LITMIR.BIZ

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      Then Woodstock, followed by Knokke in Belgium – a golden opportunity to screw the Russians sabotaged by George Prentice, Saltsjobaden once again, Megeve in France and now Cesme.

      He thumbed through the documents supplied by the Liberty Lobby, stopping at an extract from the Congressional Record dated September 15, 1971. John R. Rarick, of Louisiana, had once again raised Bilderberg in the House of Representatives – his fifth foray that year.

      Rarick asserted that he had tried, so far unsuccessfully, to get the U.S. Attorney General to take action against Bilderberg on the grounds that it violated the Logan Act.

      He also inserted into the Record a revised article by two authors, Eugene Pasymowski and Carl Gilbert, which first appeared in the Temple University Press. The article was the most comprehensive Anderson had come across.

      It drew attention to the preponderance of members of the Council on Foreign Relations, among the American participants. It also underlined the ties with NATO and the big bands of the West.

      But even these two writers, who had obviously exhaustively researched their subject, had failed to discover what was actually said during discussions on such subjects as the ‘contribution of business in dealing with the current problems of social instability.’

      They should have access to my little bugs, Anderson thought.

      The critics, of course, claimed that Bilderbergers schemed outside the conference chamber. Claimed, for instance, that after the Woodstock meeting, American speculators dispatched billions of dollars to West Germany – and made billions when Richard Nixon devalued the dollar a few weeks later.

      Well, only the mentally-retarded would believe that fluctuation in currencies, in gold and silver, was outside the interests of Bilderbergers; that they didn’t concern themselves with political manipulation, the removal of unfriendly regimes, supplies of armaments and raw materials to the right people ….

      The few Bilderbergers who had ever discussed the meetings – albeit uncommittally – had agreed that contact was everything. Only a simpleton would accept that they didn’t profit from that contact.

      The Vietnam War that had ended for America on January 23, 1973, had undoubtedly taken up much of their time – Henry Kissinger frequently attended the meetings …. Soon the Prince Bernhard scandal would break. Would the fact that their illustrious chairman had accepted bribes be the end of Bilderberg? Anderson doubted it: that sort of clout could ride any storm.

      One of the most succinct comments in Anderson’s file was made by C. Gordon Tether in the London Financial Times. On July 10, 1974, he ended an article with the words: ‘It might be added that, if those foregathering at the Bilderberg shrine want to demonstrate that there is nothing questionable about their “humane activities”, they could with advantage go to more trouble to avoid fostering the opposite impression.’

      Anderson considered the list of participants at the meeting to be held at Cesme. Even if Bilderberg secrecy was undented, changes were being wrought: sex equality had touched its calculating soul.

      Among the women invited was Mrs Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Opposition in Britain. Which, Anderson thought, was a happy omen for Mrs Thatcher. The Western world’s leaders, so it was said, were drawn from the ranks of Bilderberg. Gerald Ford was a relatively unknown member of the House of Representatives when he attended.

      Anderson yawned and stretched. Not for him to pass judgement on the deliberations of the Brotherhood. It was his job to stop them being spied upon – or killed.

      He turned his attention to two stacks of dossiers piled up beside the bed. One contained the computerised background on newcomers to the conference; the other, material on regulars which had been substantially revised.

      He began with the second stack and picked up the top two files. Mrs Claire Jerome and Pierre Brossard. He decided to study Mrs Jerome first: not only was she prettier but she had an appointment later that day with the President of the United States.

      * * *

      In a penthouse two blocks away from Owen Anderson’s apartment, Claire Jerome was luxuriating in a bathtub gazing at a building which may or may not have been the Taj Mahal. In a blue pool in front of the building a muscular young man was swimming energetically in pursuit of a girl who looked not unlike Dorothy Lamour in her prime. It had so far taken him five years to catch her; perhaps, Claire pondered lazily, she should recall the painter and shift the young man a little nearer to his goal on the mural.

      She lay back in the black marble bath, toyed with the foam and breathed the perfume rising from the water. The bathroom really was decorated in atrocious style. Which was just how she wanted it. For fifteen minutes every day she escaped from convention. Black back (gold taps), white-tiled floor, a multitude of steam-proof mirrors and the wall-painting, which looked like a still from an early colour movie, was just about as vulgarly unconventional as you could get.

      Claire adored the place. She glanced at the Philip Patek watch on her wrist: she still had five more minutes left in which to let her thoughts roam away from board meetings, executive decisions, business luncheons, scheming colleagues ….

      She stretched out one leg and squeezed a sponge over it. Why did girls advertising baths or bath-salts always do that? Four minutes left …. Her thoughts drifted into the future; recently this was the direction they had been taking, accompanied by a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Unfulfilment? Now she was becoming her own psychiatrist. Perhaps she should restrict her therapy to ten minutes.

      She stepped out of the bath and surveyed herself from every angle in the mirrors. Pushing thirty-eight, not bad. Full firm breasts, flat belly; the figure of a woman ten years younger. And yet there was something unfulfilled about it. You’re getting neurotic, she told herself; she towelled and anointed herself, removed her shower cap and let her jet black hair fall over her shoulders.

      The unease dispersed.

      Mrs Claire Jerome, fifth richest woman in the world, de facto head of Marks International, the multi-national corporation founded on armaments, strode into the bedroom and gazed dispassionately at the man propped against the pillows in the big round bed reading a copy of Time magazine.

      ‘I see we made it again,’ he remarked, tapping the magazine with one finger.

      ‘We?’

      ‘Okay, you.’ He yawned. ‘Are you always crabby like this in the morning?’

      ‘I enjoy my privacy.’

      ‘Then why didn’t you tell me to get out last night?’

      ‘I thought I did,’ said Claire, sitting in front of the dressing-table and beginning to apply foundation cream.

      ‘I’m sorry. I guess we both fell asleep.’

      Claire observed him in the mirror. Crisply handsome and physically in good shape, age only beginning to show in that tautness of the facial muscles peculiar to men who had knifed their way to the top, and knew that other blades were flashing behind them.

      Well, almost to the top. Stephen Harsch was in his early forties, an age when you could still be described as ‘an up-and-coming young executive.’ Forty-five and you were a middle-aged fixture. Harsch was No. 4 in the Marks hierarchy and was anxious to become No. 3 as quickly as possible.

      Which, Claire knew perfectly well, was why he was in her bed. Ostensibly he was at the moment very pro Claire (No. 2) and her father, the titular head of the business. A proxy vote was looming and Harsch was marshalling the stockholders behind father and daughter. When he had won that round, Harsch would be agitating against them.

      The knowledge didn’t disturb Claire. She understood the Harschs’ of the world: she was their female counterpart. And her reasons for wanting Harsch in her bed were equally calculating: sexual satisfaction. And to have someone beside you, an unsolicited voice whispered.

      Angry with herself, she smudged her lipstick.

      Behind

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