and manipulate a gearshift knob and clutch. She made that little red Mini Cooper hop like a bunny. I also had problems shifting with the left hand and foot to get into the correct gear. Karen got out, leaving the stalled car in the middle of the drive the first time she did the bunny hop in the mini. She stormed up the hill to the manor house and refused to try again. My wife swore that she would walk from now on. That lasted a day, then she was back out there, hoping that none of us were watching. She came in the house teary-eyed and sniffling several times. I knew better than to ask what was the matter Karen, when upset, would threaten physical harm. It took forever, but she finally mastered it on her own. I was proud of her when she finally learned how to shift a manual transmission.

The local authorities sent a license examiner out since there were so many of us who wanted to have a license to drive in the UK. Everyone except Grandma Jorgenson wanted a license. She had given up driving years ago. She had Karen and/or me drive her everywhere in Chicago, and she didn’t see any reason to change here. The drive testing took all morning. We all did the same route. It was down the hill to the main gate; stop, turn right, and drive through the village. The route had us make a series of turns through the village, then back to the Manor’s gate. The route then turned into the estate and stopped in front of the manor house. We all passed the tests without any issues. The last test was for my motorcycle endorsement. The examiner set up a series of cones, similar to the one that I passed in North Dakota. I was to weave through the cones at various speeds to show my agility handling the motorcycle, again very similar to what I was required to do in North Dakota. I passed that exam as well.

It would be a couple of weeks before our permanent license would arrive. We were to keep our copy of the license test to show that we had passed until then. I was able to secure an auto insurance policy that would allow us to drive the estate’s vehicles. The Ford Cortina Estate Wagon unofficially became Karen’s car of choice. It had the most room, and she would be able to get the children in and out of the estate wagon easier when compared to the Mini Cooper.

Karen always liked to go out to eat once a week back in Chicago and wanted to continue that here in the UK. I drove us around locally looking for dining out opportunities one Friday night. We found a charming pub a couple of villages over and decided to try it. The food was typical British pub fare, meaning that it was plentiful, tasty, and reasonably priced. It became our regular place to go on our date nights. We had gone there enough times that we were considered locals instead of those Yanks up on the hill.

We weren’t always welcomed where we stopped. We were sometimes treated with contempt. We never went back to those pubs unless accompanied by one of the ‘Twin Mountains’. Having the beefy protection detail along made the pub patrons more polite. Sorry to say that having Scott and John along didn’t make the food taste any better.

It was early summer before our group began to get some indication about how the negotiations were progressing. The Soviets and the Americans would each make a proposal at limiting intermediate-range nuclear force missiles. The proposal would always benefit the home team. The Russians proposed a ban on all intermediate missiles by the year 2000, which would leave them still having access to their long-range systems capable of striking the USA. With the ban on all intermediate systems, the Russians would have no deterrent to face Europe. Their conventional forces could race across Europe with little to stop their superior numbers of tanks and armored troop carriers. The Soviet proposal’s reduction would include the nuclear capabilities of the UK and France. The USA rejected that proposal and countered with one of their own which would have both the USA’s and Russia’s intermediate nuclear missile systems phased out by 1989. The British and French nuclear system numbers would be unaffected. The British and French systems, which the Soviets rejected, would serve as a deterrent to keep the superior number of Soviet forces in check. Both sides stayed and talked instead of walking away from the negotiating table.

That was when the questions started. Could we predict if the Soviets would accept any of our proposals? The explanation I always gave was that if we could measure the response the numbers would then predict the probability of acceptance. My reply lost the person who asked the question several times. To make it simpler for the negotiators, I started giving our team a score on the probability that the Soviets would react to their proposal in a positive manner, which in this case, had a 75% chance of being accepted. We would respond with “Your proposal has ‘a snowball’s chance in hell’ of being accepted” most of the time. The negotiators understood that answer.

I kept refining my algorithm to fit the situation at hand. Dr. Frisch would give every proposal’s rough draft we received a quick once-over, looking for any loopholes or odd phrasings that would make it unacceptable under international law. Andi would then look it over and put a Russian twist to it, as she was the expert on the Soviet Russian culture. She would give each proposal a score of plus ten for acceptance by the Russians or a score of minus 10 for each rejection. These numbers would weigh on the final score the algorithm gives the proposal. The Russian Acceptance Scale that Andi and I co-developed could enhance a mediocre proposal score. A solid proposal that didn’t appeal to the Russian mentality received a lower score and had a lower predicted chance of being accepted. It all sounded good, but we wouldn’t know until we used real data and saw the results.

I didn’t spend all my time concentrating on developing the computer predictor program. I still had time to escape from the Manor and ride on the roads that I became familiar with when Karen and I went for Friday drives. A few of the regulars came out to look at the bike I had ridden the first time I pulled up at the pub Karen and I usually stop at. I still had my helmet and shaded face shield in place, so I doubted anyone would know who I was. I did hear someone holler out from inside the pub, “Who is it, Georgie?”

I had just taken my helmet off, and one of the regulars hollered back, “It’s the Yank.” I got a few head nods as I passed those who came out to check out the bike. The barman and several of the older men, who always seemed to hang out there, greeted me when I was inside. They seemed to have warmed up to me. The barman went back to his tasks after serving what I wanted, and I was pretty much left alone. That is, until the others came back in. That was when the questions about the bike and my travels on it started. I told them of my road trip across the United States a few years ago, and they were impressed. They roared when I told them the reason for it. One of them commented that I didn’t get far as I was now married to her. Everyone, including me, laughed at that. I stayed for about an hour and informed the pub regulars that I had to be getting home or the wife would send a search crew out. That got me a few more laughs and comments about who had lace on his knickers. I laughed as much as the other patrons, as I didn’t take offense. They did say to come back when I had time.

Karen earned points with the village women when she shared about being at the White House and having private time with the First Lady. I wasn’t the only one who ventured out; Karen and her grandmother had their own following. They were popular among the women of the village where they did most of their shopping. It wasn’t long before Karen had her circle of friends among the village women. This was how Karen became acquainted with the village midwife. The woman came highly recommended by Karen’s circle of friends, and she would be the one Karen chose to assist with the birthing of our twins.

Grandma Jorgenson soon established her circle as well; not all were women. Word got out about her cooking abilities, and several older widowers had asked if she was receiving visitors. She didn’t understand the meaning of the question until one of the other senior women explained it to her. She quickly and gently let the interested party down as she wasn’t ready for callers. The men seemed to understand but still made their intentions known. The others, during their off hours, ventured further afield, spending time in London or taking trips to the coast, visiting places like Brighton.

July came, and while the days were warm and somewhat humid, they didn’t compare to a humid Chicago summer. The negotiating team sent us weekly updates of their observations. Dr. Frisch and Andi would keep busy interpreting the data and assigning it a numerical value. Then the data came to me, and I would input the numbers into the magical box called a personal computer. The results would be tabulated, and the three of us would issue a report in a form that the negotiators understood. After we had done our analysis, Molly typed the report and sent it on its way back to the team members. So far, we had better results than a coin toss in our predictions of how the opposition would respond to the treaty team’s proposals.

A courier came from London with a huge packet and two boxes of equipment for me during the third week of July. One of the boxes contained a new portable PC made by Compaq. The other box contained a high-end dot matrix printer. The packet was mostly new intelligence gathered and data generated by the treaty team members. Also in the packet were three envelopes, one for me, Andi, and Dr. Frisch, containing orders for us to report to London on August 1 for a temporary assignment. The military refers to these as TDYs. We would join the negotiating team as temporary members as it was hoped that the turnaround times would be lessened by being closer. The shorter the turnaround time, the more relevant our results would be to the negotiators. The President and his Chief of Staff signed these orders, so they carried some weight.

I didn’t think that Karen would like the news I had to share when we were alone after supper that night. I was right; she didn’t like it all, and her tears proved it. Karen was moving into her third trimester, and that meant the end of her pregnancy would be coming soon. Karen expected me to be there for the births. She was afraid that I would miss them by being away in London. I chose not to say anything while she vented her frustration; I could have ended up as a convenient punching bag for her frustrations.

We were in a caravan of three British Range Rovers when it came time for us to drive up to London as ordered. The first vehicle was for our security detail. The second vehicle was for us, and the third vehicle was for additional security and our equipment and baggage. The ‘Twin Mountains’ went along as our security detail and would stay with us while we were in London. They rode in the third Rover. The security in the lead car and in our Rover was part of the Diplomat Security Service, which was part of the State Department. The trip to London was uneventful, and we stayed in the complex where most of the State Department assigned to Great Britain lived. We each had a room that reminded me of a mid-level hotel in the US. The ‘Twin Mountains’ stayed in similar rooms.