“It’s called the Paris Club,” she said in French.
She’d chosen 15,000 meters over the north Atlantic, inside the sumptuous cabin of her new Gulfstream G650, to make one last pitch. She was proud of her latest state-of-the-art toy, one of the first off the assembly line. Its spacious cabin accommodated eighteen passengers in plush leather seats. There was a galley, a roomy lavatory, mahogany furnishings, and mega-speed Internet video modules connected by satellite to the world. The jet flew high, fast, long, and reliably. Thirty-seven million, and worth every euro.
“I’m familiar with that organization,” Robert Mastroianni said, keeping to her native language. “An informal group of financial officials from the world’s richest countries. Debt restructuring, debt relief, debt cancellation. They float credit and help struggling nations pay back their obligations. When I was with the International Monetary Fund, we worked with them many times.”
A fact she knew.
“That club,” she said, “grew out of crisis talks held in Paris in 1956 between a bankrupt Argentina and its creditors. It continues to meet every six weeks at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industry, chaired by a senior official of the French treasury. But I’m not speaking of that organization.”
“Another of your mysteries?” he asked, criticism in his tone.
“Why must you be so difficult?”
“Perhaps because I know it irritates you.”
Yesterday she’d connected with Mastroianni in New York. He hadn’t been pleased to see her, but they’d dined out last night. When she’d offered him a ride back across the Atlantic, he’d accepted.
Which surprised her.
This would be either their last conversation—or the first of many more.
“Go ahead, Eliza. I’m listening. Of course, there’s nothing else I can do but listen to you. Which, I suspect, was your plan.”
“If you felt that way, then why fly home with me?”
“If I’d refused, you would have simply found me again. This way we can resolve our business, one way or the other, and I receive a comfortable flight home as the price for my time. So please, go ahead. Make your speech.”
She quelled her anger and declared, “There’s a truism born of history. ‘If a government can’t face the challenge of war, it ends.’ The sanctity of law, citizen prosperity, solvency—all those principles are readily sacrificed by any state when its survival is challenged.”
Her listener sipped from a champagne flute.
“Here’s another reality,” she said. “Wars have always been financed by debt. The greater the threat, the greater the debt.”
He waved her off. “And I know the next part, Eliza. For any nation to involve itself in war, it must have a credible enemy.”
“Of course. And if they already exist, magnifico.”
He smiled at her use of his native tongue, the first break in his granite demeanor.
“If enemies exist,” she said, “but lack military might, money can be provided to build that might. If they don’t exist—” She grinned. “—they can always be created.”
Mastroianni laughed. “You have such a diabolical way.”
“And you don’t?”
He glared at her. “No, Eliza. I don’t.”
He was maybe five years older, equally as rich, and though aggravating, could be quite charming. They’d just dined on succulent beef tenderloin, Yukon Gold potatoes, and crisp green beans. She’d learned he was a simple eater. No spices, garlic, or hot pepper. A unique palate for an Italian, yet a lot about this billionaire was unique. But who was she to judge? She harbored a number of her own idiosyncracies.
“There is another Paris Club,” she said. “One much older. Dating to the time of Napoleon.”
“You’ve never mentioned this fact before.”
“You never showed any interest, until now.”
“May I be frank?”
“By all means.”
“I don’t like you. Or more accurately, I don’t like your business concerns or your associates. They are ruthless in their dealings, and their word means nothing. Some of your investment policies are questionable at best, criminal at worst. You’ve pursued me for nearly a year with tales of untold profits, offering little information to support your claims. Perhaps it’s your Corsican half, and you simply can’t control it.”
Her mother had been Corsican, her father a Frenchman. They’d married young and stayed together for more than fifty years. Both were now dead, she their only heir. Prejudice regarding her ancestry was nothing new—she’d encountered it many times—but that didn’t mean she accepted it gladly.
She stood from her seat and removed their dinner plates.
Mastroianni grabbed her arm. “You don’t need to serve me.”
She resented both his tone and grasp, but did not resist. Instead she smiled, switched to Italian, and said, “You’re my guest. It’s the proper thing.”
He released his grip.
She’d staffed the jet only with two pilots, both forward behind a closed cockpit door, which was why she’d attended to the meal. In the galley, she stored the dirty plates and found their dessert in a small refrigerator. Two luscious chocolate tarts. Mastroianni’s favorite, she’d been told, bought from the Manhattan restaurant they’d visited last evening.
His countenance changed when she laid the treat before him.
She sat across from him.
“Whether you like me or my companies, Robert, is irrelevant to our discussion. This is a business proposition. One that I thought you would be interested in entertaining. I have taken great care in making my selections. Five people have already been chosen. I’m the sixth. You would be the seventh.”
He pointed to the tart. “I wondered what you and the gar?on were discussing before we left last night.”
He was ignoring her, playing a game of his own.
“I saw how much you enjoyed the dessert.”