“It can’t be done.” Winston Wexford firmly and emphatically hit the table with his drink. “You can’t control an entire national economy.” Andre just looked at him quietly. A young, handsome Alsatian, Andre Matthias had been the son of a banker in Lausanne before the war, who had at first worked with the Germans, not all of whom were Nazis. When things started looking bad, some of the influential people in Berlin, Paris and Vienna felt a desire to secure some of the valuables and other property which had come into their posession in ways it was better not to think about. But some of the Nazis were truly mad and in their darker more desperate hours they turned even on their friends, or at least accomplices. Thus andre’s father was accused while on holiday at their ancestral home in Nilgun. His crime? Not all of his clientele were perfectly politically correct. He must inform on those interesting to the Gestapo. But of course, he wouldn’t, and so the threats escalated, until it must be admitted, events got out of control of the petty tyrant of the secret police. Pere Matthias simply disappeared on night. No one was certain what had happened to him, but Andre had a better idea than most. His father had left a letter to his son in the event of his death or disappearance, to be delivered by a trusted friend, a fellow veteran of the Franco-Prussian War. In the letter, Pere Matthias chronicled the fantastic sums of cash flowing secretly from Berlin to banks in Geneva, Luzerne and other cities in neutral countries. He listed names, dates, sums and account numbers. With very specific instructions to his son, who as we will soon see, had to extemporize somewhat in order to fulfill his father’s dying wish. Included with the accounts, Pere Matthias left a letter of recommendation for Andre to the manager of a bank in Hamburg. Andre was to apply for employment in this bank, and using the account information, himself transfer the funds from the Nazi accounts into his own. He should make the transactions himself, by travelling from Hamburg to Geneva and then Luzerne as a representative of Deutsche Bank Hamburg. Such transactions were only conducted according to a strict procedure, or a cautious banker would need to verify the transaction with an intermediary in Berlin. First, a call must be made to a certain individual in each city, and then a personal meeting outside by the lake perhaps. Finally, the preparations having been made, Andre would work with a specific teller at a specific time. Andre had made a fortune ovenight. With the recently passed Banking Secrecy laws in Switzerland and his father’s clever machinations, even the bankers didn’t know where the money had come from or where it went. His father had instructed him to go to London and there, meet the American financier, Winston Wexford. Wexford was a shriveled old specimen of a yankee. A boatmaker from New Haven, he moved to Groton for the ware effort. Through intelligence and maddeningly hard work, Wexford had become head of Groton Boat Works, first manufacturing ships for the merchant marine, then lend-lease, finally the American Navy. Many boats came out of his yards. He saw the winds of war before most and also bought an interest in Colt Firearms. He made a nicel on every gun they sold, and they sold as many as they could make, which through Wexford’s genius, was plenty. This practical Yankee had no patience for the continental style and broken English of the young Alsatian. Of course, it never occured to Wexford to learn French. “It can’t be done, ” he repeated, less confidently. “Look at this.” Andre said, handing him the accounts he had received from his father in the letter. “Great God.” Wexford cried as he wscanned the scribbled account record. “Pierre was always a careful fellow. In all our transactions, he was always thinking miles ahead of me, but this, …” he paused. “What happened?” The question was more of a statement. “We do not know for certain,” Andre could not go on. He thought to himself, in French, naturally, “How do I tell this old crank what it is like to live under the Nazis?” “I am sorry, young Mr. Matthias. Your father was a brilliant man, although I did not know him well. These damn krauts.” “Krauts?” Andre did not understand the reference, did not know that sauerkraut had been rechristened “victory cabbage” in support of the war effort, but nevertheless, caught the tone of the old man’s voice. This was a man who accomplished what he set out to do and he, with his American governmen, had set out to defeat the damned Allemagne. Pere Matthias had done more than merely catalogue the German financial transactions. He showed how, with a clever manipulation of certain banks in neutral countries, not only could invaluable informateion be gathered about one’s opponent’s actions and intentions, but that very informatoin could be used to coerce the subject into revealing otherwise unkowable, priveleged information. “Think of the implications” Pere Matthias wrote enthusiastically in the letter to his son which he hoped would never be delivered. “An intelligence agency with enough capital and a knowledge of, even some surreptitious control over the transactions of these black banks could, in some cases, grow secret agents as if by some farming technique.” On reading this, wexford grew silent and read on. “This plan is brilliant. Positively brilliant.” he admitted at last. “I do not understand all of it.” Andre admitted humbly. Wexford responded kindly and frankly to the boy’s frankness. He merely looked over his glasses and the bright intelligent blue eyes peered intently at the young man. They just looked at each other for a moment, holding this fantastic idea in their hands, knowing it would change the world forever. Wexford flew back to Washington the next day. He met with his friends in the insane bureaucracy of that insane city. He got on Roosevelt’s calendar and met him privately. Then Hoover and some British fag who flew up from Bermuda, of all places, to New York. “What, are these limeys taking a holidy in the middle of a war?” Wexford mumbled to himself. They met on Fifth Avenue, in front of the plate glass windows, displaying evening wear as if there weren’t bombs incinerating entire cities back in Europe. “Millions of Deutchemarks, you say” Sydney Lyme pursed his lips as he spoke, and although he was not homosexual, he struck Wexford as effeminate and condescending. He clicked his tongue and lifting his eyebrows, rolled his eyes. Wexford tried not to grimace, but shuddered involuntarily. Hoover had told him to meet with Lyme and tell him — not everything — but some key part of his story. Lyme returned to Bermuda, where he commanded a small army of clerks who had been routinely intercepting all mail traffic between Europe and America on behaolf of British Intelligence. Even much of the wire traffic was intercepted there. He began to look for communicatoin with Swiss, Portugese, German and Italian banks operating all over Europe. Hoover continued his own extensive and unauthorized wiretapping projects, with patriotic agents eager to help fight the Nazis and criminals both, had no idea that they were merely helping a blackmailer who did not discriminate between criminals, enemies and otherwise honest and patriotic publishers, politicians, entertainers, and newscasters. Hoover was addicted to blackmail and Pere Matthias’ plan, to the extent he knw it was pure gold, the holy grail of blackmail plans — to actually influence global politics as he saw it for Wexford had prudently withheld the plans economic implications — was intoxicating to the old lawman.