It's a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel. Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of US bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumour mill is kicking into high gear.

Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea's cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?

The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realise. At a minimum, it would suggest that the US risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.

The trillions of dollars of debt the US will issue in the next couple of years needs buyers. Attracting them will require making sure that existing ones are not losing faith in the US's ability to control the dollar.

The dollar is, for better or worse, the core of our world economy and it's best to keep it stable. News that is more fitting for international spy novels than the financial pages will not help that effort. It is incumbent upon the US Treasury to get to the bottom of this tale and keep markets informed.

Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia.

Yes, they could have built vacation homes amidst Genghis Khan's Gobi Desert or the famed Temples of Angkor. Bernard Madoff who?

These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest US creditors. It makes you wonder if some of the time Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spends keeping the Chinese and Japanese invested in dollars should be devoted to well-financed men crossing the Italian-Swiss border.

This tale has gotten little attention in markets, perhaps because of the absurdity of our times. The last year has been a decidedly disorienting one for capitalists who once knew up from down, red from black and risk from reward. It almost fits with the surreal nature of today that a couple of travellers have more US debt than Brazil in a suitcase and, well, that's life.

You can almost picture Tom Clancy sitting in his study thinking: "Damn! Why didn't I think of this yarn and novelise it years ago?" He could have sprinkled in a Chinese angle, a pinch of Russian intrigue, a dose of Pyongyang and a bit of Taiwan-Strait tension into the mix. Presto, a sure bestseller.

Daniel Craig may be thinking this is a great story on which to base the next James Bond flick. Perhaps Don Johnson could buy the rights to this tale. In 2002, the "Miami Vice" star was stopped by German customs officers as he was traveling in a car carrying credit notes and other securities worth as much as $8 billion. Now he could claim it was all, uh, research.

Interest is likely to grow. The last thing Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke need right now is tens of billions more of US bonds - or even high-quality fake ones - suddenly popping up around the globe.