Any yachtsman would have rolled on his deck in laughter if he had seen the Marvelous Maeve bucking the seas. A boat designer of professional standing would have whistled the Mickey Mouse Club anthem. But the peculiar looking sailboat had the last laugh. The outriggers dug into the water and maintained her stability. She responded to her helm amazingly well and kept her bow on course without being swept sideways. To be sure, there were problems to be ironed out with her rigging. But remarkably, she took to the sea as if she had been born there.
Pitt took a final look at the Miseries. Then he looked at the packet wrapped in a piece of Dacron sail that held Rodney York’s logbook and letters. He vowed that if he somehow lived through the next several days he would get York’s final testament to his living relatives, trusting that they would mount an expedition to bring him home again to be buried beside Falmouth Bay in his beloved Cornwall.
On the tenth floor of a modernistic all-glass structure built in the shape of a pyramid on the outskirts of Paris, a group of fourteen men sat around a very long ebony conference table. Impeccably dressed, wielding enormous power, immensely wealthy and unsmiling, the directors of the Multilateral Council of Trade, known simply to insiders as the Foundation, an institution dedicated to the development of a single global economic government, shook hands and engaged in small talk before sitting down to business. Normally, they met three times a year, but this day they met in an emergency session to discuss the latest unexpected threat to their widespread operations.
The men in the room represented vast international corporations and high levels of government. Only one top-ranking member from the South African cartel was entirely involved with the selling of quality diamonds. A Belgian industrialist from Antwerp and a real-estate developer from New Delhi, India, acted as the Foundation’s middlemen for the huge illicit flow of industrial diamonds to the Islamic Fundamentalist Bloc, which was struggling to create its own nuclear destruction systems. Millions of these smaller industrial diamonds were sold underground to the bloc to make the precision instruments and equipment necessary to construct such systems. The larger, more exotic quality diamonds were used to finance unrest in Turkey, Western Europe, Latin America and several of the South Asian countries, or an other hot spot where subversive political organization could play into the hands of the Foundation’s many other interests, including the sale of arms.
All these men were known by the news media, all were celebrities in their chosen fields, but none were identified with membership in the Foundation. That was a sec known only to the men in the room and their close associates. They flew across oceans and continents, weaving their webs in all sorts of strange places, takings toll while amassing unheard-of profits.
They listened with close attention in silence as the’ chosen chairman, the billionaire head of a German banking firm, reported on the current crisis facing the diamond market. A regal man with a bald head, he spoke slowly in fluent English, a language every national around the to understood.
“Gentlemen, because of Arthur Dorsett we are facing a profound crisis in a vital area of our operations. Appraisal of his conduct by our intelligence network points to a diamond market headed into dark waters Make no mistake about it, if Dorsett dumps over a hundred metric tons of diamonds on the retail market street-beggar prices, as he is reported ready to do, this sector of the Foundation will totally collapse.”
“How soon will this take place?” asked the sheik an oil-rich country on the Red Sea.
“I have it on good authority that eighty percent Dorsett’s inventory will be on sale in his chain of recd stores in less than a week,” answered the chairman.
“What do we stand to lose?” asked the Japanese head of a vast electronics empire.
“Thirteen billion Swiss francs for starters.”
“Good God!” The French leader of one of the world’s largest women’s fashion houses rapped his fist on the table. “This Australian Neanderthal has the power to do such a thing?”
The chairman nodded. “From all accounts, he has the inventory to back him.”
“Dorsett should never have been allowed to operate outside the cartel,” said the American former secretary of state.
“The damage is done,” agreed the diamond cartel member. “The world of gems as we know it may never quite be the same again.”
“Is there no way we can cut him off before his stones are distributed to his stores?” asked the Japanese businessman.
“I sent an emissary to make him a generous offer to buy his stock in order to keep it out of circulation.”
“Have you heard back?”
“Not yet.”
“Who did you send?” inquired the chairman.
“Gabe Strouser of Strouser & Sons, a respected international diamond merchant.”
“A good man and a hard bargainer,” said the Belgian from Antwerp. “We’ve had many dealings together. If anyone can bung Dorsett to heel, it’s Gabe Strouser.”
An Italian who owned a fleet of container ships shrugged unemotionally. “As I recall, diamond sales dropped drastically in the early eighties. America and Japan suffered severe recessions and demand dropped, kindling a glut in supply. When the economy turned around in the nineties, prices shot up again. Is it not possible for history to repeat itself?”
“I understand your point,” acknowledged the chairman, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. “But this time a chill wind is blowing, and anyone who depends on diamonds for a living will be frozen out. We’ve discovered that Dorsett has budgeted over $100 million in advertising and promotion in all the major diamond buying countries. If, as we have come to believe he will, he sells for pennies on the dollar, high diamond values will be a thing of the past, because the public is about to be brainwashed into thinking they are worth little more than glass.”
The Frenchman sighed heavily. “I know my models would certainly look at other luxurious baubles as an eternal investment. If not diamond jewelry, I would have to buy them expensive sports cars.”
“What is behind Dorsett’s odd strategy?” asked the CEO of a major Southeast Asian airline. “Surely, the man isn’t stupid.”
“Stupid like a hyena waiting for a lion to fall asleep after eating only half its kill,” replied the German chairman. “My paid agents throughout the world banking network have learned that Dorsett has bought up seventy, perhaps as high as eighty percent of the major colored gemstone producing mines.”
There was a collective murmur of awareness as the latest information sank in. Every man at the table immediately recognized and assimilated Arthur Dorsett’s grand plan.
“Diabolically simple,” muttered the Japanese electronics magnate. “He pulls the rug from under diamonds before driving the price of rubies and emeralds through the roof.”
A Russian entrepreneur, who ran up a vast fortune by buying shutdown aluminum and copper mines in Siberia for next to nothing and then reopening them using Western technology, looked doubtful. “It sounds to me like— what is that saying in the West?— Dorsett is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Does he really expect to make enough on colored gemstones to make up for his losses on diamonds?”
The chairman nodded to the Japanese, who replied, “At the request of our chairman, I asked my financial analysts to run the figures through our data systems, Astounding as it seems, Arthur Dorsett, the House d Dorsett chain of retail stores and Dorsett Consolidated Mining Limited stand to make a minimum of $20 billion American Perhaps as high as $24 billion, depending on a predicted rising economy.”
“Good Lord,” exclaimed a British subject who owned a publishing empire. “I can’t begin to imagine what I would do with a profit of $24 billion.”
The German laughed. “I would use it to buy out your holdings.”
“You could send me packing to my Devonshire farm for a fraction of that amount.”
The United States member spoke up. A former secretary of state and the acknowledged head of one of America’s wealthiest families
, he was the founding father of the Foundation. “Do we have any idea where Dorsett’s diamond inventory is at the present time?”
“With his deadline only a few days away,” answered the South African, “I should guess that the stones not being currently cut are in transit to his stores.”
The chairman looked from the Italian shipping-fleet baron to the Asian airline magnate. “Either of you gentlemen have any knowledge of Dorsett’s shipping procedures?”
“I seriously doubt he would transport his diamonds by sea,” said the Italian. “Once a ship docked in port, he’d still have to arrange transport inland.”
“If I were Dorsett, I’d ship my stones by air,” agreed the Asian. “That way he could distribute immediately in almost any city in the world.”
“We might stop one or two of his planes,” said the Belgian industrialist, “but without knowing flight schedules, it would be impossible to close off the shipments entirely.”
The Asian shook his head negatively. “I think intercepting even one flight is optimistic. Dorsett has probably chartered a fleet of aircraft in Australia. I fear we’re closing the gate after the cows have escaped.”
The chairman turned to the South African representing the diamond cartel. “It appears the great masquerade is over. The artificially created value of diamonds is not forever after all.”
Rather than display any feelings of disillusionment, the South African actually smiled. “We’ve been counted out before. My board of directors and I consider this a minor setback, nothing more. Diamonds really are forever, gentlemen. Mark my words, the price on quality stones will rise again when the luster of sapphires, emeralds and rubies wears off. The cartel will fulfill its obligations to the Foundation through our other mineral interests. We’ll not sit on our thumbs patiently waiting for the market to return.”
The chairman’s private secretary entered the room and spoke to him softly. He nodded and looked at the South African. “I’m told a reply from your emissary to negotiate with Arthur Dorsett has arrived in the form of a package.”
“Odd that Strouser didn’t contact me directly.”
“I’ve asked that the package be sent in,” said the chairman. “I think we’re all anxious to see if Mr. Strouser was successful in his negotiations with Arthur Dorsett.”
A few moments later the secretary returned, holding in both hands a square box tied with a red-and-green ribbon. The chairman gestured toward the South African. The secretary stepped over and set the box on the table in front of him. A card was attached to the ribbon. He opened the envelope and read it aloud:
There is limestone and soapstone,
and there is hailstone and flagstone,
But behind Strouser’s tongue
is one now cheap as dung,
the gemstone worthless as brimstone.
The South African paused and stared at the box gravely. “That does not sound like Gabe Strouser. He is not a man noted for his levity.”
“I can’t say he’s good at writing limericks, either,” commented the French fashion designer.
“Go ahead, open the box,” pressed the Indian.
The ribbon was untied, the lid lifted and then the South African peered inside. His face blanched and he jumped to his feet so abruptly his chair crashed over backward, He ran, stumbling, over to a window, threw it open and retched.
Stunned, everyone around the table rushed over and inspected the hideous contents of the box. A few reacted like the South African, some reflected shocked horror, others, the ones who had ordered brutal killings during their rise to wealth, stared grimly without displaying emotion at the bloody head of Gabe Strouser, the grotesquely widened eyes, the diamonds spilling from his mouth.
“It seems Strouser’s negotiations were unsuccessful,” said the Japanese, fighting the bile that rose in his throat.
After taking a few minutes to recover, the chairman called in the chief of the Foundation’s security and ordered him to remove the head. Then he faced the members, who had slowly recovered and returned to their chairs. “I ask that you keep what we’ve just seen in the strictest secrecy.”
“What about that butcher Dorsett?” snapped the Russian, anger reddening his face. “He cannot go unpunished for murdering people representing the Foundation.”
“I agree,” said the Indian. “Vengeance must take the highest priority.”
“A mistake to act harshly,” cautioned the chairman. “Not a wise move to call attention to ourselves by getting carried away with revenge. One miscalculation in executing Dorsett and our activities will become open to scrutiny. I think it best to undermine Arthur Dorsett from another direction.”
“Our chairman has a point,” said the Dutchman, his English slow but sufficient. “The better course of action for the present would be to contain Dorsett and then move in when he falters, and make no mistake, a man of his character cannot help but make a grand mistake sometime in the near future.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We stand on the sidelines and wait him out.”
The chairman frowned. “I don’t understand. I thought the idea was to go on the offensive.”
“Unloading his diamond supply will obliterate Dorsett’s reserve assets,” explained the Dutchman. “It will take him at least a year before he can raise gemstone prices and take his profits. In the meantime we keep a grip on the diamond market, maintain our stockpiles and follow Dorsett’s lead by buying up control of the remaining colored gemstone production. Compete with him. My industrial spies inform me that Dorsett has concentrated on gems better known to the public while overlooking the rarer stones.”
“Can you give us an example of rarer stones?”
“Alexandrite, tsavorite, and red beryl come to mind.”
The chairman glanced at the others around the table. “Your opinions, gentlemen?”
The British publisher leaned forward with clenched fists. “A bloody sound idea. Our diamond expert has hit on a way to beat Dorsett at his own game while turning temporarily decreased diamond values to our advantage.”
“Then do we agree?” asked the chairman with a smile that was far from pleasant.
Every hand went up, and fourteen voices gave an affirmative yea.
CATASTROPHE IN PARADISE
Honolulu, Hawaii
A sandy-haired marine sergeant sat in a pair of sunbleached shorts and a red-flowered aloha shirt and drank a can of beer while a movie cassette tape in the VCR played on a television set. He slouched sumptuously on a couch that he had scrounged from one of the two luxury hotels on the Hawaiian island of Lanai that was being remodeled. The movie was an early John Wayne epic, Stagecoach. A virtual-reality headset that he had purchased from a Honolulu electronics store encompassed his head. After connecting the headset into the VCR, he could “enter” the television screen and mingle with the actors during scenes from the movie. He was lying beside John Wayne on the top of the stagecoach during the climactic chase scene, shooting at the pursuing Indians, when a loud buzzer cut into the action. Reluctantly, he removed the set from his head and scanned four security monitors that viewed strategic areas of the classified facility he guarded. Monitor three showed a car approaching over a dirt road leading through a pineapple field to the entry gate. The late morning sun glinted off its front bumper while the rear bumper pulled a trail of dust.
After several months of bleak duty, the sergeant had his routine down to a fine science. In the three minutes it took for the car to travel up the road, he changed into a neatly pressed uniform and was standing at attention beside the gate that barred access through a tunnel into the open core of the long-extinct volcano.
On closer scrutiny he saw that it was a Navy staff car. He stooped and peered in the side window. “This is a restricted area. Do you have permission to enter?”
The driver, in the whites of a Navy enlisted man, motioned a thumb over his shoulder. “Commander Gunn in the back has the necessary entry papers.”
Profici
ent, businesslike, Rudi Gunn had wasted no precious time in seeking permission to dismantle the huge dish antenna in the middle of the Palawai volcano on Lanai. Unraveling the convoluted thread through the bureaucracy to track down the agency that held jurisdiction over the antenna and then confronting the department that operated the space communications facility would be a month-long expedition in itself. The next chore, an impossible one, would be to find a bureaucrat willing to take responsibility for allowing the dish to be taken down and temporarily loaned to NUMA.
Gunn eliminated the useless red tape by merely having NUMA’s printing department dummy up an official-looking requisition form in triplicate, authorizing NUMA to relocate the antenna to another site on the Hawaiian island of Oahu for a secret project. The document was then signed by several workers in the printing department, on lines under lofty fictitious titles. What normally would have taken the better part of a year, before being officially denied, took less than an hour and a half, time mostly spent in setting the type.
When Gunn, wearing his uniform as a commander in the Navy, was driven up to the gate outside the tunnel entrance and produced his authorization to dismantle and remove the antenna, the sergeant in command of the deserted facility was dutifully cooperative. He was even more cooperative after assessing the exquisite form of Molly Faraday sitting next to Gunn in the backseat. If he had any thought of calling a superior officer for official confirmation it quickly melted as he stared at a convoy of large flatbed trucks and a portable crane that followed in the tracks of the staff car. Authority for an operation of this magnitude must have come from the top of the ladder.
“Good to have some company,” the sergeant said with a wide smile. “It gets pretty boring up here with nary a soul to talk to while I’m on duty.”
“How many are you?” asked Molly sweetly through the rear window.
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