by Brett Baker
“It’s not illegal to buy gold,” Mia said. “What are you doing with the gold?”
“We’ve amassed a lot of gold,” Fabrice said. “That’s the key. Billions of dollars.”
“You mean millions?” Mia asked.
“No. I mean billions. With a B. We only move the needle if we control a big chunk of gold.”
“What do you mean? Stop giving me bits and pieces tell me all of it. Why am I here?”
Fabrice sighed, looked at Mia, and shook his head. “I can’t tell you everything. I could get into a lot of trouble.”
“You mean more trouble than dead?” Mia asked. Fabrice growled with frustration, slammed his back on the bed, and sat up again.
“A group of us got together. We pooled our money, and started buying gold. Months ago. Almost a year. We setup proxy accounts so we could buy it without anyone knowing we were behind it. We bought from various sources, and we’ve got a lot of it. Well over a billion now.”
Mia nodded. “Golly fuck. That’s a lot of gold.”
“It is and it isn’t. I mean it’s worth a lot, of course. But you buy two thousand bars and you’ve got a billion dollars. Then you’ve got to find a place to store it. And transporting it is a motherfucker. The whole thing’s a pain in the ass and it only works because it’s so valuable. It’s around twelve-hundred an ounce right now, and it’ll maintain its value. There’s only so much gold in the world, but it never disappears. I mean some industries use it, but they don’t put a big enough dent in it to affect demand. So there’s money to be made from gold, but there’s more money to be made from using gold to manipulate currency.”
“That’s what you’re doing?”
Fabrice nodded his head.
“How?”
“How much do you know about economics?”
“I know enough to know it’s all bullshit,” Mia said. “There’s a reason it’s called economic theory instead of economic law.”
Fabrice chuckled, clapped his hands once in appreciation, and said, “Fair enough. But economic theory and monetary theory state that when the value of gold is inversely correlated to the value of currency. When gold is high value currency is low value, and when gold is low value, currency is high value. Easy enough. But what happens when you manipulate the gold market in two countries, lowering the currency value in one country while raising it in another?”
Mia stared back and said nothing. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know that?”
“Don’t feel bad, no one knows. Except for us. And that’s what we’re doing.”
“How do you know something that no one else knows?”
“We buy all of this gold in the U.S. After we’ve amassed a couple of billion dollars we declare that we have that much gold, and we’re holding on to it. Essentially taking it out of circulation. Less supply means high prices. So the price of gold goes up. When the price of gold goes up, the value of the dollar goes down. Now, this is where the secret part happens. After letting the market know that it’s out of circulation, we then send all of that gold to China without telling anyone. We setup a few different companies in China, who then sell the gold to the Chinese government. The American government won’t buy gold on the market. The Chinese government will. So the Chinese government buys the gold at those high prices because no one knows that it’s the gold that we took off the market, and they think that gold is still off the market. Then at the end of the year China declares that it’s bought all of this gold, the world sees that China’s gold reserves have increased, which boosts the Chinese currency, which the government keeps artificially low. We then take the money we got from China for that high cost gold, which is in Chinese currency, and invest that in the American dollar, which is worth less compared to Chinese currency than it was before, which means we can buy more of it. We make a few billion off of that, and then just hold on to it. Wait a year. Maybe two years. Then—whoops!—turns out that the Americans who bought all of that gold put it back on the market illegally, which drops the price of gold, which boosts the American dollar, of which we’re holding billions, and then we all divide that according to the amount we put into the pot and we turn a handsome profit.”
“What?” Mia said.
“I know. It’s complex. Between you and me, I don’t even understand all of it. All I know is that we invest money now, some things happen, and in a couple of years we have a whole lot more money.”
“But Driscoll understands it?”
“Right. Driscoll’s running the New York side of things, Buster’s running things in China. Only this guy Li goes missing, and he’s Buster’s point person in China. Without him we have no way to process the gold shipments when they get here. Li’s got everything setup, and he’s supposed to give that information to the guys in New York. Buster thinks he’s going to Singapore, and we don’t know where the fuck he is. And Buster doesn’t know that Li was selling him out and joining us to begin the whole operation before Buster was ready.”
“Why do that if Buster was so important?”
“Everyone agreed that we should. Except Buster. He thought we should wait for the new president to be sworn in, which he thought would raise the American dollar, and lower the gold price, so we could buy even more than we already have. But we were ready to go now. We didn’t want more than we already had. We were happy with the profit to be made now, and we worried that a new administration might change things enough so that our plan wouldn’t work.”
“So there is a limit to your greed,” Mia said.
“Everyone’s greedy. We just all have different degrees of it.”
“Driscoll’s the leader of the operation?”
“Him and Buster. Without them it doesn’t work. Actually, without most of us it doesn’t work. We all have a little part.”
“What’s your part?” Mia asked.
“I have to find Li.”
“And kill Buster. Don’t forget about that.”
“If you do it I’ll give you my cut of the action. I don’t need the money. I can take a hit. But I can’t go to jail. That’ll ruin everything.”
Mia shook her head at how on target Randy had been with his assessment of Fabrice and the others.
“That’s what I was looking for,” Mia said. “Exactly. You’re a slow learner, but you come around in the end. I’m proud of you. You’re not as much of an imbecile as you appear.”
“Thank you?” Fabrice said, unsure how to react to the compliment.
“This is what we’re going to do,” Mia said. “I’m going to kill Buster, and when I get back we’re going to call Driscoll and tell him that you’ve taken care of everything and that Buster’s dead. I’ll take a picture so you can send it to him. And when your plan works you give me your share.”
“And you’re not going to kill me?” Fabrice asked.
“I’m not going to kill you.”
Fabrice said, “Thank you,” over and over at least three dozen times. Mia wanted to slap him to make him shut up, but instead just told him to shut up. He obeyed.
Mia cleared the table in the corner of the room and told Fabrice to sit beneath it and hug the post. “Why?” Fabrice asked. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Just sit,” Mia said, exhausted at the back-and-forth with Fabrice.
Fabrice sat and Mia used the telephone cord and the cord from the blinds on the window to tie Fabrice to the steel leg of the table, and then tied his hands together and tied them to two chairs. He could move, but he couldn’t escape.
“I’m going to get Buster,” Mia said. “Before I leave, let’s be sure you understand. I’m killing Buster, and you’re giving me your money. If you don’t give me your money I’m going to kill you.”
“Understood,” Fabrice said, with too much appreciation, but just happy to be alive.
46
Chapter 46
Chinchew had no vacancy before it opened. Tenants flocked to obtain space in the new state-of-the-art building, just as Buster kne
w they would. His time in Quanzhou had helped him develop a deep understanding of the culture and its people, and he understood the difficult balance that the city had achieved by keeping one foot in traditional Chinese culture and stepping into the westernized version of the twenty-first century with the other foot. Chinchew paid no homage to the traditional ways, with the exception of its name. Everything else was rooted in the present day.
As with any other new building, security was a foremost concern during Chinchew’s design and construction. However, despite the advanced systems and preventive measures that Buster had incorporated into the building, almost everyone failed to follow the most simple security measure: using the card swipe system.
By cutting off access in the lobby to anyone who didn’t have an access card, the designers intended to make it easier for security to handle problems. It made more sense to address a security breach in the lobby than up on the twenty-second floor. However, the thousands of people who came to work each day in Chinchew rejected the cumbersome system and refused to show their cards. By the second week of the building’s operation security had begun letting people past the access point without making them scan their cards. The few security measures throughout the rest of the building would have done little to stop anyone who was dangerous, so Chinchew had become wide open.
But Mia didn’t know the building had no security, which is why, when she entered the building without an appointment, she expected someone to stop her in the lobby. And when she made it through the lobby she expected the elevator to prevent her from boarding. After she boarded the elevator, and exited on the thirty-third floor, she expected someone to stop her there. Instead, she walked right up to Buster’s office, saw him working inside, and kept on going. She preferred not to talk to him in his office, but if he was half as paranoid as Fabrice, then she knew he wouldn’t leave his office.
She decided to compromise and wait near the elevators on thirty-third floor until Buster boarded one, and she’d follow him inside and confront him. As luck would have it, she didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes after she sat in a chair next to the bank of elevators, Buster came around the corner, pressed a button, and stepped inside. Just before the doors closed, Mia joined him.
“You don’t know me, Buster, but I know you. And I’m here to help you if you’ll help me with Driscoll.”
Buster looked at Mia like he couldn’t have been more surprised if she grew a second head on her shoulders. He took a step back, and turned his body away from her, as if he expected her to attack.
“Golly fuck, Buster, I just told you that I’m here to help. Why are you acting like I’m going to kill you?”
“I wouldn’t put it past Driscoll,” Buster said. “He’s a maniac.”
“Well, that’s not why I’m here.”
“Who are you, and why are you here?”
“I know a little bit about what you’ve been involved in, and I have to stop it. I also know that you want to stop it. I just need to be sure that I understand what’s going on. I’ve talked to Fabrice and he told me how things work. The gold, the currency, the secret shipments. I just need to be sure we’re not missing anything.”
Mia could see a wave of red overcome Buster’s face as his anger grew. “This isn’t the place to talk about this. Follow me down.” They took the elevator to the first parking garage level, exited, and stood in the corner of the garage, and spoke in a low voice. Buster looked around as if he expected law enforcement to take him down at that moment.
“Why did he tell you all of that?” Buster asked.
“He didn’t have much of a choice,” conceded Mia. “He thought I intended to kill him. People get chatty when they think they’re about to die.”
“What did he tell you?”
Mia recounted her conversation with Fabrice, and asked Buster to fill in the gaps.
“There are no gaps,” Buster said. “That’s everything. Except for the fact…” Buster stopped himself. He was just about to tell Mia that Fabrice had left out the part about Driscoll and Li screwing him out of the deal, but he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to know. Mia left that detail out of the story, figuring that she’d let Buster fill in that gap if he knew anything about it. “Well, never mind. You already mentioned that, I guess. It all depended on the markets. If they didn’t respond how we thought they would then there was no money to be made.”
“Of course,” Mia said.
“And you want out because you think Li is going a different direction. Well, that and because he attacked me and left me for dead.”
“Yeah, I noticed you seem to be in pain as you walk. I thought maybe you had an injury or a disorder or something.”
“Courtesy of Li,” Buster said. “Broken ribs, separated shoulder. I’m a mess. He’s double-crossing us, and he wants us out. I know how to take a hint, so I’ll leave, but I’m bringing the whole fucking thing down with me.”
“Which is why I’m here,” Mia said. “I can do this for you now that I know how it works. Immunity might be tough, but perhaps we can make it so you’re not associated with any of it.”
“Who are you, and why would you do that?”
“I fix problems. You’re a problem. This plan of yours is a problem. The best thing for everyone except for those of you involved is if it just goes away. So let’s make it go away.”
“But who are you?”
“I’m the person who’s going to keep you from going to jail, save all that you have, and make sure you have the chance to leave past the weekend. You don’t need to know more than that.”
“I’m afraid I do,” said Buster. “I can’t be sure that you weren’t sent by Driscoll, or that you’re not working for Sun and Gao.”
“I came here to help, but I’m not going to waste my time convincing you to take my help. You’re on your own.” Mia turned around and started to walk away. She expected to hear Buster ask her to stop, or hold on, or something to keep her from walking away, but he didn’t say anything.
The volley of shots rang out just as she opened the door to walk into the parking garage lobby. She ducked and sought cover behind a car parked a few feet away, and then looked toward Buster. He was running toward her, ducking behind the line of cars as the bullets ricocheted off of the wall above his head. Mia watched as a car that had passed by stopped and backed up, the driver with his arm extended out the window. Another volley of shots followed, and Buster fell to the ground, face first. The car stopped, squealed its tires, and left, pulling away from where Mia crouched. Buster began crawling, and Mia saw no blood on the ground. As she stood, she heard a loud crash, and ran toward Buster.
“Are you hit?” she asked.
“No, he missed me. All of those shots and he missed me.”
The car’s engine revved at the corner of the garage, near where Mia and Buster had been talking. Mia crept between two parked cars and peeked around the back to see that the driver had cut the corner too close, and become hung up on a concrete barrier at the end of the row. She darted out from behind the parked car, and sprinted toward the revving car.
She expected gun shots to fly her way, but heard only the revving of the engine, and the clanging of the transmission as the driver threw it back and forth between drive and reverse in an effort to get free of the obstacle. Mia crouched behind the car, and if the driver freed the car while in reverse he would have crushed her. She needed a second to decide what to do next. She had charged the car without a plan, intent on not letting the shooter get away if she could prevent it. While on the ground she saw a small chunk of concrete on the side of the car that had broken off of the barrier as the car collided with it. She crawled beneath the car, the right side of which was lifted eighteen inches off the ground thanks to the barrier, and retrieved the piece of concrete. She dragged herself back to the rear of the car, and then crouched down, took a deep breath, and ran toward the driver’s side window.
The engine revved once as she approached the window, and in on
e quick, ferocious swing she struck the driver in his left temple with the piece of concrete. She could feel his skull shatter, but in order to make sure she finished the job she took another swing that landed in the same spot, the concrete chunk coming to rest on the soft sponginess of his brain. The man collapsed to the right. Mia reached in and turned the car off, and then ran back to Buster.
“What did you do?” Buster asked, still flat-chested against the floor of the garage.
“I fixed the problem,” Mia said. She grabbed Buster under his arms, and pulled him to his feet. “That’s the guy Driscoll sent, without a doubt. You better go home right now and stay there. He could have more guys coming after you. I don’t see any cameras around here, so I don’t think they can put this on you.”
“Put it on me? Why would they do that? Some guy shoots at me and they put it on me?”
“Someone’s going to come across that guy in the car, and they’ll see the bullets in the wall, and if you look all disheveled and panicked, they’ll put it on you. Keep your cool and get out of here. And don’t do anything. Not one thing.”
“Why wouldn’t they put it on you?” Buster asked.
“This ain’t my first rodeo, Buster. They won’t even know that I exist.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mia didn’t answer. Instead she walked back into the parking garage lobby without giving Buster a second look. As she walked through the lobby of Chinchew she didn’t want to start running, but she knew she had to get to Fabrice as soon as she could.
47
Chapter 47
She walked back to the Wanda Vista Quanzhou with one eye behind her and one eye ahead. Although she didn’t think that Driscoll knew that she existed, and thus hadn’t sent anyone to kill her, she still felt the strong sense of paranoia that had served her so well in her years in The Summit. As she walked through the lobby of the hotel her eyes scanned every direction looking for anyone who looked threatening or motivated. She’d encountered enough hit men to feel like she could identify them. The room seemed clear though, and as she got on the elevator she wavered between low-key optimism, and the nagging feeling that the hit man visited Fabrice before driving to Chinchew.