Sackur’s voice contained a note of scepticism. Zorn, however, chose to ignore it.
‘Sure.’
‘And are you putting your money, and your clients’ money where your mouth is?’ Sackur asked.
‘Absolutely,’ said Zorn, relishing the effect that his words would have, and knowing that there was much more to come. ‘I can tell you that I’ve taken a number of short positions that reflect my opinions.’
‘I’m sure investors will be very interested to hear that. So let’s cover another subject on which I’m sure they will welcome your insight. This week you’ll be coming to the UK. What is your view of the state of the British economy? The government is pursuing policies that have attracted support from some commentators and business leaders, but also tremendous opposition from trade unions and special interest groups, as well as their political opponents. Where do you stand?’
Zorn’s shrug conveyed an impression of relaxed impartiality. ‘I don’t stand anywhere politically. To be honest with you, Stephen, I’m not interested in political parties or ideology. I’m interested in situations as I see them, and the opportunities that confront me. But just to pick up on my earlier comments, I guess if I were talking to the British Prime Minister I’d advise him to take a real good look at the security of his national energy supplies. The UK is very vulnerable to external disruptions. Power-generating capacity has been allowed to decline drastically, relative to need. Plus, for political reasons the UK is way overcommitted to wind-power, which strikes me as just about the dumbest idea imaginable. I mean, the wind stops and you’re screwed… ah, can I say that?’
Sackur grimaced. ‘Not really, but-’
‘Well, anyway… the UK has to import most of its oil, its natural gas and increasingly its electrical power, which is cabled in from France. I mean, come on! Check out the history you have with the French. Are you sure you want their hand on the light switch?’ Zorn laughed engagingly, drawing a smile out of Sackur before adopting a much more serious expression again. ‘But that’s the story all over. British Energy, the nuclear power station operator, was sold to Electricite de France. A consortium of German companies is building four more nukes. And the designs they’re using will be either French or Japanese. So basically you’ve lost national control of your own power grid. To me that’s a disastrous situation. Britain is wide open to its very own 9/11, and when that attack comes, it-’
‘Not “if” it comes?’
‘No, Stephen, I believe that this is a case of “when”, and any major terrorist event will have consequences that go way beyond the actual incident itself. I can see major falls on the Footsie, led by the energy sector, instability in the price of oil, downward pressure on sterling, and knock-on effects in all the nations that have bought into the UK energy market. With the economic situation as fragile as it is, well, I have to say that I’m a bear on Britain, and also on specific sectors of both the US and European economies…’
Zorn had seen all he needed. He closed the screen and gave a grunt of satisfaction. This time there was no danger of the message failing to get through. The financial public relations firm he had retained to publicize the launch of his fund had emailed a press release, along with a three-minute extract from the interview containing all the key lines, to a carefully chosen list of news organizations, columnists and bloggers. Within minutes of the interview’s opening, the tweets had started. Now Zorn began adding fuel to the fire through his own newly opened @malzorn Twitter account.
‘Are u saying I shouldn’t be investing in #globaloilcorps?’ one follower asked.
Zorn replied, ‘Put it this way, I’d get out of @BP_America (again) if I were you! Or go short.’
Another follower gleefully remarked that, ‘@Number10gov must be sh*ttin bricks after #zornhardtalk.’
Zorn grinned, thought for a moment, then typed, ‘Just my way of giving the PM a Monday morning wake-up call — get him out of bed real fast today!’
Looking at his screens, he saw that the Asian markets were already putting pressure on international oil corporations with significant UK investments, as well as multinational gas and electricity providers. Sterling lost ground against both the euro and the dollar. When the FTSE index opened at 8.30 a.m. it was sixty-five points down. Oil, however, was gaining: up five dollars a barrel in early trading.
‘Excellent,’ murmured Malachi Zorn, lying almost horizontally in his chair, his feet up on his desk, sipping a cup of fresh coffee. ‘Just excellent.’
A newsfeed was crawling like a ticker tape across the bottom of one of his screens. An item caught Zorn’s eye, and he flipped forward in his chair, leaning towards the screen to get a closer view. It seemed that more of the money that the fraudster Bernie Madoff had stolen from his clients had been found. There were indications that it might amount to as much as five billion dollars. Zorn stretched back in his chair again, and grinned.
‘You know the big mistake you made, buddy?’ he murmured, as if speaking to Madoff in his prison cell. ‘When they came for you, you were still around.’
20
Carn Drum Farm
‘It’s a nice bit of land you’ve got here, Taff,’ said Dave Smethurst, giving an appreciative nod as he gazed at the magnificent Welsh landscape, its wild beauty only magnified by the dramatic shafts of morning sunlight that pierced the thick, charcoal-grey clouds like beams from a ‘Super Trouper’ spotlight.
‘I know,’ Gryffud said, looking out at the hills he loved with all his soul. ‘If I ever wonder why I’m doing all this, I just come out here and witness the glory of what nature can do in the absence of mankind… and then I know what I’m fighting for.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Smethurst, with flat indifference to Gryffud’s oration. Then he added, ‘We’re going to fuck up some of this nature good and proper, you know that, right? And not just here, neither.’
Gryffud grimaced. ‘That’s unavoidable. I wish there was any other way at all of doing this. But since there isn’t, we have to accept that it’s a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.’
‘Collateral damage, eh?’ said Smethurst. ‘I know all about that.’
Gryffud caught the snide tone in his voice. ‘Are you saying I’m no better than some fascist American general? Is that it?’
‘I’m saying I don’t give a shit. There’s no justification you could give me I haven’t heard before. It’s all bullshit, if you ask me. But it’s none of my business, is it? I’m here to do a job, collect my money, keep my mouth shut and fuck off. And that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘You don’t care about the future of the planet, then? I don’t understand how anyone can have that attitude. And if that’s how you feel, I wonder if you’re really the right man for the job.’
Gryffud glared at Smethurst. He was a good six inches taller, and several stone heavier than the former soldier. But the smaller man just grinned at him.
‘Calm down, Taff. I don’t care about the planet because it’s got fuck all to do with me. It’s been here for billions of years, and it’ll carry on for billions more when I’m gone. But I do care about my trade. I’m the dog’s bollocks at what I do, right? And I’ll do a better job for you than any other bastard you’re likely to find. That’s why I’m the right man for the job.’
Gryffud nodded grudgingly, reflecting as he did so that it had not been him who had found Smethurst. That, too, had been Uschi Kremer. She’d been given his name, she said, by a friend of a friend.
‘OK,’ Gryffud said. ‘Let’s get on with it. How do you want to proceed?’
They were standing on the hillside above a cwm — the steep, curved head of a glacial valley — that fanned out as the land fell away before them.
‘Basically, the target as a whole covers an area of about fifteen hundred metres by nine hundred, which is way too big for us. So I think we should concentrate on a smaller area, about two hundred metres by one hundred, in the south-west quadrant. That’s got two advantages, right? Number one, it’s full of juicy targets, and you should be able to set off some nice little chain reactions that’ll do far more damage than your actual strikes. And number two, it’s the area of the facility that’s closest to the launch site. The place you picked is a kilometre from the refinery. That’s at the absolute extreme limit of the range I can get from these things.’
‘There’s no alternative. All the land closer to the refinery is owned by National Petroleum, and there are regular security patrols.’
‘But the place you’ve picked is safe, right? ’Cos we’re proper fucked if anyone catches us with this little lot in
