The journeyman, p.11
The Journeyman, page 11
I broke it down for him. “It’s not idealism, Kurt, it’s understanding who one’s friends are. And there’s more to the future than a primary surplus.”
He chuckled under his breath, dismissively. Here he lapsed into a professorial tone; does he want to educate me before he kills me? He always behaved like a mentor with me, a very strange behavior towards someone who one intends to dispose of; it was as if the murder he was about to commit was less important than having this story in my mind when I die. Did he believe in an afterlife? One in which I could forgive him for what he is about to do, perhaps, or maybe even applaud for him in his victory?
“Let me tell you something about my father, Lawrence,” he continued, “He was a simple banker in Germany in the nineteen-thirties, gave to charities, lived humbly; was free of scandals.”
“Had many Jewish friends, even. He made a huge profit in World War Two as the head of his bank in Frankfurt, yet he never joined the Nazi party. He didn’t have to. By absorbing newly ‘aryanized’ banks that were taken by the state from Jewish stockholders, He quadrupled his holdings by the end of the war. ‘Hitler was an amateur,’ he told me, and warned me to stay out of the spotlight.”
Then he became philosophical: “ The power of money is that it is invisible. If you treat it well, you can remain in power from the shadows. There will always be the thugs that can provide the stick when needed, Ja?”
He paused for a moment, as if to allow me to agree.
“He continued on after the war as if nothing happened. His net worth doubled again when the German debt was forgiven in London in ‘53.”
So he was revealing to me that his corruption is dynastic, in the blood; perhaps to deny any personal guilt; or even, perhaps to invoke a kind of legitimacy.
“I see you’ve thought it all out. But don’t worry, I don’t expect you to repent. I expect you to be stopped.”
He, of course, thought this was a ridiculous wish, and was quite confident that it would never happen to him, and he smiled in a fatherly way, again offering instruction.
“There will be others after me, Lawrence. You are a tightrope walker in a lunatic circus. And it’s rather a long fall. You think you will be rewarded with applause from the groundlings? On the contrary. You will be washed away like a footprint in the sand.”
“That suits me just fine.”
“Now if you will excuse me, I have pressing travel plans...” He aimed the gun at me- but he twitched- he was instantly distracted by the crackling sound of a PA system, and the sudden drumming of helicopter blades, from the police helicopter that appeared seemingly out of nowhere and was hovering overhead.
A flurry of boots cracked through the gravel, and there was a sudden display of the black Kevlar vests emblazoned with “INTERPOL” and “ASTINOMIA,” the Athens police. They appeared as if from nowhere, surrounding Waldenstein, and he dropped his gun as if it suddenly was red-hot and raised his hands while the officers went through his pockets as the helicopter thumped overhead. He stumbled against me, and I pushed him forward to the officers.
There was the deafening static, and the voice of the Interpol agent rang out on the PA,“Herr Waldenstein, you are under arrest!” One of them took his hands methodically and secured them with handcuffs, and Waldenstein was now in custody.
He was incensed, and glared at me with a level of indignation that I’d never seen before. “I hope you are amused by these theatrics, Lawrence!”
I reached in under the collar of my shirt and revealed tiny microphone and the wire that had recorded the whole conversation.
“I am. I am indeed. Better get on with your... travel plans.”
The agents lead him off into one of the Athens police SUVs and drove him off in a caravan with the others into the parking lot that was full of nosy tourists, who weren’t expecting the spectacle with the shiny black vehicles and the flashing blue lights.
The gun was recovered by the forensic team that remained behind, the helicopter circling overhead looking for anything or anyone that might remain. The officer took the gun up with a sharpie through the trigger guard and slipped it into an evidence pouch. I removed the receiver and wire from my shirt and handed it to the agents. I watched the caravan as it transported Waldenstein away, and I could see him arguing with his captors as the vehicles disappeared down the service road.
Chapter 11
The coffee was strong as it was poured from the small brass pot, and the bread was fresh, and tearing it showered the tablecloth with flakes before soaking it in the olive oil and feta cheese at the bottom of my salad plate. Ariana dug into her chicken with her usual resolve and this evening was the first in which I was absorbed by the vivid blue Athenian twilight, resonating like the voice of the goddess herself.
The Musicians in the square played an impromtu composition beginning with the drummers, playing on tabla, bodhrum, tambourines, and congas. Then the bass and guitar players joined in, filling out the chords, then the fiddle and clarinets began their tonal gymnastics over the top in a mesmerizing fugue.
A troop of police rounded the corner, and one made his way toward the gathered musicians, raising his baton as if to threaten them, but a colleage of his intervened, grabbing him by the arm, steering him back in the other direction to join the rest of them. The musicians played on.
Waldenstein’s case was not an unusual one, and for most of the people of Europe, his story wasn’t even on their radar; the media ignored it, and most people had immediate problems on their hands. There was a true tug of war between those forces that struggled for some kind of democratically run economy, and those who would do everything in their power to crush the effort, even at the expense of prosperity.
Power and control can be more important than profit to some; the hierarchy of finance was to be maintained, even when the financial class was as bankrupt as the migrants that begged for leftovers, in tents pitched along the streets of Athens, Paris and Berlin.
Europe was becoming chaotic; ethnic nationalist parties were on the ascendancy in Hungary, France, Germany, and in England there was even a movement to leave the European Union, which later came to pass. This was a climate of profound unrest, with high unemployment, and a growing distrust of all the systems that make up the framework of civilization as we know it.
Still, the sidewalk was swept by a girl in front of a family shop, and an orthodox priest in his black robes and kalimafhi bought cigarettes at one of the many kiosks (Periptera) that dotted the sidewalks throughout the old city. Canasta cards were flipped, lottery tickets were bet on, evenings were indulged in and savored as the riches that could not be confiscated.
Cats still convened by the dozens on the Acropolis hill, the fallen stones and columns providing plenty of perches for the feral feline population of Athens.
Protests continued in the squares and avenues of the city, the citizens taking to the streets in larger and larger numbers, as the population began to realize that they could be heard, and it was then that the Syriza coalition rose into the ascendancy, and the public finally looked forward to elections after seven years of hardships imposed on them from the unseen and untouchable hands of the Eurogroup and a hidden elite.
It was a profound revelation to be in a place with such a long history, so many highs and lows, the millenia of civilizations that rise to glorious prominence and fall to ruin, only to be resurrected in another form, another philosophy, another premise on which to grow a society.
i
A seagull picked at a fallen piece of pita on the sidewalk, an unusual sight in Athens proper, some miles away from the shore, and I was reminded of our time on the boat, the island, and the notion of being situated here at the crossroads, between Europe and the Middle East, between the first world and the third, between the modern world and the ancient one; It seemed like where I want to be.
My solitude had been my solace, but also my curse, my world had been a small one, and one which left no space for any real companionship. The world of the mercenary is misanthropic by it’s nature.
Though I never thought it would happen to me again in my lifetime, I was beginning to feel at home with Ariana, and her flat felt more like home than my arid San Francisco bi-level. I felt that strange satisfaction of having accomplished something, and even better sharing it with Ariana. I felt like some celebration was finally in order. I grabbed a bottle from the bookshelf and poured.
“Ouzo?” I offered her.
“I can’t enjoy myself when others are suffering.
“You practice austerity on a personal level?
“It’s a debt that I have.”
“To whom do you owe this debt?”
“To those who came before me.” She was the real deal, no ambiguity in her mind.
“You should be more generous,” I offered.
“I don’t have much to give.”
“Generous to yourself.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“We all need to grow.”
“Are you concerned about my well-being, Mr. Lawrence?”
“Strangely enough, I am,” I had to admit.
She deserved my concern more than anyone had, ever in my life. And that care translated into a resurrection of sorts, for my own well-being.
“I’m surprised that you’re concerned about anything. You are a mercenary after all...”
“Only by fate. And now fate seems to be taking me in an entirely different direction.”
“The man of leisure seeks amusement.”
“Not amusement. Meaning.”
“And where do you think you’ll find it?”
“A burning city is a blossoming flower... “
She actually teared up hearing me repeat the familiar line from her brother’s song.
“So it’s become personal after all! It’s not easy becoming human.” She would know.
“I’m willing to try if you are.”
“Yes. Let’s try.”
The protestors marched on in the street outside the window past the venetian blinds. We watched the events unfold as the layers of the onion we had uncovered made their way into the global media outlets. It was even echoed in the American media, where Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called specific attention to the plight of the Greek people in the face of externally imposed austerity by their European creditors.
They were increasingly disenfranchised in this strange world ruled by an opaque and sovereign financial class whose power now spanned the continent, circumventing borders, parliaments and every form of democratic accountability.
i
What had begun as a post-Cold War dream of hope, a continent united by a commitment to civility, to the conviction that they must never again go to war as they had so brutally and destructively done for much of the last century, had now devolved to a pact of indentured servitude, one that did not even bring economic fruition to the captors, but only the satisfaction of dominance and the maintenance of the illusion of solvency for an arcane financial system that was thoroughly bankrupt.
We waited and watched. Ariana fielded the calls that came in from her friends, trying to assess what the effect would be in the media of the work that they’d accomplished. I resumed my reassessment of all of my transactional existence from my youth through the present; from long before the business with Dennison set me on this long and pitiless path.
The next 36 hours were filled with media reports about the scandal: DMG CITED FOR CORRUPTION IN EU LOANS TO GREECE- From Reuters. The AP had this: EU Banker accused in money laundering scheme using arms sales. And another: GREECE PRESSURED TO BUY ARMS FROM GERMANY AS PART OF EU BAILOUT, and another: GREECE TO PURCHASE BILLIONS IN ARMS DESPITE AUSTERITY.
There were several names that came up in the media connected to the DMG affair, but none that I recognized; Waldenstein had managed to keep off the headlines somehow. They focused on individuals with government positions. Stravos had gone missing. There were a spate of arrests, all people that I had never heard of, and if I were to guess, of no real consequence in terms of trying to clean up the system.
There were interview shows on DW and France 24 that lightly touched on these events. The local Greek media glossed over it with special shows about the Greek Revolution of 1821. Nothing on Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal focused on the details of the submarine almost as a promotion. And one from Russian TV with subtitles: Zoric Industries show record profits, Premier Putin welcomes Ivan Zoric into his cabinet, increasing the Kremlin’s significance in the international energy markets, with his holdings in Azerbaijan and the expansion of pipeline infrastructure in the Baltic sea. The rest of his many enterprises were completely absent from any of the sketch bios that appeared in the news. Such were his connections.
i
The truth was out; Greece had been scapegoated for the incompetence and malice of the Eurogroup, and austerity was never going to be abandoned; it was the penance that the banks required to maintain their authority. Austerity became a warning to the other creditor states within the supposed coalition, a warning that while life is transient and ephemeral, debt is permanent and immutable, even if no one profits from it.
I thought of Rachel, and her mission back in San Francisco, and I finally got it. She was ahead of me on this, I can’t say if her ideas for how to fix the system would be the ones that would help, but I could tell that she was right. She was right about so many things. Understanding this allowed me to let go of what could never be, yet simultaneously renew my optimism for what could.
Ariana’s revelations hit like a bombshell, and I was able to convince her to celebrate a bit, and we drank ouzo with a conscious attempt at levity. Her network of young “enthusiasts” were making some headway, at least in bringing the issue into the public discourse.
The press in other European countries began to notice the cracks in the system. Greece had become an economic battleground between the enforcers of punitive debt and those citizens whose spirit had survived the looting and decimation of the public edifice by a cabal of invisible stateless marauders.
But I took some solace in the fact that there were those, like my resilient little companion willing to put their shoulder to the wheel and make a difference. The options for the people of Greece diminished with each privatization decree, and each traunch of unpayable bailout debt in the cue for the big European banks.
In Ariana I observed the natural resilience of a people trapped in an indentured nation. When a population is entrapped within a framework of dubious legitimacy administered by a clandestine cartel whose only motivation is to drain them of resources and dignity, they will at some point take action.
She and her active little cohort, the lost generation of the post-2008 European youth, were the petals of the blossoming flower that was the bitter fruit of this ‘burning city’ from the poet’s metaphor, where the entrenched legacy of the traditional financial class that had ruled Europe since the times when the Dutch and Venetian galleys battled the Ottoman sultans and took to the seas, all those dark centuries ago.
Chapter 12
It was a few weeks later that Interpol caught up with Stravos; not surprisingly, he was on his yacht with his young, dark-skinned wife Nefertiti, harbored in Ibiza. The media was vague about the charges, but as far as I could tell, his operation continued as planned without him; the Greek government got another traunch of loans from the EU, which were promptly forwarded to the companies that built the submarines and the tanks and the big northern European banks that carried the debt, and made the billions in interest into perpetuity.
The video on the news was particularly humiliating. Announced with a wide grin by a charismatic bleach blonde anchorwoman, she milked it for all it was worth; the mismatched couple, Nefertiti the trending lingerie model who became his wife, the oversize yacht, the gangster look wraparound shades. In the video clip, Stravos was sitting in his yacht with Nefertiti when the Interpol guys crashed their little party.
The video is glitchy, but we can hear the officer: “Señor Stravos?”
“Murphy,” Stravos growled, “My name is Murphy!”
Stravos was not a convincing “Murphy,” and they wasted no time in putting him under custody, and Nefertiti was quick to get her distance. “Mister Stravos, you are under arrest. You are wanted by Interpol for securities fraud.”
“Fasaries!(Trouble!) Taki, what have you gotten us into?” shrieked Nefertiti.
“This is outrageous! You will be hearing from my government!”
Having to have his hands behind him in the handcuffs was painful for a man of his years for whom physical activity was an unpleasant memory, reminding him of labor.
“Yes I’m sure, it is your government that asked us to arrest you,” the Interpol agent said calmly.
The camera was swishing around randomly at this point, but you could hear Stravos actually trying to bribe the officers at the arrest:
“Ridiculous! Listen, You boys like football? I can get tickets- box seats...You like music? Jay-Z? How about Jay-Z? You like Jay-Z? I get you seats!”
But the story left me particularly unsatisfied- it made no mention of his ties to the DMG group, the armaments kickbacks, the secret ties to the fascist party. The narrative was, this is a typical shady Greek businessman, breaking the rules as usual. Not the story as I knew it.
My eyes eventually drifted to the animated ticker at the bottom of the screen, which ran a text that read, “Malaysia flight lost, no contact for two days... AAPL up .04....DMG Group IPO....37.92. Wait, what? DMG going public? The roots are wide and deep.
i
I spent the next few days flipping through the stations trying to glean whatever morsels of news were parsed out in the media abou the whole affair, and eventually I paused on one that was Russian TV. Vladimir Putin and his cabinet were entering the Russian parliament. I could see clear as day shots with Putin and Zoric. Zoric had just been named into a cabinet position, as “Energy Minister,” But the kicker was Natalya, his beautiful deadpan girlfriend that had been at the villa where Zoric shot his deputy to appease Waldenstein. She had shed her black eyeliner and leather jacket and cultivated a more businesslike look. Apperently now she was actually the news anchor on this very same state TV news program. Zoric’s world could be an upwardly mobile one, if you were all in.
