The Swiss Suitcase (LSD, #1)

15. Sympathy For The Devil

Sympathy For The Devil

Click. Click.

The strongbox opens.

No green gas, no explosion, no laughing clown jumps out of the box, just three pieces of paper. I take my phone, take a photo of every sheet, front and back, put the documents back like we've found them, and close the metal container. Three moves of my thumb save a copy of the photos at my secure backup space in the cloud. With three more moves and a password, I access that space, zip the photo's, scramble the file, and protect it with a password (the code we've just found, but backwards: 205 635). Safety first.

I put the strongbox and the paper with the code back in the suitcase, close it and, with a sigh of relief, I say: "Now, we're ready to go back to your room. While we have a cup of tea, we can read the documents."

* * *

In room 404, we decide to keep the suitcase closed. My spiPhone translates the images to text files, which are easy to read without leaving fingerprints on the original papers.

The first document is the membership list of the club. It starts with the president of the American bank Marx Brothers Ltd. All the CIA's suspects are there, and a few more. Interesting, but not as fascinating as the second document. I read it aloud for Rostov:

"Welcome to the Pleasuredome,

» Thanks to your contribution of 100 million Swiss francs, you are now one of the Gods who live on the Mons Olympus of the twenty-first century. The rest of your life will be filled with women, wine and song, and all those special pleasures of doing something wrong.

» Every history book tells us stories about the nobles, the Kings and Czars and Emperors, who owned the world. Every history book made one mistake: it's okay if you own the right to receive taxes and do nothing, but it's not enough. The real leaders of the world were the ones who dominated the thinking of the masses. The Highest Power has always been in the hands of Religion. Priests told people how to behave, how many children they should have, and which enemy to kill first. Religion organized the worshipping of the Gods, who decided about life and death. Even Kings and Czars dedicated holy wars to the Highest Power of Religion. From now on, you're part of that Highest Power. Our Religion is called: Economy.

» The working class used to go to church one hour every Sunday, but for Economy, they sacrifice 40 hours per week (and some even work two jobs). Religious people donate some coins to the church, but Consumers, who firmly believe in Neo-Liberal Free-Market Religion, sacrifice their entire income and donate all their credit, up to the limit of their Holy Credit Card, during the Spectacular Summer Sale, in the Sacred Shopping Mall, celebrating Spending as heavenly pleasure on earth. They worship money and the Gods who own everything.

» The Lord gave every banker two strong hands, so he could grab as much as he could. When The Lord lost his grip on society, bankers took over His position: Economy is the leading Religion of the twenty-first century; Bankers are its priests who decide between mortgage or death; Money is the new Heaven; Shopping guarantees all the happiness and freedom one can buy.

» We invented Contracts to make stealing legal, and we released all the lawyers from Hell to help us. Unfortunately, we must share a small tax percentage of our profit with our allies, the governments, but we'll get it back: they pay us interest on the outrageous national debts we forced them into. We truly believe in the power of Economy and all the glory of More. Economy is the new Religion and we, the Monopoly Of Bankers, are the new Gods.

» All ancient Religions warned us of the Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath and Envy. Those extreme, selfish vices would lead to Hell. The highest goal of every ancient Religion was Paradise, where life was perfect and priceless, no prices on anything, without anyone making a profit on the necessity of others. The ancient Religions (like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism) all tried to teach humanity Love. With Love, helping each other, sharing our blessings, everyone would become happy, they promised.