Introduced via the ruminations of Buck, as the authors explain his presence in Chicago and his flight to London
Dramatis Personae, novae:
Lucinda Washington: "a fifty-ish black woman," Global Weekly's Chicago Bureau chief. Angry at Cameron (who she refuses to call Buck) for scooping the Chicago office on a local football story. Lucinda: "Sports isn't even your gig, Cameron .... You Ivy League types aren't supposed to like anything but lacrosse and rugby, are you?" Proselytizes to Buck, telling him "[you] know you got your mind right when you saw what God did for Israel" and to "come to my church, and God'll getcha."
Buck admits to being a Deist, but rejoinds with the incontrovertibly reasonable observation that "[God has] already got me ... but Jesus is another thing. The Israelis hate Jesus, but look what God did for them." [Emphasis mine]
Calls Lucinda's home number when stranded at the airport and is told by her teenage son "Mama, Daddy, everybody else is gone .... you know where she is, too. She's in heaven."
Dirk Burton: the man Buck is going to see in England, "a former Princeton classmate, a Welshman who had been working in the London financial district since graduate school." "[A] reliable source in the past, tipping off Buck about secret high-level meetings among international financiers." Informs Buck of the machinations of a secret cabal of financiers who set the world's agenda behind the scenes. None of whom wear long coats to conceal their tails or have last names that end in -stein (yet).
Introduced via Buck's flashback conversation with Dirk
Jonathan Stonagal: "one of the richest men in the world and long known as an American power broker," integral to the U.N.'s integration of the global economy into the three currencies (dollar, mark & yen). "[N]ot only own[s] the biggest banks and financial institutions in the United States, but also owned or had huge interests in the same throughout the world .... the power behind the power .... The mightiest of the secret group of international money men."
Joshua Todd-Cothran: runs the London Exchange, was an eloquent exponent of the three currency reform. Apparently has a secretary who has a subordinate who is related to a friend of Burton's, and the source of Burton's secret knowledge about "the power behind the power."
The takeaway
Buck knows people who know things. And they know the world is converting to one global currency. Buck has also had a conversation with a black woman. Who speaks in awkwardly written dialect and mocks Buck's degree, despite being a major city bureau chief for a prestigious news weekly. And who may re-appear, because she has both a first and a last name, unlike "young woman" at the Pan-Continental Lounge counter, "middle aged" woman who gives Ray a ride home after the helicopter trip, and "older woman" who gives in to hysterics when her husband "Harold" disappears from the 747 en route to Heathrow. [note -- 2nd two women were omitted in the digests for those chapters, Harold was the owner of the glasses and hearing aid in Chapter 2. Disappeared husband, name. Grieving survivor wife, not so much].
What about Hattie & Ray?
Hattie calls Ray to make sure he's o.k., and to catch up on the head count of those left behind in each family. Ray has a spiritual awakening, realizing that "he certainly didn't much care what happened to her family any more than he cared when he heard about a remote tragedy on the news."
What to make of it all?
Buck, clearly not racist. "[S]ecret puppeteers," making decisions about the global economy, steering the world to "one [currency] inside a decade." Jonathan Stonagal and Joshua Todd-Cothran, powers behind the throne, but not necessarily Jewish.
Rayford Steele, clearly over Hattie.
Hattie Durham, pointlessly seeking solace in Steele (who must reject her on potential hussy Jezebel grounds), but has reassuring conversation with Buck who calls to tell her her mother and sisters are o.k.
Afterthought
Dirk Burton, Welshman?
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