NOTE: This is part of a continuing online novel. Here is the Table of Contents.

---

Zhou Xiaochuan did not see himself taking anyone’s surrender. He didn’t see himself as a diplomat.

He saw himself as a banker, trying to maintain the stability of world trade.

The events of the last month had sent the governor of the People’s Bank on a whirlwind tour of the world’s other banking capitals. He had been in Mumbai when the great tidal wave hit, then he had gone to Sydney, and Tokyo, and finally this month on to Europe.

Everywhere he was treated like royalty. But he felt like a tramp, living out of a suitcase, disconnected from reality by aides who made sure his shirts and ties were rotated, that his suits were pressed. But after a while every four star hotel looks like every other four star hotel, every limousine like every other limousine. He hardly noticed anymore. Had you told him there would come a time like this, back when he was a student at Tsinghua University he would have laughed.

But he was not laughing now. Officially his job was to manage his country’s security markets. But in the present crisis this had expanded, to creating new currency relationships with the whole world, and managing those markets so trade could continue. Back home, he knew, his loyal lieutenants were training a huge staff, creating futures markets in all the world’s currencies, and working to train exporters and importers in their use. He received daily reports. Lately these had been coming in with breakfast, where before they had come with dinner. This helped tell him where he was. If it was 10 AM here it was about 6 PM back home.

He was supposed to be in charge of something, but he felt he was just riding a tiger, bareback, riding it from Geneva to Berlin, to Paris and now London. (That was London out there, wasn’t it?) The wild gyrations in U.S. dollar values did not help, in either direction. First it was 8, then it was 6, then it was spiking, now it was sinking again. He looked again at the device he had been given in Paris, called a Treo (the name was hard to pronounce), loaded with a program that gave him instant access to changing currency prices. The dollar was now trading at 7.07 Renminbi, a good price for trade but it had been at nearly 8 just two days before. He once thought of that as nearly par, but in a world of floating currencies there was no such thing.

The meeting rooms in these hotels were usually on the third floor. He never went outside except to see another airport. He sighed just before entering, and nodded wearily to the men around this latest table. He looked down at the Treo again, where aides would wirelessly post his schedule. These were market speculators from the City of London. He nodded to himself and sat down. An aide opened a notebook and placed it before him. A waiter poured tea, then left discretely.

“Minister Zhou, we are honored you could meet with us,” the man on his left said once the waiter departed, waiting for the translation to finish before continuing. Zhou thought he recognized the man.

“We would like to introduce you to a new mechanism for stabilizing both your currency markets and your energy costs,” the man continued. “It is a new electronic market, backed by gold, lightly regulated, trading currencies and commodities in secrecy but in volume.” He emphasized the last word.

They had Zhou’s interest. The New York markets, obsessed as they were with the value of the dollar, were no longer providing the liquidity he needed to keep his own currency exchanges orderly. The leaders he had been dealing with these last two weeks were reluctant to see the Euro as a new reserve currency, leaving his own market subject to the manipulations of the American government, which was riding it like a novice horseman this last month, without subtlety.

“Where?” is all he said. In English.

A voice came from across the long table, a booming voice he knew he recognized, with a devil’s own grin (not that he believed in devils). “Johannesburg, Mr. Zhou,” he said in English. The trading floor of Virgin Maverick in Johannesburg.”

With that, the lights winked out and a presentation started. It danced around him on multiple screens, some on walls, others suspended in mid-air. Numbers flashed, beautiful pictures of happy black children, a trading floor, the view from a tower, and finally, the man across the table from him, Sir Richard Branson.

Branson’s voice now came from the screens, speaking perfect Mandarin Chinese. “With Hong Kong now integrated into China, and the Yuan becoming a reserve currency against its will, you need a liquid market that can help you stabilize the price you pay for the commodities you need. But you have been unable to find that here, in Europe. Ministers here fear America’s military.

“So take your business elsewhere. Take it to the other side of the world from anywhere, to a place beyond American military power. A place that seems safely within America’s orbit, with no diplomatic threat. A place that, in fact, hardly exists, except in the computers and networks used to house its trading floor.

“A new world, where new ideas and new relationships can meet and trade in peace. A private world, where trades can be as transparent or as opaque as you want. A world where currency can be backed by gold if you like, directly from the source. A world so new it is not even on America’s radar. And with enough liquidity to keep prices stable.”

The lights came up, and as Zhou squinted to adjust he did recognize some of the other people around the table. The man next to him was Georges Soros. In the middle of the table, to the right, was Masayoshi Son of Softbank. Over there, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Private bankers from across Europe rounded out the group. Near Branson was a young man he did not recognize, with dark hair.

“We ask nothing of China, and nothing of you,” Branson concluded, in English, as his Chinese-speaking visage winked out from the screen before Zhou.

“We only wish to introduce ourselves, and our market,” said Soros, also in English. Soros waited several seconds for Zhou’s translator to work. “It is available to handle your trades immediately. We will be happy to give you six seats on that exchange, in order to facillitate a relationship. Take them and ignore them if you wish. Right now they are worth about $24,000 each, but I suspect that after our press conference later today they will be worth 10 times that amount.”

“You won’t be mentioned at the press conference, unless you wish it,” Branson said affably. “This is just what we call a heads-up.” He waited for the translation to sink in.

Soros took a portfolio from a satchel on the floor, and pushed it toward Zhou. “Read the prospectus carefully before making any investment,” he said with a smile. “But we do hope to serve you at your convenience.”

Zhou nodded slowly, then smiled to clear the room’s tension. “Thank you,” he said, in English. “I do hope we can do business.”