‘Not long. A few weeks. Now it is my turn to entertain. I need some money ….’
‘What do you talk about?’ Brossard asked curiously, wary of the unknown.
‘Everyday things. Our neighbours, our children – their children,’ she corrected herself, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘Our husbands.’
‘I wonder what you have to say about me,’ Brossard said.
She didn’t reply, regarding him steadily.
He shrugged. ‘How much do you want?’
‘A thousand francs would help. I could buy some decent wine. Some pastries ….’
Brossard stood up and opened his briefcase on the chest of drawers behind him. He took out a wad of notes, selected a 500 and tossed it onto the table. ‘I don’t have to feed the five thousand,’ he told her.
She stared at the bill, said quietly, ‘Thank you. Pierre,’ picked it up and put it with her shopping list. ‘Strange,’ she said, ‘that you should have picked a Biblical reference to qualify your generosity.’
Brossard snapped the catch on the briefcase and moved briskly towards the door, ‘Why’s that?’ he asked, hand on the door-handle.
‘Because we are a Bible group. We pray, Pierre.’
‘God in heaven,’ exclaimed Brossard. He shut the door firmly behind him, relieved that it was nothing more serious than Religion that had upset his wife’s normal docility, and walked across the hall, footsteps echoing on the marble floor so loudly that he couldn’t hear her sobbing in the kitchen.
But still, he thought as he took the cover off his old Remington typewriter in his bleakly furnished study, it was an opportune time to be gone, with a wife undergoing the irritating disturbances of the menopause.
He slid a sheet of paper into the typewriter, typed the date and slugged the sheet dollar – I. Then he sat back, deliberating on how to incorporate in the column the results of his meeting the previous day with Paul Kingdon.
They had lunched at Rules, the elegant London eating house which had survived from a more dignified era: two aperitifs and you imagined you could hear the sound of horses’ hoofs on cobblestones. They ate lemon sole and drank Chablis and, as always, Brossard was surprised at the excellence of English food, so long derided, and the comparative cheapness of good French wine. Although he suspected that the nuances of the palate were lost on Kingdon Too rich too soon. Undertones of vulgarity in the aggressive cut of his suit, the rings – diamonds, of course – on two of his fingers, his sleek, sharp looks.
‘And now down to business, eh, Paul?’ as the waiter served black coffees and brandy.
Kingdon shook his head. ‘You will have to excuse me. I am pathological about eavesdroppers. Electronic ones. We’ll talk in the car.’
A company car was delivered to the door by a chauffeur who tipped his peaked cap and disappeared, Kingdon took the wheel; Brossard sat beside him. ‘At least I know the car’s clean,’ Kingdon said as he steered the grey Bentley through the traffic, ‘And I know you’re clean.’ He grinned and opened one hand, revealing a tiny bug alert ‘So we can talk. I’ve already thanked you for the invitation to Bilderberg. Now I can be more specific. Thank you for fixing it.’ Brossard shrugged eloquently.
‘The microfilms on the newcomers to the conference are in my briefcase.’
‘You’re very efficient.’ Brossard only needed information on two financiers in case they needed further persuasion; he didn’t think it would be necessary. ‘Do the microfilms include Kingdon Investments?’
‘I suspect you have your own dossier, Pierre.’
‘I do. Mayard can also be very efficient when he puts his mind to it.’
Kingdon seemed unperturbed. Crude but cool.
The Bentley accelerated down Whitehall, past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and over Westminster Bridge. The Bentley, Brossard reflected, was an example of calculated snobbery; there had always been a school that deemed the Bentley to be less ostentatious than the Rolls and Kingdon had joined it. A wasted effort – with Kingdon at the wheel even the Bentley seemed vulgar.
Brossard opened his own briefcase and took out Mayard’s report on Kingdon Investments. ‘I thought you might like to hear what Mayard has to say about your companies.’
‘Is that the reason for your visit?’
‘Partly,’ Brossard said. He ran a finger down the figures on the first page of Mayard’s report. ‘Do you mind if I talk in dollars?’
‘As you please. The way things are going we’ll be papering the walls with them soon.’
The way things are going …. Odd, the subject broached already. But there was no way Kingdon could know; the details of Brossard’s plan were known only to key members of the Politburo and the KGB, the Soviet Foreign Trade Bank and the Narodny Bank.
‘The dollar is more resilient than people seem to imagine,’ Brossard said carefully. ‘It will need a powerful explosive to topple it. A financial nuclear device.’
Kingdon swung the wheel easily. They passed through Kennington, then Brixton—‘London’s Harlem,’ Kingdon remarked.
Brossard said: ‘You don’t seem very curious, my friend.’
‘What’s the point? You’ll tell me anyway.’
Brossard returned to Mayard’s report. ‘Kingdon Investments are not quite as buoyant as they might appear.’
‘Aren’t they? I’m always the last to know.’
‘I think you know, Paul.’
‘You tell me.’
Mitcham, Rose Hill, Banstead. Rain began to bounce on the Bentley’s bonnet and spatter against the windscreen. They were in the countryside now and the houses were big and comfortable.
‘Very well, Paul, I will.’
Brossard told him that in the ten years since Kingdon Investments had been in business they had bought shares totalling three billion dollars. And the total income -‘The total income, Paul,’—over that period has been nine million dollars. If you deducted the capital loss, the profit on the three billion was virtually nothing. Not good business, eh, Paul?’ Brossard said.
‘How do you explain that the value of each share has increased by sixty-three per cent?’ Kingdon replied.
‘I can explain it very easily, as I’m sure you can. Your sales managers are instructed to sell, sell, sell, whatever the market. If the market is buoyant, bullish, then now is the time to buy. “Get in while you can. See United Chemicals rose two cents yesterday, buy today, go with the market.” But if the market is depressed the sales pitch is a little different.’ Brossard smiled faintly and tapped the report on his knees with his finger. ‘If the market is in a decline then the investor is told, “Now is the time. You are buying cheaply. The market has never been so good. Get in while you can. Buy, buy, buy.”’
‘So?’
‘The market has been depressed lately but, on the advice of your salesmen, investors have been buying. That money was never invested. You have been able to spread that money that was never invested over the entire fund – and managed to keep its net asset value relatively high.’
‘I’m a wizard,’ Paul Kingdon said as they drove through the rain along the brow of Box Hill. Beneath them, towns and villages were veiled by the rain; in such small places lived the people who trustingly handed over their savings to Kingdon Investments in the guileless belief that they could still get something for nothing. ‘As greedy as the rest of us,’ Kingdon murmured.
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing, I was thinking aloud.’ The Bentley began to descend the green cushions of the North Downs. ‘So, what do you want from me? Do you intend to publish all this shit?’
‘I don’t want anything from you, Paul. I want to give you some advice. Sell, sell, sell.’
‘Get out, in other words.’
‘Not quite,’ Brossard returned the report to the briefcase. ‘I have a proposition to put to you. But I am a little tired of talking to you out of the side of my mouth. Is there anywhere else we can go that is … ah … clean?’
‘Of course, my house.�
�
‘I hope so,’ Brossard said. ‘I sincerely hope so.’
Kingdon pressed the accelerator and the big car accelerated smoothly. Then slowed down as Kingdon remembered the zealous and uncompromising attitude of the British police to speeding.
A girl was sitting on the sofa in the big, oak-timbered lounge watching the Saturday sport on television. A slim, supple girl with Asiatic features and eyes that immediately tried to assess you, as though every man could be typecast.
‘Suzy, this is Pierre Brossard. Pierre, Suzy Okana.’
Pierre bowed slightly.
‘Afternoon, Pierre.’ An accent he couldn’t place; a trace of Cockney perhaps? He had once been introduced to a club owner speaking some Scandinavian language; it was explained later that he was a Geordie from Newcastle. The girl’s green eyes lingered on him, then returned to the television and rugby football. Brossard felt that he had been assessed and dismissed.
Kingdon said: ‘How about running an errand for me, Suzy. Take the Ferrari and drive down to the village and buy me some books.’ He wrote out a list and handed it to the girl.
‘You want to get rid of me?’
‘Business, Suzy, business.’
She shrugged, left the room dangling the car keys on one finger as Kingdon called out after her: ‘About an hour, okay love?’
‘An attractive girl,’ Brossard said as the door closed behind her.
‘Not your type, Pierre. Too gentle. A drink?’
‘A cup of tea perhaps. I am a confirmed Anglophile. Is there anyone else in the house? Your valet perhaps?’ ‘No-one. Just you and me.’
‘Do you mind if I have a look round?’
‘Suit yourself. Do the grand tour while I make the tea and check whether anyone’s been trying to bug the place.’
‘A beautiful house,’ Brossard remarked when he returned. They sat down in easy chairs opposite the unlit fire. He glanced round the room. Reproduction furniture, invitations on the mantelpiece, too many mirrors on the walls. A mess.
‘So,’ Kingdon said, sipping his tea, ‘what’s the proposition?’
‘According to my information, the American dollar is going to crash.’
‘Just like that?’
They regarded each other steadily over fragile pink teacups.
Brossard said: ‘I can tell you the exact date if you wish.’
‘And in return?’
‘Your funds have considerable investments in the United States. Hotels, an entertainment centre, an apartment block in Chicago. All built, if you will forgive me, on sand. Within the next eight days I want your managers to sell them. I want you to get rid of everything American.’
Kingdon put down his tea-cup; it chinked melodiously on the saucer. ‘You’re joking of course.’
Brossard ignored him. ‘How much can you personally raise in dollars?’
‘A few million maybe.’
‘Then make arrangements for them to be unloaded when the markets open on the morning of April the twenty-fourth.’
Kingdon said: ‘You know something? I think you’ve flipped. But just to humour you I’ll hear you out.’
‘It doesn’t matter if you get a bad price. I can assure you that by the following day they won’t be worth the paper they’re printed on. I’m doing you a favour, Paul, I earnestly advise you to take my advice.’
‘Why are you being so bloody solicitous?’
Brossard leaned forward, tips of his fingers together: ‘Can you keep a secret?’
Kingdon shook his head. ‘Never could.’
‘I think you should – if it means your personal escape from a debacle. If it means money in the bank – German marks, Swiss francs, Japanese yen – when everyone else is jumping off the skyscrapers in Wall Street,’ he paused. ‘Do I have your word?’
‘Okay, Pierre. You have it for what it’s worth.’
‘I understand on good authority that the Arabs intend to stop all oil exports to the United States. The dollar’s never been so weak. If that happens, then the Soviet Union is going to unload its dollar reserves. And I can promise you that the rest of the world will follow.’
Kingdon considered this, then asked: ‘Why do you suddenly love me, Pierre?’
‘For purely selfish reasons, of course. I am, after all, a journalist. I intend to reveal what I’ve just told you in my column. That is the vital factor. That is what will start the dollar landslide.’
Kingdon glanced at the old ten-shilling note on the wall. ‘Carry on, Pierre.’
‘I need your name. You see the world doesn’t realise that the Kingdon empire is about to topple. You are still the King, the whizz-kid, the greatest phenomenon since Jacob Astor; you’re the financial genius who took on the Establishment and beat them. I intend to lend weight to my column, which in this instance will be all over the front page, with the news that Paul Kingdon has got out of dollars and everything American.’
Brossard leaned back and observed Kingdon. His name in the column would infuse colour into the story. He hadn’t thought it necessary to tell him that the heads of three multi-national business concerns were also being tipped off.
Not even the Basle Club, formed by Europe’s leading central banks to preserve the international monetary system, would be able to protect the dollar against the combined pressure of the corporations, the speculators and the Foreign Trade Bank of the Soviet Union.
The dollar would be debased. The United States, pilloried, impotent Never to rise again from the ashes of the greenback! Another dominant currency would arise, a European Common Market monetary unit, perhaps; a just solution because the U.S. had sabotaged every attempt to create such a currency.
The United States of America brought to its knees because forty years ago a frightened young man had declined to have his fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers!
And there was a bonus. A savage, beautiful bonus that Brossard had suggested to his mentors in the Kremlin. In 1973 American conglomerates in the know had cleaned up billions of dollars prior to devaluation. And how had they come to be in the know? According to the critics, the devaluation had been blown at Bilderberg.
Brossard had timed his forthcoming coup to synchronise with Bilderberg. Again the accusation of conspiracy would be made. A body blow not only to the dollar but also to the Capitalist elite.
Kingdon said: ‘Give me time to think.’
Brossard’s voice was brisker now. ‘You don’t have any time.’
‘Today’s Saturday. I have tomorrow.’
‘You don’t have any time and you don’t have any choice,’ Brossard said. ‘I suggest that you continue with this charade of going public to divert attention from other dealings.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Who knows, the British end of Gerards may even come across?’
Kingdon looked startled. ‘How did you know about that?’
‘Mayard learned how to find out these things from you, Paul. Industrial consultancy! And I do happen to know the Parisien branch of the family.’
Kingdon stood up. ‘All right, it’s a deal. As you say, I don’t have any choice. Or to put it more colourfully you’ve got me by the balls.’ He stretched out his hand which Brossard grasped without relish.
* * *
After he had finished composing Midas’ valedictory column Brossard re-read it in his study with quiet pride. A masterpiece of distortion built on a few rocks of fact. With the beautiful dateline: Bilderberg, Thursday.
The American dollar is tonight poised on the brink of destruction.
News was leaked to me here today that the OPEC countries have agreed to stop ALL oil shipments to the United States until a Middle East settlement favourable to the Arabs is reached.
The American President immediately conferred secretly with the Treasury Secretary, top aides and financial advisers to thrash out emergency measures to:-
(1) Save the economy.
(2) Save the dollar without which, of course, the first priority cannot be achieved.
Acc
ording to my information the measures proposed cannot possibly achieve their aims and the Czars of European financial empires are already withdrawing the 277 billion dollars of foreign investment in the U.S.
The Russians have naturally not been slow to react. They are dumping their hoard of dollars on the world markets and by the time you read this column they will be competing desperately with the big European and Japanese speculators to SELL, SELL, SELL.
Midas produced figures revealed by impeccable sources that showed that the inflation rate in the U.S. was rocketing and that its trade deficits had worsened dramatically.
Far from being impeccable the sources were non-existent and the figures grossly exaggerated. Denials would be issued but these days the public paid little heed to them: they weren’t far removed from confirmations.
In any case they would be too late. By the time they were issued the Russians – and the financiers with whom he would confer at Bilderberg – would be shedding dollars as though they were infected with bubonic plague. However massively the U.S. intervened on the exchange markets, she would be unable to save her currency.
To put it more succinctly she would be bankrupt.
Among the first to get out of dollars was whizz-kid Paul Kingdon. Astute as always he took precautionary measures last week ….
Brossard finished reading the column and leaned back exultantly in his chair. In a couple of thousand words he had exercised more power than any of history’s despots.
‘Beneath the rule of men entirely great, The Pen is mightier than the sword.’
He had often speculated to what effect erroneous information could be employed when it was deliberately inserted in a responsible journal. One allegation of criminal practice published on the eve of a political election could destroy a candidate’s chances; one snippet of information in the City pages could destroy a company.
I will have destroyed one of the two super-powers. And probably the whole monetary system of the Western world, because once the panic gained momentum all the hard currencies would soar against the plummeting dollar; exchange barriers would be introduced; trade would come to a halt.
A fitting climax to a distinguished journalistic career. And when it happened, he would be taking the sun in a palatial mansion on the Adriatic near the Yugoslav resort of Dubrovnik. Not for Pierre Brossard the meagre luxuries and estrangement of an alien’s life in Moscow: he had demanded, and been granted, asylum in Yugoslavia where Communism was benign and the style of living was comparable to Western standards.
I, Said the Spy Page 24