Archway was a hedge fund that Pershing had set up several years before, financing it by siphoning off a few million from Betsy Eriksen’s holdings and creating a dummy corporation to run it. Pershing had done a couple of dry runs while he was on the council of advisors and saw that his double-game could work. He pictured himself as a genius who skillfully oversaw the maintenance of Betsy’s wealth while giving himself a bit of it.
He had begun by finding an employee of a London bank who could delay a multibillion-dollar transaction for an hour or so while money moved from one point on the globe to another. During that hour, the interest on the money was deposited in one of Pershing’s Swiss bank accounts and was never missed in a global financial world awash in money measured in billions. The gambit got him his seed money.
While deciding what to do next, he focused his investment skills on mortgage-backed securities. The two sides of his character emerged: his cautious self kept Betsy Eriksen’s money away from that risky brand of securities, but his gambler self decided to take a chance for Archway and bet against the subprime mortgage market. He won his bet.
His next move was to draw Rolf into the scheme. Rolf’s salary and bonuses from Eriksen Inc. gave him enough walking-around money for a top-tier New York social life. And, like the prince waiting for the queen to pass on, Rolf was well aware that her realm would someday be his. But Pershing knew that the wealthy always wanted more wealth. Rolf certainly did, and he wanted it quickly.
So Pershing, in his avuncular way, told Rolf that they would only be taking a kind of bonus on the money that Pershing’s talent had streamed into Betsy’s coffers. By partnering with him, Pershing told Rolf, he was merely getting the money that was due to him, a little ahead of time.
As soon as Rolf agreed, Pershing knew that he had a built-in insurance policy. If his detouring of Betsy’s money were ever to be discovered, the focus would be on Rolf as an impatient heir, and the lawsuits would mean exposure of a very private man.
*
ROLF was trying to continue the Eriksen tradition of privacy in the Information Age, when Google, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and Internet videos made anonymity all but impossible, especially for the heir to one of the nation’s largest fortunes. But riches mean power, and Rolf managed to remain out of the pages of the magazines and the videos dedicated to tracking celebrities.
Never being photographed sometimes meant that, now and then, one of his security men had to smash a camera or break into a paparazzo’s apartment and trash it. But there always might be someone with a cell-phone camera, and Eriksen hit upon the simplest and easiest tactic: a regular retainer to the editors who decided what celebrity photos were to be published. Thanks to this simple tactic, Eriksen’s photograph never appeared in the places where celebrity photos usually appeared.
If an entry in Wikipedia meant the achievement of celebrity status, then being removed from Wikipedia meant the demonstration of extraordinary power. Anyone who looked up “Rolf Eriksen” on Wikipedia found, under his name, the words, This page has been deleted. Anyone who went to Wikipedia’s Deletion Log and asked why the page was removed was cryptically informed that the author of the article on Rolf Eriksen “has requested deletion.” This was not exactly true. Rolf Eriksen had made the request, and the author knew that if he had not withdrawn the article, he would never have another word published anywhere.
Intelligence agencies and expensive financial newsletters got scant new information about Eriksen from the Wikipedia entry, which lasted on the Internet for only two days.
Rolf Eriksen was born on July 14, 1962, in New York City. He is the chief operations officer of Eriksen Inc., whose CEO is his mother, Betsy Eriksen. He has been offered membership on a number of boards but has no other ties to any corporation. His personal wealth—including the value of his known art collection—is estimated to be $1 billion.
Eriksen graduated from Choate in 1980 and from Yale University in 1984 (B.A., economics, summa cum laude), where he was a member of Skull and Bones and Phi Beta Kappa. He was an intern at Goldman Sachs in July 1984, and was offered a permanent position. But he declined and later assumed his present position at Eriksen Inc.
Little is known of his private life. His photo does not appear in either the Choate yearbook or in any edition of the school’s weekly newspaper. The only photo in the Yale yearbook shows him as one of several students gathered around a library table, heads down studying. His only known recent photo was taken by a photographer outside the New York headquarters of Eriksen Inc. One of Eriksen’s bodyguards was arrested, but not charged, for assaulting the photographer and destroying his camera. The photographer managed to salvage the memory card from the wreckage. The photo was published in I See, a celebrity news magazine, which Eriksen promptly bought through intermediaries and shut down.
See Betsy Eriksen.
*
AFTER a short discussion of Archway’s dependable performance, Eriksen shifted to Mark Stanfield’s campaign.
“So there’s no way you can … redact my name?” he asked.
“No. Your contribution to Stanfield is personal and must be identified,” Pershing replied.
“What about my mother? She puts in millions and she only gets mentioned for a minor contribution.”
“A personal minor contribution to Oxley. The millions go to his party through her corporate enterprises.”
“Then set up a corporation for me,” Eriksen said, raising his voice. “And send him a million.”
“Very well,” Pershing said, his voice chilly. “But I cannot guarantee anonymity.”
“No buts, Brian. No buts,” Eriksen said, turning back to the computer. He pressed the button to open the door and Pershing left.
15
TWENTY MINUTES after Pershing left, the red dot in the upper right corner of the monitor screen started flashing again. Eriksen punched a button, expecting Pershing’s return on some boring matter. But he saw instead the image of Rachel Yeager. He pressed the button snapping open the two door locks and strode rapidly to the door.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, nodding toward the chair that Pershing had vacated.
“I looked for you at the reception,” Rachel said, sitting down. “But, as I understand it, you don’t go to parties, especially those honoring your president.”
“So be it. I can see why you went, even though it’s unusual for ambassadors to show up at a political event. Very undiplomatic.”
“There are times when we have to ignore the rules,” Rachel said with a slight shrug of her right shoulder, a gesture she had inherited from her father.
“Well, okay. Support for Israel and all that. Sure,” Eriksen said. “But why a visit to me? Or am I more charming than I think I am?”
“Yes, you are a charming man, Rolf. But charm is not what brings me here. I came to give you a friendly warning.”
Eriksen swiveled his chair to face Rachel directly and asked, “About what?” Thoughts of Archway and the SEC flitted through his mind.
“It’s about The Brethren,” she said.
“The Brethren?” Eriksen said, relieved.
“Yes. I speak to you as a friend from a country that you and your mother have generously supported. Israel greatly appreciates the way the Eriksens have helped to sustain our country. We also know that you have been giving support to The Brethren, an extremist group that believes in Armageddon.”
“What business is it to you—or to your country—who I support?” Eriksen said, a touch of anger in his voice. “As you well know, my support of Israel is simply good business for the oil and shipping ventures of Eriksen Incorporated. It is true that my mother and I also believe strongly in supporting Israel on moral grounds. But I do not appreciate your butting into my religious beliefs.”
“Rolf, there are people in Israel who believe that talk about Armageddon is becoming serious. We have watched the fundamentalists in America, and, yes, we have accepted their support in the past, but we believe th
at their theology has taken a dangerous turn. They want to help bring about Armageddon by encouraging war on Muslims in the Middle East. Obviously, Israel would be destroyed if the biblical Armageddon were to take place.”
“I know of no attempt by The Brethren to help God bring about Armageddon,” Rolf replied with a quick smile.
“It’s not merely The Brethren. It’s the matter of Armageddon,” Rachel said. “We—well, certain people in Israel—feel that some American fundamentalist Christians, among them Brethren members, are not just praying for Armageddon. They want to speed it up.”
“I would think that you were more sophisticated than this, Rachel,” Eriksen said. “Brethren are American patriots. Yes, I am a member of The Brethren, and I am sure that your Mossad has a complete membership list. But you are wasting your resources on some patriotic Christians who are concerned about the way our government ignores threats to America’s national security. They mean Israel no harm.”
Rachel picked up one of the two toy knights on Rolf’s table. Attached to the knight’s chest armor was the cloth emblem, the red cross of a crusader. She opened the knight’s silver visor, shut it, and held up the knight. “Empty,” she said. “Empty knights.” She looked up and smiled. “I saw one of your Brethren friends upstairs, by the way.”
“And who would that be?”
“Norman Miller. Another friend of Israel. Another member of The Brethren,” Rachel said, replacing the knight on the table.
“Oh, so your Mossad is sniffing out a conspiracy? You should be keeping an eye on our home-grown Muslim terrorists,” Rolf said, smiling again. He stood and walked toward the window, looking into the darkness.
“Have no fear, Rolf. We do keep our eye on Muslim terrorists wherever they are. But Christians like your General Parker can also be dangerous to America—and to Israel.”
“Tell me more,” Eriksen said, turning away from the window.
“These are dangerous men, Rolf. Their goal is creating Armageddon. It’s one thing to hope for the end of the world and another thing to plan to make it happen. We have enough existential threats, Rolf, without the added threat of Armageddon.”
“I respect you, Rachel, and I respect the quality of the intelligence that you are no doubt gathering. But, believe me, though some of these men may be zealous, they are not dangerous. They love America and they love Israel.”
“Ronald Reagan loved Israel, too, Rolf,” Rachel said. “But he tied Israel to Armageddon. And, to us, Armageddon means our destruction.”
“Reagan and Armageddon? I don’t believe—”
“After Reagan learned about the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, he wrote in his diary, ‘I swear I believe Armageddon is near.’ Look it up. Some Americans have an obsession about the fight between good and evil, about the Middle East being the site of Armageddon. Well, that is their privilege. But their obsession could mean our destruction.”
Destruction. Americans were far, far away from that word, Rachel thought. There was the day of nine-eleven and the aftermath and the fear of terrorists. But it was not the same as fear of neighbors that evolved into hatred of neighbors. Or destruction of your people.… She could never free herself from the past, from the fragments of the Holocaust that her parents had told her. The death marches, the mass graves, the belching smokestacks of the crematorium. It must have happened. She had seen the tattoos. But surely it could not happen again. Surely …
Eriksen was looking at her strangely, and she realized that she had drifted out of the present for a moment. “Sorry, Rolf,” she said. “I had one of those flashbacks that come at unexpected moments.” She picked up the knight again, gripping it tightly, focusing on the present.
“Where were you?” Rolf asked, turning from the window and looking at her tense profile, sensing the depth of her reverie.
“A family memory,” she said, smiling and shrugging again. “Perhaps brought on by the image of the night sea. When I was a little girl we went to a little town on the Mediterranean on summer holidays.” She put down the knight. “But I am not here for memories. It’s the future, the future your Brethren are hoping for—and, I think, doing more than hoping.”
“Please, Rachel. Don’t give any thought to this fairy tale,” Eriksen said, returning to his chair alongside Rachel’s. He paused, deciding whether to say what was welling up in his mind. He wondered if he was trying to prolong the conversation merely to keep Rachel from leaving.
“The truth, Rachel, is that I think all religion is sick,” he said. “The drug of the weak. They look for whatever it is they want and can’t have in their empty lives. So they rationalize by suspending rationality itself. An irony, don’t you think?”
“Irony aside,” she said, “if you are a cynic—and, I assume, an atheist—why are you a member of The Brethren?” She turned to face Eriksen directly, who looked away for a moment and then returned her gaze.
“I believe that religion will doom us all,” he said. “Christians. Muslims. They all believe we need to die now so they can live forever. I feel that I, as a rationalist—a libertarian—can perhaps contribute some prudence, some rationality.”
“I think you would do better to leave religion to theologians,” Rachel replied and started to rise.
“Hold on, Rachel,” he said, reaching to touch the arm of her chair. “Tell me what the Israelis worship. Wealth? Power?”
“Chaim, Rolf. Life.”
“The good life is the only one worth living, Rachel. You and I agree on that,” Eriksen laughed, sweeping a hand in a gesture encompassing the magnificence of Stonemill.
Interesting, Rachel thought. I spoke about life. He cared only about living well.
Eriksen reached for the ornate box on his desk, opened it and extracted a Cuban-made Cohiba Esplendido. He twirled the cigar in his fingers and inhaled its aroma. Then, having second thoughts about smoking in Rachel’s presence, he returned the cigar to its box.
“The extremists want to take all of this away from us,” he said. “For what? An expedited trip to heaven? By killing anyone they call ‘infidels,’ they achieve martyrdom and live in the hereafter with seventy-two virgins? Remarkable! It’s not exactly clear what rewards are extended to female suicide bombers. And gays need not apply.”
He stood and again walked to the window, as if he was gathering inspiration from the darkness. “These are the people who want a nuclear bomb!” he exclaimed. “There’s no such thing as rationalizing with the irrational. There’s no deterrence, no—what was Kissinger’s word? Détente? There is no chance for détente, an easing of tensions. The reason the cold war stayed cold was the existence of mutual fear. Neither we nor the Soviets were eager to see millions of our people liquidated. When two countries share the same nightmare, war is unlikely. But when one country’s nightmare is the other’s dream, well.… It’s clear, once they get nuclear weapons they’ll blackmail us into submission or actually use them. You can’t threaten them because they’re so eager to die. Somebody has to stop them.”
“I will speak bluntly, Rolf. It is not your role to start or stop something that threatens Israel’s existence. We, the Israeli government, we get paid to get things to happen or not to happen.”
Rachel also wanted to destroy the nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranians. She felt a dual sense of agreeing and disagreeing with Eriksen. But the “rationality” he cited meant that elimination of these weapons had to be done carefully and with great planning and coordination. That was not the way of The Brethren. They were up to something, and Eriksen was part of it. Rachel and her Israeli superiors did not believe that whatever they planned to do was in Israel’s interest. She wanted to draw him out, get some idea of what his Brethren group was planning to do with all the money he had been slipping to them. Perhaps if I goad him a bit.…
“Still speaking bluntly, Rolf, I find it difficult to separate your admiration for Israel from your pragmatic support of Israel as the only country in the Middle East that s
hares America’s values, the only country that Eriksen Inc. doesn’t have to bribe to make a deal.”
“All right. I’ll speak bluntly, too,” Eriksen said. “I certainly do admire Israel. But I don’t admire your fanatics. And I don’t believe that most Israelis, with the exception of your ultra-orthodox fringe, are praying for the early arrival of the Messiah.”
“They’re not as fringe—to use your word—as they used to be. They are gaining significant numbers.”
“Well, that is unfortunate, but I think it’s safe to say that the majority still prefer to be in the rulers club.”
She looked puzzled.
“Seneca, Nero’s tutor”—Eriksen said, and again the quick smile—“Seneca said, ‘Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.’ Religion is as useful for rulers today as it was in Seneca’s day.”
“And The Brethren? Where are they?”
“Some are common. None of them yet wise.…”
“Just useful?” She was beginning to feel that she was gathering information through this discourse. But she could not yet put it into a context that would help to explain Eriksen and The Brethren. “Rolf, you just said that religion will doom us all, but you are supporting—generously supporting—a religion. As an atheist, why aren’t you fighting The Brethren, undermining them?”
“Firstly, it’s not prudent to be an atheist. Bad for business,” Eriksen said. “Nearly ninety percent of the American people believe in the existence of God, according to Sam Harris, America’s leading atheist. He says that atheists are among our most intelligent and literate people. But if they go into politics and reveal their belief, nobody will vote for them. And if they are in business, as I am, they’ll be shunned.
“I’m not a fighter, Rachel. I am a manager, a manager of events. I will tell you something I have never told anyone.” He leaned closer to her chair, as if his candor had earned him the right to nearness. “I may not believe in The Brethren’s peculiar theology, but I do believe in their mission. They want to destroy Iran.”
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