Gold (29 page)

“Amazing, isn’t it, that document. The South Africans have a fetish for legal form, even when they are lying and stealing.” Abrassimov lit a cigarette. “Why am I telling you? Let me explain first why we went along with this agreement.

“The financial side was interesting. We calculated that gold would double or triple in value—which it did.” The Russian leaned forward. “But it was the politics that decided us. We saw an opportunity to exploit the falling out between Washington and Pretoria, our first real chance to form an alliance with the white government.”

Drew concentrated his energies on listening to the Russian. Abrassimov’s explanation was plausible, but the journalist was not completely convinced.

“But aren’t you double-crossing the South Africans by telling me all this?” Drew interjected.

“Am I? You won’t be able to quote me or cite me as a source. I’ve given you a document that verifies what you already know; I’m satisfying your curiosity to some extent. No,” Abrassimov continued, “such a hoax cannot last long. In the event, it was you who uncovered the information to expose it.”

Abrassimov read the skepticism in Drew’s face. “You are not satisfied. Think a moment of the position of South Africa when the hoax is exposed: the gold price plummets, the white government loses its last shred of credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of the West. Desperate for assistance, they turn to their new allies, their friends in the East, to preserve their grip on the country they think is theirs.”

Drew’s mind buzzed. Such a heady dose of Realpolitik was out of his league. Yet it made a crazy kind of sense.

“So you want me to help you take over South Africa?” The question, so natural in the context of the nightmare he was living through, alarmed Drew as he asked it.

“You are not responsible for what happens in South Africa, Mr. Dumesnil. You are responsible only for doing your job well. If it were not you, it would be someone else who would break the news of the hoax.”

“Is someone trying to kill me?” Drew asked suddenly.

Abrassimov was quiet. He crushed out his cigarette. “As I said, the Afrikaners have not much experience in international diplomacy. They asked their allies to help them ensure the success of the plan. In their eyes, that meant eliminating all possible sources of exposure.”

Kraml? Van der Merwe? MacLean?

“The incidents involving you were carefully stage-managed. You were never in real danger, and you will not be unless the South Africans try to take matters in their own hands. But we have you under constant surveillance. We showed ourselves at times to alert you.”

“But the Bulgarian really died,” Drew said, half as statement, half as question.

“Our Bulgarian friends were distressed that you had succeeded in overcoming the agent they sent at our behest. They did not know, of course, that there was a third man who came to your rescue. The other deaths, too, as you know, were quite genuine, but absolutely necessary for us to retain the confidence of the Afrikaners.”

Drew tried desperately to maintain his sense of reality. Abrassimov went on.

“Our mutual friend Mr. du Plessis thinks in fact that you have already met a fate much less congenial than sitting here drinking vodka with me. It‘s all, as you say, a bit over your head, I think,” he said. “Do you have other questions?”

Dozens of questions buzzed in Drew‘s clouded mind. He needed time and rest to sort things out. The confrontation with du Plessis had wiped him out, while his conversation with Abrassimov was surrealistic.

“What happens next?” he asked.

Abrassimov shrugged. “We await events,” he said noncommittally. “I‘m afraid it‘s too late to return to London this evening, but I have booked you a room in the Königshof. The driver will take you there.”

EIGHTEEN

Carol looked at her watch again. Her computer screen shimmered with a spreadsheet of statistics that she found impossible to keep in focus. She stared at the watch. It was after four; Drew should be calling.

She stood and paced up and down the narrow office, holding her arms as if to keep off a chill. She turned abruptly and sat at her desk, quickly tapping a code on the keyboard of her Reuters monitor. The latest headlines flashed onto the screen. Nothing out of the routine.

The calm seemed sinister to her. The markets were quiet but hardly tranquil. Even in the bank, a surreal stillness reigned. Halden‘s uncharacteristic withdrawal had created a feeling of isolation among the staff. People avoided each other. Since Daniels‘s timid approach, Carol had had no contact with the trading staff except to exchange data.

She stood up again. She was worried about Drew. Du Plessis had no moral sense and would not hesitate to act against the journalist if he felt threatened. And Drew certainly threatened South Africa with his knowledge.

Carol understood Drew‘s sense of duty intuitively, even though its consequences were harder for her to accept. At the Fed, the highest value was to protect America‘s economic interest, and Carol had made that value her own. She could even sympathize with Halden‘s radical approach, because his motivation seemed to be sincere. But she could not understand Halden‘s willingness to take such great risks on his own authority.

Carol jumped when the phone rang. She grabbed for the receiver.

“Thank God it‘s you,” she exclaimed when she heard Drew‘s voice.

“In Bonn?” she interjected as he told her where he was. She listened intently as Drew recounted his meeting with Abrassimov.

“You‘re sure the document is genuine?” she asked.

“It all fits.”

“Do you want me to tell Halden?”

“No. I don‘t feel that he and I are on the same side anymore. He‘s taking too much responsibility into his own hands. Have you seen him doing anything unusual?”

“It‘s quiet here. Creepy.”

Drew sighed. “I‘ll catch the eight o‘clock plane to London tomorrow morning. I‘ve got everything I need now to break the story.”

Carol was silent a moment. “You have to follow your conscience.”

“I‘ll call you when I‘m in the office.”Drew‘s voice was faint as he wished her good night.

Carol sat at her desk. She wondered whether she should call Roberts at the Federal Reserve Board or Johnson at Treasury to warn them about the gold story and Halden‘s plans. They both had known her since she had accompanied the U.S. delegation to the economic summit in Toronto.

But they would have to confront Halden with her revelations, and Carol felt certain he could make his own plausible explanation of events prevail. Nor was Carol convinced that she even had the right to use Drew‘s knowledge in that way.

She stood up suddenly and walked with quick steps to the elevator. She came onto the tenth floor and went to Halden‘s office. This time, the Fed president was standing at his desk, poring over several open files.

He looked up when Carol knocked, but neither smiled nor said anything.

“What are you doing, Mark?” Carol was surprised at her own boldness.

Halden removed his glasses. “Come in and sit down.” He lowered himself into his chair. Carol crossed the room and sat facing him across the desk.

Halden studied her face for a moment. “Of course, you‘re very bright,” he said. “How much have you figured out?”

“I haven‘t figured out anything. I know you have collected certain types of information, and I think I know why. But I don‘t understand how you can do all this on your own. If you‘re planning to sabotage the world financial system, you‘ve got to talk to Roberts, or Johnson, or even the President.”

Halden expelled a long sigh. “I‘ve spent many, many hours talking to those men,“ he said. “I can assure you, if I had the time now to talk to them, I would convince them that my way is the right one.”

Carol frowned. “How can you be so sure?”

Halden glanced over the papers on his desk and wiped his face with his right hand. “I said I could convince them my way is the right one.” He looked at her. “I didn‘t say I was sure it was.”

Carol‘s face drained of color.

“It‘s a great risk to engineer the collapse of the financial system. There are so many unknowns. But I don‘t see what else can be done.” Halden seemed to slump in his chair; he looked smaller and older to Carol. “We‘ve been fighting a losing battle for years. I see no other way to regain the initiative.”

Carol felt numb, as if anesthetized. She heard herself ask, “What are you going to do?”

Halden did not respond for some time. Finally, he asked her, “Is Dumesnil ready to break the gold story?”

Carol did not challenge Halden‘s inference that she would know Drew‘s plans, but she did not answer his question.

“He must be,” Halden continued. “He won‘t sit on it, and I don‘t think he‘ll suppress it.” Carol kept her face impassive.

“I‘m going to stay here and monitor the wires tonight,“ Halden said.” You‘re welcome to stay with me.“

“Mark”—Carol‘s voice was gentle—“I don‘t think you have the right to do what you‘re planning to do.“ Her tone became firmer. “I think you should call Washington.”

Halden returned her gaze. His eyes squinted and he shook his head, smiling sadly. “Do? I‘m going to watch for developments in the market. I‘m going to react to those events in a way to ensure our long-term interests.”

Carol stood and walked to the door. She turned back to face Halden. “I‘ll be back later this evening.”

Halden smiled. Carol knew she had answered his question about Drew‘s intentions, but she knew as well that it no longer mattered.

~

“So what‘s going on?” Drew asked Tom as he came into the office. He was pasty and haggard, having come directly from the airport. He had managed to shave, however, with a throwaway razor from the hotel in Bonn.

Drew felt drained of energy. But he had awakened with a sense of purpose that forced him to draw on his reserves. Tom peered into his bank of screens with concentration. “Quiet, so far.”

Drew grunted. “It‘s going to get a lot less quiet.” He sat down at the rim, signed on to a terminal, and began to write his story. He referred to his notes, to Kraml‘s letter, to the protocol. He took his time with it; it was not an easy story to write.

At one point, Drew interrupted his concentration and punched out a number on the phone next to him. The phone rang several times in Carol‘s apartment in New York, but no one answered it. Drew felt a stab of anxiety but pushed the worry out of his mind. It was 4 a.m. in New York. Perhaps she was just sleeping through the phone’s bell.

The newsroom was quiet, except for the patter of the keyboards. Bart came in and took his place on the rim.

Drew continued typing. Finally, he closed the file and stood up. “OK, Tom, you come over here and I’ll take over the slot.”

Drew automatically began pushing buttons as he stepped into the slot. The main monitor screen gave him twenty seconds to decide what to do with incoming stories: code them for direct feed on the wire, pass them to the rim for editing, or delete them.

Drew watched the items flickering across the monitor. He checked dollar and gold prices on the trading screen.

He called up his story on the right-hand screen. He coded it urgent priority and addressed it to all subscribers. He punched three keys and the story was gone. In just seconds, the world would know that the sabotage was a hoax.

“Tom, go look at my story coming up on the wire,” Drew said to the young man, installed now at one of the rim terminals. “I’d advise you to keep in mind, if anybody asks you later, that I wrote it and sent it myself; that you never saw it before it was on the wire.”

Tom obediently went to the printer which read back the WCN wire. He gasped as he saw the headline.

New Evidence Suggests South African Gold Mine Sabotage a Hoax

by Andrew Dumesnil

London (WCN)—Evidence made available to World Commodities News indicates that the reported sabotage of South Africa’s gold mines was a hoax designed to manipulate the price of gold higher to benefit the two main producers of gold, South Africa and the Soviet Union.

Documents in the possession of WCN show that South Africa has continued and even increased its production of gold. They show further that the Soviet Union was aware of the scheme but agreed to market its gold in collusion with South Africa.

“No comment,” was the response of Andreis du Plessis, director general of South Africa’s Ministry of Finance, when apprised of WCN’s findings. The South African official said last week that more than half the country’s gold production had been damaged by the alleged sabotage.

In response to questions from WCN, Mr. du Plessis reiterated South Africa’s rejection of any independent verification of the mine sabotage.

Officials of Vnesheconombank, the Soviet foreign affairs bank responsible for gold trade, declined any comment for the record.

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