The Devil's Banker

Chapter 35

Midnight on the Autobahn.

Sarah Churchill held the accelerator near the floor, her eyes flicking to the speedometer and back to the road. At two hundred kilometers per hour, the world sped past in a silent roar. Road signs appeared, grew large, and vanished in a flash. A perilous infinity lurked beyond the eerie wash of the Mercedes’s xenon headlights. They had been driving for an hour. Berlin lay behind them. So did Köln and Hannover. They were on a straight shot south. To the Rhine. To Zurich. To the truth of what lay behind Hijira.

“We have to tell someone,” she said, shaking her head because it was not the first time she’d argued the point. “Glen’s waiting for our news. We can’t just disappear.”

“Why not?” protested Chapel. “I’d say it’s the safest proposition.”

“There’s simply too much, that’s why. All the names, the accounts. It’s a treasure trove. What did you call it last night? A golden thread. We can’t just sit on it. God knows there’s enough to keep Glen and the boys at FTAT busy for a week. Let them work it from their end.”

“And then? Admiral Glendenning will pass on every tie to a French bank to Gadbois and ask him to look into it.”

“Why should Gadbois worry you?” Sarah looked at Chapel expectantly. “You think Gadbois is the leak?”

“Hey, they let the Ayatollah camp out in their country for a year, didn’t they?”

She laughed dryly. “Don’t be childish. You don’t know the man.”

“And you do?”

“Well enough to know that the last thing he’d ever do is jump in bed with an Arab, a radical Muslim to boot. If Gadbois had his way, France would still be in Algeria. Anyway, you don’t become chief of a spy agency by having a loose tongue. Calm down, Adam. You’re overreacting.”

“You didn’t have someone waiting to kill you,” he said, knowing it sounded melodramatic. Surviving a blast was one thing. Having trained terrorists actively hunt you down was another. He had no experience with this kind of fear. “Look, if someone is sharing my appointment book with Hijira, I think we can surmise that they’re sharing a damn sight more than that. How many people knew I was to see Dr. Bac at ten o’clock this morning? Answer me that, Sarah. Come on, let’s figure it out.” Chapel held up his hand and counted on his fingers. “First, there’s you, me, and Dr. Bac. I think it’s safe to say we’re innocent of all charges. Admiral Glendenning knew, and since Leclerc was so keen on my reaching the hospital safe and sound this morning, we can assume that Glendenning told Gadbois and Gadbois passed it along. I mentioned it to Allan Halsey, but he’d have to move pretty damn fast to get his operative into place in an hour’s time.”

“Is that your rogues’ gallery, then?”

“Unless you’ve got someone else you’d like to add.”

Sarah shook her head, indicating she did not. “You’ve got to trust someone, Adam.”

But who? Chapel was in a world where lying, deception, and treachery were skills to be honed and used at every possible instance. He knew no criteria by which he could judge any of his “rogues’ gallery.” He only had gut instinct to go on.

He reached an open hand toward her. “I trust you.”

Sarah looked at the hand, then at Chapel. “This is madness,” she whispered.

But a moment later, she grasped his hand and gave it a gentle, lasting squeeze.

It had started eight hours earlier when, armed with Judge Manfred Wiesel’s signed warrant, they had been granted unrestricted access to the records of account 222.818B at the Deutsche International Bank, property of Claude François, Belgian national, born 1961, no photo attached. Seated inside yet another plush conference room, they had expected another dour official, another dry handshake, and another folder full of account statements they were to sort through themselves. Instead, they received the full cooperation of the executive vice president in charge of private banking, his deputy, the banker who had personally overseen account 222.818B, and an escorted visit to the bank’s back office, where for six and a half hours they studied a sum total of nearly two hundred pages of account records (saved to microfilm and transferred to CD) dating back nearly twenty years.

The number of wire transfers into and out of the account ran to the thousands, nearly one a week, sometimes more. The funds came from banks and brokerage houses of every stripe, both in Europe and the Americas. A rough sum of the incoming transfers totaled more than eighty million dollars. In turn, the money was wired to an equally diverse array of banks, congregated primarily in the Middle East: Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, even Israel. The Holy Land Charitable Trust counted as an exception. The charity’s account at the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden had received more than five million dollars.

While the information pertaining to the incoming funds listed only the bank’s name and account number, nearly all the outgoing faxes included the beneficiary’s name, as well. Sarah had railed about the necessity of warm bodies. Now she had them. Mr. Abdul al-Haq of Jidda, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Hassan Daher of Abu Dhabi. Mr. Ali Mustafa al-Faroukh of Cairo, Egypt. The list went on and on, numbering eighty-seven in all. If all these men counted themselves as members of Hijira, Sarah had been dead wrong about the organization having only six to eight operatives.

The last transfer was completed just hours after the Paris bombing. Two million euros to a brokerage account in the name of Albert Daudin at L. F. Rothschild in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Daudin, the selfsame holder of the account at Bank Montparnasse, born 1961, Belgian national.

It was enough raw data to keep a team of investigators at FTAT and FinCEN busy for a month. Chapel had days, maybe just hours. So he chose to pursue a series of wires that stuck out from the blizzard of financial data like a sore thumb. Namely, five transfers of five hundred thousand dollars each François had made over the last half year to a numbered account at the Bank Menz in Zurich. Three things about the transfers piqued his interest. First, it was the only time that money had been wired to a Swiss bank. Second, the regular timing of the payments indicated a contractually specified payoff. Last, there was the amount: five hundred thousand dollars. A sum identical to what Abu Sayeed wired to Royal Joailliers three days before.

There are no coincidences.

But when Chapel inquired if any of the bankers had made the acquaintance of Claude François, he came upon his first roadblock. No one currently at the Deutsche International Bank had met or even seen him. A predecessor had opened the account. Tragically, he’d been killed in a one-car accident, driving home after a late dinner on the Kurfurstendamm. They were, however, pleased to provide the name of the Bank Menz’s chairman, the eponymous Dr. Otto Menz, as well as his private residential number.

Chapel dialed the number in Zurich immediately. Menz answered on the second ring. After the requisite introduction and apology for disturbing his evening, Chapel informed the banker of the American government’s pressing interest in a certain account at his bank.

“Just give me the number,” Menz had answered irritably. “Wait on the line. I’ll phone my colleague to see if it rings a bell.”

Chapel gave him the account number, and a minute later, Menz re- turned. “Mr. Chapel? We’d be happy to discuss your concerns about the account.”

“You would?” Chapel was unable to conceal his surprise. It appeared that Festung Schweiz had a chink in its armor.

“Yes, but as it is a matter of some delicacy, we’d prefer to conduct our conversation in our offices. Do you have any objection to coming to Zurich?”

“Not at all.”

“Very good. Shall we say tomorrow morning in our offices? Seven A.M. We like to begin work at a decent hour. Oh, and Mr. Chapel?”

“Yes?”

“What took you so long to get back in touch with us?”

The first-class lounge at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires was decorated in dark-hued tones of navy, black, and aubergine. Overstuffed leather chairs grouped in twos and threes beckoned the weary traveler. Dim lights added to the tone of a private retreat. A bank of televisions broadcast the evening news. Next to it, a well-stocked bar offered the finest Scotches, vodkas, and rums from around the world. Laid out on a polished wooden credenza nearby was a selection of nuts, olives, and a platter of Las Pampas baby beef, an Argentinian speciality.

Though his stomach groaned with hunger, Marc Gabriel paid no attention to the enticing smells wafting from the generous buffet. Stopping only to pour himself a glass of water, he continued to a vacant desk where a small card advertised Internet connectivity. Sitting, he removed his cell phone and checked his voice mail. He’d asked George to leave a coded message to confirm that Adam Chapel was dead. Four words to seal the bond between father and son, and to ensure Hijira’s success. “I love you, Father.” He had checked several times during the day, only to find his mailbox empty. Once again, the operator’s mechanical voice informed him that he had no messages.

Unzipping his overnight bag, Gabriel took out his Apple Powerbook and set it on the desk. In less than sixty seconds he was online. A check of the latest news headlines did nothing to ease his unrest. Nowhere could he find any mention of a murdered United States Treasury officer, a second terrorist attack in Paris. He checked AP, Reuters, then Le Monde and Le Figaro. Nothing. It was six P.M. in Buenos Aires. Eleven o’clock at home. Gabriel phoned his wife.

“He is out,” replied Amina.

“With the girl?”

“I don’t know. He has been gone all day long. He looked very presentable when he left. Will you be home soon? Perhaps I can prepare somethi-”

Gabriel hung up. What business was it of hers when he would be home?

Returning his attention to his laptop, he typed in the address of his private server, and accessed his portfolio to mark-to-market the stocks he had shorted three days earlier. The Dow Jones was down three percent on the day; the London “footsie” three and a half. It had been a bad day for markets around the world. Lingering recessions. Political unrest in the Middle East. Rising oil prices. Continued epidemic in Asia. In general, a poor time to be long.

Over the past days, his stocks had lost an average of five percent of their value, leaving Gabriel a paper gain of forty million dollars. A tidy sum, but hardly what Hijira required. Switching over to financial modeling software, he ran through the scenarios projecting the gains in his portfolio accruing from a twenty, thirty, or forty percent decline in the value of the world’s major financial markets. His best-case scenario left him a profit of four hundred million dollars. The worst-case, two hundred forty million, would barely meet his minimums.

The money was already allocated. Wire transfers were drafted and ready to be sent at the push of a button. One hundred million to the Bank of Riyadh. Sixty million to Emirates International. Fifty-five million to the Jordani Bank of Commerce. Each sum would be further broken down, earmarked for urgent purposes.

The list went on. The beneficiaries of Hijira’s endowment.

Closing the programs, he logged on to to a prominent American investment bank. He punched in the account number and the password. A moment later, the portfolio flashed onto the screen. Though the account did not belong to him, it showed a surprising similarity to his own. The same stocks had been shorted, if a day later, and in vastly smaller quantities. It was no coincidence. He’d known for years that someone was “piggybacking” his accounts-copying his every trade. In fact, he’d encouraged it.

Western intelligence had initiated surveillance on him shortly after he’d arrived in Paris twenty years earlier. He had tracked the surveillance to its source and laid his trap as surely as a fisherman sets his net. Spies were smart, ambitious, and underpaid. Gabriel had reasoned that if they were clever enough to keep tabs on him, they were clever enough to make some money from what they saw. When he felt the first tentative nibbles, he gave his prey ample line. Tips on shorting the British pound, buying AOL and Yahoo! Tips so good, they could not be ignored. The prey bit hard and Gabriel let him run deep, all the while keeping records of his every trade. When the time came, he reeled him in. Evidence was presented. An agreement made.

It was blackmail of an enlightened variety. Marc Gabriel conducted his business as he pleased. Richemond prospered. The victim rose through the ranks and grew wealthy. All he had to do was turn a blind eye and supply the occasional snippet of information. Of late, he had been particularly helpful.

“This is a first call for Air France, Flight 382 to Paris. All passengers are requested to proceed to Gate 66 for immediate boarding.”

Gabriel disconnected his laptop and slipped it into his case. Leaving the lounge, he accessed his voice mail one last time. Again there was no message. He was disappointed.

“George,” he whispered with silent anger. “Have you failed me?”

But already he was planning his revenge.

They drove.

Chapel surveyed Sarah from behind half-closed lids, secretly mapping every inch of her face, from the careless swell of her lower lip to the tense set of her eyes, from the sculpted chin to the warrior’s scar that traced a jagged crescent on her cheekbone.

He’d never been able to get women right. He was no ladies’ man, but he’d had his share of girlfriends. Somehow, though, they never turned out to be the people he thought they were when he met them. The shy ones turned into blurters. The loud ones suddenly shut up. The athletes were self-absorbed. The bookworms as nosy as a pew of spinsters. Did the women actually change, or was he just terrible at figuring them out?

The car passed beneath a streetlight. The halogen glow slashed Sarah’s face and he was left with a vivid image of her.

Who are you? he wondered silently. Beneath the uniform? Beneath the cocksureness and the call to duty? Who are you when you take a bath and wash off the day’s reality? Are you so deep inside your secret world that you’ve lost all trace of yourself and that you look for your job to tell you how to act, what you should feel, and who you ought to love?

But in the end only one question mattered. Are you the one? Is this the way I’m supposed to feel when I’m in love?

“Look, Adam, it’s late. Let’s find a place to pull over and get some rest.”

“Keep going. I don’t want to miss that meeting.”

She pulled off the road forty minutes later at an AGIP truck stop on the other side of the border from Basel. Guiding the car down the off ramp, Sarah threw her eyes to the Autobahn. A BMW 535i painted the green and white of the German police slid past, languid as a shark.

“Our escort?” said Chapel.

“You knew?”

“So much for keeping our destination hidden. The Swiss are probably waiting on the other side of the border. Glen’s been keeping an eye on us all the way.”

“If he is, it’s for our own safety. That’s part of his job-to look after his own.”

If it is, in fact, Glen, Sarah added silently. She doubted it. Excusing herself from the conference room in the Deutsche International Bank, she’d phoned Owen Glendenning herself to let him know the extent, if not the details, of their discovery, and their plan to drive to Zurich. He had no need to follow them. Someone else had been keen to learn their destination. Who had alerted the police? The FBI? Judge Wiesel? Gadbois? She’d spotted the eyes, but she had no idea as to their ultimate allegiance.

The parking lot was half-full with big rigs, eighteen-wheel juggernauts, and RVs. Sarah pointed the car to a far corner of the lot, pushing the car over the curb and keeping the speed low as she crossed a wide meadow of waist-high grass.

“Where are we-”

“Patience, Mr. Chapel. Patience… unless, that is, you’d like to wake up in an hour, when every one of those trucks hits the road.”

The headlights played across a wide bank of trees fifty yards ahead. Rolling down the window, Sarah breathed in the cooling rush of fresh water. She killed the engine, and for a while they sat in silence, listening to the muted roar of a fast-flowing river.

“I won’t ask how you knew about this.”

“I didn’t. Just that there was a river in this direction. I figured it might be nice to relax somewhere more private than a truck stop. Call me a snob.”

She stepped out of the car. The night was warm and still. Crickets sawed restlessly while somewhere a motorbike puttered down a country road. She walked to the riverbank and stared at the moon’s curdled reflection in the black water. Adam joined her a moment later. She looked at him. Though he was staring into the sky, she could sense his expectation, scent his desire.

“How’s your shoulder?” Delicately, she ran a hand along the contours of his burn.

“Not bad,” he said, wincing. “Actually, it hurts like hell.”

“Nothing I’m doing.”

“No,” he answered rapidly.

“Can you get it wet?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You have more meds, don’t you?”

“Yeah. In the car.”

“Okay, then. We can’t show up in Zurich smelling like swine.” Sarah stepped away from him, and raising her hands in the air, pulled off her tank top. She enjoyed the sweep of his eyes over her breasts, the near rabid hunger there. A year without a woman. Poor boy. Bending, she removed her slacks and panties. She lingered a moment, sure to erase any objection. “Coming?”

They dried each other with their bodies. Sarah kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his neck, before allowing herself to taste him. He kissed her softly and she loved him for his restraint, knowing he wanted to devour her as much as she wanted to devour him. His body was as she’d imagined, the muscles sculpted, the skin pale and taut, every ridge of his abdomen visible. She looked at the shoulder and felt a wave of genuine pity. “My, my,” she said. “You’re braver than I thought. Third-degree?”

“Only a small patch of it.”

“We’ll have to be very careful with you, Mr. Chapel.”

“Not too careful,” he said.

Wrapping her arms around him, she lowered the both of them to the grass, silently ordering Adam to lie on his back. She ran her fingers across his body until he was rigid, his back arched, anxious. Only then did she climb on top of him. Suddenly, he paused. “Sarah Anouska Churchill, right?”

“Cross my heart,” she said, gasping as he entered her.

Closing her eyes, she fought back the biting recrimination. She had no choice but to lie. She had to ensure that Adam trusted her. After all, it was her job.