Location: Director's office (The «Bunker» , Level 4), Volta SA factory, Ivry-sur-Seine.
Date: May 18, 1996, 11:45 AM.
Point of view: Omniscient (Sliding focus on Volta's staff and the inner thoughts of Lazare Bonaparte).
The satellite broadcast from Seoul's Shilla Hotel had just ended. On the immense wall of screens on Level 4, the martial face of the CEO of Samsung Electronics had given way to a black screen, streaked by the silent crackle of a lack of signal.
In the mahogany office, the atmosphere had solidified. The air conditioning, normally imperceptible, suddenly seemed to weigh tons, crushing the lungs of the room's occupants.
Karim Belkacem, arms crossed, stared into space. Ilya Volkov, the Russian giant, breathed heavily, his massive fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were turning white. Near the soundboard, Minh and Linh Bonaparte stood motionless, petrified by the shock of the revelation.
The twins, who had dazzled the world at the Salle Pleyel just a few weeks earlier, were discovering with horror the dark side of technological supremacy: the savagery of state espionage.
Édouard Renault-Tessier, the finance director, was the first to break the deathly silence. His banker's mind, trained to turn every crisis into a column of losses and profits, was already looking for legal loopholes.
« This is a blatant violation of WTO agreements, » began Édouard, his voice trembling slightly as he adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses. « We have filed over four thousand international patents on the VESLA architecture .
The topology of the scheduler and out-of-order execution is protected. We will launch legal action in international courts, mobilize the European Commission to block their imports… We can obtain border injunctions, seize their shipments of Exynos Alpha processors in every Western port… »
« Be quiet, Edward. »
Lazare Bonaparte's voice hadn't been shouted. It hadn't even been raised a tone. It had emerged from his throat with the flatness of a guillotine blade sliding along its rail.
A whisper of terrifying density, charged with static electricity that instantly silenced the financial director.
Standing behind his desk, the Ogre of Ivry had his back to his lieutenants. His two hands were placed flat on the large bulletproof window that offered a view of the greyness of the Parisian suburbs.
Those who knew him well—Karim, who had shared his life since the cellar on Rue de la Glacière, or Commander Vauquelin, stationed near the pneumatic door—knew how to interpret the Builder's silences. Ordinarily, when faced with an attack from Intel or Microsoft, Lazare would display that predatory grin, that icy arrogance of a chess player who has already anticipated his opponent's next twelve moves.
His outbursts of anger were management tools, precisely measured bursts of voice to galvanize his troops or terrify his interlocutors.
But that morning, there was no calculation involved. His posture betrayed an abnormal, almost bestial physical tension. His shoulders were hunched, the muscles of his back bulging beneath the fabric of his tailored shirt.
He breathed slowly, but each inhale seemed to lift a deadly weight.
Minh, seeking to defuse the time bomb he felt beating in the room, took a step forward.
« Lazare, the Koreans don't have control over our software compiler, » the teenager tried to rationalize, his engineer's instinct searching for technical flaws. « Their Exynos Alpha may be a silicon clone of our VESLA 2370 , but without VoltaOS 's micro-optimizations , they'll have cache bottlenecks.
We could release a patch, modify the registers of our future motherboards to make their processor unstable in our ecosystem… »
The noise that followed froze the blood of everyone present.
It wasn't a word. It was a cracking sound of unimaginable violence.
Lazare Bonaparte had just turned around. With a single, lightning-fast movement that belied the elegance of his stature, he swept across the surface of his office in Macassar. The laptop, the reinforced encrypted phone, the financial files, and the leather blotter flew across the room, crashing against the brick wall in an explosive clatter of plastic, glass, and shattered electronics.
Linh let out a small, muffled cry, recoiling abruptly. Minh froze, his eyes wide. Even Karim Belkacem, his lifelong friend, took a step back, petrified.
Never, ever, had they seen Lazare lose physical control of his emotions. The cold-blooded monster, the mathematical machine that had manipulated world leaders, had just succumbed to a pure, visceral, incandescent fury.
Lazare strode towards Édouard Renault-Tessier, covering the distance between them in two long steps. He grabbed the collar of the finance director's suit, almost lifting him off the ground. Lazarus's face was now nothing but a mask of absolute hatred.
The veins in his neck throbbed, his obsidian eyes burned with a black fire, consuming reason. «Legal recourse?!» Lazare spat in the face of the terrified banker, spittle of rage dripping from the former financier's lips. «You want me to go cry before the commercial courts in The Hague? You think we're going to stop South Korean state espionage with cease and desist letters and bailiff's reports?!» «L-Lazare... let him go,» Karim stammered, approaching timidly. «You... you're losing your mind.» Lazarus violently shoved Edward, who stumbled against an armchair.
The young monarch turned to his technical director, his breath coming in short gasps, his chest heaving in time with his racing heart. «Am I losing my mind, Karim?» Lazare growled, his voice cracking into a low register, exuding a suffering no one was allowed to see. «You don't understand anything. None of you understand what just happened on that screen!» He pointed a vengeful finger at the wall of blank monitors.
« Andy Grove and Bill Gates are enemies! » he thundered. « But they have the nobility of war! They mobilize thousands of engineers in Oregon, they spend billions of dollars on research, they bleed their way to designing the Pentium Pro and trying to beat us on the field of mathematics and physics!
It's a duel! But Samsung… Samsung! »
The word seemed to scrape his throat, saturated with all the contempt a creator can show towards a parasite.
They didn't search for anything! They didn't invent anything! They waited until we breached the silicon barrier, they waited until the architecture was perfect, and they slipped suitcases full of cash to corrupt foremen in the filthy back rooms of our assembly plant in China!
They melted our chips in acid, they stole the light code for which we damned ourselves!
Lazare stopped in the center of the room. His right hand, trembling, moved up to his left shoulder. He unconsciously massaged the fabric of his shirt, exactly where, four years earlier, a 9mm hollow-point bullet had shattered his collarbone, tearing away flesh and bone.
The phantom pain, awakened by the betrayal, radiated all along his left side.
The silence of the Bunker was no longer enough to drown out the infernal din that resonated within his own skull. The hum of the waiters morphed into a familiar sound. The metallic click of MP5SD assault rifles.
The screech of a Mercedes horn jammed under the weight of a corpse. The dull, relentless pounding of icy Dutch rain crashing against shredded metal and glass reduced to diamond dust.
The ghosts of February 17, 1992 invaded Level 4.
Lazarus's mind, endowed with an absolute eidetic memory, transported him back to that highway off-ramp on the outskirts of Eindhoven. He saw again the white smoke of the airbags, the suffocating smell of cordite and gasoline.
He smelled once more the sticky blood that coated his hands. He saw Alexandre de Vigan's face again.
De Vigan. The wolf of finance, Volta's strategic vice-president. The man in flannel suits and killer one-liners, huddled on the floor mat of the armored sedan, his stomach ravaged by a stray bullet.
That day, under the bullets of the CIA's Alpha Unit, Lazare had sealed a pact with death. America had ordered his assassination because he had just bought ASML, the lithography factories, the ultimate instrument of European sovereignty.
De Vigan had paid for this acquisition with his own life. His blood had flowed on the Dutch asphalt so that Vesla's architecture could be born free from all foreign control.
He heard de Vigan's voice, hissing and choked with internal bleeding, echoing in the middle of the air-conditioned room in Ivry: «Don't kill them with bullets. It's too easy. Crush them under gold.
Suffocate their country with our money. Swear it to me, Lazarus.» Lazare closed his eyes, a grimace of absolute pain twisting his immaculate features. «Where were you in February 1992, Édouard?» Lazare suddenly asked, his voice now a spectral whisper that chilled the audience to the bone.
The finance director swallowed hard, unable to respond.
« I'll tell you, » Lazare continued, opening his black eyes, devoid of any trace of humanity. « You were in your Parisian salons.
While I held Alexandre de Vigan's entrails in my hands on the floor of a burning car. De Vigan died so that the VESLA chip could see the light of day. He took a bullet in the aorta so that Europe could have the right to possess the matrix you just saw displayed on this screen!
The independence of this holding company was paid for in blood, broken bones, and corpses left on the highways! »
Lazarus turned to the twins. Linh had tears in her eyes, paralyzed by the revelation of the savagery that had underpinned her own comfort. Minh trembled, suddenly understanding that the lines of code he typed at night rested on a geopolitical graveyard.
« The Vesla architecture isn't some fucking commercial product, Édouard! » Lazare roared, unleashing a decade of paranoia, repressed grief, and shadow warfare. « It's a reliquary!
And those bastards in Seoul have just spat on it! They've just trampled on de Vigan's grave to steal from us in six months what cost my men their lives and my family their peace! »
Lazarus advanced towards the center of the room, his chest heaving violently, his gaze sweeping over his lieutenants, demanding that they measure the abyss into which he had just plunged them.
« They didn't just steal a patent, Ilya, » said Lazare, turning to the Russian scientist, his fury gradually transforming into a chilling logic, that of a monarch about to sign a death warrant. « They've just murdered the economic model that allows us to survive. »
The young CEO picked up an overturned chair and slumped down into it, nervous exhaustion catching up with him. He wiped a bead of cold sweat from his forehead and resumed speaking, Lazarus's brain regaining control over the wounded man. «Think with me,» he ordered, his voice regaining its mathematical severity. «Why are we selling the VESLA 2390 for one hundred euros and the 2370 for sixty?
Why are we sacrificing our own margins on the CPU?» «To stifle the competition and kill Intel,» Karim replied mechanically, his throat tight.
« Exactly. But to maintain this suicidal strategy, we have to balance our books with sales of our VRX graphics cards and recoup the colossal cost of our Research and Development. The creation of VESLA , the development of the 0.35-micron chip, the invention of out-of-order execution... all of this cost us over three billion euros over five years.
This astronomical sum is spread out, levied as a tiny fraction on the final price of each chip we sell to the public. »
Lazarus leaned forward, his eyes fixed on his lieutenants.
« The Koreans have just stolen a finalized processor from us. The Exynos Alpha . Do you know what that means? They spent zero euros on Research and Development. Zero, Édouard. »
The former banker visibly paled. The financial theorem had just struck him. «My God...» murmured Renault-Tessier. «If they don't have R&D costs to recoup...» « If they don't have to amortize the invention, »
Lazare finished with utter cruelty, « they only have to pay for the raw silicon, the electricity for their state-owned factories, and their workers' wages. They can sell the Exynos Alpha—which is actually a VESLA 2370—not for sixty euros, but for fifteen euros apiece, and still make a net profit.
They can undercut our prices by a factor of four across the entire Asian market. »
The silence in the Bunker had become sepulchral. It was no longer sadness. It was the pure and simple contemplation of financial apocalypse.
The theft was not a mere annoyance; it was the programmed execution of the Volta Empire. The South Korean machine was preparing to cannibalize Lazarus's work with its own weapons, without ever having paid the price in blood. «If we don't stop them today,» Lazare concluded, «if they have time to deliver their first orders in Asia and Latin America, Intel and Volta will go bankrupt within three years, drowned by tariff dumping that is mathematically impossible to match.» Minh, pale as a sheet, took a step towards the devastated office.
« What do we do, Lazarus? Do we modify our architectures to block their future reverse engineering? Do we reinforce physical security in Huabei with Blackwood mercenaries ? »
A sardonic grin, devoid of even the slightest hint of amusement, stretched across the young sovereign's lips. He rose, his visceral rage having cooled and transformed into a terrifying geopolitical resolve.
Lazarus had just closed his armor. «It's too late for physical security, Minh. The weapon is already out there. And I have no intention of playing cat and mouse with Seoul's secret service.» Lazare approached Commander Vauquelin, who was observing the scene from the door with the martial composure of old assault troops.
« Vauquelin. Prepare the small diplomatic reception room on the ground floor. I want you to summon the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to France, as well as the economic attaché from the Ministry of Industry in Beijing. »
The head of security frowned.
« You want me to ask them to come? Ambassadors of that rank demand the protocol of the Quai d'Orsay, boss. They don't just show up at a factory in Val-de-Marne on a simple phone call. »
« Tell them that if they aren't physically present in this factory within ninety minutes, I'll sign the order for the complete dismantling of the Huabei assembly complex and the immediate repatriation of our sixty thousand jobs to Eastern Europe, » Lazare ordered, his voice sharp as a whip.
« Believe me, they'll come running. The security breach occurred on their territory, right under the noses of their corrupt officials. They owe me a blood debt. »
Lazare then turned to Édouard Renault-Tessier, fixing him with the same dark look that had once annihilated the Japanese executives of Sony.
« You, Édouard, pick up this red telephone from the ground, if it still works, and put me through to the switchboard at the Élysée Palace. »
Lazarus buttoned his suit jacket. De Vigan's grief, awakened by fury, demanded its tribute. «What do you plan to do with the Élysée Palace, Lazare?» asked Karim, feeling the ground give way beneath his feet. «Are you going to ask the government for help in blocking Korean imports?» « South Korea isn't just facing Volta SA today, Karim.
By stealing our technology to conquer the free world, they're threatening the vital interests of the nation that hosts our factories, the fledgling Euro, and the sovereignty of French intelligence. The state paid for my nuclear umbrella; now's their time to open it. »
Lazarus adjusted his cufflinks, the shadow of total war taking shape on his face like that of a cynical young god.
« I'm not going to ask France for help, Karim. I'm going to ask France to ally itself with the United States of America. Washington put $18 billion on the table to save Intel; they'll never let the Koreans get away with it.
Without realizing it, that idiot of a Korean CEO has just given me the only thing capable of uniting me with Bill Gates and George Bush: a common enemy. I'm going to put Seoul in the geopolitical electric chair, and it's China and America who will pull the trigger. »
Lazarus stared at the blackened wall of screens. The storm of the century was brewing, and it would be made neither of silicon nor lines of code. It would be made of the fire of empires' wrath.
Location: The « Bunker » (Level 4) / Diplomatic Lounge, Volta SA Factory, Ivry-sur-Seine.
Date: May 19, 1996.
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte).
The silence in the director's office in Ivry-sur-Seine was thick with the cold anger that radiated from Lazarus. The memory of Alexandre de Vigan's blood, spilled on Dutch asphalt to wrest technological independence from Europe, had just been sullied by the greed of an Asian conglomerate.
But Lazare Bonaparte's rage was never blind. It was a calculating engine.
He turned to Édouard Renault-Tessier, whose banker's face still bore the shock of the South Korean announcement.
« The red telephone, Edouard. Put me through to the Elysée, ordered Lazare, his voice sharp as broken glass. »
The former financier complied. He picked up the weighty, reinforced polymer handset, entered the encrypted presidential authentication code, and handed it to his boss. Lazare took it without a word.
At the other end, the military switchboard instantly transferred the call to Jacques Chirac's office.
The new President of the Republic was not used to being summoned by telephone, but the sovereignty pact sealed on the remains of François Mitterrand obliged him to listen absolutely when Level 4 called.
« Bonaparte. My staff have just informed me of the Seoul conference , sounded the deep, martial voice of the head of state. They have cloned your architecture. »
« They've done far worse than that, Mr. President, » Lazare declared, without a trace of polite formality.
« They've murdered our economic model. And by extension, they threaten the nation's financial stability. »
« Watch your words, Lazarus. France is strong. »France is blind if it believes that this theft is just an intellectual property dispute,« the young billionaire interrupted. »
Lazare leaned back against his desk, staring at the grey skies of the Île-de-France region through the bay window, and delivered the macroeconomic verdict with implacable brutality.
« Listen to me carefully. Volta SA spends billions of euros on fundamental research. The development of the VESLA 2370 , the 0.35-micron manufacturing process, the invention of out-of-order execution... all of this represents a colossal investment that I pass on to the selling price of our processors.
It's the price of sovereignty. The amortization equation. »
He allowed a long silence to take hold so that logic could penetrate the gilded halls of the presidential palace.
Samsung, on the other hand, didn't spend a single penny on research. They simply slipped suitcases full of cash to corrupt Chinese foremen at our Huabei factory to steal our lithography masks. Their research cost is zero.
Zero. As a result, they can flood Asia with their Exynos Alpha chip , cutting our prices in half or even by two-thirds, and still make a profit. They're dispensing with the equation.
Chirac, on the other end of the line, instantly understood the threat. The Gaullist within him abhorred industrial dispossession.
« If they have time to deliver their orders, » Lazare continued, « they will cannibalize our market share. Our margins will evaporate.
And it is Volta's colossal cash reserves that guarantee the value of the Euro, our common currency already in circulation. If the financial markets see that our hegemony is being fractured by Korean copycats, they will attack the Euro.
The currency will collapse, and with it, the budgets of our armed forces, the DGSE (French foreign intelligence service), and our space program. It is no longer my company that is under attack, Mr. President.
It is the very backbone of the Republic. »
A substantial silence descended on the secure line. Jacques Chirac measured the abyss. « What do you want me to do?» the head of state finally asked, acknowledging the existential gravity of the crisis. «
I cannot declare war on South Korea.» «No. You're going to ally yourself with our worst enemy to crush them,» Lazare revealed, his gaze dark and cold. «You're going to call Bill Clinton within the minute.» — Clinton?
But America just saved Intel! They hate us!
« Exactly. Washington just injected eighteen billion dollars to save Intel. Do you seriously think the White House is going to tolerate a Korean chaebol sweeping up the global market with pirated European technology?
Without realizing it, that moron of a CEO in Seoul has just given us the only thing that can unite me with Silicon Valley: a common enemy. South Korea must be crushed diplomatically and economically within forty-eight hours.
America will hold the western jaw. I'll personally take care of the eastern jaw. »
Lazarus hung up without waiting for presidential approval. He knew the Élysée Palace would comply. The survival of the Euro depended on it.
No sooner had he hung up the receiver than Commander Vauquelin entered the office, his face expressionless.
« Boss, the Chinese delegation has just arrived. Ambassador Wang and his industrial attaché. They are furious about the ultimatum you gave them on the phone.
They are waiting for you in the diplomatic lounge on the ground floor. »Perfect,« murmured Lazare, adjusting the cufflinks on his shirt. »Let them sweat a little.« Twenty minutes later, Lazare Bonaparte burst into the small, hushed, windowless lounge where the two dignitaries of the People's Republic of China were waiting under the discreet but oppressive surveillance of the former operators of the Action Service. »
Ambassador Wang, an imposing man with a stern bearing, rose, ready to protest this treatment unworthy of his rank. But Lazare gave him no chance. The engineer walked straight to the coffee table and hurled a thick cardboard folder at it.
Inside, satellite photographs, Huabei transit slips, and redacted internal audit reports were spread out on the varnished wood. «Sit down,» ordered Lazarus.
The tone allowed for no negotiation. The diplomats, taken aback by the young man's icy fury, complied.
« I entrusted you with the assembly of the most powerful weapon in Europe, » Lazare began, leaning on the edge of the table, towering over the two men. « I brought you sixty thousand jobs, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and a technological alliance to free you from the Americans.
And what do I find this morning? That the Huabei factory is a windmill. »
He pointed a vengeful finger at the documents. «South Korean intelligence walked into your assembly lines, buying off your local managers with a handful of dollars. They smuggled my raw VESLA chips onto your soil, right under the noses of your officials.
The leak originated with you, Wang. You let the thieves in.» The industrial attaché paled slightly, trying to maintain his composure.
« Mr. Bonaparte, this is a very serious accusation. If there was local corruption, it was an isolated incident.
The central government in Beijing is in no way... »The central government is responsible for its own territory!« Lazare exploded, his voice echoing like thunder in the darkened room. »My friend died on a road protecting the patents for this architecture, and your officials are selling them in Seoul to buy cars!« Lazarus straightened up. The man in mourning gave way to the ruthless strategist. »
« Here is my ultimatum. You have exactly six months. That's how long my teams need to plan a massive industrial relocation.
If this theft isn't punished, if South Korea isn't brought to its knees, I will permanently close the Huabei complex. I will wipe your 60,000 jobs off the map, and I will relocate all of my assembly lines to Eastern Europe.
Poland and Romania will be delighted to take over your factories. »
Ambassador Wang froze. The bluff was impossible to read on Lazarus's face, because there was none. China would lose its status as a privileged technological ally, suffering an unacceptable global humiliation at the hands of the Japanese and the Americans. «You can't do that,» Wang ventured, assessing the cataclysm. «It would cost you billions.» «I can print the billions,» retorted Lazare, icy-cold. «But I will not tolerate this affront.» Lazarus approached the door, sealing the pincers.
Officially, Beijing will deny any involvement. But I know how the Party works. You need us. To right this wrong and save Huabei, China will crush South Korea.
He turned around one last time, his hand on the brass handle.
Block their exports. Cut off the supply of rare earths and primary raw silicon to Samsung's smelters. Stifle their production lines.
America attacks from the West. You strike from the East. Show Seoul what it costs to steal from Europe.
You have forty-eight hours to trigger the embargo.
Lazare Bonaparte left the diplomatic room. The perfect geopolitical trap had just been sprung. South Korea, in its blind arrogance, had awakened the wrath of the creator, unwittingly drawing the combined fury of the three greatest world superpowers.
The reckoning was only just beginning.