"I am glad your nation has decided to bid," Rentzel told the man.
Rentzel was tall and sandy haired and looked younger than his fifty years. He wore conservative clothing, not because he liked it, but because a banker could wear nothing else. He was a very good banker.
The man he addressed—Mr. Jones of the business card—was a small, fat man with a bald head and thick, horn-rimmed eyeglasses. He watched Rentzel without speaking, with slightly less animation than that shown by a subway rider reading an overhead advertisement.
"Of course, the bombing demonstration at St. Louis was very impressive, was it not?" Rentzel said.
Jones grunted into the silence. Then there was more silence. Then Jones said, "I have the money here."
"In dollars?"
"Yes."
"And you understand the rules?"
"Please repeat them," Jones said and reached for a pen in the inside pocket of his ill-fitting blue serge suit.
Rentzel raised a hand in a traffic-stopping gesture. "Please. Nothing in writing." Jones slowly withdrew his empty hand while Rentzel walked around the desk and sat in his chair, facing Jones across the wide expanse of walnut.
Without waiting, he began to talk. "Your two million dollars will be held by me as a good-faith deposit on behalf of your country. The bidding will be conducted seven days from today in the New York offices of the Villebrook Equity Associates."
"I have never heard of them," Jones said.
"That is the proof of their quality," Rentzel said with a smile. "They are bankers, not public relations men for themselves. At any rate, the bidding will be conducted there by me. Each nation will be allowed one bid and one bid only. The minimum price is, as you know, one billion dollars. In gold. The highest bid over one billion dollars wins."
"One billion dollars," Jones said. "It is an awesome figure."
"What is for sale is also awesome," Rentzel said. "Control of the government of the most powerful nation in the history of the world." He went on. "By the way, you should know the competition. Besides your own country, I expect bids from Russia and China, Italy, France and Great Britain. And oh, from Switzerland too."
"You Swiss always were adventurers," Jones said with a chuckle.
"And you Germans always were fascinated by the possibility of controlling others. Oh, the bids must be in writing and sealed. All unsuccessful bidders will have their good-faith deposits returned to them by me. I will, of course, give you a receipt for it now."
"It must be interesting to be able to sell a government," Jones said. "Interesting, that is, for the person doing it. It would seem the only person who could do it would be the President," he added somewhat clumsily.
"Who is doing it is unimportant," Rentzel said. "The fact is that my client can do it. The incident with the nuclear weapon on St. Louis showed that. Tomorrow, there will be another incident. It will involve the Central Intelligence Agency. When you hear of it, you will recognize it. The power to accomplish such things will be yours if you are the successful bidder."
"But one billion dollars in gold? Do you realize how much gold that is?"
"In the neighbourhood of one thousand tons," Rentzel said. "Don't worry. In Switzerland, we have the facilities for storing it. And the trust of our client."
"We may not bid," Jones said sullenly, simply out of dislike for this man who knew all the answers.
"It would be your loss," Rentzel said. "The other nations plan to. One can tell by the fact that gold mining stocks are moving up in value on their stock exchanges."
He smiled. Jones knew that Rentzel had seen the price of gold stocks climbing in Germany too. Rentzel realized that Germany was already beginning to stockpile the gold needed to back up their bid.
"Well, we shall see," he said lamely.
With his left hand, he quickly unlocked the handcuff on his wrist and placed the attaché case on the desk before Rentzel. "Do you wish to…?"
"No, that's not necessary," Rentzel said. "In matters like this, we make no mistakes."
He rose and shook hands with Mr. Jones, who quickly left. Rentzel opened the briefcase and looked at the neat piles of thousand dollar bills. Two million dollars.
With the nonchalance of the professional banker, he left the briefcase open on his desk and stepped into the outer office. Jones had gone. His secretary was cleaning her nails.
She looked up, and was disappointed when he said, "Pay close attention to mining stock prices in Paris and in London." Then he smiled, and said, "And make us reservations for a flight to New York Sunday night."
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked back into his office. He could not see the huge smile that illuminated her face.
Great, she thought. New York. Banking could really be fun, after all.
On the other hand, she could not see the smile on Rentzel's face. The CIA incident, he thought. After that, all the countries will get in line to bid.
CHAPTER NINE
"Good evening, Burton," sang Dr. Lithia Forrester.
An athletic man, on the verge of going to pot, stood in the doorway in sandals, slacks and open-necked shirt. He had a deep tan, even through his receding hairline.
His eyebrows narrowed and two dark, puffing bags under his watery blue eyes stood like pedestals beneath statues to the great god tension. He picked at his temple.
"Uh, yeah. Good evening."
"Won't you come in?"
"Of course, I'm going to come in, Dr. Forrester. What do you think I'm here for?"
Dr. Forrester smiled warmly and shut the door behind Burton Barrett, an operations chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, recuperating from the rigors of the quiet, thankless pressure of working one's ass off in a void. Reporting to people he did not know. Having other people he did not know report to him. Situation reports which came from places he did not know and went to other places he did not know. This for fifteen years—then he had snapped. And now he was being mended at the Human Awareness Laboratories. Prize patient number one.
"Won't you sit down, Burton?"
"No, Dr. Forrester, I'm going to stand on my head, thank you. I like standing on my head."
Lithia Forrester sat down behind her desk and crossed her legs. Burton Barrett plumped himself down into a deep leather couch, not looking at Doctor Forrester but staring up, out into the sky. He did not focus on the stars or even the glimmering reflection of the inside lights on the dome. His was a concentrated not-staring, and what he specifically was not staring at was Lithia Forrester.
"Well, this is it, as if you give a shit," he said.
"You're rather hostile tonight, Burton. Any special reason?"
"No, just run of the mill hostile. You know, in the morning you're hungry and in the evening, you're hostile."
"Is it something to do with a need, Burton?"
"Need? I don't have needs. I'm Burton Barrett from the Main Line and I'm a wasp and I'm rich and I'm handsome and therefore I don't have needs and feelings. I have no sympathies, no loves, no emotions. Just strengths and greed and, of course, controls." Burton Barrett whistled nervously and softly after he said this. He drummed on the couch.
"Needs?" he repeated. "No, I don't have needs. Burton Barrett has no needs. Burton Barrett has no friends. Burton Barrett needs no friends. Sexy Burton Barrett is in the Central Intelligence Agency. That's sexy, right?"
"No, that's not sexy, Burton. You know that. And I know it."
"I have such a sexy job, it took me weeks to be relieved of duty, then cleared to come here to you."
"That's not unusual for your line of work."
"Have you ever spent hours discussing your possible emotional problems with an FBI agent? An FBI agent named Bannon? And then waiting for him to check me out and then to recommend a psychologist I mean, that's something—Bannon! Or am I not allowed to be prejudiced against the Irish? I forget who you're allowed to be prejudiced against. It keeps changing."