The Columbus Code (13 page)

And
had
they been changed? Snowden always wrote in that infuriating pencil, so he could have erased the original and made the change, but there was no evidence of that.

Maybe with a magnifying glass. She opened a drawer and pawed through the collection of gadgets and supplies Elena had filled it with. Maria found everything from a battery-operated staple remover to gold paper clips, but no magnifying device.

“What am I doing?” she muttered. This was ridiculous.

The question really was—were the reserves on which the entire Belgian acquisition rested merely
projected
reserves rather than actual? From what she'd heard in meetings and researched for Snowden, the powers at Belgium Continental were far too cautious to agree to that.

And the even more disturbing question was, how would Tejada make certain that the projected reserves held up? It was more like Snowden to say “Tejada will make sure of that,” or “Tejada has that handled.” He could pull out the proper grammar and impressive vocabulary when he had to, but he never did it in his notes. And Elena was surprised he'd taken any at all. He always had one of his minions do that for him.

So . . . this had to have been a private meeting. But why? If the acquisition was a done deal—the price was right and the reserves in place—why the need for some clandestine one-on-one discussion behind closed doors?

Maria shook her hair out the rest of the way. Okay, she was
getting carried away. Elena was probably right—she needed to take the night off too.

She reached to close the desk drawer when a tap sounded at the door. Before she could respond it opened and Snowden's white head appeared. “Got a minute?” he asked.

Maria felt her face flush and rose to her feet. “Sure,” she said. “Come on in.”

As Snowden crossed the office, she slid the folder into the top drawer and pushed it closed. “I was marveling over what was in here,” she said. “Elena must have bought out Staples before I came.”

Snowden seemed oblivious to what she was talking about. She was babbling, but he was obviously not focused on her or what she was doing. He looked as if he had veered off course on his way to somewhere else.

“Everything okay?” Maria asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

Lying, clearly. His face was pale, playing up a five o'clock shadow she'd never seen on him before.

“I'm missing some paperwork,” he said. He looked at her expectantly.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“You'd know it if you saw it—seeing how it doesn't have anything to do with the acquisition.”

Maria was surprised he didn't go straight to the desk drawer because the words
It's in there!
must surely have been written across her face.

And yet she wasn't sure. The notes
were
about the acquisition, private meeting or not. If she pulled them out now, he'd want to know why she was keeping them and why she had hidden them when he entered the room.

She could feel Snowden peering at her.

“I'm thinking,” Maria said, “but I'm not coming up with anything. If you want to give me more details I can keep an eye out for it.”

“Never mind,” he said. “It's probably in my office somewhere.”

“I can lend you Elena to look for it,” Maria offered.

Snowden nodded absently.

“You lucked out hiring her.”

Snowden looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Hiring Elena for me. That was a good call.”

“You're talking about your assistant?”

“Yes. Of course. Who did you think?”

“I didn't hire her,” Snowden said, already halfway to the door. “Molina did.”

“Molina?” Maria was astounded. “The security guy?”

“He does the staffing for Tejada. Makes sure everybody's vetted.”

Maria felt prickly. “Tejada doesn't trust you to bring your own staff?”

Snowden
looked
prickly. “I wasn't going to get you an assistant. It was Tejada's idea.” He ran his hand over his stubble as if he'd just realized it was there. “Forget about that paperwork. It'll turn up.”

He turned away with no good-bye but left the door hanging open to reveal Carlos Molina waiting for him in the hall.

What in the world?
she thought. Snowden needed the head of security to escort him to visit his own staff?

When they were gone and she heard the elevator doors shut, Maria took the file from the drawer, removed Snowden's notes, and tucked them into her briefcase.

Tejada had his secretary set up coffee in his office before she left for the day. He wanted to handle Philippe Prevost differently this time. Not that he wanted to enable the whining and wheedling. He couldn't abide that. But he needed whatever information his nephew was bringing back from China.

The tentative knock on the door came at the stroke of seven. Prevost's punctuality always seemed like groveling to Tejada. From anyone else he deemed it considerate.

When his nephew came in, Tejada greeted him with the customary hug he'd left out the last time they'd met, poured him a cup of coffee, and ushered him to one end of the couch. Tejada occupied the other end. “Tell me of the Chinese,” he said.

Prevost rubbed his eyes. He had come straight from the airport as Tejada had requested.

“I met with Zhang Yo,” he began.

“Head of the Bank of China. He is a young man.”

“Late thirties, but make no mistake, Emilio, he is genuinely gifted and incredibly intelligent.”

“No more so than you,” Tejada said.

“All of that is beside the point.”

“Why?”

“The old guard leaders.”

“What about them?'

“They think the US dollar will decline anyway and they want to hold out for the day when China becomes the dominant global economic force.”

“You reminded Zhang Yo that day is not as close as the old guard thinks?”

“I did.”

“You told him that in the meantime China may be exposed
to fluctuations in the price of commodities due to domestic US decisions—the ones we've talked about?”

“I did.” Prevost's cup rattled on its saucer and he set them both on the table. “It was not the message he was opposed to, Emilio. It was me.”

Tejada motioned for him to go on.

“Yo was actually in agreement with me, but he says many in the Chinese government are doubtful of my ability to deliver. They say I won't be in office long enough to get the job done. Rumor has it that I might be replaced this month.”

“Rumors from whom?”

“The Russians. And the Americans.”

Tejada waved him off, but Prevost leaned forward, eyes watery. “Is that true, Emilio? Is there a movement afoot to have me removed?”

If there was, Tejada knew nothing of it, but the idea was disturbing. “No,” he reassured. “But there
is
a power play by the world's three strongest economies to wrest control of the IMF from my influence.”

“From
your
influence?” Prevost said, his voice winding up. “This is
my
head we're talking about.”

Tejada forced himself to relax. Even though they both knew Tejada was the real controller of the IMF, he couldn't lose his temper with Prevost. At least not until he knew all he had to tell. “I trust you talked to someone in the Chinese government,” he said.

Prevost looked offended. “Of course I did. I had a meeting with the premier, Wang Peng.”

“I know who he is,” Tejada responded.

“He says they're still in discussion about the idea, but they had hoped I would be in favor of the yuan rather than your plan. I told
him switching to the yuan creates more problems because other countries are as suspicious of China as China is of the US.”

“And you presented that with complete diplomacy, I'm sure,” Tejada said drily.

“What would you have me do? There is enough bowing and scraping with those people as it is. You want me to mince words too? Because they sure don't.”

Prevost went into a spasm of coughing that stopped only when Tejada had poured him a glass of water and watched him drain it. His greatest concern about Prevost was apparently coming true. He wasn't strong enough for this.

When Prevost was able to continue, he said, “The premier kept bringing the conversation back to how long I would be with the IMF and how much control you have over me and, as a result, the Fund itself.”

“And you reassured him, of course—”

“That's not all. He said if I vote for the yuan instead of a new—” Prevost looked around the room and lowered his voice.

Tejada smothered a groan. No one could be more obvious about not saying what Tejada had told Prevost not to say aloud. If anyone had a hidden camera in here they would know immediately what they were talking about. He could feel his patience thinning.

“If I do that, they will see that I remain on at IMF because they like my vision and loyalty.”

They liked his malleability. Tejada was about to say so when Prevost went on.

“The premier wants me to say your—our—plan is not workable at this time and then in a few weeks he wants me to give my support to measures proposed by China and the OPEC nations that would move oil contracts from dollar-denominated transactions to
yuan-denominated. When I pointed out that would show disloyalty to you,
he
pointed out that compromise is inevitable.”

“Compromise is weakness,” Tejada said. “How did you leave it with Peng?”

“We discussed your offer to guarantee their losses if they are generated by general market forces, not from losses generated internally.”

Tejada nodded in surprise. “Good call, Philippe.”

“He didn't think so at first. He said that would protect them from US whim but not from an IMF interpretation of how their losses occurred during the transition. He feels they are being asked to trust but are not being trusted in return.”

That was why Peng was premier. Tejada felt the stirring of disappointment, and anger, with Prevost.

“I said, ‘A simple guarantee to cover your losses during the transition is what I have to offer.'” Prevost pulled himself up to his full but diminutive height on the couch. “He said, ‘So you are going to remain loyal to your uncle.' When I said yes, he said, ‘It is that loyalty which I admire about you. The guarantee of our debt would be most welcome.'”

Tejada hid his relief. “He played you.”

“Yes. He
tried
to play me.”

“But we won.”

“This round at least.” Prevost picked up his coffee cup, looked into it, and set it back down.

“What else, Philippe?”

Prevost sighed. “Next time we talk, they will want us to offer them something new to make things right.”

“Then we'll give it to them.”

“And it will be one more thing after that. It will be a never-ending cycle. What we need is something dramatic to force their hand.”

Once again Tejada was reminded of how Prevost had achieved his status. Here was another flash of his oft-hidden brilliance.

“Go on,” Tejada said.

Prevost's pale eyes glimmered. “We need something that forces them back to us. An event that makes them want this deal and want it fast, rather than dragging out negotiations to see how long they can delay us or how much they can get out of us.”

Tejada sat back. “An event like that would not be beyond the realm of possibility.”

“You're not going to tell me what it is, of course.”

“In time.” Tejada rested his elbows on his knees. Time to end this before Prevost started to whine again. “You should gauge the Russians' reaction to all this. But don't meet them in Moscow. Some other location. Someplace less . . . obvious.”

“I have to go to Brussels for a meeting of the G8 finance ministers. I'll see Dmitry Koslov there.”

“Good,” Tejada said. “See what you can find out.” Tejada resisted the urge to pat him on the head. “You have done well, Philippe. The Brotherhood is indebted to you.”

Prevost's eyes indicated the compliment fell short of what he expected, but he was gracious in making his exit from the room. Tejada sat looking at the closed door long after he left. The coming days would bring difficult decisions about his nephew, of that he was certain, but he did not look forward to what he already knew would be the result.