Gold

by Darrell Delamaide

  “I’ve seen a Rand mine in full operation.”

  Halden paused as he reflected exactly what that flat statement implied.

  “Whoever thought financial journalism would require hazardous-duty pay?” he said with a grim chuckle. “Goddamn. It almost makes sense. Can we talk to the fellow who wrote this letter?”

  “No. He was killed a week ago. His car went off the road.”

  “Jesus!”

  “You’ll see that there seems to be collusion between South Africa and the Soviet Union.” Drew told Halden about his earlier conversation with Kraml and the mysterious comings and goings at Marcus’s place.

  “Our famous spooks in Washington don’t have a clue. At least, not anything I’ve heard, and I would’ve heard,” Halden reflected. He put on his glasses to look over the letter again. “I’m glad you came to me. What are you going to do about this?”

  “I’ve got to try to get some sort of statement from the South Africans and the Soviets; confront them with the notion, get a denial or some sort of response.” He told Halden about his trip to South Africa and his talk with du Plessis.

  “He looked me right in the eye and told me that at least half the country’s capacity is out for months,” Drew said.

  Halden grunted. “That one could look you in the eye and tell you the moon was made of green cheese and reserved for whites only. I saw the story; it was helpful, or at least it seemed so at the time.” He paused. “The mine you saw might have been one of the survivors. But the big Rand mines were supposed to be the hardest hit.” He shook his head again. “Jesus, this is a bomb! Why did you come to me?”

  “It seemed to me that the potential impact of this news could destabilize the markets, and I didn’t want to take the responsibility all by myself.” Drew looked straight at the Fed president.

  “You sure as hell didn’t hesitate to destabilize them a few weeks ago.”

  “I got the idea after our meeting in London that you might prefer to have some advance knowledge,” the journalist explained. “Besides, this isn’t breaking news, really; it’s more like the negation of breaking news.”

  “What does Madison say?”

  Drew hesitated. “He doesn’t like it much.”

  “Won’t back you up, huh?”

  “He told me to get off the story.”

  “But you’re not going to, are you?”

  Drew shook his head.

  “I see,” Halden said.

  The two men looked at each other. Drew had no idea whether his expression betrayed his knowledge of Halden’s real attitude.

  “Drew, I’m not going to interfere,” Halden said to the younger man. “I’m not going to call on your patriotism, tell you you owe it to your country not to endanger its interests with this story. There’s no doubt that if this is true, and if you break the story, the situation is going to get real hairy. As you know, there’s a lot of other things coming to a boil as well, with the Latin Americans and that whole mess.

  “But I respect your position. In fact, I think our positions are similar.” Halden paused. “It comes down to integrity. I have the firm conviction—and working with Peter Wagner strengthened that; I know he feels the same way—that in the long run markets can function only if they keep their integrity. All this bullshit of papering over the gaps, maintaining fictions, might be expedient, even necessary in the short term, but in the long haul, things can keep on working only if the foundation is solid, if the structure is sound.

  “Even if I wanted to, even if I could, what good would it do me to block this story? Sooner or later it’s going to come out; not even Marcus with all his tricks can hide a thousand tons of gold!

  “I’ll tell you the truth, Drew. I think the structure is so rotten that it’s only a question of time before it comes crashing down. I don’t know if your gold story will do it—who knows? But I do know a market can’t function on lies and fictions; not this one, not any.”

  Halden sat back and looked at his visitor. Drew was amazed at the central banker’s frankness: if he had not already heard Carol’s theory, Halden’s long speech would have taken on a more noble, innocent meaning.

  Drew cleared his throat. “It’s a question of integrity for me too. My own conviction is that a journalist has a duty to the truth. It’s not the journalist’s role to assess the news—I mean, he has to sift through it, find the important things, verify their reliability—but he can’t judge the news, decide whether it’s good, for him or for society, if he reports it. His job is to deliver the news; there are other people—people like you—who have the responsibility for events.”

  A look of doubt passed quickly over Halden’s face, but he recovered immediately. “That’s why I said I think our positions are very similar.”

  There was a sudden embarrassment in the air. The atmosphere had grown intimate; both men had a sense of the importance of what they were saying to each other.

  “Your talking to me helps me a lot, though,” Halden said.

  “I’m not sure when I can go with the story, but I have to do something fast,” Drew said.

  “This is a critical week—you know that—with this Latin American ultimatum hanging over the market.”

  Drew nodded. The two men looked at each other. “All right, then, Drew, we’ll leave it at that. You do your job and I’ll do mine, and God help us all.”

  ~

  Drew did not pay attention to the movie, nor did he sleep. The plane was only half full, so there was no one next to him. The cabin was dark except for the flickerings of the movie screen. Most of the passengers seemed to be sleeping, wrapped up in the thin airline blankets.

  Drew felt exhausted but was too nervous to fall asleep. Carol had taken the afternoon off and they had spent a tender hour in her apartment before she drove him to JFK airport for his flight to London.

  The journalist thought vaguely about adding up the number of miles he had flown in the past few days—Johannesburg to London, London to Zurich and back, London to Atlanta, Atlanta to New York, and now New York to London. He gave up the effort.

  The meeting with Madison had been disagreeable, but it was his ambiguous encounter with Halden that upset Drew more. He felt very strongly that Carol had correctly analyzed the central banker’s intentions, which meant that Drew was another pawn in Halden’s strategy. His exposure of the gold hoax would give the Fed president the catalyst he needed to carry out his plan.

  For Marcus, too, the journalist was a tool, an instrument. And for du Plessis and the Russians. He had been duped, and the treachery still rankled. But his discovery of the gold mine, and Van der Merwe’s and Kraml’s deaths, made his own chagrin less important.

  One idea drummed at him insistently—he could refuse to expose the hoax. It would give Marcus and the South Africans more time before the market collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, but it would foil Halden’s plans.

  Each time the idea came to mind, Drew rejected it. He repeated to himself the reasons for disclosing what he knew. He was a journalist; he had no right to keep secrets. He had no leverage, either, to compel any of the parties to change their behavior; the matter was much bigger than any single journalist. His only weapon was disclosure, and his previous mistake magnified his obligation to use it.

  Still, the idea came back to him. He had no obligation to risk his life to see the mines in South Africa; he had no right to endanger Kraml’s life by spying on Marcus; he could not arrogate the responsibility for ushering in a recession or even a new depression.

  But Van der Merwe had been killed in the visit to the mine; Kraml was dead because he had helped Drew. Halden needed him to carry out his megalomaniac plan to sabotage the world monetary system, but that was the central banker’s own responsibility and that of the officials above him.

  The arguments twisted and turned inside Drew’s head as the airliner crossed the Atlantic. The journalist saw that reason alone could not resolve the turmoil of his emotions. He resented the hoax
, the attempts on his life; he seethed at the deaths of Kraml and Van der Merwe; but he feared the consequences of Halden’s plan.

  His feeling for Carol was a solace in this anguish. For all its comfort, though, his new bond to her could not remove his responsibility. Carol had been supportive, but she could not tell him what action was right or wrong. It was his decision alone.

  Drew had called his office from Carol’s apartment, instructing Tom to send identical telexes to the ambassadors of South Africa and the Soviet Union in London: HAVE NEW EVIDENCE REGARDING GOLD MINE SABOTAGE AND SITUATION IN GOLD MARKET. SEEK OFFICIAL COMMENT BEFORE PUBLICATION. PLEASE RESPOND SOONEST. DUMESNIL WCN.

  Drew wanted to give the South Africans and the Russians until noon, just a few hours away, to respond. Then he would have to decide whether to break his story.

  The movie was over. Drew slid up the window shade to see a faint glow of dawn ahead. The lights came on in the aircraft as the cabin crew prepared to serve breakfast. Drew shut his eyes and tried to blank out his troubled thoughts. Carol’s image filled his mind. It helped him to know himself, to know what he would do.

  SEVENTEEN

  The blazing December sun already portended summer, while the air held a slight velvety balminess to remind Michael Mijosa it was spring. The departure of a large part of the government for Cape Town meant a slacker pace on the grounds of the Union Buildings.

  Mijosa was content, though his contentment had nothing to do with the weather or his work. The black gardener was glad that the hour for the big ALF offensive was near. None of them knew the exact timing, or the details of the whole plan. But Mijosa and thousands like him knew the objective: to destabilize the white government and cripple the economy that was the basis for its power.

  This had been the objective of the Azanian Liberation Front since its creation a scant three years earlier. The radical splinter group of the African National Congress had grown quickly, enlisting clandestine support throughout South Africa from those dissatisfied with the slow progress of the ANC.

  The group at first had conducted sporadic guerrilla attacks and sabotage in outlying white areas and occasionally against military installations. But only their increased supply of arms and explosives in the past year had enabled them to plan and execute larger operations. The training given to hard-core commando units abroad had been the means of making the ALF a serious threat to the highly trained and motivated white forces.

  And so, with the technical and logistical assistance afforded by their foreign friends, ALF had increased its activity and begun plans for the big offensive.

  Mijosa was pleased with his role. He commanded five other ALF clandestines in his unit, all working in the Foreign Ministry offices housed in the Union Buildings. Their ability to gather sensitive intelligence had enabled ALF to coordinate the offensive with their allies abroad.

  As the government put its plan to manipulate the gold price into action, the ALF had its policy already in place. Rather than waste scarce resources in a futile effort to debunk the fake sabotage laid at their door, the ALF used it as a cover to accelerate their own plans. Their acquiescence in accepting the responsibility for an event that never took place was part of the elaborate deal with their allies to achieve ALF’s own objectives.

  Now they had been put on the alert. Mijosa’s own role in the planned offensive was relatively minor; after all, he was a gardener with no particular combat skills. The heroes would be the commando units, coordinated for the first time in a nationwide offensive.

  But Mijosa was content. His help had been vital in preparing the way, and now the day he had hoped for so long was near.

  ~

  A telex awaited Drew when he came into the office Thursday morning after his overnight flight.

  Drew read the brief message: MUST TALK TO YOU URGENTLY. WILL BE IN EUROPE WEDNESDAY. REQUEST MEETING. DU PLESSIS. At least one of the telexes he had asked Tom to send had brought results.

  “He’s already called this morning,” Tom explained. “He wouldn’t leave a number, but he said he’d call back at ten.” Drew looked at his watch, which said ten o’clock precisely.

  The phone rang.

  “You know what the telex means,” Drew said in response to du Plessis’s question. “I have proof, and it makes sense. I’m going to break the story.” Drew’s face was tight with concentration.

  “Yes, we can meet. In Frankfurt? This afternoon?” Drew did a quick mental calculation. “All right. It will be four or so.” Drew jotted down a street address. “No, no problem,” he said. “See you there.”

  “He wants me to meet him at a banker’s home in the Taunus,” Drew said, calling out to Tom. The slotman looked at him blankly. “It’s a wooded mountain range outside Frankfurt where all the posh suburbs are. I’ve got to run.”

  Drew woke Carol up in New York to tell her the news.

  “Aren’t you afraid it’s a trap?” she asked, the concern in her voice clear over the telephone. “After all, it may be du Plessis behind these attempts on your life.”

  “He can hardly get a top German banker to conspire in my death,” Drew said, with more confidence than he felt. He still had trouble connecting men like du Plessis and the bloodless world of high finance to brutality and violence, but the two attacks against him had shaken his comfortable presuppositions.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “Keep an eye on Halden for me. I’ll call tonight when I’m back from Frankfurt.”

  Du Plessis had talked about discretion in arranging the meeting in the home of Hans-Peter Schmidt. The number-two man in one of Germany’s biggest banks, Schmidt was the most famous goldbug in European banking circles and had made Deutsche Effektenbank the largest German player in the market. Traders called him Happy Hans for his unrelenting bullishness on gold. He had always preened himself on his good relationships with South African authorities and mining houses.

  Königsberg in the Taunus was certainly discreet. The exclusive suburb had quiet roads winding through wooded estates and handsome mansions. As though to allay Drew’s reservations, du Plessis had told him that Schmidt would be there. Surely, Drew said to himself, a banker of Schmidt’s standing was a sufficient safe passage for the meeting.

  By the time his taxi from the Rhein-Main Flughafen found the Königsberg address, Drew was fairly relaxed. He had even slept part of the brief flight from London, as jet lag caught up with him.

  It was Schmidt who met Drew at the door. Beaming, effusive, Happy Hans seemed anxious to justify his nickname. Du Plessis was installed in the formal sitting room used only to receive guests. The room exuded a tranquility that further reassured the journalist.

  “Thank you for making the trip,” du Plessis said, neither curt nor gracious, just matter-of-fact. “You agree that it’s important for us to talk.” Drew declined Schmidt’s offer of refreshment, and the banker quietly left the room.

  The South African official and the journalist regarded each other for what seemed like a long time. Drew wondered whether Van der Merwe’s body had been identified, whether du Plessis was aware of the incident at Kampfontein or suspected the journalist’s direct knowledge of the hoax.

  Drew took a deep breath. “As I’ve told you, I have information indicating that the gold mine sabotage announced by your government did not in fact take place and that South Africa’s gold production has not been impaired.”

  “The sabotage was reported by your agency and then announced by our government,” du Plessis interjected, still unruffled.

  “I can’t tell you the exact nature or source of my information, but it has come to me in circumstances that guarantee its authenticity,” Drew continued, ignoring the remark. “I’m prepared to break the story on the basis of the information I have, but in the interest of fairness I wanted to offer you a chance to comment beforehand.”

  “Don’t you think you’d look a little foolish running a story like that without any verification?” Du Plessis smiled a smile devoid of any
feeling.

  “Is your government prepared to allow independent verification of the mine sabotage?” Drew asked. He had his note pad ready.

  Du Plessis studied the journalist again. “For the record, of course, I remind you of our national security considerations. Off the record—”

  Drew interrupted. “I want to be clear that I consider this conversation and any other communication between us to be very much on the record.”

  “I think you’ll see afterward that some things will remain off the record,” du Plessis said evenly. “I know what your information is; I know where it comes from and how you got it. I know about your trip to Atlanta and your talk with Mr. Madison, and about your trip to New York and your meeting with Mr. Halden. I know a lot about you, Mr. Dumesnil.” Du Plessis’s eyes burned with intensity. “You’re all alone on this, and I don’t think you can pull it off.”

  “Will you tell me what mines were damaged in the alleged sabotage, what the nature and extent of the damage was, and what the effect on overall gold production was?”

  “Put aside your notebook, Mr. Dumesnil, and consider for a moment. Do you think the interests of the free world would be served by a one-party black dictatorship under Communist control in Africa’s largest economy?”

  “Do you have any agreement with the Soviet Union for marketing gold?”

  “Don’t you see that we have to maintain some measure of white control in South Africa in order to avoid the fate that has overtaken so many nations on our continent? I’ll tell you something in confidence—this must remain off the record—our government is very near to announcing a major constitutional change, reorganizing the provinces and black nations into a confederation of autonomous cantons. This will enable us to preserve white enclaves, under white control, while giving blacks perfect freedom and independence to govern their own territories.”

  Drew had heard many variations of the cantonal solution when he was in South Africa, always from whites. Moderate black groups insisted on a multiracial unified state. They saw the canton proposal as a way of preserving the white hold on the country’s mineral resources while fostering artificial divisions among the blacks.