Kremlin Conspiracy

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘What conclusions have you reached?’ she said.

  ‘That we haven’t spoken about anything,’ he said, purposefully forceful.

  She blinked, surprised. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We’ve agreed upon responsibility, which I accept is important,’ said the American. ‘But apart from that, everything has been generalities. I think we should start talking specifically.’

  ‘About what?’

  Pike accepted that she was leading the conversation again, manoeuvring him into the position of having always to offer an opinion, enabling her the safe option of a reaction. But he didn’t mind that. His was the ultimate control. He decided to show it. ‘Your problems,’ he said.

  ‘I thought they were mutual,’ she sidestepped cleverly.

  Pike smiled in appreciation. ‘A lender lends, a debtor borrows.’

  ‘Very epigrammatic,’ she said, enjoying the game. It wasn’t just the sexual promise. He was sharp-minded, too. Malik had tried, in the beginning, but lately … Another mental slide, she realized angrily. What reason did she have for comparing the two men.

  Pike decided to play on, easily remembering the phrase. ‘Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thouo west.’

  Lydia grimaced artificially. ‘I prefer Hamlet to Lear,’ she said. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’

  ‘You didn’t finish,’ said Pike.

  She frowned, uncertain.

  ‘The following line,’ said Pike. ‘“For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”’

  He hadn’t intended speaking directly to her, nor that she would return his gaze. Their eyes held. For several moments neither spoke. Then Pike said, ‘I prefer comedies. Do you know the line in As You Like It? – “Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.” ’

  ‘Stop it!’ she demanded. She jerked up from the couch but having stood appeared uncertain about what to do next. She wandered over to the window, looked out at the lake, black and unseen now in the night. Faraway lights pricked out from the hills and mountains, like resting stars.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Pike was hot with self anger, unable to believe himself capable of what he’d done. The silence was longer this time, doing nothing to help.

  ‘Do you want me to go?’ he said.

  ‘We’re supposed to be here for a purpose.’

  ‘We were beginning to talk about specifics.’

  She burned back into the room, looking determinedly at him. ‘What specifics?’

  They were running for the hide again, Pike knew. Behind its protection, he recited the new indebtedness of the Eastern bloc countries, itemizing them one by one, setting each new commitment against their previously existing loans, and then he detailed the Russian involvement. He barely looked at his preparatory notes, so it was an impressive economic dissertation; recovered and feeling more secure now, Lydia allowed her admiration to show. That admiration increased when he disclosed his awareness of the loans which Moscow, in turn, had extended to the Third World.

  ‘You’ve been extremely thorough,’ she said.

  ‘It was necessary,’ said Pike. ‘There has been an uncanny regularity about the requests for rescheduling …’ Remembering Romania, he added, ‘Sometimes even an arrogance.’

  ‘Rescheduling requests are not unusual in international banking,’ said Lydia.

  ‘Regrettably not,’ agreed Pike. ‘They need to become so; they need to be eradicated completely.’

  ‘So should the threat of a nuclear holocaust,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Why did you agree to this meeting?’ demanded Pike, forceful again.

  ‘I thought I made it clear in the beginning,’ said Lydia. ‘My ministry felt there could be a useful …’

  ‘Your ministry alone couldn’t have made such a decision,’ cut off the American. ‘They wouldn’t have had the authority. It had to be a government decision.’

  ‘The approach came from you, not from us,’ Lydia retorted with equal force. ‘Whose anxiety does that mirror—the Fund’s or a combination of its 146 member countries?’

  Assembled in an equation like that, the Western concern appeared heavier than that of the East, conceded Pike. Attempting to adjust the scales, he said, ‘Mutual concern rather than mutual interest?’

  ‘The Soviet Union have nothing about which to be concerned,’ she insisted.

  ‘What about the Third World debts?’

  ‘Perfectly normal banking,’ she said.

  It was like calling a poker hand with no aces visible on the table, decided Pike. But it was the most obvious gamble. ‘If it were perfectly normal banking,’ he said, ‘there would not have been any need for Moscow to withdraw its credit facility to Argentina. Or for the rescheduling requests from Hungary and Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. It was perfectly normal banking to borrow at one rate and lend at another slightly higher, giving you a spread, but it only works if your debtor meets the payments enabling you to meet your initial commitments. And now your Third World debtors aren’t meeting the payments. Which means you’ve had to call in other loans to meet your liabilities to the West.’

  Lydia appeared to falter very slightly, then said, ‘There are temporary setbacks in any business arrangement. You’re surely not suggesting any difficulty involving the Soviet Union?’

  ‘Seeking clarification,’ said Pike. She was playing a bluffing hand without any aces.

  ‘Our gold reserves are substantial,’ said Lydia. ‘There’s been a public announcement.’

  ‘Of which I’m aware. I’m also aware that you’ve disposed of a considerable quantity,’ said Pike, pressing his advantage. ‘There’s a limit to the fiscal responsibility of continuous sales: a reserve level.’

  ‘Of which we’re aware,’ said the woman, picking up Pike’s phrase. ‘Before which there is another alternative.’

  Pike hesitated, wondering if she had an ace after all. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Declaring them in default,’ said Lydia simply.

  Pike stared across the intervening space at the woman, unable to respond immediately. Not just one ace, he thought. All four and another up her sleeve, to make sure. ‘That’s an extreme measure,’ he said.

  ‘Not for us,’ she said. ‘Our banking is totally centralized, without the diffuseness of the West. We’re not talking about a default on every debtor. Quite obviously we would choose the country owing us the smallest amount: one easily covered by the gold reserves we’ve already talked about. It would only need that one to provide an example.’

  So simple, thought Pike: so horrifyingly, destructively simple. He needed time to think, to assess. And to talk. To his father. Or to Volger. Even Burnham. Anyone who was fully briefed about the extent of the Western commitment and could understand the implication of what the woman sitting just six feet away from him had just blandly announced, as if it were some irrefutable logic. But he didn’t have anyone else. He’d connived and schemed and manoeuvred to do it by himself, imagining safety in being merely the conduit. But it wasn’t as simple as that any more.

  ‘The useful exchange,’ recalled Pike, understanding her initial remark.

  ‘We’ve agreed responsibility,’ reminded Lydia. ‘We felt there was a need to reassure your Fund and the countries it represents that there was no danger.’

  ‘I appreciate the reassurance,’ said Pike.

  ‘Then it’s been a worthwhile meeting.’

  Pike discerned the concluding note in her voice and said hurriedly, ‘I’d like to talk further.’

  ‘It’s late,’ said the woman.

  ‘Tomorrow then,’ said Pike, careless of the anxiety in his voice.

  Lydia seemed to consider the request. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  Pike felt a surge of relief at having prolonged the encounter. Straying from behind the barrier he said, ‘We haven’t eaten.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Lydia.

  ‘Shall we?’

  ‘I’m n
ot hungry,’ said the woman, trying to remain concealed.

  ‘Neither am I.’

  They continued to look at each other, each matching the other’s stare. Lydia felt again the wet warmth she had achieved alone that afternoon in the locked room. Being black, her dress wouldn’t show any stain.

  ‘Tomorrow then,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said not moving.

  ‘I think you should go.’

  ‘Do you want me to?’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ Her voice was uneven, so the outrage failed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Stop just saying yes!’

  He got up, went over to where she was sitting and reached out for her.

  ‘No!’ said Lydia.

  Pike bent down, taking her arms and pulling her up from the couch and then towards him. For several moments she stood stiff, arms tight against her side. He had to tip her head to kiss her and she tried initially to resist that too, lips clamped together. She twisted her head to say no, but as her mouth opened his tongue stopped the word and then she was biting back, not stiff any longer.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘No.’

  In the bedroom they played, undressing each other with tingling slowness, neither touching the other’s sex.

  ‘Please!’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can’t wait!’

  She didn’t, flooding as he thrust into her and then bursting again when he did. They ate at each other, first she at him and then he at her, both climaxing again. Then they explored the secret places and for her it was the first time and she moaned with the painful pleasure of it.

  When they rested, before starting again, Pike said, ‘This could destroy us.’

  ‘Me more than you,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘No.’ Lydia knew now why she had become discontented with Malik.

  During his term of office Nelson Jordan moved back into the Oval Office the desk made from the oak timbers of HMS Resolute presented to America by Queen Victoria in 1880 and previously used by Jimmy Carter. When Pike entered the room Jordan got up and led the IMF director to the easy chairs bordering the fireplace, indicating that the meeting was informal.

  ‘Good to see you, Tom.’

  ‘Good to be here, Mr President.’

  ‘You’re a bourbon man, right?’

  ‘That’ll be fine, sir.’

  Jordan sat with his legs stretched straight out before him, waiting until the White House orderly withdrew and said, ‘Appreciate your coming like this: one or two things about this money business I want to get clear in my mind.’

  ‘Of course, Mr President,’ said Pike. Would there be confirmation tonight?

  ‘So what have we got?’ demanded Jordan. ‘Real trouble or a passing problem?’

  ‘There are varying viewpoints,’ said Pike cautiously, wondering if he could draw the politician out.

  ‘Bell says it’s trouble,’ disclosed Jordan. ‘Claims there’s been a gross miscalculation and everything could go down the tube.’

  Pike stared at Peal’s portrait of George Washington over the fireplace, tempering the earlier judgment. Not confirmation, he decided: comparison, instead. ‘That’s an extreme view,’ he said, still cautious. ‘Certainly not one with which I agree.’

  ‘A passing problem then?’

  He was going to have to be extremely careful, Pike realized. Aware that the Treasury Secretary would already have told Jordan of the meeting, Pike said, ‘I wouldn’t have adjusted the conference of the Interim Committee if I’d thought it was a passing problem.’

  ‘So what the hell have we got then?’ repeated the President, showing Texan impatience.

  Pike refused to be intimidated by it, knowing it would be the wrong attitude. He appeared to consider the question and then said, ‘Uncertainty. Which is where banking can cause problems where no problems exist. I redefined the Interim Committee because I thought it right for there to be an entirely secret, secure discussion among internatinal bankers and finance ministers just to curb that uncertainty. There’s nothing in any of the rescheduling requests that can’t be absorbed at the moment …’

  ‘At the moment …’ seized the President astutely.

  Pike felt a twitch of annoyance at his clumsiness. ‘It’s necessary to clarify the Soviet position,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’ve set up this meeting in Switzerland.’

  ‘Shouldn’t that have been a diplomatic approach?’

  An echo of the Treasury Secretary’s objection or a genuine question from the President? wondered Pike. ‘I considered it right that the approach should be made on behalf of a number of nations, rather than just one specific government. The liability at the moment is that of the International Monetary Fund, not that of the United States of America or any other country.’

  ‘Appreciate the point,’ said Jordan. ‘Weren’t you surprised the Soviets agreed as they did?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Pike honestly. ‘Encouraged, too. We’ve assessed a new financial attitude from Moscow and their response to our request seems to support that view.’

  ‘Invested a lot of responsibility in your son.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t thought him capable,’ said Pike.

  ‘Remember our conversation a little while ago?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Pike.

  ‘Nothing fixed for when you leave the Fund?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe we should talk, if you get an offer?’

  ‘Of course, Mr President.’

  ‘Like I said before, it’s important to get this thing right,’ said Jordan. ‘Important for us all.’

  ‘Believe me, Mr President, I know just how important it is,’ said Pike.

  Chapter 35

  They became satiated and sore with sex, aching from exhaustion but unwilling to stop. Throughout the night each woke the other from a half sleep to start again until, in the morning, Pike finally left for his own suite. They both needed time to sleep. And to think.

  Pike awoke before midday and lay on his back, considering what had happened. Stupid, he decided realistically: incredibly, insanely, ridiculously stupid. More so because he could have stopped it happening and hadn’t. Instead he had allowed a totally unnecessary, potentially disastrous difficulty to intrude into a situation where, suddenly, there were already sufficient potentially disastrous difficulties. How disastrous? he asked himself, straining for objectivity. Me more than you, she’d said. Which was right. The earlier reflections about sexual entrapment had been as stupid as everything else. Lydia Kirov’s disgrace would be greater than his. So he couldn’t be compromised publicly – and to think of it in terms of disaster was an exaggeration. Another stupidity. Would she use it in the negotiations he wanted to continue? He didn’t know the answer to that. Would he? If he could, he accepted honestly. He’d use anything to prevent what she suggested. But it would be even pressure, neither of them having a greater advantage than the other. Me more than you, he thought again: the fact was that neither had the greater advantage over the other but the reality was that Lydia felt she had more to lose. Maybe not stupid at all. Maybe, without planning it, he was more in control than he had realized.

  Not once did he think of Jane.

  Lydia Kirov awoke startled, instantly alert and instantly aware of what she had done. Instantly aware, too, that for the first time ever she’d lost control. What else had she lost? He could not publicly use it, because he would disgrace himself as well as her. Privately then? It was a possibility but Lydia felt she could confront that. She remembered what they had done and touched her own soreness, a familiar place, smiling in recollection. Perhaps she hadn’t lost as much as she had initially feared.

  Not once did she think of Malik.

  They arranged that this time she should come to his suite and when she entered there was an immediate embarrassment, an atmosphere of tension which he relieved by
pulling Lydia towards him and holding her, feeling the instant excitement at her closeness.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said.

  ‘You already asked me that.’

  ‘I’m asking you again.’

  ‘In one way,’ she said, surprising him. She pushed herself away, looking up at him. She kissed him longingly.

  ‘What way?’ he said.

  ‘You know the way!’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Will you let it?’

  ‘I’ll try not to.’

  ‘So will I,’ he said.

  ‘Promise me?’

  ‘I promise.’ As if to prove it he moved away from her and she smiled, recognizing the gesture.

  ‘I don’t know what else there is to discuss anyway,’ she said.

  He led her to the couches, sitting opposite as they had in her rooms. ‘Your Third World difficulties,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve already explained how we’re able to deal with those.’

  ‘You were wonderful,’ he said.

  ‘You said you wouldn’t let it get in the way.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I just wanted you to know.’

  ‘I’m sore.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘You promised …’

  ‘Your way wouldn’t work,’ he said, conscious at once of her face tightening at the professional challenge.

  ‘Of course it would work!’

  ‘Which country are you going to declare in default?’

  ‘That decision hasn’t been reached yet. I couldn’t tell you anyway.’

  ‘In Africa?’ he guessed, confidently.

  ‘Probably. That’s where the problems are arising.’

  ‘Then it wouldn’t work,’ he repeated.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There isn’t an African country which is not in debt to the West: I’d guess more deeply in debt than they are to you. The moment you declare default, then whoever in the West is involved will do the same, trying to grab what equity they can to minimize their loss.’

  ‘The diversification is a problem of your banking system, not ours,’ said Lydia, completely in control of herself.