The Factory by Brian Freemantle

Author:Brian Freemantle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-09-26T16:39:33.292000+00:00

7

The Moneychanger

Intelligence – the gathering of it and use of it and most particularly what are later regarded as sensational intelligence coups – is not quick. It is timed in months rather than weeks: sometimes years rather than months.

By the early 1980s international Western banks and financiers confronted a nightmare. To explore mineral discoveries that never materialized and oil deposits that never actually brought black gold bubbling from the ground, they had loaned more money to developing Third World and Latin American countries than any of those countries could possibly pay back. By 1982 the combined debt was $626 billion. It was so much money, in fact, that the banks could not declare any one country in default: the loss would have been so enormous that the banks themselves would have gone bankrupt. One bankruptcy would have spread to another and from one financial centre to another and inevitably toppled the Western world’s financial structure. Those of Asia – Japan and Hong Kong – would have collapsed as well. The incredible resolve was to lend more money to the debtor countries so they could meet the interest payments on money they had no hope and sometimes no intention of paying back: the situation was of borrowers controlling the lenders, not the lenders dictating to the borrowers.

It was a situation from which the KGB saw great benefit. It took them several years before they were in a position to achieve it.

*

Everyone employed at the Factory was an expert intelligence officer but some were more specialized than others. Ian Sinclair was the financial guru. He actually looked like a banker. He was a tall, studious man who dressed in the conservative greys and blues of a financial manager. He rarely spoke before giving careful thought to what he was going to say; his party trick, however, was mentally making arithmetic equations faster than an opponent could operate a calculator.

The story of the Director General’s drinking was widespread throughout the department by now and when he entered the man’s office Sinclair decided Samuel Bell was certainly getting the appearance of someone who liked whisky too much. His face was a strangely permanent red colour and there was an uncertainty about his movements and sometimes his speech, as if he had difficulty in remembering what he was doing or saying halfway through.

‘I had an intriguing lunch with the Governor of the Bank of England,’ announced Bell. ‘All our leading banks have to make loan details available, as you know. It seems nearly all have started making substantial loans to Latin America and the Third World again.’

‘I would have thought they’d burned their fingers badly enough the first time around,’ said Sinclair.

‘So did he.’

‘Why doesn’t he order them to pull back?’ questioned the financial expert. ‘He’s got the authority: that’s why the banks have to provide details of their international loans. It’s the English law.’

‘He’s considering it,’ said Bell. ‘But the curious thing is that the new confidence is based upon all the indebted countries

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.