Assassin's Game

THIRTY-TWO

It was a mystery to many how Walter Krueger, a man of reputable upbringing and high acquaintances, had gone adrift at the crest of life. He’d been born into a solid Zurich family, and as a young boy attended the most prestigious private academies. On graduating from university he married a woman of impeccable pedigree, not the least of whose attributes involved being the lone daughter of a prominent banker. So it was, when Krueger began his corporate climb it was with a solid midlevel job at one of the largest banks in Switzerland, rapid advancement a given. His home life showed equal promise when it became apparent that his wife’s bland figure disguised a thriving fertility. Within eight years of landing at Bank Suisse, Walter Krueger was the assistant director of investor relations, and he had to his credit six children, a ski chalet in Klosters, and a raging peptic ulcer. For a Swiss banker, life was as it should have been.

Then, one early spring day four years ago, Walter Krueger had lost it all. The investigation was born from a trivial act of spite — a low-level clerk, terminated for failing a drug test, had before he was sacked manipulated routing numbers and forged his supervisor’s signature, having the effect of diverting the bank’s entire quarterly tax disbursement to a vice president’s personal brokerage account. The mischief was quickly sorted, but not before the bank examiners had stuck their noses in. During the course of their inquiry Krueger fell under separate scrutiny, in particular his dealings with a wealthy Israeli, rumored to be an arms dealer, who generated great sums of dollars to be legitimized in the form of Swiss government bonds and U.S. Treasury certificates. With the bank regulators circling, Krueger was called to a meeting with the firm’s board — his father-in-law centered between four equally unsmiling men. Krueger walked out of that meeting unemployed. He was permitted by the bank to keep the contents of his desk, and by his father-in-law to keep his wife and children. The client in question was quietly asked to do business elsewhere, and the sated bank examiners flapped onward to the next carcass. With Walter Krueger sacrificed, everyone went back to the business at hand.

This was where Krueger had surprised many of those who knew him. At the age of forty-one, and shored comfortably by his wife’s fortune, he could well have retired to the chalet with Greta and their six children. He did not. Perhaps harboring an ill vision of some kind of Von Trapp existence in the Tyrolean Alps, Walter Krueger took a different path. If his reputation was ruined, his qualifications remained intact, and he struck out to open his own private bank, leasing a small suite in a bland building in the shadows of the Bahnhofstrasse giants.

His first client, by no coincidence, was a wealthy Israeli looking for less obvious rinse cycles for his soiled assets. His name was Benjamin Grossman, and he was indeed an arms merchant. Krueger set out by retaining a good lawyer, actually an entire firm, and was soon testing the curbs of law and privacy to manage Grossman’s money. It was a delicate operation, but the fees and margins Krueger demanded, and that Grossman allowed, were percentages that would have given his father-in-law palpitations.

The workings of Israel’s top arms merchant did not escape Mossad. Certain branches of the Israeli government — Shin Bet and Aman among them — had logged substantial files on the opaque dealings of Benjamin Grossman, indeed enough to shut him down had they been of that mind. But Mossad’s director at the time, Anton Bloch, was always one to put opportunity above justice. He reasoned that a recognized and well-financed arms dealer, already in cahoots with a dexterous Swiss banker, could prove invaluable for Israel as a sayan, a Hebrew word that translated roughly to “helper.” Across the world, these were Mossad’s enablers, men and women who offered money, influence, and expertise to advance the Israeli cause. In the case of Grossman, all Mossad needed was a trusted agent to make their delicate connection, and they found him — or created him actually — in the persona of Natan Mendelsohn. Krueger Asset Management had found its second client, alias David Slaton.

Il Dolce was as pretentious a restaurant as resided on Bahnhofstrasse, superb food and vintage wine at ruinous prices. More directly, it was a place where business was done. Slaton watched the restaurant from across the street, a bookstore with a good view of the entrance, and saw Krueger arrive, punctually and alone, and disappear inside. He kept watching for five minutes, then walked up the street for a secondary inspection. He saw nothing out of place.

Slaton had scouted the area earlier, and spent ten minutes inside the restaurant, ostensibly to make a reservation. The place was exactly as he remembered. He had met Krueger here on four previous occasions, two of these with the arms dealer Grossman also in attendance. Over Il Dolce’s exquisite beef and fowl, the three had coordinated funding and arms shipments for a series of Mossad initiatives, the details always later knotted in the privacy of Krueger’s office. In time, the operation with Grossman had gone dormant, Anton Bloch sensing too much risk. It was a loose end Slaton had never had the chance to clean up, and one that he now hoped Mossad had forgotten about.

He found Krueger at the reserved table, a quiet corner near a fire exit. The banker had a menu in hand, but spotted Slaton straightaway.

Krueger rose and extended his hand. “Monsieur Mendelsohn, how good to see you. It has been a long time. You look well.” He kept to the English they’d always preferred.

Slaton shook his hand. “It’s good to see you, Walter.”

They took their respective seats. Krueger was as Slaton remembered: big and plump with a horseshoe of close-cropped hair around his balding crown, a great marshmallow of a man in a thousand-dollar Italian suit. Yet if his exterior was soft, his gaze was as keen as his investment results implied. Slaton’s most compelling question was one he could not ask. He wondered if Mossad had come back in his absence to install a surrogate for Natan Mendelsohn. If so, it would be written on Krueger’s face right now. It was not. The man looked unbothered, even happy to see him.

“I’ve been abroad for some time,” Slaton said.

“Pleasure or business?” Krueger asked.

“Only business. Men like us have little time for the other, no?”

“D’accord. My chalet in the Alps has been gathering dust since last winter.”

“Business is good then?”

“Reasonably so,” replied Krueger. “The Americans have been pushing our government for more transparency in banking, yet only when it comes to those who owe taxes to their IRS.”

The two exchanged a knowing smile and were soon chatting about families, Slaton hoping he remembered correctly the number of children birthed by the fictional Natalya Mendelsohn. The waiter came and took their order, and everyone switched languages. In Zurich business was conducted in English, contracts written in Swiss German, and dinner ordered in French. It all created a degree of confusion, but this was not unintended. If clients did not get what they expected, salesmen, attorneys, and chefs all had a reasonable case for missed communications. Krueger selected duck a l’orange, Slaton grilled trout Ruden. A pair of martinis found their way to the table and, after a toast to nothing in particular, Slaton took the helm.

“Did you bring my package?” he asked.

“Of course.” Krueger reached into his jacket and pulled out a sealed envelope, slightly larger than a standard letter. “It has been in my safe for fifteen months now.”

Slaton took the envelope, pocketed it, and said, “I haven’t seen an account statement in some time — did you bring one?”

Krueger went ashen. “Statement?” A long hesitation, then, “The account you speak of … are you not aware that it was brought to zero some months ago?”

“Was it?”

“By your own attorney.”

“My attorney.”

“The woman who came to see me. The papers were completely in order,” Krueger said uneasily, “your limited power of attorney. All perfectly valid and certified. I don’t see how—”

Slaton held up a hand to put the Swiss at ease. “Yes, I understand all that. I made the authorization, of course. But nothing at all remains in the account?”

“The account itself is intact, as your attorney directed. Quite clear. But the balance is zero. All funds were transferred to the bank in Tel Aviv.”

Slaton considered this. It made a certain sense. There had been perhaps twenty thousand U.S. in the account when he’d last seen it, along with a smaller secondary standing in zero-coupon Swiss bonds. Were Mossad’s bean counters only being meticulous? Recovering funds gone astray? Or was there something more? That the account had been left alive struck Slaton as unusual. Procedurally, it would have been more typical for Mossad to close it, effectively cutting all ties to Grossman. But then it occurred to Slaton that leaving the account open was like setting an alarm. If inquiries were made, perhaps by the police or bank examiners, Mossad would be forewarned. Yes, he thought, that made sense. A tripwire — and one that he had just activated. Slaton twirled his martini by the stem of its glass, hoping idly that Krueger would offer to pay for dinner. He needed cash, needed it now, and while there were any number of ways to acquire funds, all entailed a certain amount of time. A certain amount of risk. His entire approach to Geneva would have to be rethought.

“I hope I have acted to your satisfaction,” Krueger prattled.

“Yes,” Slaton said distractedly, “the timeline of those transactions escaped me for a moment, but it doesn’t matter.”

Krueger beamed. “Bon.” The banker then turned tentative, lowering his voice amid the burble of conversation around them — a man about to voice serious concerns. “I am happy to have not disappointed you, monsieur. There is, in fact, a separate matter we should discuss.”

“A separate matter?”

“I have been trying unsuccessfully to reach you for many months. The address I have on file, the postal box in Oxford, seems to have reverted. And your previous phone number has been disconnected. I even tried to contact you through your attorney, but she and her staff seem to have taken an extended holiday. They do not return my calls.”

Krueger paused, clearly hoping for some explanation. Slaton said nothing.

“I was quite happy to find the message from Astrid today saying that you had returned. Are you aware of our friend Grossman’s passing?”

Slaton’s head tilted ever so slightly. “No. I’d heard nothing about it.”

“It was rather sudden, I’m afraid. Some type of cancer last summer. Such a thing…” Krueger turned wistful, creases straining his banker’s veneer. “For a man to have so much, only to see life slip away.”

“When did he die?”

“August, I think it was, in Basel. He had the best doctors, of course, but there was nothing to be done.”

Slaton now understood why Mossad had not installed a surrogate for their dealings with Grossman. With the man terminally ill, and Slaton listed as killed in action, the House of Krueger had to be cleansed — no lingering stray funds, no taxes accruing, no embarrassing contractual obligations. The only loose end was a single open-ended account dangling like a baitless hook.

“I assumed that you knew he was ill,” Krueger said, “since the two of you often did business together. In fact, I originally thought this was why you had sent your attorney to conclude our dealings.”

“No, that was a separate matter.”

“I trust you weren’t displeased with my performance.”

“No, not at all. But you said you were trying to contact me. Why?”

“Soon after Monsieur Grossman’s passing I was contacted by his legal firm.” Krueger paused, seemingly puzzled. “Did you know him well — personally, I mean?”

“Not really. Our relationship was strictly business. I know he was Swiss, from Basel as you say, and I remember that he spent a fair amount of time in Central Africa.”

“Were you aware that he had no family?”

“No, it never really came up.”

“Monsieur Grossman never married.” Krueger leaned in conspiratorially. “Between the two of us, I think he may have preferred men.” The banker let one hand fall limp at the wrist.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Slaton lied. In truth, Mossad had solid proof of Grossman’s homosexuality, including a number of telling photographs. It was the kind of thing intelligence agencies loved to mine, although in an increasingly tolerant world, garden variety homosexuality was of little use outside politicians and the clergy.

“His parents died years ago,” the financier continued, “and he had no long-term partner, no brothers or sisters. As he neared his end, however, Grossman had the presence of mind to make plans. You impressed him, monsieur. More to the point, he said you were closely tied to a worthy cause, one that he supported wholeheartedly.”

The waiter interrupted with two well-presented plates. Krueger wasted no time, ripping into his duck with gusto. Slaton took a more reserved approach, savoring the best meal he’d had in weeks.

Krueger pulled a bone from his mouth with a plop, and said, “I should put it to you clearly. In his last days, Grossman met with his attorneys. He made a new will, Mr. Mendelsohn, one that designates you as the receiver of his estate.”

Slaton diverted from his own meal. “He left me something to distribute?”

“Practically speaking — he left you everything. In legal terms it is not a personal bequest, but rather a trust, the kind of thing lawyers are paid great sums to create. As a practical matter, however, there are no restrictions regarding the management of the estate. I’ve already seen to it that all tax matters are satisfied — we Swiss can be very unforgiving about such things. You are the lone trustee, effectively in control of Grossman’s legacy. He was convinced that you would find good use for it.”

“Yes … I’m sure I will,” Slaton replied. He was caught off-guard, but in fact had seen such arrangements before. Grossman had no heirs, and the dealings of his dubious life had instilled that most powerful of urges for a man at death’s door — a guilty conscience. There was probably more to it. Perhaps grandparents who’d died in a concentration camp, or an old lover who’d been killed by a Hezbollah suicide bomber. If Slaton were to look closely enough at the colorful life of Benjamin Grossman, it would be there.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” Krueger said, giddy with anticipation.

“Ask what?”

“How much.”

Slaton did ask.

Krueger told him.