Raven
arrived at the Milan headquarters of ENI, the Italian
National Oil Company precisely at 9:50 am. His appointment
with Enrico Mattei, its chairman, was not until ten,
but he made it a practice to be early. He was always
the first to arrive for any appointment.
Raven had been working
for the cartel now for just over five years at least
five years he was aware of. After getting his double-first
at Christ Church College at Oxford in 1939, his professor
recruited him to work for a special double-cross counter-intelligence
compartment in MI-5. Not being upper class enough for
the elite there, he was given the job no one else would
take: liaison officer with their American counterpart
in London. "The Kin," as the Americans were
called, were brash, unsophisticated and inexperienced.
They also played to win at any cost. After the war ended,
the Americans needed "wet jobs" done on some
embarrassing double-agents in Germany, but their law
forbid them from undertaking assassinations. So, as
liaison officer, he arranged a convenient exchange:
British agents would do American "wet jobs"
in return from American agents doing some equally sensitive
British dirty work in oil sheikdoms that were British
protectorates. It was then that Lord Crude, who had
somehow heard of his "exchange program," offered
him a position with the seven oil companies that owned
most of the worlds crude oil. His job was to, by diplomacy
or any other means necessary, to prevent interlopers
from undercutting the cartel's control.
The modest card Raven
had given to the attractive receptionist identified
him as "Executive Director, Coordinating Committee,
International Petroleum Institute," but, by the
rapid "uno momento" response she got from Mattei's assistant,
she guessed that the badly-dressed Englishman represented
something more than an academic institute. She smiled
and said in her best English"Dottorie Mattei will
meet you in his office."
She escorted him to
huge sparsely furnished office, with two ultra-modern
black leather sofas facing each other across a marble
coffee table. She guided him to his designated place.
On the wall, there was a map of all of ENI's assets.
As always, Raven had
made a careful study of his quarry. He had found that
Mattei's success in building ENI into a force that threatened
the cartel proceeded from a combination of bluff and
ambition. Nothing more. In 1947, when he was still in
MI-5, Mattei had gotten himself appointed head of ENI,
then only a small, government-owned gas company in the
Po Valley. Mattei then used his bluff to convince journalists
that ENI was sitting on top of enormous gas reserves,
and to cow other bureaucrats into lending ENI state
funds to develop these largely fictional resources.
With the government funds, he constructed refineries,
chemical plants, fertilizer companies, pipelines, gas
stations-even hotels. The only problem was that ENI
had, in fact, no energy to feed into this growing complex.
As ENI became more and more financially overextended,
Mattei upped the bluff. He got the Italian government
to supply ENI with the funds to seek its energy abroad.
The politicians had little choice. They couldn't let
Mattei's empire collapse into bankruptcy. He wasted
this money drilling dry holes.
So Mattei was desperate.
When Mossadeq seized the cartel's oil in Iran, he saw
it as his golden opportunity. He told Mossadeq that
ENI would take all the oil that was formerly purchased
by the cartel. He planned to refine it in Sicily and
sell the refined products throughout Europe.
Mattei, suave and energetic
as always, entered with a hand-wringing gesture. "Tony,
I"m so sorry to be late."
"I was early."
Raven wasted no time getting to the point. "I don"t
need to beat around the bush with you, Enrico. I am
here because my principals are concerned about your
plan to buy Iranian crude."
"Italy needs to
buy oil," Mattei shrugged. "Mossadeq needs
to sell oil." "The oil does not belong to
Mossadeq. Or Iran. It belongs to the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company."
"Not according
to Italian law," Mattei countered, "Iran nationalized
the oil."
"Illegally nationalized
it," Raven reminded him.
"Will Anglo-Iranian
sue Italy?" Mattei had scoffed, blushing as he tended
to do when he felt prodded or pressed.
"No need to be
litiginous," Raven said. "How are you planning
on shipping a million barrels of Iranian oil to Italy?"
"If we can't charter
enough tankers, we'll build them," Mattei answered.
At that point in the
meeting, a buzzer sounded and Mattei, with a surprised
look on his round face, picked up the red phone on his
desk, listened a moment, and then, excusing himself
for a moment, left the office.
Raven had a fairly
good idea what the call was about. Before coming to
ENI, he had sent out telegrams to the seven companies
he represented---Standard Oil, Mobil, Shell, Gulf, Texaco,
Anglo-Iranian, and Socal--- asking them not to deliver
one drop of oil to Italy until they received clearance
from Raven's Coordinating Committee in London. They
could invoke the Force Majeure clause in their contracts,
and provide any excuse, even if it was transparently
untrue. Tankers headed for Italian ports were to turn
around immediately. Pipelines in Germany, Austria, and
Yugoslavia were to cut off both oil and gas to Italy.
under the pretext of urgent repairs. Trucks on the highway
were not to cross the border.
Mattei returned to
the room looking grim. His black hair was slightly ruffled.
"Sorry to keep you waiting . . . but there has
been an unfortunate avalanche in the Austrian Alps."
"No one hurt, I hope."
Raven smiled politely.
"No, but it buried
a pumping station. The pipeline is shut."
"Bad luck. I assume
you have reserves stockpiled."
"Of course." Mattei
knew, as did Raven, that ENI had less than a week's
oil in its reserve. After that, Italy would close down,
and the politicians would have his scalp.
The phone rang again.
Mattei listened, looking increasingly concerned. He
then said, "There seems to be another force majeure:
a storm in the eastern Mediterranean . No tankers are
delivering oil. Such a storm can last for weeks."
Raven suggested, "You
can charter your own."
"We tried but
there are no tankers presently available anywhere."
"It must be the
storm, or the avalanche. Not much you can do about force
majeures. You can't sue nature, can you?"
Mattei's eyes narrowed,
focusing on Raven. He realized that the "avalanche"
and the "storm" were Raven's work.
"Pity you don't have
time to build tankers," Raven's head remained immobile
as he sketched out what continuing force majeures might
do. "ENI's chemical plants could run out of feed
stock and have to shut down. There would be no fertilizer
for the crops. Your friends in the government might
begin asking what happened to ENI's reserves."
"You know we need
that oil," Mattei answered.
Raven knew that Mattei
needed it. He was not a man who could stand up under
such pressures. His power rested solely on his reputation
as a producer of energy supplies. If this buckled, Mattei
was through as a political force in Italy. Mattei could
not afford to have his bluff called over Iran. "No man
in your position would risk seeing the entire Italian
economy grind to a halt because of a lack of oil." Raven
said, "I got a plane to catch."
At 5PM that afternoon,
Mattei called a brief press conference in his offices
at ENI. He announced that although Premier Mossadeq
of Iran and he had offered ENI a million barrels of
crude oil, ENI would not take delivery of the Iranian
oil until after the International Court in the Hague
had ruled on the legality of Iran's nationalization
of foreign oil concessions. He added that he didn't
expect such, a decision for at least one year,
By the time Raven's
flight landed in London that evening, oil was again
moving to Italy. The Force Majeure crises had ended
as abruptly as it had begun.
Raven's Daimler was
waiting at the airport. The driver handed him his mail.
In it was an hand-delivered envelope. It came from Suite
42, Hotel Aviz, Lisboa, an address with which Raven
was well acquainted. It was from the suite of Mr. Five
Percent himself, Calouste Gulbenkian. Raven opened it
immediately. It offered him, as he expected, a gift.
Raven knew that Mr.
Five Percent was an Armenian who understood the art
of baksheesh in a way no Westerner could. He had begun
as a paymaster for Nubar Pasha, who he named his son
after, who represented the Rothschild bank in the far-flung
Turkish empire. By the time he was thirty, he knew the
precise position of every court official in the baksheesh
chain, from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy,
and paid informants to apprise him of the exact state
of mind of each key official in the Sultan's court.
He would find out when someone had had a satisfactory
time with a woman, or when, through some business reverse,
someone was more amenable to accepting a bribe. He would
even secretly consult the court astrologist, who, for
a price, would supply him with the charts, he had drawn
up for each official, so that he could offer them a
bribe on the very day that they were expecting good
fortune. He found ways of bribing that did not compromise
officials, such as giving them Korans encrusted with
diamonds since they could commit no crime in accepting
the word of Allah. By the time the Sultan was driven
from power , he had gotten the Rothschilds and their
allies the giant oil concession in Iraq, and, in return,
kept five percent for himself.
"My Dear Antony,"
the letter began. " I hope you will accept a small
token of my appreciation of your untiring work on all
of our behalf. Nubar has told me of your interest in
the picture of the Achnacarry Shoot in Lord Crumonde's
library. As you no doubt know, it is one of seven copies
of the painting by Allen Julian in the Gulbenkian collection.
The original was personally given to me by Sir Henry
Deterding in 1928. I would very much for you to have
the original. You, as a connoisseur of such art, will
appreciate its unusual provenance. I have also taken
the liberty, if you have no objection, of arranging
for an art consultant from Christie's, Miss C. Winchester,
to deliver it to your home, and provide any assistance
you need in mounting it."
"C. Winchester
would be that girl with the glancing eyes at the shoot
at Loch Eddy, the girl who saw too much." Raven
thought. He had tried all that weekend to hide the attraction
she had aroused. He did not ever like losing control
of that part of his brain, the sensorium, that substitutes
passion for reason. But there had been a moment of weakness,
when peeking in the library to see the painting, she
had caught him off guard. Had sly Nubar seen that weakness
as an opening?
The Daimler passed
White's, the only club he ever lunched at, and turned
into St. James place, where he lived, and where Diane
would be waiting up for him. But he was still locked
in his train of thought. "It is always a mistake
underestimating the Gulbenkians. They have their own
agenda in Iran. Were they gifting him more than a painting.
Were they sending him another force majeure." It
was not an offer he could turn down.
|