T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

“I’m sorry, Congressman. If you don’t already know, I doubt seriously you can be brought up to speed fast enough to do us any good.” He waved toward the main hall. “You’re welcome to sit in, of course.”

The pastor and most of the others trickled away, leaving Wynn standing by the entrance to the assembly room. People continued to drift by, giving him bitter looks. Only the blond woman remained close by. Despite the surroundings, Wynn found himself captivated by the young woman’s gaze. The thought in his head was, Cop’s eyes. Wide and absolutely alert. An expression that said no matter what he might do, no matter how deranged, she would not be surprised.

Wynn asked, “Esther told you to shadow me?”

The woman said merely, “That’s right.”

“Esther will be pleased to hear I’ve disappointed another crowd.” He walked to an aisle seat midway back. The woman hesitated, then came over and seated herself beside him. Wynn offered his hand. “Wynn Bryant.”

Small fingers with an almost masculine strength took hold swiftly, then released. “Jackie Havilland.”

“You’ve known Esther long?”

Her gaze was steady and unyielding. “I’m not worth your worrying over, Congressman. And I hate small talk worse than anything.”

“Take your seats, if you would, please, let’s get restarted.” The beefy pastor stood by the podium and waited for the din to subside, then continued, “I’ve just spoken with the hospital. Graham’s operation is scheduled for seven this evening. I know a lot of you will want to be praying for him and Esther.”

Wynn asked the Havilland woman, “Surgery?” But she waved him away like a buzzing pest.

The pastor went on, “Congressman Wynn Bryant, Graham’s replacement, is here with us today. Raise your hand, please, Congressman. There he is. I’m sure some of you will want to go by and make him feel welcome.” The announcement brought the pastor no pleasure. “You know we had hoped for Esther to be here with us this afternoon, to speak on her husband’s behalf. But that’s not going to be possible. So we’ve arranged to close with a recording from an earlier assembly, one a lot of us here won’t soon forget.” He craned and searched the back of the room, asked, “We ready yet?”

An unamplified voice called back, “Thirty seconds.”

“Fine. Most of us consider Graham Hutchings a fallen hero, a martyr to the cause. He is also a dear friend. I’m sorry he’s not here with us today, more sorry than I’d ever be able to express. But perhaps this video will help instill in us the fire we need to go on.”

As the pastor stepped away from the podium and walked to an empty seat on the front row, Wynn leaned over and asked, “Any chance you can tell me what this Jubilee thing is about without biting my head off?”

There was nothing halfway about this woman, not even the way she studied him. “You don’t know?”

“All I know,” Wynn said, not wanting to risk anything but the truth, “is a lot of people want to see this thing go away. I’ve got a whole pile of questions and not a single answer.”

“The Jubilee movement has been around for a couple of years,” Jackie replied quietly, facing front. Giving him a profile of hard angles and blond-tinted skin. “It’s a worldwide effort to reduce the debt carried by third-world nations. Over two dozen countries currently spend more on interest payments than they do for education and health care. American banks have fiercely resisted any attempt to write down these debts. Legislation has been enacted, but the appropriations have remained tied up in committee. The banking lobby has fought tooth and nail to kill these bills. The politicians have gone along with it, since they can point to the laws and claim they’re doing something to help out. But without funding, the laws remain empty promises.”

Wynn declared softly, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

But the screen lit up again, and Graham Hutchings’ face appeared. The lights dimmed, and Wynn asked his question to the shadows. Something wasn’t right here. He was being struck from all sides-the governor, a senator, his own aides, White House flunkeys, the party chief, and for what? How much money could they be talking about here? A billion in debt relief? Okay, it was a lot, but less than what America spent on defense in a day. A billion or even twice that wasn’t enough to generate this kind of heat.

The image that flashed on the screen was of a very different Graham Hutchings from the man Wynn had seen the night before. One not so much younger as energized, a world away from the living corpse trapped on the bed. “I am not going to mince words. I have come to the cause of financial reform from a completely different direction than most of you here. My intention has never been to serve the unwashed hordes of other nations. I am here to serve the people who elected me, and the nation I love and call my own. But it so happens that our aims coincide, yours and mine. You say we stand on a financial precipice. I agree. You speak of nations far beyond our shore. I speak of the here and the now. Our problem, ladies and gentlemen, is the same. Our foe is identical.

“Today, all ten of the largest U.S. banks receive more than half their profits from dubiously named ’investment banking’ divisions. In truth, these divisions have nothing whatsoever to do with investments in the classical sense. They are paper traders. They deal in currencies, commodities, options, bundled mortgages, interest-rate spreads, corporate tax write-offs. Any number of such deviant aberrations of the banking industry’s original purpose. The name given to this and a myriad of other high-risk actions is derivative trading.

“After the horrors of the 1929 Wall Street crash, our nation enacted laws to ensure that the level of risk taken by banks would be tightly controlled. But during my time in Washington, I have watched the banking industry and their sister organizations, the fund managers, use every trick in the book to subvert the will of the people and their elected officials. Through carefully worded amendments slipped into crucial pieces of legislation, the banking lobby has stripped away virtually the entire system of checks and balances set in place after the crash of twenty-nine.”

Wynn cast a swift glance around him. The rapt audience came from every walk of life. There were numerous priests, pastors, and nuns. The hall itself was tawdry and as unimpressive in Washington terms as the people. He recalled the derisive comments of the White House lackeys and felt anger and agreement both.

“The worst risk takers of them all, ladies and gentlemen, are known as hedge funds. Hedge funds operate on very thin margins and take huge gambles, particularly within the currency markets. When they are successful, they make enormous profits. When they fail, the losses can be catastrophic. Why? Because the investors are not only liable for whatever amount they have invested in the fund. They are liable for everything the fund loses. There is no limit to their total exposure. Does that sound correct to you? Does that sound sane? Of course not. So up until a few years ago, hedge funds could not operate within the United States. Investors had to track them down in places such as the Bahamas or Bermuda or Liechtenstein or Singapore. But our banks watched these potential profits going elsewhere and had their lobbyists press Congress for another one of these little amendments. So now, lo and behold, not only are hedge funds operating within our borders, the largest of them are now owned by our banks. Only they don’t call them hedge funds. Oh no. They are known as ‘private equity funds,’ and are operated within these investment banking divisions. As if that would make them safe. As if the risk is not still catastrophic.