‘Yes,“ Regan said calmly. ”I did.“
‘But you had no such commitment! That commitment does not yet exist, and if I have anything to say about it, it never will exist! Regan, you’ve hoodwinked us into a gigantic swindle! You’ve talked us into advancing six billion dollars on the strength of a secret decision to throw away a billion and a half of our own money!“
‘I haven’t talked you into anything,“ Regan replied icily. ”You voted against the previous proposal. A majority of the board members supported it. That’s all.“
‘A billion and a half, Claude,“ Bruce Regan muttered in awe. ”We can’t afford to tie that much up at three percent!“
‘It’s a sounder investment than it looks on the surface,“ Regan said.
‘Explain yourself,“ Bennett snapped.
‘I’m afraid I can’t reveal what I mean at this time. But I tell you this: the billion and a half we put into the Fair now will be returned to us a hundredfold or better in the years to come.“
‘Nonsense,“ Bruce Regan husked. ”The Fair will run two years and close down. It’ll file for bankruptcy like every Fair in the past-and we’ll be out a billion and a half.“
‘No,“ Regan said. They were all talking at once, now, shouting, pounding the table. ”Listen to me! Will you take my word for it? Global Factors will not suffer! We’ll clear a fortune out of this!“
‘How? Explain!“
‘At a later date,“ Regan said crisply. ”I call for the vote.“
He waited for a seconder. There was long, brutal silence in the board room. Regan stared at the men of his faction- Field, Olcott, Harris, Slidell, Kennan, Orenstein. He had put them on the Board of Directors. He had made them rich men. If they failed him now, he was in serious trouble. His whole gaudy dream of a metal moon in the sky would come tumbling down-and with it, more likely than not, his control of Global Factors.
‘Seconded,“ Noel Slidell said after an endless wait.
Regan mentally ticked off the fact. Slidell would get paid back for that. He was the oldest of Regan’s appointees, fifty-two, not Regan’s generation at all. Yet he was willing to go along with Regan’s proposition. Out of boldness, Regan wondered? Foresight? Or simple fear of the boss?
They voted.
Regan eyed the panel. Three red lights glowed instantly- Bennett and his two cohorts. Two green lights-Claude Regan, Noel Slidell. As a seconder, Slidell had to vote in favor of the proposition.
What about the others?
One by one, the green lights appeared, two, three of them. Then, sickeningly, a red light. Someone had defected. Regan had no way of knowing which one; the vote was secret. Five in favor, four against, one man yet to be heard from. If he voted against, Bruce Regan would break the tie and the motion would be lost, and Claude Regan would be lost with it.
A green light!
‘The motion is carried,“ Bruce Regan whispered. He let the gavel drop to the table. The four old-guard members of the board stalked from the room. Regan remained, confronting his six supporters, wondering which one of them had cast the defecting vote that had come so close to undoing him. He could not tell. All six of them looked dazed by the rapid twists and turns of the meeting.
It had been a close one-but Regan had won.
Flushed with triumph, the Factor left the board room and the building, and headed for the privacy of home. A hundred feet below the ground, locked in his sanctuary, Claude Regan stared at his own pale, tension-drawn face, and suddenly began to laugh, and then to sing Novaes’ song of jubilation in wildly garbled Portuguese.
FIVE
It was the middle of November.
Winter was settling in, east and west. Unseasonable snow fell on Washington, seasonable snow on Denver. The streets ran with rivulets as the thermal filaments melted the fall away. Shuttling back and forth across the continent, Claude Regan found fresh snow waiting for him wherever he went.
The Brazilians were not troubled by snow. It was coming along into summer for them, now, and rockets were rising daily, carrying girders into orbit. Fifty thousand miles up, a vast and heterogenous assortment of construction materials had been assembled, spread out over five or six miles and whirling round the Earth together. The ribs of the space satellite were taking shape. Regan could see them clearly through a telescope. Later, of course, the satellite would be visible to the naked eye, a gleaming wonderworld in the heavens.
Financially, things were moving along too, though not nearly so well. The bond issue was sluggish. Global Factors had duly bought the billion and a half’s worth for which Regan had obtained commitment. Private investors, prodded along mercilessly by Regan, had grudgingly and reluctantly bought up some $200,000,000 worth, grumbling all the while about the low rate of interest. Brazil had kindly purchased $100,000,000 of the bonds, over and above its earlier outright cash grant. The United Nations had voted to subscribe another $200,000,000.
That accounted for exactly a third of the bond issue. Columbus Equities was still stuck for the remaining four billion -which meant, essentially, that Global Factors was stuck for it, a contingent liability that would hardly look pretty on next year’s balance sheet.
Word was creeping through the financial community that Regan’s enthusiasm for the World’s Fair had led him injudiciously to overextend Global’s credit. Regan had tried to keep the story from leaking. Even the four dissident board members had kept silent, since by publicly protesting they could only hurt the price of Global stock, and thus cost themselves money, without gaining anything. Still, the story was getting out. And Global’s stock was dipping. Rumors filtered around.
‘Global Factors Common was off V/i in active trading yesterday,“ reported the Wall Street Journal for November 14, 1990. ”Analysts attributed the steady price pressure to rumors linking Global with the financing of the 1992 Columbian Exposition. Global has allegedly taken on heavy contingent liabilities in connection with the Exposition’s bond issue. The stock, closing yesterday at 138, is now down 22 from the historic high posted in August after the most recent dividend boost.“
The sharp drop in Global stock had cost Regan close to eighty million dollars on paper, but that did not trouble him. Stocks fluctuated in both directions, he knew. What did worry him was the long-term effect on events if Global got into real hot water. Had he miscalculated?
Global started to pull in its horns a little. It had five and a half billion dollars of its own money tied up in World’s Fair Bonds at the moment, and even the world’s largest corporation felt the strain of that. A hundred million dollars in callable loans had to be called. Another $80,000,000 in loans almost consummated were cancelled. With its own liquidity suddenly reduced, Global Factors was not in an easy position to make loans to anybody else.
Regan remained fairly calm. He set out on a world-wide tour to sell World’s Fair bonds.
His first port of call was Europe. The Europeans, basking in their new-found political unity, had plenty of cash to throw around, even though they were starting to tighten the belt as they felt the threat of African and Asian manufacturing industries. Europe would help, Regan thought. Europe had to help!
There was Spain, for example. Columbus had set sail from Spain. Spain would help finance the great Exposition that would commemorate the grandeur of Spain’s past, Regan knew.
And so he found himself standing on a balcony in Madrid just before Christmas, with King Alfonso XV beaming at his side. In the great square, thronging thousands roared their delight at being able to set eyes on that fabulous American, Factor Claude Regan.
‘It would be an honor to subscribe to the Exposition,“ Alfonso XV assured Regan solemnly.