Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing / In flight, Falcon 900 — February 15, 1992
Omniscient (focus on Lazare Bonaparte and Baron de Vigan)
The Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, with its imperial gardens locked in frost and its pavilions of upturned roofs, had been the setting for many an unacknowledged capitulation. It was here, in these hushed salons smelling of sandalwood and jasmine tea, that Richard Nixon had sealed the Sino-American rapprochement twenty years earlier. It was here that Communist China received those it judged to be the major players of world history.
On this foggy mid-February morning of 1992, history was not being written with nuclear superpowers, but with silicon.
In the Grand Salon of Ambassadors, the silence was absolute. The vast mahogany table was strewn with heavy red leather folders stamped with the gold star of the People's Republic. The air was saturated with that solemn tension peculiar to moments which alter the axis on which the world turns.
Lazare Bonaparte, dressed in a double-breasted suit of impeccable cut, held a Montblanc fountain pen between his fingers. Across from him, the Minister of the Electronics Industry and Director Wang of the Huabei complex waited, their faces impenetrable, masking an existential anguish behind their stoicism.
Around them, an armada of translators, corporate lawyers, and senior Party dignitaries held their breath. Baron de Vigan, standing half a pace behind Lazare, wore the relaxed elegance of an aristocrat at leisure, but his hands, clasped behind his back, trembled faintly. What they were about to do was at once diplomatic madness and pure industrial genius.
Lazare lowered the nib to the thick paper. The scratch of gold on parchment rang out like a gunshot in the silence of the pavilion.
He signed the first copy. Then the second. Then the third.
Each signature was a nail driven into the coffin of American hegemony. When Lazare lifted his head and capped his pen, a murmur ran through the Chinese ranks. The Minister stepped forward and, in turn, pressed his red seal onto the documents, followed by Director Wang's nervous signature.
It was done. The legal earthquake had taken place.
For the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, a foreign, capitalist, Western company had just taken a direct and massive stake in a strategic instrument of state production. Volta S.A. now officially owned forty-nine per cent of the giant Huabei industrial complex.
On paper, China kept the majority with fifty-one per cent, thus preserving the ideological face of the Party. The red flag would go on flying over the factory roofs, and the fifty thousand workers of Tianjin province would remain state employees. But in reality, through side clauses drafted with surgical precision by Lazare's lawyers, Volta held absolute control. Lazare had a veto over the entire production line, exclusive intellectual property in the microcode, and the VESLA architecture remained locked behind impenetrable security protocols.
The Chinese minister extended his hand to Lazare.
"Monsieur Bonaparte," the dignitary said with a respect tinged with mistrust. "China honours its commitments. Your machines will replace our old forges. Our workers will build your processors. And together, we will equip the future of Asia."
"I expect nothing less, Monsieur le Ministre," Lazare replied, gripping the statesman's hand. "The Digital Silk Road is officially open."
Official photographers emerged from the alcoves, freezing the handshake under the crackle of flashbulbs. De Vigan moved closer, beaming for the lenses, savouring this absolute triumph. French diplomacy had never managed to penetrate the Chinese market with such depth. The Ogre of Ivry had just succeeded where decades of foreign policy had failed.
An hour later, the protocol dispensed with, Lazare and de Vigan took their places in the back of the armoured Hongqi limousine that was to carry them to Beijing Capital International Airport.
The moment the heavy door swung shut, sealing the cabin off from the noise of the city and the freezing cold, de Vigan let out a frank laugh, releasing all the tension of the past few days.
"Lazare, it is a masterpiece!" the diplomat exclaimed, slapping the leather back of the front seat. "The Quai d'Orsay will weep with joy. You made the Politburo swallow a snake the size of an anaconda! They have ceded you half an industrial city!"
Lazare was not smiling. He opened his briefcase and took out a Volta handheld terminal, hooked to a satellite encryption system, to verify the wire transfers.
"Let us do the accounting, de Vigan," he said in a flat voice, his eyes fixed on the lines of green code scrolling across the dark screen. "The diplomatic victory matters little to me. What matters is the logistics of the war."
The Baron drew out his own notebook, adjusting his tortoiseshell glasses. His excitement dropped a notch before his employer's coldness, but the figures were intoxicating all the same.
"Very well," de Vigan summarized. "To buy back the Huabei group's bottomless debt from the regional banks of Hebei, we had to pay roughly four hundred million francs. On top of that comes the immediate capital injection the contract requires — to destroy the old Soviet lines and prepare the clean rooms that will house our future photolithography machines. Another four hundred million."
De Vigan looked up, a carnivorous smile on his lips.
"The whole operation costs us eight hundred million francs, Lazare. A trifle. You have just bought yourself the most disciplined and the most vast workforce on the planet for the price of an office building in the eighth arrondissement of Paris."
"Which leaves our treasury at what figure?" Lazare asked, demanding absolute precision.
"Our war chest stood at eight billion francs in net after-tax profit for the 1991 financial year. Subtract the rescue of Huabei, and Volta this morning has free, available cash flow of seven point two billion francs. And I remind you — a thing extremely rare for a company of our size — that we carry zero bank debt. Zero. If we wanted to double that sum by tapping the markets tomorrow morning, the bankers would duel one another on the esplanade of La Défense for the privilege of lending to us."
Lazare closed the handheld terminal. The figure was colossal. Seven billion two hundred million francs of liquid ammunition. It was more than the defence budget of certain sovereign nations. It was the financial firepower he needed for the next step — the step that would guarantee Washington could never sever his supply chains.
"America will not be slow to react," Lazare murmured, watching the suburbs of Beijing slide past the tinted glass. "We have just created a production asymmetry. Intel manufactures its Pentium processors in California and Ireland, with engineers paid in gold and immense structural costs. In a year's time, the Tianjin plant will produce the V-1100 in astronomical quantities, at a unit cost divided by ten. We are going to flood the planet. We are going to drown Silicon Valley under our volumes."
De Vigan nodded, admiring the brutality of the strategy.
"It is the end of Bush's monopoly," the Baron confirmed. "When we return to Paris tonight, I will contact the Élysée at once. President Mitterrand will want to see you. What you have accomplished warrants a national decoration. You have become the instrument of French foreign policy by the sheer force of your enterprise."
The limousine rolled onto the secure tarmac of the airport, stopping at the foot of Volta's Falcon 900. The crew waited, lined up in the biting cold, ready for departure.
Lazare stepped out of the car, his long black overcoat whipped by the icy wind. He climbed the steps of the gangway with that feline ease that belied his status as a mere businessman. De Vigan followed close behind, shivering, eager to regain the pressurized, heated cabin of the business jet.
Inside, the luxury of the Falcon offered a stark contrast to the mineral hardness of winter China. Burr-walnut panelling, cream leather armchairs, a crystal bar lit with delicacy. It was a spacecraft built for the masters of this world.
The moment the heavy door of the aircraft was locked, sealing off the rising roar of the engines, de Vigan made straight for the minibar. He drew out a bottle of Krug Clos du Mesnil he had had chilled before their departure.
"To the Silk Road, Lazare," de Vigan declared, easing out the cork with a muffled pop. "To our triumphant return to Paris."
He held out a crystal flute to Lazare.
Lazare Bonaparte looked at it but did not reach out to take it. His dark, unfathomable eyes were fixed on the cockpit door.
"Keep the champagne, de Vigan," he said, in a voice that dropped the cabin temperature by several degrees. "We have nothing to celebrate. The war has merely changed continents."
The Baron's smile froze. He slowly lowered the flute.
"Lazare... we have just signed the largest industrial agreement of the decade. America has been caught off guard. We return as victors."
"America is never caught off guard for very long," Lazare cut in, rising and starting up the central aisle of the aircraft.
He stopped before the Baron, his aura crushing the diplomat's good humour.
"Do you sincerely believe the CIA is asleep while we buy up China? Do you believe that the most heavily funded intelligence agency on the planet has not wiretapped this country? They know, de Vigan. As we speak, Echelon's satellites have already relayed our wire-transfer data to Langley. The American agents posted in Beijing have already photographed our limousines. Washington knows that I have just circumvented their technology embargo by handing the VESLA architecture to the Chinese Communist Party."
De Vigan swallowed hard. The brutal reality of the great geopolitical game reasserted itself, sweeping away the euphoria of the accountant's victory.
"If — if they know," de Vigan stammered, "then they will hit us with direct sanctions. They will ban the sale of any equipment containing an American patent to Volta."
"That is exactly what they will do," Lazare confirmed, with the clinical coldness of a doctor delivering a fatal diagnosis. "They will strangle us upstream. We have the factory, we have the Chinese hands, we have our own processor architecture. But we lack the fundamental tool."
Lazare pointed a finger toward the window, toward the distant horizon.
"How do you suppose one prints a billion transistors on a wafer of silicon, de Vigan? With paintbrushes? We need extreme-precision optical photolithography machines. Without them, the Huabei factory is nothing but an enormous empty hangar. At present, the world market for these machines is dominated by the Japanese — Nikon and Canon."
"And Japan will obey Washington," the Baron understood at once, terror creeping into his voice. "If they decree an embargo on optical equipment against Volta, Tianjin will never produce our chips. We will have bought an empty shell for eight hundred million francs."
"Precisely," said Lazare. "But America is not omnipotent. There is a gap in their net. An anomaly that history has all but forgotten in these early nineties — yet which holds the patents that will forge the twenty-first century."
Lazare passed de Vigan and opened the cockpit door. The two pilots, absorbed in their take-off procedures, turned in surprise to see the boss inviting himself into the flight deck.
"Captain," Lazare said, in a voice that brooked no reply.
"Yes, Monsieur Bonaparte? We are lined up for the north runway. Flight plan cleared for Paris–Charles de Gaulle. Estimated duration—"
"Cancel Paris," Lazare interrupted. "Amend the flight plan at once."
The captain blinked, baffled, his hands hovering over the yoke. A last-minute change to an international flight plan was an administrative nightmare, especially out of Chinese airspace.
"Sir, we have our overflight clearances for Russia and Central Europe toward France. Where do you want me to take you?"
Lazare laid a hand on the frame of the cockpit door. The Ogre of Ivry was beginning the final phase of his conquest of absolute independence.
"Set course for the Netherlands, Captain," Lazare ordered. "Put us down at Eindhoven Airport."
The pilot nodded, frantically raising the Beijing control tower to negotiate the new route, invoking a high-level diplomatic emergency.
Lazare shut the cockpit door and turned to face de Vigan, who had just set his untouched flute of champagne back on the crystal bar. The diplomat finally understood. The takeover of the Chinese factory had been only half the plan. That was the body. Now it was necessary to secure the heart of the forge.
"You want to buy out the Philips subsidiary," de Vigan stammered. "ASML."
"Philips is trying to be rid of it," Lazare explained, returning to his deep leather seat. "They have been losing money on it for years. Their engineers work in wooden sheds that leak in the Dutch rain. No one believes in European lithography. Everyone thinks the future belongs to the Japanese. No one but me."
He fastened his seat belt with a sharp, clean metallic click.
"ASML holds the fundamental patents that will make it possible to etch at fineness even Intel deems scientifically impossible today. If they go bankrupt — or worse, if an American company buys their patents — our adventure ends right there. Washington will use its intellectual-property veto to prevent us from buying any etching machine anywhere on the planet."
The Falcon 900 accelerated down the runway, the thrust of its three engines pressing both men back into their seats. The aircraft tore itself free of Beijing's frozen ground, ripping through the polluted haze to climb into the blue of the stratosphere.
"We have seven point two billion francs in cash," Lazare resumed as the plane levelled off. "I will use whatever it takes to swallow ASML before the White House understands that the key to global hegemony lies in a shabby shed in the Dutch countryside. If we own the machine that prints intelligence, we become invincible."
De Vigan sank into the seat facing Lazare. The adrenaline of diplomacy gave way to the dizzying fatigue of a war that knew no truce. Lazare never slept. He never celebrated. He advanced, with the inexorability of a tank, crushing the eras and the certainties of his contemporaries.
"And if the Americans are already on it?" de Vigan asked, his throat dry. "If they have grasped what you are trying to do?"
Lazare's gaze lost itself in the fleecy clouds streaming past ten thousand metres beneath the aircraft's wings. The Builder remembered the mercenaries of Pantin, the threats of the NSA, the absolute cruelty of the technological Cold War.
"Then we will no longer be doing business, de Vigan. We will be making war."
The Falcon 900 turned due west. It did not flee toward the safety of Paris; it dived toward the next front line. The Ogre sped on for Eindhoven, ready to steal the fire of Prometheus, while on the far side of the Atlantic, the American Empire prepared to strike in defence of its crown.
⁊
Oval Office, White House, Washington D.C. / CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia — February 15, 1992 (local time)
Omniscient (focus on George H. W. Bush and the crisis staff)
The Oval Office lay sunk in that particular gloom that precedes geopolitical storms. The only light came from the President's desk lamp, throwing long shadows across walls hung with historic portraits. George H. W. Bush, forty-first President of the United States, stood before the tall south window. Through the armoured glass he looked out over the White House lawns, frozen iron-hard.
On the Resolute desk waited a folder stamped with the purple seal of the CIA. Beside it stood a cold cup of coffee and a sheaf of satellite intercept reports. Bush did not look at the documents. He knew their contents by heart. They told the story of an American failure.
"He has humiliated us, Brent," Bush murmured without turning.
Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Adviser, readjusted his glasses. In the room, the silence was heavy. Robert Gates, Director of the CIA, waited in the shadows, arms folded, his face as impenetrable as a slab of granite.
"It is not merely a humiliation, Mr. President," Scowcroft replied in a low voice. "It is systemic sabotage. By signing this production agreement for the V-1100 in China, Bonaparte has just broken COCOM. He has rendered the technology embargo void. If the Chinese Communist Party computerizes its army and its administration with the Volta architecture, we lose our leverage over Asia for the next forty years."
Bush finally turned. His features were drawn. Less than a month earlier he had personally telephoned François Mitterrand — a call "between friends" to demand an immediate halt to the mutual assassinations between the CIA and the DGSE. The shadow war, in Bali and then in Pantin, had reached a level of savagery Washington judged counterproductive. Mitterrand had agreed, relieved to see the spectre of a total rupture with his principal ally recede. The truce was fresh, fragile, barely signed in the blood of the last fallen mercenaries.
"Robert," Bush resumed, fixing his eyes on Gates. "I gave Mitterrand my word. I ordered our services to stand down. The truce is less than thirty days old. Why does Bonaparte act as though he were at total war with us?"
Robert Gates took a step into the light. His face betrayed a worry that even his habitual phlegm could not mask.
"Because Bonaparte does not consider himself bound by Mitterrand's word, Mr. President. Our financial analysts have just confirmed the unthinkable. We have traced a massive transfer of funds, routed through a cascade of offshore banks and encrypted accounts in Singapore."
Gates paused, letting the weight of his revelation settle over the room.
"Lazare Bonaparte has just made a personal donation of one billion French francs to the black budget of the DGSE. More precisely, to the Action Service of Commandant Vasseur."
A deathly silence fell over the Oval Office. Bush sat down slowly in his leather chair, as though the weight of the information had physically struck him.
"A billion?" Scowcroft whispered. "This is no longer a company financing its own defence. This is a man financing a state within the state."
"It is worse than that, Brent," Gates continued. "Bonaparte does not give this money for the fatherland. He gives it for war. He is directly financing Vasseur's neutralization operations. In plain terms, he has bought the absolute loyalty of the most lethal branch of the French services. Thanks to Volta's money, Vasseur commands a budget entirely beyond the reach of the French Parliament — and even, we suspect, beyond that of the Élysée. Bonaparte has privatized France's clandestine strike force."
Bush rubbed his temples. The situation was catastrophic. If they chose to resume hostilities against Bonaparte, if they sent neutralization teams again, they would no longer be facing a government agency with limited means. They would be facing a war machine fuelled by Volta's billions.
"If we break the truce now," Bush said in a low voice, "what happens?"
"The riposte will be infinitely deadlier than anything we have known, Mr. President," Gates replied without hedging. "With a billion francs in reserve, Vasseur can recruit the best mercenaries on the planet, corrupt our own networks, and strike at the heart of our interests, right here in the United States. Bonaparte has built himself a bloody life-insurance policy. He is telling us: if you touch a hair on my head or my company, I will finance your annihilation."
"We cannot let him do it," Bush snapped, his anger rising to the surface. "He is in China. He is arming our future rivals. He holds our treaties in contempt. If we do not stop him at Eindhoven, we will have lost the silicon war before it has even begun."
Scowcroft shook his head, more cautious.
"Mr. President, we are at a hinge of history. The Soviet Union collapsed two months ago. Europe is a powder keg. Helmut Kohl is obsessed with German reunification, which is costing a fortune. Yugoslavia is exploding. If we force the Europeans' hand too brutally to ban Volta — or if we liquidate Bonaparte on European soil — we will destroy the last threads of trust between ourselves and our allies. They will see us as a paranoid Empire ready to assassinate a civilian genius because he has outstripped us technologically."
"The Europeans need us to stabilize the East," Gates said. "We still have levers."
"Levers, yes. But Bonaparte has the patents," Scowcroft countered. "If he buys ASML in the Netherlands, he will own the forge. He will be able to etch his chips anywhere, China included, without depending on a single American or Japanese component. He will be untouchable."
Bush rose and crossed to his desk. He looked at the photograph of Lazare Bonaparte — that young man's face that seemed to carry the wisdom of an old one.
"Robert, contact our ambassadors in The Hague. I want the Dutch to understand that a sale of ASML to Volta will be regarded as a hostile act against the United States. Use everything — tariffs, defence agreements, every hold we have on Philips."
The President paused, his gaze hardening.
"And Robert — keep the Special Activities teams on alert. If diplomacy fails at Eindhoven, if the Dutch give in to Bonaparte's money, we will have to consider Phase Three."
"You mean the resumption of the assassinations, Mr. President?" Gates asked.
"I mean we will do whatever is necessary to preserve the national security of the United States," Bush replied evasively. "But know one thing: if we strike Bonaparte while he is financing Vasseur to the tune of a billion, there will be no going back. It will be a total war of attrition in the shadows. And this time, it is not the French flag we will be facing, but the wallet of the Ogre of Ivry."
⁊
CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia — same moment
In the analysis room of the Europe Division, Thomas Hayes stared at the data streaming across his screen. The graphs charted the capital movements of Volta S.A. It was a financial architecture of frightening complexity, designed not to maximize profit but to conceal the manoeuvres of war.
The analyst sighed, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He had just confirmed the destination of the Falcon 900.
"He is not returning to Paris," he said to his superior, who had drawn near. "He has filed a flight plan for Eindhoven."
"He's going to buy up the lithography patents," the officer noted. "He wants to lock down the production chain."
"That is not what worries me most, sir," Hayes replied, pointing to another line of data. "Look at these withdrawals. Cash, routed through clearing accounts in Geneva. This is the money earmarked for Vasseur."
Hayes raised his eyes to his superior, his expression grave.
"We are used to fighting state agencies that have to answer to politicians. Here, we are fighting a private entity with the budget of a small army and not a single ethical constraint. If we break the truce Bush has asked for, Bonaparte will not send diplomats. He will send killers paid to keep at it for ten years. He has the means to finance a shadow war longer than Vietnam."
The CIA officer watched the red dot of Lazare's plane on the world radar map. The Ogre of Ivry was flying toward Europe, crossing the time zones with the certainty of a conqueror.
"America thinks it is the only superpower left since the fall of the Wall," Hayes murmured. "But it never saw the emergence of the superpower of one. Bonaparte is showing us that the future no longer belongs to nations, but to those who hold the code — and the money to protect it with blood."
Silence settled over the analysis room, broken only by the clatter of the teleprinters. At ten thousand metres, above the plains of Russia, Lazare Bonaparte was perhaps asleep — or perhaps already planning the buyout of Europe. Washington trembled, because for the first time in its history it realized that its greatest enemy wore no uniform, but a three-piece suit, and carried a one-billion-franc cheque made out to his own executioners.
The hunt for the Ogre had just entered its deadliest phase. And this time, no one knew the rules of engagement.