The
white SS Christina shimmered in the bright morning sun
like an apparition. It was anchored between the tiny
green islands in the bay of Cannes Three hundred and
twenty feet in length, it had been built originally
by Canada in 1943 as a warship to escort convoys across
the Atlantic. After the war ended Onassis, had bought
it at war surplus prices and, lavishing $4 million on
it, he had transformed it into a floating palace that
could transport him in absolute luxury to any port in
the wor rld. He had then re-named it to honor his first
child, Christina.
Onassis leaned on the rail of
the upper deck, a white towel wrapped around his waist
and sun-glasses wrapped around his eyes. A Cole Porter
song could be heard on the radio playing in his office.
He glanced down at the time on
his Patek Phillipe wrist watch. It was 11:45 AM. The Riva
speedboat was returning from Cannes with freshly-baked
croissants, the Financial Times and a Professor Jacob
Foxx from Harvard.
Christina II, as he now called
his new art consultant, had prevailed on him to listen
to a business proposition that her Professor had for him,
a minor tanker charter deal. It sounded like a ludicrous
waste of his time at a time when his whole shipping empire
was teetering on the verge of collapse. He had initially
turned down her suggestion, saying he had more pressing
matters, but she answered provocatively "That would be
a mistake: He knows a secret that others would kill for."
When she put it that way, he could not say no to her.
He had always believed that the secret to success is to
know something nobody else knows. He would hear Foxx out.
Onassis' eyes followed Foxx as
he climbed from the mahogany prow of the Riva speedboat
onto the Christina's hanging stair-way. Onassis could
see that the professor was not appropriately dressed for
the world's most luxurious yacht or, for that matter,
a hot August day on the Riviera. He wore a straw hat,
a badly crumpled seersucker jacket, stained charcoal grey
slacks, a button-down shirt with a rep tie, argyle socks
and battered loafers. The boatman, providing a helping
hand, took his small suit-case and led him up the canopied
stairway. When he emerged on the pool deck, he looked
around agog. Where was Christina?
Foxx had not seen Christina in
nearly seven months. During his long flight from America,
he had thought about little else than her. He had longed
to be with her again and make love to her again. It had
been almost surrealistic when the Riva arrived at the
pier in Cannes, its crew members all wearing shirts with
her name emblazoned them, as if they could read his mind.
He heard a flutter of nearby splashing.
He turned towards the pool, squinting to see through the
blazing sun. He saw the glistening back of Christina,
half-emerged from the pool on the ladder. Her long hair
covered her shoulders like a mermaid. Her tan bathing
suit clung so tightly to her tanned body that, for a brief
moment, he thought she was not wearing one. Step by step,
she ascended out of the pool, then turned to him, "Jake,
I knew you would make it."
He rushed around the pool, wanting
to sweep her into his arms, but, like a playful water
nymph, she lithely evaded his embrace, "You'll get all
wet."
A pool man handed her one towel,
which, with a deft motion, she wrapped around her one-piece
bathing suit, and another which she dried herself with.
"Ari will be right down."
On his way down the spiral steps
to the pool deck, Onassis almost collided with Jean Noel,
his factotum, who was rushing up, two stairs at a time,
to find him. Noel had a look of urgent concern on his
face.
Sorry Sir," Noel said, "Chapelle,
our security man in the port, just called. It seems that
the police are inquiring about your guest, Professor Foxx."
"The police? On a Saturday,
no less?"
"Their not exactly the police.
Chapelle knows one them. He worked with him in SDECE."
"SDECE, in Cannes, no less,"
Onassis mused. The French counter-espionage service
was supposed to be pursuing spies outside, not inside,
of France. Why would they be asking about the Professor.
Christina's words "a secret that others would kill
for" suddenly took on a new plausibility to him. "Have
Chapelle discretely find out from his friend why SDECE
is involved."
By time Onassis arrived at the
pool, Foxx and Christina were deep in conversation in
lounge chairs under a white canopy. Foxx had given the
steward his jacket, tie and hat in exchange for an ice
tea.
"Christina has told me a great
deal about you Professor..."
"Call me Jake." Foxx rose to shake
hands with Onassis.
"Jake, I hope you can stay for
lunch," Onassis took a seat across from him, his towel
parting to expose his leg. "I want to hear about this
incredible game you designed."
"That is very kind of you, Mr.
Onassis." he couldn't quite bring himself to say Ari.
"I wanted to talk to you about tankers."
"Jake has a very tempting business
proposition," Christina chimed in. She then turned on
her stomach on the lounge. She adjusted her bathing suit,
she could sun her back down to the coccyx.
"What sort of business proposition?
I didn't know Harvard professors got involved in business
speculations?"
"It is very straight-forward.
I want to charter three fifteen-thousand oil tankers for
service in for one month. I would need them delivered
in the Persian Gulf in six days." Foxx looked at Onassis,
trying to appear business-like, though he was disconcerted
by Onassis's opaque sun glasses. He could not tell if
his eyes were focused on him or on Christina.
"Getting 3 ships would be no problem.
As you undoubtedly know, Jake, the charter market is at
rock bottom. Near Zero."
"How near zero?"
"Prices have never been lower
in history. $100,000 a month for a fifteen- thousand ton
ship. Another $20,000 to deliver it to the Gulf. Where
in the Gulf?"
"Abadan."
"Iran?" Onassis studied Foxx.
He tried to assess whether he was insane or merely ignorant.
Didn't he know Abadan had been closed by the British?
Didn't he know that the British would seize any cargo
taken from Abadan on the theory that it belonged to
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, not the Iranian government?
Didn't he know that the British were using the RAF to
stop suspected ships? He maintained a polite tone of
voice he always did with guests, but he also subscribed
to the maxim that a fool and his money are soon parted.
"It would cost you $360,000,"
said Onassis. "Short term charter fees have to
be paid in advance. Is that a problem?"
"I've only have $30,000."
"And so who would pay the other
$330,000?"
"I assumed I could borrow it from
a bank once the ship took on a cargo of oil. The oil would
certainly be collateral..."
"I'm afraid Abadan is closed.
No bank would lend a penny on a cargo of Iranian oil.
Any oil you took on in Iran would be seized. I see lunch
is ready. Do you like langouste?"
Onassis clapped his hands and
three waiters rushed over. Two carried a table, and the
third a menu.
"Langouste sounds divine," said
Christina, flipping herself over on her back and, covering
herself with a towel, changing her bathing suit. She transformed
herself with the eye- numbing speed of a magician. Presto.
The towel disappeared and she was now wearing a white
"Bikini," as it had been recently nicknamed from a crude
joke about the recent nuclear bomb tests vanishing two
atolls in the pacific. "Certainly Ari you can spare three
ships for a month?" She asked, sitting up.
"Unfortunately, I can't do that.
If I chartered these ships out for the month, I would
lose the opportunity to sell them, and I cannot afford
to do that." He knew that, even if this fool professor
had the money to pay for the crews and captains, he might
not have any ships to charter by the end of the day. Earlier
that week, he had made verbally agreed to sell his entire
fleet to the Satrap syndicate in Luxembourg. Even though
the price was abysmally low hardly more than the scrap
value of the ships he had no other offers. If he didn't
sell, his creditors could bring down his entire financial
structure like a house of cards. Making the Satrap deal
even more onerous was that he knew virtually nothing about
Satrap. Even with his formidable private intelligence
sources, he had been unable to find out even the name
of its principals. Now Satrap's lawyers were haggling
over every petty detail.
"Wouldn't those ships be worth
a lot more if the blockade of Iran ended Maybe ten times
more?" Foxx suggested, desperately trying to keep alive
Onassis's interest.
"If a man had wings, he could
fly," Onassis standing up, waved his arms like a bird.
"Unfortunately, he could also go bankrupt waiting for
the blockade to end.. Perhaps you missed the twelve o'clock
news on the BBC. The Shah has abdicated. He has flown
to Switzerland. Mossadeq is in total control of Iran.
Mossadeq will never give into the oil cartel. The blockade
will go on. I wish it was different."
"It is different," Foxx spoke
with a confidence that he had not shown before. "The Shah
has not abdicated or gone to Switzerland. Actually, he
is in Baghdad, waiting. Mossadeq may think he is in total
control, but he is not. The Shah has left behind a few
sunrises for him, including a royal decree."
"The news may be wrong, it often
is." Onassis shrugged, "if you will excuse me for a moment,
I have a few phone calls to make before lunch." He walked
up to the stairs.
Noel jumped up from the papers
on his desk when Onassis, still wearing only a towel,
strode into the ship board office. "I have not been able
to get through to the Satrap lawyers. They are an elusive
bunch," Noel said, picking up the note book, he used to
keep track of his tasks. "But Chapelle has cast a little
light on the SDECE manhunt. SDECE is looking for Foxx
on behalf of the CIA. Their agents are scouring the south
of France."
"What is SDECE supposed to do
when they find him?"
"They have been asked to hold
him absolutely incommunicado for six days. Not even a
phone call to the embassy. Pretty weird."
Onassis left the office and went
to his private suite to change for lunch. He slipped on
cream slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. But he kept thinking
about Christina's odd choice of words, "A secret people
would kill for." Was it the CIA's secret? Was that why
they had SDECE hunting Foxx? Did their secret concern
something that was going to happen in the next six days?
Was that why they wanted Foxx held incommunicado? He didn't
like to be tormented by a mystery. Picking up the phone,
he had the ship's operator call a friend of his in Greek
Foreign Ministry, Dimitri Vakalo. Dimitri's job was to
track of developments in the Middle East. He asked Dimitri,
"Is it true that the Shah abdicated today?"
"That was the news report from
the BBC out of Teheran at noon," Dimitri answered, "but
apparently it is not true. I just came from a NATO briefing.
The Shah's plane landed at Baghdad. No one knows why."
"And are the Americans involved?"
"They are keeping their cards
pretty close to the chest. The only thing we know for
sure is that American military planes are flying out of
Athens with their markings blacked out."
Onassis sat at the head of the
table under the canopy. Christina sat on his right, wearing
a diaphanous robe over her bikini, Foxx sat on his left,
wearing the a SS Christina crew shirt. One waiter placed
a huge tray of grilled Langouste on the table and three
dishes of melted butter, another waiter poured chilled
Chablis wine.
"So you want to risk all your
savings on a political event in Iran," Onassis probed.
"Do you think that is a prudent gamble, Jake?
"Gamble? Why assume it is a gamble,
Ari," Christina cut in. She picked up a Langouste with
her hands, ripped it apart. And dipped the white meat
in the butter. The sea air made her very hungry.
"Politics may be much less of
a gamble than other enterprises," Foxx said, adopting
the style he used in his lectures on Political Pathology.
"Nation A has oil, but a vacuum of power. Nation B has
power but not enough oil to keep its cities lit and it
cars running. It is inevitable that Nation A will get
the oil it needs from Nation B."
"I agree but the issue is when.
Timing, as you know, is everything," Onassis had skillfully
dismantled his Langouste. "Sorry I can't help you. Your
proposition is not without intriguing possibilities. But,
Jake, I am not a gambler. "
"I am sorry to interrupt your
lunch, Sir," Noel interrupted, a notebook ready in his
hand. He spoke in a quiet voice, but not quiet enough
for Foxx not to overhear. " Satrap's lawyer is on the
phone. The contract is ready for signing..."
Foxx's mind, was whirling around
like a roulette wheel, trying to put in its precise place
what he had read about satrap in the document that Christina
had sent him. Suddenly, the bouncing ball fell into the
slot. He had a trump card. "Satrap is not a gambler either."
Onassis who had half-risen, sat
back down again. "Are you familiar with Satrap?"
"The Luxembourg syndicate that
was formed last march by Sir Anthony Raven?
"Go on," Onassis said in a commanding
voice. He was familiar with Raven.
"Its principal shareholders, aside
from Raven, is Calouste Gulbenkian."
"I see. And they are not gamblers
because they know that there will be oil for the tankers?
In six days?"
"That is correct. Iran will re-open
for selling oil after Mossadeq is overthown. As a face-
saving device, The Shah will use independently-owned tankers
for the first shipments." Foxx answered.
Onassis lifted his glass to his
lips and sipped the cool Chablis. He now understood why
Gulbenkian had made him an offer he knew he would refuse.
He had known all along about the American coup d'etat.
So had Raven. They wanted to mislead him into selling
his ships. They stood to make an enormous fortune anonymously,
in Luxembourg.
Onassis said to Noel. "Tell
the Captain that we will be leaving for Italy immediately
after lunch." Noel started to go. "One more thing: I
want you to draw up a contract between me and Professor
Foxx. Three tankers, 15,000 tons, to be delivered at
Abadan next Thursday. $360,000. The sum need not be
paid in advance. Is one month sufficient credit, Jake?"
"Thank you," Foxx said, knowing
that in a month, the charters would be worth ten times
what he was paying.
"What about Satrap. What should
I tell them?" Noel asked.
"Tell them I'll will call them
back. Let them twist slowly in the wind. Wind is all they
will get from me." |