Black Market

25

Manhattan

“Goddamn it! Look at this! Look at this now!” The speaker was Walter Trentkamp, and his voice was harsh with disbelief. “Gentlemen, it's happening everywhere!”

Philip Berger, Trentkamp, and General Frederick House were gathered around the computer terminals when Caitlin and Carroll arrived. Several display screens were working simultaneously, rapidly flashing words as well as color graphics.

Berger glaneed up as Caitlin Dillon and Carroll hurried across the crisis room.

“Emergency reports have been coming in for about fifteen, twenty minutes,” he said to the others. “Since three-thirty our time. They've definitely got something hopping. Something's happening all over the world this time.”

Paris, France

At one o'clock Paris time, on December 14, La Compagnie des Agents was suddenly closed by official order of the president of France.

All stock trading was immediately halted on the Bourse.

Bourse officials reluctantly admitted that the market's CAC Index had fallen more than three percent in a single morning.

The afternoon newspapers in Paris carried the most shocking headlines in four decades:

MARKET CLOSE TO PANIC!

BOURSE CRASH!

PARIS MARKET IN SHAMBLES

FINANCIAL DISASTER!

For once, however, the tabloids were actually being written with some understatement.

Emergency government meetings were immediately called in the Palais de Élysées, rue de Faubourg-St-Honoré. But no one knew what to do next about the unparalleled financial panic in Europe.

Frankfurt, West Germany

The Frankfurt Stock Exchange was in complete chaos, meanwhile, but still managed to stay open for the entire session.

The Commerzbank Index had fallen under a thousand for the first time since 1982. The largest losers for the immensely tragic day included Westdeutsche Landesbank, Bayer, Volkswagen, and Philip Holzmann.

Yet none of the economists in West Germany understood why prices were dropping or how far they might plummet in the very near future.

Toronto, Canada

The Toronto Stock Exchange was one of the very worst hit. The exchange's composite index of three hundred stocks fell 155 points to under 2000.

Trading volumes set new records, until the major Canadian exchange was officially closed at 1:00 P.M.

Tokyo, Japan

The Nikkei-Dow Jones Index was extremely shaky all day, finally closing at 9200. This was a full 12.5 percent decline in a single day.

Hardest hit were all companies trading heavily with the Middle East. These included Mitsui Petrochemical, Sumitomo Chemical, and Oki Electric.

Almost on cue, Japanese student riots broke out in major cities all over the islands.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Heavy European and American deposits made the Johannesburg Stock Exchange the only apparent winner. Bullion was suddenly trading at one thousand dollars an ounce. The rand instantly appreciated to one dollar and fifty cents.

Hundreds of millions of dollars were made in South Africa. Suspicions rose, but still no satisfactory answers came.

London, England

London dramatically shut down at noon, four and a half hours shy of regular closing.

The Financial Times Index of seven hundred and fifty companies had fallen nearly 90 points; it was down almost 200 since the initial Green Band bombing in New York.

The scene on Threadneedle, near the Bank of London, was nearly without hope and as bleak as bombed-out Wall Street in New York.

Manhattan

With its forty-button telephone-computer consoles, the crisis room at 13 Wall Street was beginning to resemble the starship Enterprise more than the traditional Chippendale feel and look of the Street. Nonetheless, the thirty or so police, army, and financial experts in the room had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to accomplish next.

The Western economic system seemed to be crashing to a disastrous halt, right before their eyes. No one knew why.

There was only maddening silence from Green Band.

Moscow

Major General Radomir Raskov peered nervously over half-moon reading spectacles. He studied the august group seated at the long, highly polished mahogany conference table inside the Moscow KGB offices-specifically, the offices of the Directorate.

The Politburo officials who had been at Zavidavo were also at the emergency meeting. They were joined now by Mikhail Slepovik, director of Soviet security, and a very cultured gentleman, Popo Tvardevsky, undersecretary of the Communist party, some said the future premier.

Premier Yuri Belov slapped shut the thin black folder set before him. He looked at the others and scowled menacingly. “I find it utterly, utterly incomprehensible that we have no more knowledge than this. During this crisis! During this world-threatening emergency situation!”

Premier Belov's gray eyes were piercing, forbidding to encounter for more than a brief glance. “Not five months ago, I sat in this very room and I listened to a plan, the ‘Red Tuesday Plan.’ In this highly detailed proposal, it was clearly and emphatically stated that it was in the best interests of the Soviet Union to sabotage and disable Wall Street, in effect, the entire Western economic system.

“This plan, as you may all recall, was thoroughly analyzed and finally approved by the parties here in this room. It was an immaculate plan and a daring one, and there was every possibility it would succeed.”

Premier Belov paused. His jaw twitched. “Now, that very thing has happened! And you expect me to believe that we have no complicity, no knowledge whatsoever, of any of the causes?” Belov slammed his heavy palm on the gleaming wooden table. His next words were spoken in a gravelly voice, almost a whisper. Several of his listeners had to lean forward to hear every word.

“The entire world is hurtling toward chaos, perhaps even its economic destruction… Now someone please tell me-what is Green Band? What is Green Band's precise relationship to the ‘Red Tuesday Plan’? For there is some relationship… Who is running Green Band?… And why?”