'Are you certain, Herr Breze?'
'Yes, I am, Herr Muller,' Adrian said. 'And no offense, but how often have we had this little conversation over the years?'
The conversation was in English, the easiest common language. Professor Duquesne had boiled with indignation for an instant when it turned out that Muller's French was only passable, worse than Ellen's. The middle-aged German banker spoke English with near-complete fluency, if also with an accent that reminded her irresistibly of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, which one of her roommates studying classic film at NYU had played obsessively despite complaints. He even looked a little bit like the actor, though heavier-set, and with thinning blond hair combed over the top of his head.
It was a good movie for its day, even in 2D. But not thirty-six times!
Muller sighed. 'I hope our wealth-management section has not disappointed you, Mr. Breze.'
The Commerzbank Tower gave an excellent view of downtown Frankfurt, being nearly a thousand feet tall, complete with open gardens every twenty stories or so and a central atrium. Muller's office had a prestigious amount of exterior window, and let you see that unlike most European cities the center was dominated by skyscrapers, if not to a Manhattanesque degree.
'I've never been to Frankfurt before,' she said, partly to defuse the heavy tension. 'It's very high-rise. Not at all like most central cities over here.'
'Ah…there was extensive rebuilding after the Second World War,' Muller's secretary said with a discreet cough.
She was named Saracoglu and she was youngish, about Ellen's age, with even more of an hourglass figure. The cool gray business suit tried to play that down; she had black hair cropped very short, gave off an air of efficiency and was almost as dark as Adrian. There was a slight guttural accent to her English, German and French.
Ah, Ellen thought. Speaking of wars. Even in the twenty-first, that was a bit tactless of me.
Urban renewal courtesy of the 8th Air Force and the RAF, and the rebuilding in the three generations since had reached for the currently gray and drizzly sky around the gray and flowing River Main.
Less for the historical preservationists to preserve. Though in a lot of Europe stuff that looks like it was medieval or Renaissance or baroque is post-1945 restoration of buildings that were blasted down to the basement. Prague's the only one that wasn't heavily damaged, if I remember correctly.
There was silence for a moment and then Adrian addressed the banker:
'Quite the contrary, it's been very satisfactory. I have my own reasons for new arrangements that are not, strictly speaking, of a business nature. Let's leave it at that.'
The decor in the big room was old-fashioned icy-modernist with very subdued PoMo flourishes, probably because times hadn't been flush enough to redo since the last renovation in the early years of the century. Muller's desk was a glittering expanse of dark stone, for example, and so was the oval conference table. On a plinth there was a small sculpture that looked like a length of bronze intestine, and a faint smell of the flowers in Bohemian crystal vases.
'In good conscience I cannot advise moving substantial assets into gold at this point, much less distributing them as you propose,' Muller said. 'And why pay a premium for coin and small bars? And silver…not a good investment at present.'
Adrian smiled. 'I appreciate your concern, Herr Muller. I don't expect to make much return on the transfers.'
'You realize that Swiss bank security is, ah-'
'Not what it was, yes. That is why I'm diversifying the locations, and not just to the Caymans, you will note.'
Another sigh. 'As you wish, mein Herr.'
His secretary opened an accordion file of black leather and began producing documents, along with a print- and-retina scanner that she plugged into a secure link on the table.
'First,' Muller said, 'the signing authority for the initial fifty-million-euro tranche under the Aegis Project fund, to be held in short-term commercial paper until drawn. You and Frau Breze will both have full discretionary authority, and Herr Doktor Duquesne unless and until you remove him. All payments authorized by Monsieur Duquesne will be listed as withdrawn from the project's funds, whose ownership will of course be strictly confidential.'
They signed and entered their biometric data and DNA samples; Duquesne was looking a bit stunned at the amount he was being given to play with, just for starters. Plus an official salary of a hundred thousand euros a year personally, which was extravagant for a European academic.
'And here is Frau Breze's power of attorney and authorization to access the other funds, and her personal account as per your instructions.'
She darted a quick glance at Adrian, and found him smiling with that odd quirk-mouthed expression, half- teasing.
'I thought you might want to pick up a few pictures while we were in Europe, my sweet,' he said. 'You deserve it more than I, in any case. You will derive more pleasure from it; and that will give me great pleasure.'
Ellen read the papers before she put her name to them. Essentially Adrian had irrevocably signed over an undivided half interest in everything he owned worldwide. And there was a personal account she could use for day- to-day needs with a total draw of…
She choked slightly at the amount. Day-to-day needs like buying Nob Hill, or possibly Oahu, given the way the real estate market had tanked again lately.
Money doesn't really mean anything to him, she reminded herself. He can pick stock market winners by intuition. But it does to me! I grew up poor. Trailer-trash poor, except that we had Granddad's house, which was what a retired miner could buy in Swoyersville in the nineteen sixties. My father was a no-good drunk and a sponger and I clawed my way into university working three jobs and getting scholarships in my spare time. Now I can collect Old Masters if I want to.
Of course, there were drawbacks.
Monsters who can walk through walls are going to keep trying to kill me, I have to shoot people in alleys or stab them with knives…On the other hand, I get Adrian, who's worth it all and more. And someday it may be fun to be very, very rich, if civilization hasn't been destroyed in the meantime. If I can ever manage to feel unguilty about it. Maybe I'll endow a foundation…
She laughed and signed her name with a flourish. The prospect of enough leisure and safety to wallow in upper-class guilt and go around contributing to good causes was fairly remote right now.
'Thank you, Frau Saracoglu,' Muller said.
Not Fraulein, Ellen thought. That's dropped out of use for anyone except little girls.
'These to the secure vault now, bitte, ' he continued, indicating the documents.
Adrian's phone rang, a soft sequence of notes from a famous piece by Delibes, one that was a bit of a joke if you knew how it had been used in the movies. He tapped it, and she could faintly hear:
'Pooka here.'
The way his face went blank made her sit up and take notice. Duquesne didn't catch it, and Muller was unreadable because he always looked like a truck had just run over his puppy, but Saracoglu noticed something.
'Pardon,' Adrian said, and walked over to a corner of the room.
The conversation was minimal; from the way his eyes flicked to the screen, text was coming through as well, or possibly a visual. When he tapped it closed and returned to the table he was frowning.
'Herr Muller, we'll need to charter a jet. Something with transatlantic capacity, and immediately. Whatever's available.'
Muller looked even more lugubrious, but his secretary/assistant merely nodded and began tapping at her keyboard even before he prompted her.
'Any specifications, Herr Breze?' she asked.
'That it fly all the way,' Adrian said dryly. 'The flight plan is Hamburg to Tucson, Arizona. Earliest possible departure.'
