“Of course, Mr. Newman,” the woman said, and the three men went into Newman’s office, which overlooked the terminal. A half-dozen foreign ships were tied up and loading.
“Evidently you do not feel our services are necessary, Mr. Newman,” Coatsworth said perceptively.
“My wife does.”
“And so do I,” Saratt said. “Lydia and I discussed it yesterday.”
“I’m busy this morning, so let’s get immediately to the point,” Newman said. He would go along with this, for a few weeks. At that time he’d make the decision whether or not to continue.
“First, my people will need your complete cooperation.”
“As I said, I am a busy man, and I resent intrusions.”
“My people are as unintrusive as humanly possible, given the circumstances. But if something should begin to develop, I ask that you do exactly as my people instruct you. Your life could very well depend upon that single act.”
Newman nodded.
“Good. Secondly, we will need to be kept informed of your itinerary, as far in advance as possible.”
“My secretary will be able to provide you with that.”
“And last of all, I would like you, and perhaps your wife and Mr. Saratt, to come up with a list of people who would like to see you harmed, and their reasons.”
“I know of no one like that.”
“I’m sure you do, Mr. Newman,” Coatsworth said with an air of authority. “All of us have enemies. No matter how farfetched you may think the idea, it would be of immense help to us. We do want to protect you.”
“That would be a potentially dangerous list. Very sensitive.”
Coatsworth smiled. “You may wish to check with the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington and, internationally, with Interpol in Paris, Geneva, or London. We are a recognized and legitimate firm, I assure you.”
“If I travel?”
“We will come with you. Are you planning on going somewhere soon?”
“Very likely. But I travel constantly, Mr. Coatsworth. All over the world.”
“We will be at your side,” Coatsworth said. He got to his feet. “I’ll check with your secretary for your schedule. May we have the list by this afternoon?”
“I’ll see what I can come up with,” Newman said dryly.
At the door the security chief stopped and turned back. “My technicians will be here a little later this morning to sweep your telephones and electrical circuits. They are at your house now.”
Newman nodded. When Coatsworth was gone, he sat back in his chair and shook his head ruefully.
“This time I agree with Lydia,” Saratt said.
“Two weeks, Paul, then we review the situation.”
“Fair enough,” Saratt said. “But you told Coatsworth you would be going somewhere soon. Anything I should know about?”
“I’m going to Washington to speak with Lundgren.”
“We have our licenses for stateside grain; or are you worried about the Justice Department finding out about our foreign activities?”
“I’m worried about the entire thing,” Newman said, choosing his words with care. He still hadn’t thought it out completely, but it seemed as if everything was somehow missing a beat. Off kilter. Out of sync. It felt wrong to him.
“All our subsidiaries are third- and fourth-party agreements, most of them on foreign holding companies. What can go wrong?”
“It’s not that.”
“What then? The Cargill and Louis Dreyfus business?”
“Partly. But it’s this entire deal, Paul. I think we’re being set up.”
“So did I. But Dybrovik is taking the corn as and when we ship it, and the funds are being transferred without question into our TradeCon account in Zurich. So even if the bottom fell out tomorrow, we’d be safe.”
“How close have the actual transactions been played?”
“To within a couple of hundred thousand tons on shipments, but we’re going to have to start going after the futures market within the next week to ten days.”
“Which has been made a damned sight easier for us because of Cargill’s troubles.”
Saratt started to say something, but then he held off, an odd look suddenly crossing his features. “You’re not worried about a market manipulation. Not at all. It’s something else.”
“We’re talking about as much as a hundred million tons of corn. Unprecedented. The largest deal in the history of grain trading.”
Saratt nodded.
“And no one seems to be overly excited. Least of all Dybrovik. And hardly anyone else, except for Louis Dreyfus, whose people were snooping around Abex, and Cargill, who cut their barge rates again last week. What the hell does that tell you?”
“There is interest in us. We expected that.”
“You’re missing my point,” Newman snapped.
“Evidently.”
“How much current corn will we be able to ship to the Russians before the supplies bottom out?”
Saratt shrugged. “Considering his seventy-five percent restriction, perhaps as much as seven or eight million tons.”
“The rest is in futures. As much as we can nail down.”
“On margin, with Exportkhleb’s funds.”
“And our reputation.”
“I still don’t see…” Saratt started, but Newman cut him off.
“Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Russians have a bumper year. Suppose they harvest all the corn they need — or nearly all the corn they need — with perhaps only a seven- or eight-million-ton shortfall.”
“Then the deal wouldn’t make any sense. Why purchase futures? By the time they came out of the fields, we’d all know the state of the Soviet crop, and their game would be up. So why do such a thing?”
“I can think of two reasons right off the bat. The firs would be for them not to honor their futures contracts They’d lose their ten percent, but the entire marke would go down the tubes… including our business.’
“That doesn’t make any sense. What grudge do the Russians have against us?”
“The second would be that they’d go ahead and take delivery on the corn. All of it.”
“To dump it back on the market?”
Newman shook his head. “To store it within the Soviet Union. A grain stockpile.”
“To what end, for Christ’s sake, Paul?”
“A siege?” Newman suggested, his stomach tight.
Saratt said nothing, although his mouth was open.
“We’re stockpiling oil in old saltmines as a national crisis reserve. Why not stockpile food?”
“They wouldn’t need it. Next spring they’d plant again, and in the fall they’d harvest.”
“If they could. If their transportation network was still intact. If their population hadn’t been decimated.”
“Good Lord, you’re talking war!”
“I don’t know, Paul. I just don’t know, but I think we should do what we can to find out.”
“If you make waves, the entire structure could come down around our ears.”
“I know it.”
“It’s crazy,” Saratt said.
“Frightening, is more like it.”
12
Newman was a pragmatist who made his decisions and accomplished his tasks a step at a time. That, despite the fact his agile mind could grasp dozens of seemingly disconnected events and unrelated details, and intuitively reduce them into recognizable patterns. His mother, who had died a few years after his father, had called this ability, evident since childhood, his “artistic talent.” She had always maintained that her son would someday become a great painter, or perhaps even a poet, although she admitted he was nowhere nearly tragic enough for the latter.
His father agreed only insofar as his son’s artistic temperament was concerned, but he maintained that such talent was best served in the business world.