Two armoured trucks had been driving through the night. Each carried a driver and two armed guards and could withstand a rocket-propelled grenade.
Two jeeps, four heavily-armed security contractors in each, drove up and down the assigned route, sometimes driving behind the trucks, sometimes waiting at either end, watching GPS pings on rugged, military-issue laptops.
As Monday’s dawn broke, a truck cruised down Broadway, tailed by one of the jeeps, through Midtown, where the night was still alive, in the neon and the drunks and the sex for sale and the strip clubs and the tired and the bewildered and the buttoned-down commuters, avoiding eye contact, sneering inside. Been a long one.
Head of Security Jorg Hester rode in the back, accompanying three hundred artworks, the Cézannes and the Picassos and the Warhols and the Beckmanns and the Klimts. And the body of Dr Heim, wrapped up in a linen shroud, along with a crate of his personal possessions. This was the last trip down to Wall Street. They would unload, take the last shipment back up to Central Park West and the task was complete. Then coffee.
The corpse was decaying, O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, full of drugs and the pain of age, synapses shuddering, nerve endings tingling with the memory, the horror, the feeling of what once was, bacteria deep in its bowels and all over its grey, wrinkled skin reproducing out of control, rot taking hold, the stench of death common to every living thing.
Hester wore his usual grey suit, starched shirt, red tie. As he held the roof bar, rolling with the truck, his sleeve rod down his arm, exposing some of his tattoos. An Othala Rune. A Death’s Head. A swastika. Hester’s unit was built over many years, alpha males selected from prisons and forest outposts and biker gangs, with the promise of blood and riches and, yes, truly, the coming of the Fourth Reich. To them, the Death’s Head indicated that the wearer had murdered one of the movement’s enemies.
Hester’s top lieutenant, Grey, had three Death’s Head tattoos, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, a man with a deep hatred of all non-Aryans. Grey swayed by Hester, smiled and nodded.
The truck pulled up outside Vierte’s Wall Street offices and the driver called security. After some checks were made, the order to approach the side entrance was given. The truck moved back into the light, early traffic and pulled a left, stopping at an anonymous grille. The grille rattled upwards and the truck went in and down a steep ramp, into the bowels of Lower Manhattan.
Armed guards watched as the truck and the jeep entered the bay two stories below street level, away from the morning sun.
The spirits lived down here.
The body was removed first, carried easily by two men. Heim was but a husk, a thin shell with a rotten yolk at its centre. The security detail stood to attention, gave the Nazi salute. Funny how the salute always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, thought Hester. And Heim was taken away, through a door with lots of warning signs and its own, dedicated guard.
Hester oversaw the removal of the artworks, as they were loaded onto a trolley and brought to an elevator, then straight to the top floor for valuation and display and destruction.
With the art removed, the gold was brought out from the vault, towed in a trailer by a golf cart on steroids. The men who lifted each kilobar, a manageable thousand grams apiece, wore boots with steel toecaps. They loaded the bars into plastic containers, ten kilos apiece, then the containers went into the truck. A supervisor monitored every single transfer, noted the amounts in a ledger, watched the weight measurements from the scale that the tuck rested on.
The gold was pure, gleaming. Some of it had been melted down a dozen times. That was its beauty, once you had possession, you could reform it and it was born again. See it? There, gold teeth from a million Jews, smashed from dead mouths by slaves with little hammers, then sent to Switzerland as collateral for the loans that financed the Nazi war machine. There, gold from South Africa’s apartheid regime that kept the whites in power for decades and even funded a nuclear weapons programme. There, gold from the conflicts of central Africa, children killing children and warlord Kony laughing as his gold is bought up by the traders, bankers and commodity brokers of New York, London, Zurich and Hong Kong.
And there, the gold that was made from lead just a couple of floors below, the giant neutron machine, the nuclear reactor, winding down from the task it had loved for sixty years. Everyone was at it, of course, all the nuclear powers, but none had perfected the process like Vierte. And none of the powers would let the Iranians build nuclear reactors, not for the bombs, but for the destabilising effect on the gold market.
With the containers of gold loaded and the weight checked, the security team assembled, saluted Hester.
‘Last trip, ja?’
‘Sir.’
‘When all is secure, report to me, then get some rest. You must be in prime condition on Saturday. This is it, gentlemen. The destruction of Jewish Wall Street, the death of our Jew-loving President and the true beginning of the New World Order. Blood will be spilled. Are you ready for sacrifice?’
‘Sir! Yes, sir!’
They were prepared to die. You could see it their smiling eyes.
‘That is all.’
The truck left with a smoky growl, tailed by the jeep, taking a different route up to Central Park West, up the Bowery, and Madison, past the icons of Midtown, the mighty Empire State Building, the gothic Chrysler Building, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Grand Central Station, the Rockefeller Center, then across 53rd, past the slab of MoMA to 8th Avenue and Vierte’s uptown safe house.
Hester went up the stairs to ground level to wait for the congressman.
The lobby area was busy, early traders arriving with the gleam in their eye for the score, the big deal, the wonder of the market. Others arrived with an air of desperation. Vierte’s traders wouldn’t arrive until a little later, for their work was less stressful, less tragic. Hester went to the coffee concession and took a seat with clear view of the revolving doors.
A little before eight, the congressman arrived. There was a fire in his eyes.
‘Hester, good morning,’ he said, then whispered, ‘now commiserate with me. You’ve heard the awful news.’
‘I - , I’m so sorry,’ putting both his hands around the congressman’s, looking deeply into his eyes, allowing his shoulders to sag.
‘It’s a terrible, terrible time. Now can we get this over with? I need to grieve with my family.’
‘Of course, sir. This way, please.’
Hester led the way through the lobby, as passing eyes followed the congressman, noted the grief on his face. They entered a service elevator and Hester used his key, then tapped in a five digit code on a keypad. Then they descended. The doors slid back to reveal a small, very bright room, like an antechamber before a tomb. Cameras watched. There was a hum. Hester opened a steel closet and took out a small, flat electronic device which he clipped onto the congressman’s suit jacket collar. A green LED blinked. Hester was already wearing one.
Hester entered another code into the door at the far end of the chamber and the door hissed open.
They walked down a clanging, steel stairwell. The air smelled odd. They’d both been down there many times, but every occasion was like the first. A certain giddiness. What lay ahead.
They emerged into an open space. Around the perimeter were banks of computer screens, exactly as would be expected for the control room of a nuclear reactor. In the centre was an open pit. And down there was where uranium spat neutrons with the power of a star.
A man stood by the pit, Dr Heim’s shrouded corpse on a trolley. The man, a Catholic priest, of the Society of St Pius X, stood with a bible in his hand and some religious tools on a little table. The congressman and Hester stood, their hands clasped, and the priest began. He performed the absolution rite, asked God for clemency for Dr Heim. Then he anointed the shroud with holy oil, chrism. Finally he blessed the dead and the living with holy water.
The congressman thanked the priest and he was escorted back to street level.
Heim’s body was rolled to one side of the pit by a pair of technicians. An access hatch opened and, soon, a platform rose from the ground. On the platform was a spool of freshly-made gold. About a foot high, it looked like an old camera film spool, but with a paper thin sheet of gold protruding.
‘That’s the final conversion,’ said Hester. ‘Now Dr Heim becomes his constituent atoms once more.’
‘Will his body affect the reaction in any way?’ I’d like to see him burn.
‘It will not even register. I give him thirty seconds, even though the moderator is in place so the reaction is much calmed. The biconcave cylindrical lenses will be fitted later today. They will direct much of the neutron blast at the Federal Reserve.’ He gestured to his right, to the seven thousand tonnes of gold exactly two blocks away. As the neutron flies. ‘A brilliant idea, sir. Utterly brilliant. But everything is calm now. Until you give the order.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we have thirty minutes.’
Jacob ended the call, his face vague.
‘That was the congressman,’ he said to Sophie, who was on her balcony with the dog and the morning. Being free, free from work and not in a police cell, made her feel more newly alive than she thought possible. She kept on saying so.
‘Oh?’ She came into the room, her eye drawn to the scrolling news on the muted TV.
‘All the art’s been transported downtown. Wall Street. Something to do with insurance. So that’s where I’ll be going.’
‘Into the lion’s den.’
‘Deluded egomaniacs’ den more like. Did you see Wolf of Wall Street?’
‘Not my scene.’
‘Well, he said to tell you that you’ll be cooking your feast there too. I wonder why they shifted that. What time you going in?’
‘I may as well go with you, get a look at the kitchens, get planning. I’ve nothing else on. How did Sam sound, Jacob?’
‘Hnnh? I don’t know. Normal? Why?’
‘Because his daughter’s just died.’ She pointed at the TV. ‘Shit.’
‘Shit is right.’
They turned the volume up, listened in silence for a few minutes. Passed away peacefully… attacker, a suspected serial killer, killed resisting arrest… Midtown restaurant he co-owned now under a cloud.
‘Fucking bastard, Rod,’ said Sophie, lighting another cigarette.
‘This is actually all too much. And he had to go and cook her damned kidney up in my apartment. Christ. You couldn’t make it up.’
Congressman is frontrunner for the next Republican Presidential nomination… ratings are up lately.
‘Is that what this is all about?’
‘What do you mean, Soph?’
‘Ah, forget it.’
‘No, go on.’
‘Is it all just coincidence? All this shit going on and he’s looking to become President?’
‘You know him. You tell me. Is he capable of having his own kid killed to become the most powerful man in the world?’
‘When you put it like that? Yes.’
Julia flew US Airways, non-stop to Beijing from JFK. Thirteen hours and twenty-five minutes of time travel, made bearable by business class Ballygowan water, a selection of remarkable cheeses, chiefly a Camembert and a Danish Blue, Lana Del Rey on Sennheiser and wifi.
She passed the time reading up on Jacob, loving his latest piece on Chinese art. Her hosts wouldn’t appreciate its political undertones: June 4, 1989. Amazing how they can erase a date from history. What was it that Orwell said in Nineteen Eighty-four? “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” Perfect. And the perfect landscape for art to reinvent itself. Away from history.
While she was in the air, over the North Pole, the story about the US Airways tweet reached them, as it rippled across the web. That helped to pass the time. You could even hear laughter coming from coach. The St Martin Reserve chardonnay also helped.
Then she slept, waking as the plane began its descent into early evening at what would soon be the world’s largest airport. Arriving in China was still a culture shock for Julia, even after so many trips. Sure, the airport hustle and bustle was universal, the shiny surfaces, the signs, the brands, the polished travellers, the smug aircrew, all the icons of air travel. Staff were helpful, scarily so, and the smell was different. But customs: that was the first realisation that you were entering a totalitarian dictatorship. Just smile.
Her passport was scanned, the customs official eyeing Julia’s suit. Was that envy? Pretty girl, just lose the pistol and the starched shirt. A note appeared on her screen, alerted her to Julia’s status, her connection to the regime at the highest level.
‘Welcome to China,’ a delicious smile. ‘Enjoy your visit.’
‘I intend to. Thank you.’
A man in a suit waited at the arrivals gate, her name printed in Garamond on a sheet of card.
He drove her south, into the city, at 120kph along the Airport Expressway. They hit some traffic as they approached the city, but Julia arrived at her hotel, The Opposite House, in under an hour. As he opened her door, the driver finally spoke.
‘Politburo Member Chin kindly requests that you meet him this evening.’
‘Of course. I need to freshen up.’
‘I will wait. One hour?’
‘That will be fine.’
She took her only bag, an overnighter, met Vierte’s Beijing bureau chief and her hmmh, yes, dashing young assistant in the lobby, checked into her sleek, minimalist room, found her cocktail dress and tomorrow’s suit waiting. As Ms Goodall, a fairly frumpy analyst, brought her up to speed on Beijing politics, Julia stripped. Her clothes fell to the floor and the assistant - Harry - had to turn away to hide his rush of blood. Good. She showered quickly.
The driver took them through the night, past dragons and markets and tourists and policemen to the Capital M on Qianmen Street, walking her to the terrace, to the breathtaking view of the Forbidden City, lit up in heavenly white against the indigo western sky.
She came in red. A startling cheongsam dress. Red, with tiny dragons. Classic Chinese. Iconic. And they loved her for it.
The space was crowded with perhaps a hundred diners, thirty staff, thirty at the bar, including some Chinese Secret Police officers, trying too hard to look like their wives would actually let them come to a place like this without them. And the smell, roasting meats, fruity sauces, the residual heat of the day and the smell of the night air.
Mr Chin stood as she approached. Member of the Politburo Standing Committee, he was one of the seven most powerful men in a nation of 1.35 billion. Goodall and Harry were led to a large table and welcomed by Chin’s assistants. Chin let the nervous waiter help her into her seat, then sat back down.
‘You like the table, Julia?’
‘Best view in the city, Wei.’
‘No, please forgive me, but you are the best view in the city.’
She laughed it off.
They ordered crispy suckling pig to share for starters, to be followed by salt-encased leg of lamb. A 2009 Wolf Blass Cabernet Shiraz was ideal company. After the waiter poured, Mr Chin got straight to business.
‘You think you have everything under control, eh Julia?’
‘As much as it is possible to control everything. Yes.’
He smiled, ‘Always something unexpected. Always.’
She drank. ‘I want to talk to you about your gold in the Federal Reserve in Manhattan.’ He nodded. ‘How much do you have there?’
‘Twenty tonnes. A little under two percent of our reserves. Our reported reserves.’
‘I see. That comes in at under a billion dollars. We can handle that.’
‘Handle it?’
‘We can handle repaying you after we turn your gold to lead.’
Mr Chin’s face locked into a humourless expression for a long five seconds. Then a grin spread from the corners of his mouth to his eyes and he laughed out loud. He raised his glass.
‘Brilliant. I salute you. A toast to you, Julia.’
They clinked glasses. The assistants at the other table saw this and the apprehension was gone. Even the waiter, hovering near the kitchen door, waiting for the whole, crispy piglet, relaxed a fraction.
‘But there’s more,’ she added. ‘We need you, as the entity that holds most US debt, to be on side. You stand to lose? How much?’
‘One point three one seven. Trillion.’
‘And your GDP?’
‘Eight point three.’
So it would hurt, America’s default. Or worse.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Worse?’
‘Upon declaration of war, first shot is cancellation of debt owed to enemy.’
‘There won’t be war.’
‘Not now. No. But -’
The crispy piglet arrived, a platter of pork and crackling and juices and crispiness and tenderness and finger licking. They love their pork.
‘I understand you,’ he said, eventually. ‘So what’s your offer?’
‘Play along and your debt will certainly not be affected in any way. It will actually increase in value on the bond markets when the currency is revalued to our gold standard. Tiny deflationary adjustment. No, what we can offer is an outcome that’s much more important, history book stuff. Something that only the President of the United States of America can deliver.’
He nodded, ‘Hnnh?’
‘Our focus in power will be the Middle East. It will involve massive interventions and lead to the true Final Solution. There will be no pivot.’
She let that sink in, until he knew what was coming next.
‘No pivot.’
‘We’ll let you take Taiwan. And you can punish Japan.’
He drank the end of the bottle and called for a Chateau Mouton Rothschild, specifically the cheapest vintage in stock, for he is but a peasant representing fellow peasants, haha. Some animals are more equal than others.
He sat in silence until the wine had been brought to table, uncorked, rested for a few minutes. Thinking. Thinking about his countrymen’s simmering hatred of the Japanese. That big and beaten old clay pot, on the stove in the back kitchen, bubbling and hissing away forever. Sometimes it was peripheral, sometimes central. But never forgotten. The Occupation, starting 1937. Twenty million civilians killed. The Unspeakable Nanking. Comfort women. Torture. Chemical weapons. Human experimentation. What every Chinese child learned in their history lesson. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. Thank you, Mr Orwell. And for Japan to lose her guarantee of American protection? Priceless. Patrol boats clash off the Daioyu Islands. Escalation. Force them to strike hard. And then smash them with drones and missiles until they sue for peace. And if our friends in the North have a nuclear ballistic missile ready to fly by then? Revenge, and done in such a way as to make heroes of all who lead the calls for blood. And before the Imperial revisionists manage to convince themselves that it wasn’t so bad. It must be soon. They must know why. Besides, Hitler grasped the truth of totalitarian control: The masses are feminine and stupid. Only emotion and hatred can keep them under control.
‘Did you know, Julia, they’ve only now decided to criminalise child pornography? Only now.’
‘But manga and anime depictions will remain legal. They call that art.’
‘Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima, these were just the start. We must finish the job.’
‘They are an odd race.’
When the waiter had left, she opened her handbag and took out a few pages of photocopy, folded twice. She handed them across the table. The top page read Department of Defence, Battle Plan Japan, with a row of official logos, mainly angry-looking eagles. Mr Chin quickly read the text, his eyebrows floating. Then he looked at her.
‘That’s just been reviewed. Check the date.’
‘The Administration would risk so much to protect Japan?’
‘The current Administration, yes. The new Administration will take a more practical approach to world affairs.’
‘Wine?’
‘Yes. So. Is China with us?’
Then he poured, saying Yes, yes, of course yes. When?
‘It all begins in exactly six days. 7.30pm, Saturday, New York time. Louis XVI’s Champagne, a banquet fit for a queen, the best art show in the history of humankind, and the President our guest. The Grand Divertissement - the great diversion. It will be very lovely. Until -’
Chin Wei was her captive in every way. He so badly wanted to fly on to Delhi with her, to Moscow and Berlin, then across the Atlantic, on leather seats with the whole world captured in his glass of Pinot Grigio. What would my mother say?
‘Here comes the lamb.’