PROLOGUE
Corsica
Mr 3.64 Percent was a powerful, behind-the-scenes player in the oil industry.
Originally a Dutch-speaking Belgian, he had made his fortune and become a man with powerful connections through the exploits of his younger days in Gabon.
He had tied the then dictator of Gabon into an oil exploration contract when the dictator desperately needed hard currency, for all the usual reasons: to stop his regime toppling, to buy jet fighters, to finish a holiday palace for one of his lesser wives on Lake Geneva ...
When oil was struck on the marshy plains of the southern Mandalooloo Delta, he was contractually entitled to 3.64 percent of it for 'as long as there shall be supply'.
Every dictator of Gabon since the then dictator had tried to screw him out of the contract, to no avail - the contract was tighter than two coats of paint.
The dictators could not simply tear up the contract, as this contravened international law and would cut off other trickles of IMF and international aid which the dictators badly needed to stay in power (and also for the upkeep of their holiday palaces).
Since Belgium had never had an empire on any scale relative to its neighbours, it was particularly vociferous in protecting contractual claims by any citizen who had executed anything of even minuscule significance in the international arena.
So Mr 3.64 Percent and his progeny therefore had a cast-iron assurance of a vast fortune until the last grains of sand trickled through the hourglass of human life.
He now lived his days out on the veranda of the finest hotel in Corsica; lightly sipping iced tea while heavily drinking in with his eyes the glittering azure seascape of the Mediterranean. His peace on the veranda was only shattered once every three months by the large, dull thud of an exploding villa behind him in the Corsican hills.
On arriving on the island, he had commissioned a huge villa to be built of the whitest marble on the side of one of the many hills he had purchased. Corsican contractors came from all over to work on it.
The day after he had been handed the keys he was reclining on his curved, whale-foreskin couch (for this was the softest material amongst all of God's bounty on the earth) when the brass clanger on the front door split the silence of the first day of his retirement.
His French butler came bumbling into the room, wringing his hands in nervousness.
'M'sieur,' he said, eyes darting left and right as a thin sheen of sweat reflected off his face, 'You are needed at ze door.'
Mr 3.64 Percent had never seen 'Enry sweat before, and celebrated this as a reason to get up. He went to the door himself. Standing in the frame of the doorway was a wizened and unshaven peasant, holding a flat beige cap to his chest. Mr 3.64 Percent recognized him. It was one of the local roofers, who had been working on the house for months.
'Bonjour,' the peasant began.
'You shpeak English?' Mr 3.64 Percent interjected, in his thick Belgian-Dutch accent.
'A leetle,' the man replied, 'M'sieur, I am come with a message from the Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale di a Corsica.'
'The who?'
'The Fronte di Liberazione Naziunale di a Corsica. Le FLNC, yes?'
'Never heard of them,' he asserted with fine Belgian-Dutch frankness.
'The F! L! N! C!' Mr 3.64 Percent jumped as the butler whispered the acronym menacingly in his ear. He hissed, 'What did I tell you about entering my personal space bubble?'
