Bill is not one of the Fifteen Hundred. By global standards, he’s mega-wealthy. He’s worth about US$400 million, which is private-island rich, but by the standards of the Fifteen Hundred he’s basically a pet. All the same, he had friends more puissant than he was and they’d given him a number to call, and he did. He explained his problem to the woman who answered the phone, and she said: "The fee is two million, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. We will take it from your bank account at Grossman-Lafayette in Thun." She did not ask him to authorise payment.