To: T. L. Wilkens From: C. Porter Re: Office Procedure
I wish alterations in the formulation of interoffice memoranda. I think you should change to the pattern we used back at the bank in Iowa. You will see from the attached message that you will take it to the chief executive of the country, showing it to no one but himself under any circumstances. We will use monarch-sized stationery in the future and Number 9M envelopes…
An agent giving the message a fast nervous perusal might just take it at face value as new office instructions. One had to read the whole note to see that it was more than just a collection of banking instructions. But it contained the message to the President, and if Miss Wilkens held to her guns, refused to leave the note with the President's secretary but waited outside with the stubbornness of the Iowa farmer blood that was in her too, there was a chance. And that was something.
Driving along mountain roads bothered Clevis Porter. The picturesque postcard towns clustered at the foot of mountains bothered Clevis, just as winding, tree-shaded roads bothered Clovis.
He wanted to drive on a straight road, straight as a plumb-line, and see flat, unending God's country. He wanted to see corn again, the shoots, then the rising stalks making the plains a forest of green. He wanted to see the wheat again, flowing like a golden sea as far as the eye could reach.
He wanted to sit on a man's porch and shake hands on a seed loan, the man's character being his collateral.
But because of his education and his experience in international finance during the second world war, Clovis Porter was made an undersecretary of the treasury for foreign affairs, when it came time to reward Republicans for faithful service.
It had seemed like a career-topping situation. Four, maybe eight, years in Washington, then back to Iowa, knowing you'd done something big, and then spend the last days with friends.
Then there had been Washington and no amount of hiking or group discussions or even that silly encounter group he had joined when the city just got to him too much…none of those things seemed to replace the vitality a man could feel, standing on good Iowa earth and talking to friends.
So when that innocent little phone call came three months before, it did not seem so unattractive to take a world trip, ostensibly to examine international monetary fluctuations for an economic report. That was his cover story.
He knew now that he should have followed his instincts. Turn down the assignment and return to Iowa. But he couldn't; he owed it to the Republican party and the country to stay.
That was just the logic used on him to send him into the world's money markets looking for the thing that could not be hidden from a man of his sort. And when he found it, he knew he was a dead man and that the best place to die was away from his loved ones, where they could not get hurt.
Dammit, it had started so simply with a phone call from the intelligence people who needed some advice on international currency. Fine. Glad to help. Just a casual questioning. Nothing formal, nothing to bother the Secretary of the Treasury with. Just a word or two of background.
So on that winter day, he drove from the slush of Washington into the snow-dappled countryside of Langley, Va., where he entered a new office building and met a rather pleasant, clean-faced young man named A. G. Johnson, who asked him a very engaging question:
"What does a billion dollars mean to you?"
Clovis Porter had barely finished depositing his coat on a hanger when he began to answer the question.
"In dollars, land, project budgets or what?"
"In gold."
"It doesn't mean much," said Clovis Porter, sitting down. "Only a handful of countries in the world have that much gold. And those that have it don't use it. They just keep it in a warehouse someplace, and let it maintain the value of their currency."
"Why would a country try to gather up a billion in gold?"
"Just habit," Porter said. The question intrigued him. "In dealing between countries, the dollar is as good as gold. But people have been collecting gold for so long, they've just got the habit. So have countries."
"What could a country buy for a billion in gold?"
"What couldn't you buy?," Clovis Porter said.
"If something were for sale for a billion dollars in gold, could you find out what it was? And who was getting ready to buy it? I mean, could it be kept secret?"
"To anyone who knew what he was looking for, it would stand out like a blizzard in July."
"I take it you would know what you're looking for?"
"Yes sir, I would," Clovis Porter said.
"I'm glad you said that," the young man answered, "because we need a little favour."
And that was it. Clovis Porter, who was tired of Washington anyway, went out into the marketplaces of the world. And he found out which countries were suddenly trying to build stockpiles of gold, and how they were doing it.
And because he was a banker and because he was willing to liquidate all his assets—even $2.4 million took a frenzied three weeks to turn into cash—he found out why they needed the gold.
They were going to bid in an auction. And one billion dollars in gold was the opening bid. And when he found out what was going on the auction block, he knew that America had only a slim chance of survival and that he could not even trust the young Intelligence man who had given him his assignment.
And he also knew that when it was discovered that he had used his personal fortune to learn what was going on, he would be very much a dead man.
So Clovis Porter mailed the envelope to Miss T. L. Wilkens, then drove out into the Swiss countryside waiting for them to kill him, hoping that they thought his family was unaware of what he knew.
He would be discovered three days later, nude, having attempted, apparently, to swim upstream in the sewer system. Official cause of death: drowning in the excrement of the good people of Thun. There were witnesses, all of whom thought it odd that a man could be walking around the town, incessantly humming a strangely happy song, and then only minutes later take his own life.
The body would be returned to Dubuque for burial, but Miss T. L. Wilkens would not be there to pay last respects to her employer of the last two decades. She would be running for her life, because of a seemingly nameless telephone conversation she had had with Clovis Porter the day before his death.
It was long distance from Switzerland, and before she picked up the call, Miss T. L. Wilkens, a bosomy solid woman with graying hair and bone spectacles, took a freshly sharpened pencil from a tray in front of her.
"Yes, Mr. Porter. Good to hear from you."
"Did you get the manila envelope I mailed?"
"Yes, sir. Came in this morning."
"Good. Good, It was office instructions and I've been thinking that I want to rewrite them. So why don't you just tear it up, throw it away, and I'll prepare a new one when I get back. All right?"
Miss T. L. Wilkens paused and, in a flash, she understood.
"Yes, Mr. Porter. I'm tearing it up right now. Want to hear?"
"Did you read it yet?"
"No, Mr. Porter. Haven't gotten to it yet."
"Well, as I say, just tear it up."
Miss T. L. Wilkens slipped some blank paper from a drawer and tore it neatly down the middle in front of the phone receiver which nestled under her ample chin.
"Good," Porter said. "See you in a few days. Miss Wilkens. Bye."
And because Miss T. L. Wilkens had indeed read the entire memorandum, she proceeded directly to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and would not leave the President's outer office until at 11:00 that night, at her urgent insistence, the President agreed to see the secretary of the undersecretary of the treasury for two minutes. He spoke with her for two hours. Then he said:
"I wish I could offer you the protection of the White House, but as you know that may not be worth all that much anymore. It's probably the worst place. Do you have any money for travel?"