“Pretty, isn’t it?” McCaine mocked.
John stared speechlessly at the building. It was an architectural monstrosity that looked like St. Peter’s Cathedral adorned with a dozen minarets.
“It’s the largest palace in the world,” McCaine said. “It was designed by a student of Le Corbusier, who wasn’t very happy about the results, because the sultan had a bunch of extra wishes he insisted on integrating. The palace has eighteen hundred rooms, two hundred fifty toilets and covers an area large enough for two and a half thousand single-family homes. Internal designers were brought in from Italy, glass makers from Venice, structural engineers from the US, silk wallpaper from France, forty varieties of marble from Italy, bars of gold from India for the throne room, onyx tiles from Morocco, and so forth.”
“Good gracious, that must’ve cost a fortune,” John said awed.
“Around five hundred million dollars, a bit more than our plane, but that was back in eighty-one.”
“Our jumbo looks better.”
“But it’s not as spacious.” McCaine shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever. I wanted you to see this, maybe now you will believe me that you’re living below your means.”
John remembered those words when they returned to London and he went home to his stately home. Home — well … It was imposing and luxurious and all that, but it was so huge and had so many employees that it seemed to him more like a train station than a home. And this was still not up to standard? How much more swank and pomp did he need? And what for?
He thought back sometimes — when he had time to do so with all this traveling — to those first weeks in Italy, how idyllic everything was. Back then it had bothered him to have one or two bodyguards following him everywhere he went. Meanwhile an ever-growing security organization had developed around him, a private army that checked out every step he took before he took it. He had to inform them in the morning what he had planned to do, where he wanted to go and where he wanted to stay, and then they would swarm out to check, examine, secure and discuss among themselves the pros and cons of this and that. There were lots of them and they did their best to be discrete and keep distant, but he knew they got nervous each time he was outdoors, and especially where there were a lot of people. He tried to keep going to such areas to a minimum, even if it made him feel like a prisoner and not like a wealthy man; a prisoner being transported from one cell to another.
But he would not complain, not to McCaine, who worked like a man possessed, or to anyone else. He was the heir to the Fontanelli fortune; he was the fulfiller of the prophecy. He would accept the inconveniences.
Jeremy was waiting for him. He didn’t seem as impressive a butler any more now he was in a real English stately home. “A Mr. Copeland called,” he reported. “He said it’s a life or death situation.”
John’s forehead was covered with wrinkles at this news. “How did he get this number?”
Jeremy looked unhappy. “I’m afraid, sir, that such things can be found out these days.”
“If he calls again get rid of him. I don’t want to speak with him.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeremy said with a slight bow, and added, with an attitude that John would not have stood for in anyone else, “Ahem, sir, there is one more thing …”
John actually didn’t want to discuss anything anymore today. He just wanted to relax on his sofa and listen to some music, Bruce Springsteen maybe or Muddy Waters. “Yes, what?” ”Please, Jeremy, look at me when you speak to me.”
The butler attempted to straighten his back. He managed a few degrees. “Sir, it appears that some of the house personnel are … ahem …. stealing, sir.”
“Stealing?”
“There has been quite an amount of food taken and a number of valuable items are missing in the castle, sir.”
John looked at him, stumped. It seemed absurd to have the same people he employed in his home steal from him. “Are you sure?”
“Unfortunately, yes, sir.” It was obvious that he could not keep the upright position for very long.
John’s first reaction was to ignore it. He was wealthy enough not to worry about a bit of thievery. But then he realized it did bother him. He didn’t like the idea that every chambermaid, every gardener, or every cook he looked at might be the one stealing from him within his own four walls. Okay, in his own four hundred walls.
“Show me the books,” he told Jeremy.
When he saw the records he noticed that it was far worse than he had thought. Jeremy was simply overburdened with so many employees in the house. Lists that recorded incoming goods were sloppily kept, bills weren’t paid for weeks. The thefts had been noticed only because they got bolder. He had no other choice but to look into the matter. In order not to punish the honest employees, he had to find the guilty ones and fire them immediately. He would have no choice but to call the police. He would also need an additional head of the household personnel.
He felt the first cracks appearing in the ice beneath his feet.
McCaine, as usual, was up before the paperboy brought the newspapers and brought them along on his way to the office to read them there. On this particular morning he stopped dead when he saw the headline. He read the first page then read it again, then once more, and then read it again. The Schweizer Bankverein SBC, and the Schweizerische Bankengesellschaft had merged. The new bank was called the United Bank of Switzerland, or UBS. It had assets of eight hundred billion dollars and managed assets of one and a half trillion dollars. UBS was now the largest bank on earth.
The article stated that talks had been going on for some time, but in light of the ever-growing Fontanelli conglomerate it was accelerated and finalized.
It was the first time McCaine’s neighbors heard him howl with anger.
$27,000,000,000,000
JOHN HAD NEVER before seen McCaine so upset. “Here!” he shouted and threw the paper on the desk and paced back and forth like a lion in a cage. “They united against us!”
John took the paper. Another merger. Yesterday it was the United Bank of Switzerland. Today it was Mobil Oil and Texaco that joined together. Once again the reasons given for the fusions were thought to be the only way to counter the domineering position of Fontanelli Enterprises.
“And the cartel authorities are even backing them,” McCaine fumed, “the same cartel authority that stopped our plans to buy Texaco!”
“We wanted to buy Texaco?” John wondered. “I didn’t know that.”
McCaine paused and waved the question away. “The negotiation only lasted a few days. Why would I have bothered you with this?” He balled his fists. “America! Dammit! We’re not ready yet to take on America, but I wished we could put some fire under Washington’s ass!”
“You’re talking about a democratically elected government.” John felt anger at McCaine’s words. Even his voice sounded cooler, more distant and disapproving in his ears than he had intended. But so what? He had to let out his discontentment. “In places like North Dakota and Minnesota there are guys who built cabins out in the wilderness, arm themselves to the teeth and bitch at the government, just like you just did.”
McCaine didn’t respond, and just looked at him intently, as if he had x-ray vision. He slowly opened his fist and lowered his hand, turned around, and went unhurriedly to the window. His anger seemed to have dissipated by the time he got there. “John,” he said staring out the window, “you still haven’t understood what’s going on here. Otherwise you would not make such ridiculous comparisons.” He turned around. “Those guys in North Dakota … I know some of them. Believe it or not, I have even spoken with a few of them. I know how they think. They believe that things can’t go on for much longer the way they have been, and when everything breaks apart they want to have a safe place to live. A place they will defend with all the weapons they have. They are the most self-centered people there are, because they think ‘to hell with the rest of the world, as long as I survive.’”
John nodded grimly. “
Exactly.”
“But governments,” McCaine continued, “including democratically elected ones, are exactly the same! Who voted them into office? The people. A government must represent the wishes of the people and most people think to hell with everyone else, the main thing is that we’re doing well.”
John opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t know what. “Hmm,” he said and wished he weren’t always so helpless and awkward during such conversations.
“What are we doing here? We’re striving for a position from which we can re-direct the world into a better direction. It isn’t for us. We have everything; we have more than enough of everything. Both of us could give away lots of money without a problem. Do you understand? We’re both so rich that there shouldn’t even be the slightest suspicion of us wanting to have more. What we’ll be doing will follow a logical and exact set criteria. Soon, we will have a computer model available to present to the world, the most detailed cybernetic simulation that ever existed. With its help we’ll be able to follow every important change and foresee all its consequences. We will be able to give a concrete reason for every decision we make. The only yardstick will be the survival of the human race; the greatest possible wellbeing for the greatest number of people.” McCaine was standing in front of John gesturing imploringly. “Don’t you understand that lobbying of every kind is our enemy? Every type! It doesn’t matter if it’s a government, a trade union, a syndicate, a lobby group or anything else. They are all organizations that seek to get the greatest advantage for their groups of interest. They want injustice! Do you understand? That is the goal of every lobbyist — to create injustice, an imbalance in favor of its own interests!”
John had involuntarily recoiled a bit; to have McCaine like this before him speak so fervently and full of steam was like standing in the way of a moving locomotive. But John had to admit that what McCaine said was true, though it sounded unusual, almost like blasphemy, but it had its own inner logic. “I’ve never seen it like that before,” he admitted.
“Yes.” McCaine’s glance met John’s. “I knew that.”
“I mean, in my whole adult life I’ve never missed voting in an election; as long as I was living in New York, at any rate. My grandfather taught me that, again and again. To exercise my right to vote … that many, many people sacrificed their lives for this right. Back then he…”
“Fled from Mussolini, I know. He was right. Democracy is a great accomplishment, a fine thing; I don’t want to argue against that at all. But you have to able to afford it!” McCaine took a breath of air and looked at John as if to ascertain what he could and could not expect him to accept. “You won’t like what I have to say now.”
“So far many things you’ve said weren’t that great.”
“It’s not my fault. That is how the world is. When danger is imminent, there is no time for long discussions, or you’re dead before a decision can be made.” He lifted a finger and pointed at John. “In times of need, it’s good to have someone to take over command. A leader. Do you know where the word dictator comes from? From Latin. In ancient Rome, a single leader was voted in for a limited time period in times of crisis. That was a dictator. In times of danger, democracy takes a pause … always and at any time. Study history unbiased and you’ll see that I’m right.”
John felt a well of discomfort growing inside him. “You want us to become dictators?”
McCaine laughed heartily. “What else would you call what we’ve been doing all this time? Two people are working to get into a position to tell the world what to do. That’s the plan, isn’t it? Has been from the start.”
“You never called it a dictatorship.”
“If I had back then, you would have stood up and left.”
“I’m thinking about doing that right now.”
“Please go if you want, no one is holding you back. It is your trillion dollars. But, John, you still have a prophecy to fulfill. Before you go, please tell me how you plan to do that. Your wonderful democracy hasn’t even been able to take such a tiny little step as to ban CFCs, not to mention much more effective measures. Please tell me what you want to do. If you can think of a better way, let’s hear it. I searched for a quarter of a century and didn’t found one.”
John stared at him with growing consternation. He knew McCaine was right, as awful as it sometimes sounded. John had to look away and felt he was carrying a great burden. “That’s not easy, you know. I mean, I’ve never had a clear concept for my own life. But I sure as hell never wanted to be a dictator!” Even so, he had secretly known all along that this was the only way things could be done.
“John,” McCaine said in a low tone, almost softly, “we are disgusted with people like Saddam Hussein not because they are dictators, but because they want only to kill people. That’s what makes them into tyrants. We, John, won’t kill anyone, we will save people. We will have a type of power that no one ever had before, and we will be the ones who steer humanity away from the disaster it’s currently hurtling towards. John looked up, dithering, his mind a whirl of confusion.
“I know it is not easy. I had twenty-five years to get used to this concept, and even that wasn’t easy.”
“Indeed it’s not.” His voice sounded odd, almost dry.
“I’ve also voted at every election.” He gave a wry chuckle. “But I didn’t vote for Major.”
John remembered the dinner … the prime minister’s cool reaction to his plans. “I guess I’ll get over it.”
“So, are we still working together?”
“Yes.”
“I need to know if you’re going to stand behind me, John.”
John sighed and tasted the awful taste of betrayal on his tongue. “Yes, I’m behind you.”
“Thank you.”
It was silent for few moments. They could hear the bells of Big Ben from far away.
“So what will we do next?” asked John.
McCaine stood by the side of the desk, and drummed his fingers silently on the surface. His eyes looked to something indistinct in the distance. “The fight has begun,” he said. “So we will fight.”
Directors, chairmen, and managers came to London from all over the world over the next few days. For the first time the conference room in the Fontanelli Enterprise headquarters was so full that additional chairs had to be brought in.
The supreme boss of all these directors, chairmen of the board and managers, John Salvatore Fontanelli, richest man on earth and designated savior of humanity, opened the meeting with a short and sententious speech over the threat to natural recourses, and the central role that the protection of the environment would play throughout the conglomerate. The theme of his whole speech could be summed up in a few phrases: “Please keep in mind that environmental protection must be affordable. We can’t survive on good intentions alone. Only if we are able to radically reduce waste in our companies will we be able to secure our future.”
John retreated back into his office and left the details up to McCaine. He was still not a great orator. He suffered so much from stage fright that just the prospect of a little speech like that had kept him running to the bathroom, and he had barely slept a wink the night before. He had tossed and turned in bed, repeating the speech in his mind over and over again and now he was so sweaty that he had to take a shower and put on fresh clothes. To think he had laughed when McCaine insisted they had a bathroom and dressing room for each of their offices!
“To me all this talk about protecting the environment seemed a bit phony,” he told McCaine when he came in for a moment to get some files and transparencies with colored diagrams on them. “I mean, isn’t it all just to earn more money?”
McCaine looked up at him with a surly expression. “You disappoint me, John. I don’t expect those people in there,” he pointed a thumb to the conference room, “to have any understanding of what all this is about. But I do expect it of you.”
“Appears to be my destiny; everyone expects me to fulfill
everything, but I end up disappointing them all.”
“All right, one more time and please take notes. We’re the biggest company in the world, right? For now, at any rate. What we have to worry about is keeping that position. What we don’t want to see is several concentrations of power. Then we’d have a stalemate, and nothing that needs be done would be.” McCaine collected the transparencies and held them out towards John as if he might poke him in the chest with them. “Is that so difficult to understand? Think in long terms, John. The long-term thinker will win.”
With that Malcolm McCaine went back to the conference room. He looked at the people gathered around the huge table staring at him like scared bunnies. He adjusted the microphone and told them the same things that he would say in similar meetings in the coming days: “Gentlemen, I want only three things from you, first profits, second profits, and third profits.”
One of the few women who attended the meeting that had actually been a punishment detail in disguise, was Gladys Vane, the manager of Polytone Media. It was the new record company that had been formed from many previous independent European record companies and was headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. During the past three months, two top performers, a female pop vocalist from Israel and an English band, had gone to EMI Electrola, which had hurt the quarterly earnings quite a bit, making them go into the red. She had to listen to a lot of complaints during the meeting.
When she was back in Brussels, she called a meeting with the bosses of the company’s subsidiaries and doled out similar lectures to explain the seriousness of the situation.
“But it won’t work without cooperating with the artists,” the boss of the Spanish subsidiary told her. “We must invest in them. It takes time before a performer is established, but if we don’t give them the necessary time to do so we soon won’t have any performers anymore.”
“If we don’t earn any profits, the performers soon won’t have a record company at all,” Gladys Vane retorted. She didn’t want to get another bitching out from that confounded British guy. “What I’ve just said stands; anyone who isn’t earning money gets the boot.”
One Trillion Dollars Page 37
