The Devil's Banker

Chapter 44

Once in a while, even Bobby Freedman got tired. It wasn’t something he liked to admit. Freedman was a former Marine, a four-year team leader of Force Recon, who’d seen action in Panama and the secret war in Guatemala. He prided himself on his disdain for sleep, his ability to go hour after hour doing quality work while keeping his wits about him. But thirty-six hours at a desk was pushing the envelope.

Looking out the window of his third-floor office at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Freedman admired the sun as it crept over the horizon and lit the rolling hills of northern Virginia. It was his second sunrise of the shift. Since Adam Chapel had called from Paris with the information about the Holy Land Charitable Trust, Freedman had only left his chair to shit, shower, and shave. The only thing keeping him going was the knowledge that Chapel was doing the same thing on his end.

Chapel. The man was a maniac.

Rubbing the fatigue from his eyes, Freedman turned back to the monitor. He was “walking out” the accounts to whom the Holy Land Charitable Trust had sent money over the last twenty-four months. “Walking out” simply meant feeding the numbers into the witches’ cauldron-his pet name for the family of databases he regularly queried-and following each and every lead to its bitter end. He’d presorted the accounts by monetary value, investigating those that had received the most money first. In total, the Holy Land Charitable Trust had sent seven million dollars to fifty-six different accounts. So far, Freedman had looked at twelve of them.

Cracking the mini-fridge tucked beneath his desk, he retrieved an ice-cold diet Coke and guzzled half of it in a go. “Gentlemen, start your engines,” he said aloud, before burping monstrously. “Bring on lucky thirteen.”

Freedman placed his ruler beneath the next account number on his list and banged the numbers into his computer. A quick jaunt through the Currency and Banking Retrieval System identified the account as belonging to the Beirut National Bank and nothing else. Beirut meant terrorism, drugs, and mayhem. On to NADDIS, the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Information System, and a reference to a joint FBI-Treasury CT investigation. But it was left to TECS, the Treasury Department’s proprietary database, to spit out the name of the account holder as Yassir Ibrahim a financial capo who specialized in raising funds for several well-known Pakistani madrasas-Islamic schools that advertised a virulently anti-Western curriculum.

Hijira was turning out to be a regular “Terror, Inc.” They weren’t so much a bunch of terrorists as they were financiers for nearly every radical Islamic cause within the Ummah. So far, he’d tracked monies flowing from the Holy Land Charitable Trust to the likes of Islamic Jihad, Resla Islaminiya, Hamas, Freedom Fighters of Palestine, FARC in Colombia, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

As Freedman scrolled down the computer screen, ready to start walking out the next account, his eye caught an especially large transfer.

“Sixty-five thousand bucks,” he said aloud. “No way!”

He couldn’t have missed something as big as that. As if that weren’t enough, he recognized the bank locator number as belonging to Hunts National Bank, a longtime D.C. institution. Looking back through the account history, he spotted four transfers over the past months to the account at Hunts totaling two hundred and sixty thousand dollars. He was mystified. It was as if the account information from the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden had updated itself.

Freedman shifted in his chair, fueled by an adrenaline rush. Two hundred and sixty grand to Hunts was some shot in the arm. The money constituted the first trace of Hijira’s activity in the States. Halsey would shit his pants when he saw this. Glendenning would probably give him a friggin’ medal.

Thirty minutes later, Freedman was decidedly less upbeat. After shepherding the account through all three tiers of databases-CBRS, all seven enforcement computer systems, including the IRS, INS, and even the Post Office, and LexisNexis, he had nada.

It was impossible. The account was dirty by default.

Snatching the phone to his ear, he hit the speed dial for Hunts.

“Hello, Jerry, this is Bobby Freedman over at FinCEN.”

“Oh, no,” complained Jerry Oglethorpe, the bank’s government liaison officer, only half in jest. “What’s up now? One of your subpoena hounds about to walk through my doors?”

“Give me more credit than that. You know I’d give you a heads-up if that were the case. This is different. Frankly, it’s something that scares the heck out of me. I need a favor.”

Oglethorpe’s mellow baritone regained its composure. “What can Hunts do for its government today?”

“Got an account with you boys that looks mighty suspicious.”

“Can’t say I like to hear that, but go ahead. What’s bothering you?”

“It’s got to do with the bombing in Paris on Monday. I’ve traced some of the money from the sponsor group to your bank.”

There was a lengthy silence, and Freedman could feel Oglethorpe’s angst. For the last two years, American banks tasked with scrutinizing their accounts had been on the lookout for the slightest indications of surreptitious activity. “Know thy client” was the industry’s clarion call. The discovery of a link to a murderous terrorist organization at this late date didn’t portend well for the bank’s reputation.

“Go on,” said Oglethorpe. “I can’t hold my breath forever.”

“It has to do with several transfers from the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden to your Georgetown branch.” Freedman read off the account number, the dates, and the values of each transfer.

Waiting for Oglethorpe to answer, he glanced out the window. Originally, he’d taken the job at FinCEN as a passport to bigger and better things-namely, a slot at one of the nation’s elite enforcement agencies: FBI, Customs, Treasury. Somewhere along the way, though, he decided he liked being the custodian of so much information. He was in a unique position to assist the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies with their investigations. After six years, though, it was time for him to move up a level, to take possession of an assistant director’s corner office and see what that Special Executive Service pay scale might buy.

A long, low whistle sounded in Freedman’s ear. “Hey, Bobby, if this stuff’s right, it’s not Hunts who’s going to be in trouble. It’s you guys.”

“Us?” Freedman rose from his chair, twisting the phone cord around his finger. “What do you mean, us?”

“This guy’s a federal employee. Worse than that, Bobby, he’s one of your own. A Treasury agent.”

“Give me a name, Jerry. All I need is a name.”

“Got a pen?”

“Yeah,” said Freedman, scrambling to find a ballpoint. It was hardly necessary. Whatever the name, it would be indelibly engraved on his mind. “Who is it?”

“Chapel,” came the response. “Adam A.”