Geneva, Switzerland
Present Day
“It’s been a while, Mr. Rayan”, greeted Tragott Von Herren, the director of the Geneva Freeport.
The young man who was addressed just nodded. He was in no mood for greetings and pleasantries. Sensing this, Von Herren just proceeded to complete the formalities that would give the visitor access to his very own safe room that was part of the hundreds of thousands that made up the warehouse known as the Geneva Freeport. As the visitor completed the entry formalities which included fingerprint and retinal scans, Von Herren looked at the young man in front of him. Ajay Rayan would be thirty three years old in a few months, he knew from the inheritance documents that had been submitted to him a little more than four years ago. He had impressed Von Herren at that first meeting itself, which was a surprising thing considering the multibillionaires who were his clients.
Even at that young age, Ajay Rayan had an air of calmness about him, an aura of aloofness that Von Herren had found intriguing. All his clients, technically the Freeport’s clients, had some sort of attachment to what they chose to store in the warehouse, be it gold bullion, diamonds, priceless art, or even wine bottles. They were stashed there, sometimes for decades, either as assets or as obsessions or as forms of currency. But when Ajay Rayan had walked in and had asked to take a look at what he had inherited, he had looked to be a man who was an unwilling bearer of a legacy that had been handed over to him, to carry on whether he wanted to or not.
The thick dark curly hair of the tall British Indian crowned a strong face and a square jaw and he appeared to have slimmed down even more from his athletic build. But a look into his eyes assured Von Herren that nothing had changed. No, that was not right, he realized after a few seconds. Ajay Rayan’s eyes had become even more intense than before, having taken on a gaze that appeared to look right into the depths of the person he was looking at while seeming to be having a conversation with his own inner self. Von Herren looked away from the young man. There were not many people who made him uncomfortable, but the man in front of him definitely was one who did.
As soon as they completed the formalities of gaining access, Von Herren led Ajay Rayan into the depths of the warehouse. A long passage opened on to a security door that led to a set of stairs they climbed down. They walked further along rows of vault doors on both sides and came to a stop in front of one of them. Von Herren performed another set of biometric procedures to open the one that belonged to Ajay Rayan. Ajay Rayan took the opportunity to look around. He had not been in the right frame of mind to do so the first time he had been there. The sets of doors that were lined up on either side were of the highest quality vault doors, impervious to any physical attacks including explosions. The only way they could be opened from both the outside and the inside was by the biometrics that had been registered for that particular vault.
Just a little over four years ago, Ajay Rayan had not known about the existence of such a thing called a Freeport. When he was introduced to the fact of its existence, he had looked into what they were and had found that they were nothing but a glorified warehouse, something like a Free Economic Zone, an area of trade where there is very little or no tax. Such zones were set up by countries to invite economic activity, enticing the passage of goods and merchandise through their harbors with attractive conditions like duty-free offers. What had started out as a transit zone had turned out to be storage spaces for valuable goods, to be kept in a state of permanent suspension, with the premise that they would be claimed and cleared in the future. As it turned out, the world’s rich and elite, the ‘collectors’, had found their perfect solution, to safeguard their valuables while avoiding and evading taxes that need to be paid if those valuables were to be shifted out of the Freeport and to a more permanent storage space.
“I hope you remember how everything works, Mr. Rayan”. Von Herren’s voice broke through his reverie.
Ajay Rayan nodded and then hesitated. “Actually, I don’t”, he said looking a little confused, trying to recollect his last visit there.
“Not to worry, Mr. Rayan. Let me just brush them up for you. You can lock the door behind you after you enter your room. It’s the same operation to get out as it is to get in. Your biometrics, your palm print and your retina, will open the door from the inside. Your mobile phone will not work inside as no signal can go through these vault doors. So in case you need to talk to me from the inside, there’s an intercom by the entry panel. Just lifting the receiver will connect you to me. Is there anything else you would like to know?” Von Herren asked finishing his explanation.
Ajay Rayan remained thoughtfully silent for a few moments as he took in the information as if for the first time.
“I hope there won't be any difficulty in breathing in there”, he said.
“Rest assured, Mr. Rayan. The facility has military-grade air filtration system and is completely climate controlled. Even the power generation is in-house and we are not connected to the external power grid. So there’s no possibility of any of the systems not functioning due to loss of power. You can live inside there, if you want to”, Von Herren explained with a smile.
Ajay Rayan nodded thoughtfully and pulled open the heavy door.
“Maybe I should”, he muttered to himself as he walked through and pulled the door closed behind him.
Von Herren stood stunned, looking at the closed door. Did he hear right? Did Ajay Rayan just say that he should live inside the vault of a Freeport? Von Herren kept looking at the door for a few seconds and then walked away, his mind racing. Why would one of the world’s youngest billionaires want to live within a vault? What would prompt the sole owner of the Rayan Group of Hotels, known by the initials RGH, which had its presence almost all over the world, to utter such words?
Von Herren had followed the trajectory of RGH especially after the pandemic. It was but natural that all of the hospitality and travel industry had struggled to keep afloat during the pandemic years. Only those who had the staying power had managed to survive. RGH had not only survived but had come back stronger, posting not only record figure growth but also a steep upswing in the net worth of the chain and its owner. And all that had been credited to the vision and courage of Ajay Rayan, who had not only not closed any of his existing hotels, but had opened new ones, buying the ones that were closing down during the pandemic and converting them into a part of the RGH. When the world opened up again, the booming revenge travel and the desire to see the world before another uncertainty closed it down, RGH operated its properties at near capacity. That trend was still continuing, so what did Ajay Rayan have to worry about? ‘Ah! The worries of a billionaire!’ Von Herren shook his head, sighed and went back to his office.
When his intercom rang after nearly an hour, Von Herren picked it up immediately.
“Do you have a restroom on the premises?” asked Ajay Rayan’s voice before he could even say hello.
“Of course, we do, Mr. Rayan”, Von Herren answered.
“Could you be outside my door in five minutes and escort me there?” Ajay Rayan asked.
“Definitely, Mr. Rayan”, said Von Herren and got up to do as he was requested.
When Ajay Rayan came out of his safe room, Von Herren was ready and waiting, with a small worry at the back of his mind. He was relieved to see that his customer was physically fine, except maybe looking even more despondent than he had been before entering the room.
“Could you please lock the door?” asked Ajay Rayan, turning his face away from Von Herren.
Von Herren nodded and stepped forward, grasped the handle and pulled the door closed. It locked with a soft click.
“Would you like to double check, Mr. Rayan?” Von Herren asked.
Ajay Rayan just shook his head.
“Then, if you’ll just follow me”, said Von Herren and turned and led the way to the restroom that his customer had requested.
As he waited at a respectful distance for Ajay Rayan to come out of the restroom, his mind went over the scene he had witnessed inside the safe room that he had just closed. Recent legislations had made it mandatory to provide the Freeport director with a list of all the goods that were stored in it by the user of a safe room. So of late, Von Herren knew all that was stored in his warehouse. He could access the list of goods that had been given to him for safekeeping. But it was only this list that he would be able to see and not the actual goods that were stored there. Most of them were precious art works, paintings and sculptures that were worth millions of dollars, leading his Freeport to be called the world’s largest and most secretive art ‘museum’ that no one can visit. Unlike an art forwarder who gets to see and handle each and every piece of art work that passes through his hands or his own warehouse, the art works that come to the Freeport are generally shipped in already packed crates, giving no clue as to the magnificence of the art that is stored inside. So even though Von Herren knew all that was locked away in his Freeport, he had no way of taking a look at any of them in person. He had inherited the list of Ajay Rayan’s goods from his predecessor, who had done so from his. It was not known if the director who had first inducted Ajay Rayan’s grandfather as his customer had gotten to see what was being stored under his care but Von Herren realized with a shock that pure luck had given him a glimpse of the treasure that was housed inside the Rayan safe room.
He had heard about the magnificence of Chozha bronzes from art connoisseurs but had not had the opportunity to see one up close. The rows and rows of bronze and stone statues that had lined the Rayan safe room had immediately told him that they were the most exquisite of sculptures that could only be from the Chozha era. What a mind boggling collection it was! Von Herren was sure that the whole thing would easily be valued in the hundreds of millions. To own such a collection and to look at them in person would automatically put anyone in a great mood. So it was a puzzling to Von Herren to know that Ajay Rayan had come out of it in a worse mood than when he had gone in.
“Thank you, Mr. Von Herren”, said Ajay Rayan as he came out of the rest room and walked up to Von Herren. His face had cleared and had gone back to its natural calm resting state.
“Oh, please! It’s my pleasure, Mr. Rayan”, answered Von Herren, mentally shaking himself.
“Shall we consider the visit concluded?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure”, answered Ajay Rayan.
“Then if you will follow me, let’s just complete the formalities”, said Von Herren as he led the way back to his office.
“Are there formalities for that too?”
“Of course”.
“Ok, then. Lead the way”.
Ajay Rayan’s phone rang as he was signing the last of his signatures. He looked at the screen and instantly perked up.
“Hey, Neil! Long time no see. Do you have any good news for me?” he asked, his voice expectant, not bothering with pleasantries. Neil Ringkett never expected any anyway. Being one of the foremost art procurers in the world, his relationship with his long-established client base had crossed beyond all those formalities.
“I wouldn’t have called otherwise, Rayan”, answered Neil on the other end. “Sending you a pic. Take a look”.
The image that came through was not very clear. It looked to be photographed in a not very bright room. But the flash on the phone camera had done its job and the image of the stone statue that was on the screen had enough clarity for Rayan to identify it. He zoomed in on the base of the statue with a thudding heart and was excited to see that there was no inscription on it as it was supposed to be. He would have to look at it in person to be absolutely sure that it was what he and his grandfather before him, had been after all these very long years.
“Do you have it?” he asked Neil with an urgency that he didn’t try too hard to hide.
“Not yet. There’s a catch”.
“Catch? What catch?”
“It’s kind of beyond my reach. You’ll have to come in person to try and get your hands on it”.
“Beyond your reach? Come on, is there anything like that?”
“Yes, there is. If it’s already in a museum”.
“Museum? What museum? Where?”
“How would you like to go to Australia?”
“Australia?” Ajay Rayan asked surprised. Then he continued without pausing, “Just send me the location and meet me at my office in London tomorrow. We’ll take it from there”.
“Will do”, said Neil and disconnected.
Ajay Rayan took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart.
“Good news, Mr. Rayan?” asked Von Herren, glad to see that the young man had visibly cheered up.
“Could be the best, Mr. Von Herren”, answered Ajay Rayan extending his hand. “I’ll take your leave. Thank you for everything”.
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Rayan”, said Von Herren and shook his hand.
He escorted Ajay Rayan outside and as he watched him get in his car and drive away he had a strange feeling that perhaps he would never see the young man again.
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