The Devil's Banker

Chapter 36

Bank Menz hid on the second floor of a sixteenth-century building on the Augustinergasse, a winding, cobblestoned alley just off the Bahnhofstrasse in downtown Zurich. If the exterior of the building remained unchanged but for periodic renovations since Father Zwingli’s time, the interior was a state-of-the-art mélange of halogen lights, plasma screens, and stainless steel. At seven in the morning, the office bristled with the urgency of a ship at flank speed. The staff was present, the corridors brightly lit and humming with what Chapel could only think of as “Swiss efficiency,” the scent of freshly brewed coffee tickling the air.

“I hope the early hour didn’t cause too much of a problem,” said Dr. Otto Menz as he shepherded Chapel and Sarah Churchill through the warren of offices. “We like to make a good start on things.”

“Not at all,” replied Chapel. “We appreciate you seeing us at such short notice.”

“Short notice? We’ve been waiting six months to hear back from you.”

Menz was a spry, handsome seventy-year-old, his face tanned from weekends in the Alps, his white hair combed through with brilliantine, his blue eyes glinting with resolve. Directing his guests through the hallways, he never took his hand from Chapel’s back, patting him all the way as if he were welcoming home a long-lost son. The banker was as far from a gnome as Chapel could imagine.

“Right this way,” said Menz, motioning toward an open door that led to a conference room.

A second man waited inside, business card at the ready. He was tall, dark, funereal, with oversize horn-rimmed glasses. “Good morning,” he said in accented English. “My name is Dr. Irwin Senn. Corporate counsel.”

Chapel took the card and returned the firm handshake. The crisp professionalism of the place left him feeling distinctly underdressed. Khakis and a polo shirt didn’t cut it when you were going up against tailored three-piece pinstripes. Even his Lobbs failed to stare down Menz’s thousand-dollar ostrich-skin lace-ups.

“Good morning,” said Sarah. “The pleasure is ours.”

“Dr. Irwin Senn,” the lawyer repeated, carefully selecting another business card from his billfold and offering it to her across the table. “Corporate counsel.”

“Please, let us take our seats,” said Menz, and they all sat at once around the square glass table. “Well, well, you’re here at last. You were a bit vague last night. The security of the United States is a rather large statement.”

“We’ve come in connection with the bombing in Paris earlier this week,” explained Sarah. “Our investigation into the identity of the culprit and his associates turned up some transfers made to an account at your bank.”

“Five transfers, to be exact,” continued Chapel, “totaling two and one half million dollars that were made during the last half year.”

“Yes, yes, from the Deutsche International Bank,” said Otto Menz. “I’m well aware of what you’re talking about. We provided all pertinent information about the account to your good offices months ago.”

“You did?” Chapel had never heard of the Bank Menz until yesterday. Any reports of suspicious account activity-especially activity of this magnitude-should have crossed his desk immediately. Why hadn’t anyone at FTAT-Glendenning or Halsey, or whoever had caught the squelch, done something about it?

“You are with the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center?” Menz asked.

Chapel and Sarah said yes.

“Admiral Glendenning told us he was grateful for your assistance,” she added, lying with such grace and sincerity that for a moment even Chapel believed her. “Unfortunately, when investigations move so rapidly, it’s difficult for us to cull through past warnings.”

“You get a lot, do you?”

“Not enough,” said Sarah.

Menz raised an eyebrow. “Any about nuclear physicists?” When neither Chapel nor Sarah answered, he continued. “As I had suspected, the matter was potentially of vital importance. National security, you said.”

“Absolutely,” said Chapel.

“Well, then.” Folding his hands, Menz glanced at Dr. Senn, who nodded curtly, as if to say that Menz had been discharged of his obligations of client confidentiality. “The recipient of the funds is Dr. Mordecai Kahn. Does the name mean anything to you?”

Sarah and Chapel indicated it did not.

“He is an Israeli. A nuclear physicist. At least, he wrote as much on his account documents. Also a professor. He came into our offices nine months ago asking to open a numbered account. Quite concerned about confidentiality, I’ve been told. He informed us up front that he would be receiving large sums from abroad.”

“Did that strike you as odd?”

“Not at all. Most of our clients wire in money from foreign banks. It was only later, when the money arrived, that we grew concerned. Two and a half million dollars to a professor? A modest man, by all appearances. What could it be for? Royalties? Speaking fees? An inheritance, perhaps, but in five equal sums? I think not.”

“You met him?”

“Of course not.” Menz dismissed the suggestion out of hand. He might as well have been accused of replacing the toilet paper in the public rest rooms. “Our account officer took notes.” Menz consulted a sheet of paper. “ ‘Client poorly dressed. Digital watch. Tennis shoes. Nervous. In need of a shower.’ We like to be aware of these things.”

“Of course,” said Chapel, but something in his tone angered the older man.

“You see, Mr. Chapel, one must either ask no questions or ask many,” Menz argued. “There is no in-between. Willful ignorance is no longer tolerated.”

“What prompted you to contact us?” asked Sarah, touching Menz’s arm. “And may I say, we’re ever so grateful.”

“It was later,” said Menz, calmer now, “when we noticed the sums were coming from a dubious account. I can only say that this Claude François had raised some questions in the past. We bankers do talk. And, of course, there was the beneficiary: an Israeli scientist receiving money from a questionable account in Berlin. Why? For what reason? What services might he have performed? I was too frightened even to imagine. So I called you.”

So this was the new Switzerland, thought Chapel. The Swiss financial industry had undergone a sea change in the last six years. From impenetrable bastion of bank secrecy to an engaged, active, and cooperative partner in the international combat against money laundering and terrorist finance. Several factors had been responsible for the shift. First, the country had decided it was uncomfortable with its image as a partner of crooks and criminals. Second, many other countries had stepped up to challenge Switzerland as a fortress of secrecy. Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, and a slew of stamp-sized republics in the South Pacific all promised to guard a client’s secrecy against any and all intrusions. No longer did bank secrecy offer the Swiss banks a marketing advantage, a leg up on their opponents, as it were. It was this that decided the matter. Bank secrecy simply didn’t pay anymore. It might even be costing the Swiss money.

“Has Dr. Kahn withdrawn any money from the account?” Chapel asked.

“Seventy-seven thousand dollars wired to a BMW dealership in Vienna. That’s all. Not a dime more.”

“And would you happen to have an address for him?”

“Naturally. I have all the particulars here.”

At his beckoning, Dr. Senn passed copies of the documents to Chapel and Sarah. Kahn’s address was listed as Jabotinsky Street in Tel Aviv. His profession as “professor/research.” There was a home and work telephone. He’d named his wife as a beneficiary of the account. It all looked on the up-and-up. Except that a banker with forty years’ experience had sniffed that something was wrong and had decided that a Jewish physicist wearing cheap clothing, a digital watch, who was in need of a shower and acting nervously could only be receiving large sums for illicit acts. Well then, as Menz might have said. That was the way the system was supposed to work. Why did it feel to Chapel like such a miracle that for once it had?

“May I ask you both one question?”

“Of course,” said Chapel.

Otto Menz came out of his chair an inch and leaned on his forearms. “What has Kahn given them in exchange for the money?”

Sarah stood by the lake watching a majestic paddle-wheel steamer approach the dock. A freshening breeze raised a small chop. Swans and ducks bobbed on the surface. In the distance, like hovering ghosts, the outline of the Glarner Alps was visible.

“Hello, Yossi,” she said, into her cell phone. “It’s Meg from London.”

“Hello, Meg from London.”

“Need your help a bit. Got a sec?”

“Always a sec for Meg from London,” said Yossi, who was from Jerusalem, a mover and shaker in the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

“I’ve run across one of your own in a little deal we’re following. Mordecai Kahn. A physicist. Name ring a bell?”

“Kahn, you say. Not off the top of my head, but let me check.”

“Sure thing.”

Sarah looked at Chapel, who was on his own phone, booking them return flights to Paris. He was making things complicated. He loved her and she knew it. She’d encouraged it. And what about her? She had only to catch his eye to feel his longing. He was staring at her now. Something in his brown eyes stretched her loyalties in three different directions. She wrote it off to her sentimental side. A needy man always provoked her weaker emotions. But love? She dismissed it out of hand.

“Hey, Meg…”

“Yes?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Too bad,” she said, knowing better than to feel disappointed. “Thanks for checking. I owe you.”

“Traffic goes both ways,” he said. “Just in case I get something, where will you be?”

“Just in case?” Sarah hesitated a minute. Where would she be? Why, she’d be at the other end of her cell phone, that’s where. Yossi knew that.

“Yeah, you know,” he said. “If we need to get in touch with you.”

Oh, God, thought Sarah. It can’t be. It can’t have come to this. The intent of Kahn’s payments was unmistakable. You only pay a nuclear physicist two million dollars for one thing these days and it wasn’t to build a better mousetrap.

“Paris,” she said. “Hôtel Splendide. I’ll even let you buy me a drink this time.”

But Yossi didn’t respond, not with a laugh or even a good-bye. Without another word, the line went dead.