Chapter 13 - Jean Montafian

Montafian was all affability behind his desk. After a rather limp handshake and a mild smile, a gesture to sit then a silence as he gave me the boss-man stare with his unblinking blue eyes until I began to feel uncomfortable. ‘You will be joining us, I take it?’ I nodded. ‘Most sensible. There is much to be done, and we need to start now.’ He said “we” and not “you”, which I took to be a good sign. ‘Of course, your remuneration will be twenty kilos of gold in certificates, you remember.’

At this point, like a magician, he produced two coins from a little box. One was thin and old, the other was new and fat with a crisply milled edge. He pointed to the thin one and said, ‘Have a look.’

I took it in my hand, it seemed light. He went on, ‘That’s an old Demi Napoléon; we have a lot of those. All the bank vaults are full of them. Three grams of pure gold.’ I looked at it: on one side was a chap with a goatee, on the other it was marked “20 FRANCS 1857”. He held out his hand for me to return it then passed me the other one. This one looked newer and felt heavier. On one side there was a sun and on the other it was marked “5 GRAMS OF PURE GOLD”. None of that French grammes nonsense, shorter too.
‘We have begun minting these 5-gram coins from the tons of gold we have been collecting here in Paris. These are called “Sols” after the Roman solidus and in honour of Mithras the sun god, not to mention the French sou. 

He paused, raised his eyebrows and said ‘Well?’ It was my turn to play.
‘Here is my suggestion. I could set up something like Cryptocoins but a bit different.’ At least I thought I probably could. ‘You keep the gold coins safe here and issue certificates that people can trade or even come and redeem them here and carry them off if they want. But who would want to wander in the wild with bags of gold? It is obviously safer and easier to keep it here. And about safer, the punters will just have to trust you, of course. And trust has to be earned. I think you know all this already.’ I was gabbling.
‘I do, come to the point.’
‘This is what I suggest: the certificates would be managed using a blockchain system, like Cryptocoins but different. Every time someone makes a payment, there would be a small fee to pay to you, say point one percent, and that would easily cover the cost keeping the physical coins safe. All payments would take place computer-to-computer. I think I can make it as unbreakable as the Cryptocoin system, and remember no one has broken that yet, although many have tried. You just sit here guarding the gold and the fees come rolling in: nice. You would be doing the world a favour. This is what commerce now needs. There is every chance the market value of the certificates would rocket up if it all goes to plan.’
‘Well that’s the thing, isn’t it? And what happens if it doesn’t all go to plan?’
The Old Man’s face was bland as a poker player. 
‘You will still be sitting on the gold.’
‘And you will be sitting here, mining bank vaults.’
‘I would rather be taking my cut and heading out.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘I am pretty sure I can.’
Silence. Suspense. The Old Man’s face thaws slightly.
‘Then try.’ 
Relief. Twenty kilos of gold. Can I really do it?.
‘I will go my utmost.’
‘I’m sure you will. Well then, you can have an office on this floor and all the help you need. Meanwhile, you will stay here as part of our team. When you finish, you may go, but not before. And, by the way, this starts now. Go and get started. Speak to my aide on the way out and get the details settled. Carry on!’

They did seem to like saying “carry on” here. I suppressed a snigger.
I gave him the old ‘Yes sir!’ came to attention and saluted in the way Edward had insisted I learn: long way up and short way down, palm facing outwards in the British army style. This seemed vaguely ridiculous but went down well with the Old Man. I turned and left, closing the door behind me. 

Well that was over! Clearly, he was betting a lot on this project; maybe he had amassed a mountain of gold and realised that he couldn’t really do much with it. And I had a sneaking feeling that he had known what I was going to propose all along. Maybe I had underestimated him. 

Mr Helpful motioned me to take a chair by his desk. ‘We are glad to have you on our side, Engineer Walters. The Old Man has set a deadline for the project: two months. The system has to be in place by the last day of June. There is an office suite on this floor for you. Now listen: he will need a progress report every Friday. You will have an assistant to start with and more if you need them. We have identified a person with a suitable profile; see if he suits you. But first you need to be officially enrolled. You will have Duplicarius status, which you will be glad to know means double pay: two gold Demi Napoléons per month, you can live here free of charge while the project lasts’—he was reading from his notes—‘and there are two possible outcomes: project success and project failure. In the case of success, you will be free to leave with the certificates due to you. In the case of project failure, you will have to stay here and will be enrolled into one of the digger cohorts. Please report to this office at nine hundred hours tomorrow morning. Well, that’s about it. See you tomorrow morning.’ 

I was clearly dismissed, so I just said, ‘See you then,’ and left. There was a lot to think about.  

Wandering round the dusty courtyard later, I wondered if I could get the job done in time and what would happen if I didn’t: stuck here forever. As Shakespeare put it, “To thine own self be true”, so I decided that it would be project success or bust.

Later, in the mess, I felt lonely and listless, which upset Queenie. I couldn’t help thinking that it would be nice to bump into Sarah and, more particularly, her attractive companion, but they were nowhere to be seen. This made me guiltily think about Anna, and that made things worse. However, later, in my room, I began researching the software I would be using and finally got immersed in the open source Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Improvement Proposals I found. In the end, I lost track of time and it was after midnight that I snapped out of it, feeling quietly confident. It took Queenie out for a run in the silent courtyard, careless of the “unsleeping watchers” and feeling relieved, as was Queenie no doubt.
The next morning, washed and shaved, nattily garbed in clean urban camo including a tasteful M43-style cap with gold-disk emblem I presented myself, as requested, at Room 603 with Queenie in close support.

Mr Helpful introduced me to my aide—a young chap wearing the same stuff. We all were. At least, it saved wondering what to put on in the morning, and laundry gratis: convenient. Anyway, he was introduced as agent Marty. It seemed that they were “agents” and I was “engineer”, and so I out-ranked them. I wondered if red-haired Mr Helpful got called “Agent Orange” behind his back.

Anyway, he led us down the corridor to Room 627, which turned out to be a good-sized space, well-supplied with tables, chairs, cupboards and big windows facing north, overlooking the prison wall. I liked it. There was a disparate set of computers connected to a protected power supply and provided with communication apparatus. This all seemed to be okay. 

‘Take a seat at the table, agent Marty,’ I said, establishing the social order. I sat down in front of him and said, ‘Why were you selected?’ He explained, slowly at first, but warmed up as he went along.
He gave me his story. It seemed that he was from an Outsider background and came here as a teenager looking for security and regular meals. He had got interested in programming by messing about with computers and had chosen Python as his favourite language because he could “never remember what keys to press to get curly braces”, which was his idea of a joke, I suppose. 

We had a go at getting the computers ready. All seemed to be in order so I started. Agent Marty proved to be quite useful, helping me with debugging and even writing complete functions sometimes. He was happy to do what I wanted, and we ate together in the mess at lunchtime. Sometimes, during the day he would get me some coffee or take Queenie for a walk. 

I managed to get quite a lot of information out of him. One of the things I wanted to know was where all the food came from. He told me that most of it came by river transport along the River Seine. He told me that the Old Man had regular dealings with settlements upriver from Paris, and produce was moved with skiffs that were rowed up and floated back. This got him talking because his group of Outsiders had been living nearby the place most of the produce came from, but had never been allowed inside it. ‘It’s where there used to be an old airport called Orly, a nice piece of open flat land in the sea of buildings. If any people or animals even approach—tac-tac-tac-tac—game over. They grew all sorts of wheat and potatoes and whatever there. Always ploughing and mowing with those big horses they have. Those bastards won’t share anything with anyone. The Old Man pays them with gold coins; they won’t have anything else. And the coins have to be presented in a bowl of vinegar, Mithras curse them. 

We used to live a bit further up the river beyond their lock, scavenging and hunting what we could. It was on a long thin island in the Seine that we called Paver’s Island with a few poor fields across our bridge. We had built a blockhouse on the island. We managed to survive, but with constant pressure from prowlers and wild animals, it was a poor life. It’s much better here, thank Mithras. Still, I miss the woods and the river. The mist in the early morning, the clear water from the bridge with the waves of spotted salmon going upstream and never returning, the eels, the herons, the kites drifting above…’ 
He seemed to be getting a bit choked up, so I had him stick to the point. ‘How often do the boats go up?’ It seemed a possible escape route.
‘About once every ten days.’ Good!
‘Who goes?’
‘They choose a team; we’re selected just before.’
‘How many go?’
‘Ten or so.’
‘Could I go too? I’m feeling severely cooped up here.’
‘Ask the Optio.’
‘Maybe I will.’ Time to change the subject.
‘So you miss the open river?’ I asked.
‘I’m very comfortable here and I enjoy this job, but I’d really like to go hunting again, some time.’
‘So you enjoy hunting?’
‘Yes, but you’ve got to be careful.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘My father had and accident.’
‘Oh, what happened?’
‘He was killed. And our life there fell to pieces.’
‘How?’
‘Well, we tried to keep our cartridges for defence and just bows for hunting. One day, he managed to hit a wild boar with a broad-head arrow. It escaped, bleeding and he tracked it down with the dogs. Suddenly the boar burst out of a thicket and turned on him. It caught him in the thigh with those long tusks they have, and he bled out. I was just a lad at the time. One of the uncles bagged my mother, and I was turned out of the group. After wandering about a bit, I came here and pledged to serve the Old Man. Here, everything’s clean; there, everything’s dirty. I was lucky to find this place.’

I enjoyed those sunny days in a well-appointed office, programming away and chatting with agent Marty. We did most of the work in the morning and took it easy in the afternoon. Sometimes I would come back up after dinner and do a bit more. However, I could see that we would soon have a working system and the Old Man seemed happy. Around the end of May, I got to the point where all that was needed was to sign off on the project. Frankly, I didn’t trust the Old Man to let me go with the gold, so I started giving a lot of thought to escaping.

I thought I would sound out agent John in Britiniacum. What I didn’t know was whether he was working together with the Old Man or in competition with him. I decided to send him a secure message to tell him that I had nearly finished and was wondering if he had further need of me. I also told him that I had a lot to tell him—as bait. It’s been said that “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. My guess was that agent John just couldn’t help himself from playing at spies. But would he sell me out to the Old Man? I would have to wait and see.

Indeed, the Old Man had a reputation for moving from avuncular to maniacal with disturbing speed. Agent Marty had told me that four men had been caught trying to sneak off with a stash of gold coins they had been detailed to remove from a bank vault. They had been made to kneel outside in the mucky street with their hands tied behind their backs. When the Old Man turned up to settle matters, he simply asked a guard for a pistol, cocked it and coolly walked down the line shooting each of them in the back of the head. The last one tried to make a run for it but he shot him in the head anyway, “neat as neat” as agent Marty put it. He was impressed; I was frightened.

This made me think about dying and a backup again, and I felt cross and frustrated.

It didn’t take long to get an answer back from agent John. He said that there were some things that they would like me to help with and did I need any assistance with extraction. Carry on spying.

In the end, this is what we agreed: if I could arrange to go on a produce pickup at old Orly airport, they would arrange to have me airlifted out of there. Bingo! So I thought I would need to find out a bit more about the produce collection.

At lunchtime in the mess, while we were queuing, I spotted Sarah eating with her friend at one of the tables. I asked Marty if he knew her name, and he said ‘Oh, she’s Julia’. Once we were served, I suggested we join them. As I read it, agent Marty fancied Sarah, Sarah fancied me, I (rather) fancied Julia and Julia fancied him. A love quadrilateral. Careful not to display undue interest in food shipments, I held back until Sarah remarked that she was to go on a collection next Sunday. It was Thursday the 7th of June, which meant that the trip would be on the 10th—three days away. I asked who would be in charge. She said, ‘Duplicarius Finney, a dope; he’ll probably mess everything up.’ That sounded okay to me. So, bravely, I put in, ‘It seems the Old Man has a special mission for me at Orly; maybe I’ll be joining you.’ Sarah said, ‘Great, we’ll be forming up in the courtyard at six o’clock on Sunday morning.’ Agent Marty said nothing but looked piqued. Julia went on chatting.

It was good that it would be a Sunday, because the day of the sun was sacred to Mithras, and we were not supposed to work but to turn up for a sort of religious service and pep talk by the Old Man. I supposed he would be busy. But it seemed that the vital food shipments were special and would go out anyway.

The following day, I left our door open to keep a watch on the Old Man’s office, which was just down the corridor. As soon as I heard the Old Man and Mr Helpful walk out discussing something and go downstairs, I nipped out, carrying a folder, to check the door of Room 603. It was unlocked. Heart pounding, I sneaked in and grabbed one of the forms they used for writing orders, put the stamp on it, slipped it in my folder and got out quick. Mission success!

When I got back to our office, agent Marty didn’t even look up. That evening, when he wasn’t there, I faked an order for me to accompany the boat to get the food for a special mission.

By now, the programming finished and tested, all that had to be done to set it going was to type in “geronimo” at the prompt. The Old Man could do that once I was safely away.