The Billion Dollar Sure Thing Page 25

  “It would seem so. Of course, their initial actions came within a hair of scuttling this entire project. Until something happened. I’m quite sure we will never know what.”

  “Is it possible they somehow got wind of what the Americans planned to do?”

  “Hardly. David, I’ve been involved in countless numbers of devaluations here in Europe, and I cannot recall one which really went over perfectly. But not because of leaks. It’s usually just because clever people, noticing this, hearing that, spotting something just slightly out of line with the usual pattern, start to get suspicious. All of a sudden the same conclusion is reached almost simultaneously by financial people in many different places, completely unrelated to each other. The German language has a word for this: Fingerspitzengefühl. The hunch. I suspect that this has played the key role in the events of the past few days. At least it did where I was concerned.”

  “Well, Walter,” said Sir Robert, “here’s to your Fingerspitzengefühl.”

  At that moment three waiters entered the room. Lunch had arrived. It lasted well over three hours. Dr. Hofer offered to take his two colleagues to the airport after a final scotch and soda in the bar of the Grand Dolder. Dusk was just closing in as they left.

  Hofer took the wheel himself, explaining that he had given his chauffeur the weekend off. He proved to be a terrible driver, so for most of the journey his two passengers, quite sleepy anyway after the monumental meal, kept silent.

  But as they approached the airport, Sir Robert said: “Walter, tell me, how much are you people ahead on your short position against the dollar?”

  Suddenly Hofer, who could not have been more expansive during the preceding hours, returned to character. “Robert, I’m afraid that is none of your business.”

  Winthrop just laughed. “I can tell you this. We made enough in just three days to put us well into the black for the year. And you, David?”

  Mason just grunted. “We did all right.”

  By the time they exchanged farewells at Kloten airport the spirit of comradeship had totally disappeared. Theirs was, after all, just an ordinary business relationship.

  20

  SUNDAY morning, November 9, was one in which most financial people throughout the world slept late. The countless meetings and phone calls of the previous day, the hurried calculations and recalculations which had followed the American announcement of international monetary reform had left their mark everywhere. For some it was a day of triumph; for others, one of worry and despair.

  Igor Josef Melekov was in the first category. With a still sleeping mistress at his side, he sat propped up in his vast bed in his apartment on the Moscow Hills, carefully studying a General Motors brochure. Yesterday had been the moment of supreme triumph: his appointment as chairman of the Foreign Trade Bank of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it had been sadistic to help Stepanov clean out his office. But still—the sight of him on that last trip down the stairs of the bank was a memory to be cherished. Today every one of those Georgians would be receiving their prizes: one-way tickets back to Tiflis. And now he would choose his own reward. In fact, the decision was already made. It was to be an Oldsmobile 98. He was positive that it would be the only one in the entire Soviet Union. The problem now was to get delivery. He shook the girl beside him.

  “Natscha, wake up!”

  “Not now, Igor.”

  “Natscha, how would you like to go with me to Helsinki?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “What’s so ridiculous about that?”

  “I’ll never get a travel visa.”

  “Ha! I will have that within three hours!”

  “But why Helsinki?”

  “Because I have urgent business there.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “It concerns the automotive industry.”

  “Igor, why don’t we get married instead?”

  Melekov slumped back into his pillows. Now why did she have to go and spoil a perfect morning?

  At the other side of the world, the president of the United States found himself in exactly the same position. Well, at least to the extent that he was in bed reading. The lady beside him was, of course, his wife. The bed was strewn with newspapers. It was the headline in the Baltimore Sun that summed it up best: “THE BEST-KEPT SECRET SINCE THE MANHATTAN PROJECT.” The president chuckled. Yes, he had really caught the world by surprise.

  Midway between Moscow and Washington, or close to it, Dr. George Bernoulli sat alone in the bedroom of his small apartment on the outskirts of Bern. He was not reading; just smoking and gazing at the ceiling. He had been doing that for hours. His stomach had been in a tight knot ever since leaving the Basel airport at noon the previous day. For since that time he had known. And there was nothing he could do about it. Not a single thing. The matter was closed, permanently, from the official standpoint. And thus it was closed, permanently, as far as he was concerned. For the first time in his life, Bernoulli’s faith in the rule of law, in the inevitability of justice, had been shaken.

  “Well,” he said aloud, throwing off the blankets and stepping out onto the cold floor, “I guess father is right. This business is not for me.”

  He picked up the phone.

  “Dad, this is George. I think I’ll drop by for lunch. I’ve got something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Not many kilometres away Dr. Walter Hofer was sitting in his living room, carefully writing in a loose-leaf notebook.

  “Walter, would you like another cup of coffee?”

  “Yes, Martha. And perhaps another piece of toast.”

  She soon returned. “Where would you like it, Walter?”

  “Oh, right over there will be fine.”

  “How’s the speech coming?”

  “It will still take a few more hours.”

  “We should leave around four, you know. It will take us a good two hours to drive over to Altdorf. The Sunday traffic is always so terrible. I do wish you hadn’t given Heinrich the weekend off.”

  The phone rang. Both appeared startled.

  “I’ll take it,” said Hofer’s wife. “It’s probably Mary. Her young man from the bank picked her up very early this morning while you were still sleeping.” She picked up the receiver.

  “Walter, it’s Lima, Peru. For you. I must say, at this hour on a Sunday morning!”

  Hofer took the phone, listened very intently, said no more than two sentences, and then hung up.

  “Who in the world was that, Walter?”

  “Oh, just some unfinished business.”

  “Anything to do with those troubles at the bank?”

  “No, Martha. Something quite unimportant that has now been completed—successfully. And about those troubles at the bank, they have also been dealt with, equally successfully.”

  “Oh, Walter, I’m so happy for you. Now you just go back to your speech. I’ve got a lot to do in the kitchen.”

  At four o’clock they left in the Mercedes. The trip took them around the Lake of Zurich, through Zug and Lucerne, and then down the east side of the Vierwaldstättersee. Soon they were on the famous, and dangerous, part of the Gotthardt route known as the Axenstrasse. In the 1930s kilometre after kilometre had been blasted out of the towering rock which bordered the lake at this point. Tunnel after tunnel, curve after curve. On the left hand side, the wall of rock; on the right, deep cold mountain water. Hofer, who knew fully well that his driving talents were limited, kept the car at very low speeds. The traffic was sparse, since the heavy winter clouds had long ago closed in on central Switzerland, making an afternoon in front of a TV set much more attractive for the bourgeois Swiss than a Sunday drive around a lake almost totally invisible in the fog and often driving rain.

  By the time the Hofers reached Altdorf it was dark. But they had no trouble finding their destination. The Oxen Hotel was right in the centre of town, opposite the huge memorial to William Tell—the town’s most famous, though legendary, son. The Oxen had been establi
shed in 1654. The old wooden timbers, small stained-glass windows, and the brightly polished bronze figure of an ox which hung on a massive chain above its entrance door made it a landmark known to travellers for many centuries. Its prize attraction for many generations had been the Goethestube. Even that great man had dined at the Oxen on his way to Italy to discover the culture which revolutionized his thinking.

  Dr. and Mrs. Hofer were met by the Bürgermeister, flanked by both the Protestant pastor and Catholic priest of this ancient community.

  The people of inner Switzerland are not known for ceremony. Soon after the Hofers had taken their place at the head table in the room which had already filled with the invited guests in their Sunday best, all sat down to dinner. The soup was followed by Holsteinschnitzel with Roesti. Dessert took the form of Zwetschgentorte and whipped cream. The wines were strictly Swiss: for those that preferred white, an Aigle; a dark heavy Dole for the rest. Coffee was served with a choice of either cognac or Kirschwasser. It was a solid Swiss dinner.

  Silence was complete when the Bürgermeister rose to introduce the speaker to this audience of mixed religious affiliations whose mutual cause was that of promoting the ecumenical movement in a world which was rapidly coming closer together, even in Switzerland.

  Hofer made a strong speech, pointing out that the time had come for the leaders of the community to raise their voices in spiritual matters. Demonstrated leadership, moral leadership, was the key to success whether in matters of church, government, yes, also banking. His was a plea for these leaders, many of whom he thought were gathered in Altdorf this evening, to take their fair share of the burden. To stand up, as good men, for the good of the community. He ended with an admonition, a citation from the ancient Greek New Testament, the Gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter 6, verse 45: πὁ ἀγαθòς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ το̑υ ἀγαθο̑υ θησαυρō̑υ τ̑ης καρδίας προφέρει τò ἀγαθόν, καì ὁ πονηρóς ἐκ το̑υ πονηρο̑υ προφέρει τò πονηρóυ.

  The banker, having duly demonstrated his credentials as a scholar and humanist, then condescended to translate: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good: and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.”

  Hofer’s final words: “My friends, our record will speak for itself.”

  As the Hofers headed back toward Zurich, it was through an ugly night. The winds were high, whipping an icy spray off the white-caps and across the Axenstrasse. The road was totally deserted. Suddenly the headlights of the massive Mercedes struck a car, straddling the road in front of a tunnel entrance. Two men waved as he braked.

  “Walter, don’t stop for God’s sake.”

  “Martha, now take it easy. I have no choice, and these people appear to need help.”

  The two men approached the car as Hofer wound down his window.

  “Walter, be careful. They look like Arabs.”

  The warning came just a bit late. At precisely that moment an incredibly strong hand came through the open window and pinned Hofer’s head to the back of the car seat. Another hand soon had the door open. Within seconds, a sharp blow, just one, had broken Walter Hofer’s neck. Within minutes, both Walter and Martha Hofer were 110 metres below the surface of the Vierwaldstättersee inside their Mercedes 300.

  Three months later a memorial was erected on the scene of this tragic automobile accident. The citizens of Altdorf contributed the stone, the General Bank of Switzerland the gold plate firmly imbedded in the granite. The only inscription was a citation from the New Testament, the Gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter 6, verse 45, first half only: πὁ ἀγαθòς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ το̑υ ἀγαθο̑ν θησαυρο̑υ τ̑ης καρδίας προφἐρει τò ἀγαθόν.

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