The Book of Spies

50

THE MEMBERS of the book club had been checking into the Hotel Grande Bretagne throughout the morning. The meeting began promptly at two P.M., and their arrival infused the room with electric energy. All stood at least six feet or taller, and despite the nearly thirty-year range in their ages, each moved with the grace of an athlete, their bodies trim and fit.
Chosen in their youth, when they were struggling for money and power and displayed great promise, they had been cultivated, mentored, and financed--as Martin Chapman had. Still, very few who received such attention rose to join the fraternity of the secret book club. Those who did were living examples of the ancient Greek ideal of the perfect man.
Studying them as they stood talking around the table, Chapman felt a sense of pride. He had been director five years. They could be troublesome, but that was understandable. Spirited aggression was necessary to accomplishment, and they were warriors in and out of business--another critical trait of the Greek ideal. But at the same time he was concerned about the unusually high pitch of their energy and the sideways glances in his direction. Something had set them off, and he worried he knew what it was.
He checked the butler, who was serving drinks. They would wait to start the meeting until they were alone.
"You're crazy, Petr," one was saying, amused.
"You spend too damn much time in the library," laughed another.
Petr Klok chose a martini from the butler's silver tray and announced, "This is an organized universe based on numbers. The ancients knew that. The markets--their prices and timings--move in harmonic rhythms." A bearded man with stylishly clipped hair, he was fifty years old and the first Czech billionaire. Taking advantage of his nation's privatization reforms, he had begun small, buying an insurance company with vouchers and loans from Library of Gold funds and then growing it into an empire stretching across Europe and America.
Brian Collum found his glass of barolo on the butler's tray. "You're claiming financial ups and downs aren't random? Clearly you're nuts." Graying, with a long handsome face, the Los Angeleno was the junior member, just forty-eight. He was the library's attorney.
"Study the geometrical codes hidden in Plato's Timaeus," Klok insisted. "Then connect them to the architecture of Hindu temples, Pascal's arithmetical triangles, the Egyptian alphabet, the movement of the planets, and the consonant patterns in the stained-glass windows of medieval cathedrals. It will give you an edge in the markets."
"I, for one, am interested. After all, Petr predicted the worldwide crash of 2008," Maurice Dresser reminded them. A Canadian, he had turned regional wildcatting into a trillion-dollar oil kingdom. He had thinning white hair and strong features. At seventy-five vigorous years, he was the oldest.
"Perhaps Petr is ahead of his time. He wouldn't be the first," Chapman said, a challenge in his voice. He paused until he had their full attention. Seeing the opportunity, he hoped to lull them with a small tournament. "Let's see what you know. Here's the subject--in 350 B.C., Heracleides was so far ahead of his time that he discovered the Earth spun on an axis."
Collum instantly held up his cigar, volunteering. "A century later Aristarchus of Samos figured out the Earth orbited the sun. Also far ahead of his time."
"But in the same era, Aristotle insisted we were stationary and the center of the heavens." Dresser shook his head. "Big error, and rare for him."
There was a hesitation, and Chapman stepped into it. "Reinhardt."
Reinhardt Gruen nodded. "In the 1500s most scientists again believed the world was flat. Wrong. Finally Copernicus rediscovered it rotated and went around the sun. That's a hell of a long time for the facts to come out again." From Berlin, Gruen was sixty-eight years old and owned a global media conglomerate.
"But he didn't dare publish his findings," Klok remembered. "It was too controversial and dangerous. Ignorant Christian churches fought the idea for the next three hundred years."
"Carl?" Chapman said.
"They claimed it went against the teachings of the Bible." Regal, his blond hair graying, Carl Lindstrom was sixty-five, the founder of the powerful software company Lindstrom Strategies, based in Stockholm.
"Not enough," Collum called out competitively.
As director, Martin Chapman was also referee. He agreed. "We need more, Carl."
"I thought you idiots knew the Bible by now," Lindstrom said good-naturedly. "It is in Pslams: 'The world also is established, that it cannot be moved.' "
"Very good. Who's next?" Chapman asked.
Thomas Randklev raised his highball glass. "Here's to Galileo. He figured out Copernicus was right, and then he wrote his own books on the subject. So the Inquisition jailed him for heresy." From Johannesburg, Randklev was sixty-three and led mining enterprises on three continents.
"Grandon. You're the last man," Chapman said.
Fifty-eight and a Londoner, Grandon Holmes headed the telecom giant Holmes International Services. "It wasn't until the Renaissance that the Western world accepted the Earth rotated and orbited the sun--more than a millennium after Heracleides made the original discovery."
Everyone drank, smiling. The tournament had ended with no errors in history, and each had contributed. A sense of friendly warmth and shared purpose infused the room. A full success, Chapman thought with relief.
"Well done," he complimented.
"But just because Copernicus and the others were vindicated doesn't mean Petr is right about all his financial nonsense," Collum insisted.
"Spoken like an attorney," Petr chortled. "You are a Neanderthal, Brian."
"And you think you're a friggin' clairvoyant." Collum grinned and drank.
Everyone had been served, so Chapman told the butler to leave. As the door closed, the group settled around the table. He noted the mood had changed, grown tense.
Uneasily he took the chair at the head, where the wood box was waiting. "Maurice, you called this meeting. Begin."
Maurice Dresser adjusted the pen on the table beside him, then peered up. "As the senior member, it's my job occasionally to bring grievances to your attention. You've been hiding something from us, Marty."
Martin Chapman kept his tone conversational. "Elaborate, please."
Dresser sat forward and folded his hands. "Jonathan Ryder, Angelo Charbonier, and our fine librarian Charles Sherback are dead, murdered. We suspect you had something to do with that. You asked Thom, Carl, and Reinhardt to acquire information. It involved blackmailing a U.S. senator, hacking into a secret CIA unit's computer, and the murder of a CIA officer, one Catherine Doyle. Until we began talking to one another, we didn't realize the extent of your actions. What in hell is going on?"
"Secrecy is based on containment." Reinhardt Gruen drummed his fingers on the table. "This is far larger than I thought."
"You've exposed us to discovery," Carl Lindstrom accused.
"If the Parsifal Group is investigated, it may lead back to us." Thom Randklev glared.
The room seemed to vibrate with tension.
Chapman looked around at the cold faces. Inwardly he swore again at Jonathan Ryder for starting the domino disasters that had brought him to this precipice.
He cleared his throat. "The Parsifal Group is safe, because it's made too damn much money for too many important people for them to allow anything to be known about it. The exposure would have to be calamitous to change the equation, and this isn't a calamity."
The initial support money for the Library of Gold had been small but adequate, passed down through the centuries to ensure the library was cared for and secure. But in the second half of the twentieth century, when international commerce boomed, and its select group of supporters was formalized into the book club, common sense took over. A process to choose members was created. Opportunities opened through their successes, and investments were made, backed up when necessary by "persuading" Parsifal's members to cooperate.
Today the group's funds of some $6 trillion were registered, regulated, and owned by a series of fronts. They had much to be proud of--the Library of Gold had a permanent home and was maintained to the highest standards, and it would never be threatened as long as it was in their control. Since they saw to that, they were rewarded in kind.
"Doesn't bloody matter," Holmes said. "Risk is never to be taken lightly. You've gambled in grave ways that can impact all of us. We want to know why, and where you are going with it."
Chapman said nothing. Instead he opened the wood box and lifted out a small illuminated manuscript, about six by eight inches, and stood it up so it faced the members of the book club. There was an intake of breath. Diamonds blanketed the cover in a dazzling array, shaped into overlapping circles, triangles, and rectangles, each filled in completely with more diamonds. Of the highest quality, they sparkled like fire.
"I know the book," Randklev, the mining czar, said. He recounted the title in English: "Gems and Minerals of the World. Written in the late 1300s. It's from the Library of Gold."
"You're correct," Chapman told him. Then he addressed the group. "I was curious about the diamonds on the cover, so I asked a translator to search through the book, and he found the story behind them. Perhaps you remember that Mahmud, a Persian, invaded Afghanistan at the end of the tenth century. He made Ghazni his capital and lifted the country to the heights of power with an empire extending into what is modern-day Iran, Pakistan, and India." He nodded at the lavish book. "Diamonds were one of the sources of his wealth--diamonds from a huge mine in what today is Khost province, near Ghazni. Then, some two hundred years later, Genghis Khan tore through Afghanistan, slaughtering the people. He left Ghazni and other cities in rubble. The devastation was so complete even irrigation lines were never repaired. The diamond mine stopped production. When Tamerlane swept through in the early 1380s, he destroyed what was left. The mine was forgotten. In effect, lost."
"Khost province is a dangerous place to do business, Marty," warned Reinhardt Gruen, the media baron. He looked around the group and explained. "The Afghan government has taken over the country's security, but they don't have a big enough army, and local police forces are stretched thin and are frequently corrupt. So province governors are supposed to be doing the job, which is a bad joke. In Khost, as I recall, several warlords have divided up the territory. Those warlords may be in collusion with the Taliban and al-Qaeda."
"Shit, Marty." Grandon Holmes, the telecom kingpin, stared. "No mine can operate in that atmosphere. Worse, you'll be aiding the jihadists."
"The exact opposite is true," Chapman told them calmly. That was the conclusion to which Jonathan Ryder had jumped. "Syed Ullah is the warlord in charge in the area where the mine is, and he hates the Taliban and, by extension, al-Qaeda. When the Taliban were in charge in the 1990s, they crushed the drug trade. Heroin and opium were--and are again today--his biggest source of income. So you see, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are his enemies. He's got an army of more than five thousand. He'd never let the jihadists infiltrate and take over his territory."
Heads slowly nodded around the table.
Thom Randklev's eyes brightened. "You know exactly where the mine is?"
"I do. I was going to bring all of you in," Chapman lied. "This is merely sooner than I expected. And of course, you can have the contract to do the mining in addition to your share, Thom."
Randklev rubbed his hands together. "When do I begin?"
"That's the problem," Chapman told them. "The deal isn't ready to be signed." In calm tones, and putting a positive spin wherever he could, he described the events of the last few weeks from Jonathan Ryder's discovery of Syed Ullah's frozen account in the international bank Chapman had bought, to Robin Miller's escape from the Learjet in Athens. Then he explained what remained to be done in Khost, and that Judd Ryder, Eva Blake, and Robin Miller were still on the loose but would be found soon.
When he finished, there was a long silence.
"Christ, Marty," said one.
"This is a hell of a mess," said another.
"It's not that big a mess," Chapman said, "and think of the fortunes to be made."
"If the mine is as big as you say," decided Holmes, "we'd be bloody fools to interrupt the deal."
"How much do you think it's worth?" asked Klok.
"From what I read, Mahmud's people had barely scratched the surface," Chapman said. "And of course they had the disadvantage of working with primitive equipment. I'd say it'll bring in at least a hundred trillion. Over decades, of course."
They smiled around the table. Then they laughed. The future was good.
Dresser concluded the discussion. "I'd say you have our complete cooperation, Marty." Then he glared. "But make damn certain you contain the situation. Do whatever you have to do. Don't f*ck it up. If you do, there'll be consequences." He looked around at the stony expressions. The men nodded agreement. "You won't like them."