Chapter One

The Zentrum district that Friday evening had the vibrancy of a Van Gogh wrapped in mysticism. Street streams of lit-up bistros, cafés, and shops were casting their gentle shadows onto the cobblestone running up and down the lanes. Above, bloodred geraniums in flower boxes were twirling out their senses in the light breeze. There was only one major problem with this enchanting scene that early evening. It was being lost on faceless financial figures marching down Bahnhofstrasse, the corridor to temples of global banking power.

As these bankers hurried through the shadows on the way to their trains, they remained oblivious to a more decipherable stone face of a free-spirited noble lady. She was babbling water and looking down at a wounded, snarling dragon. No one seemed to notice her spears in the bubbling fountain of the square as they quickly passed her by.

Throughout the city, the church steeples stabbed too, but into a fading woolen blue sky. The tower protectors of a cathedral seemed to project onto walls of wooded hills in embracing parks. Farther afield south to southeast, the snowy pointed peaks of the Bernese Alps appeared like ramparts to the city's outer defenses. Closer by, the moatlike river waterways gave a feel of inner security. Altogether, a near perfect collage of quaint edifice snuggled into the bosoms of Nature's ecstasies.

To many global investors and bankers, the city was more than a lovely setting. It was a serene financial fortress to an upside-down world that was increasingly sending its gold bullion to the city for safekeeping. A growing number of fiscally failed governments evermore at f

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