Numbered Account

CHAPTER 26

Nick spotted Sterling Thorne loitering under a blinking street-lamp twenty yards from the entrance to the bank’s Personalhaus. The federal agent was wearing a tan trenchcoat over a dark suit. For once, he looked like part of the landscape rather than a blight on it. When he saw Nick, he raised his hand and offered a faint salute.

Nick had half a mind to take off in the other direction. But it was after ten and he was exhausted. And this, after only his second day working with the Chairman. From eight in the morning until ten at night, Wolfgang Kaiser was on the move. And his newest aide-de-camp, assistant vice president Nicholas A. Neumann, was always somewhere close behind.

The day had begun on the trading floor with Sepp Zwicki, a visit to the front lines for a briefing on Konig’s latest sorties. Mid-morning took them to the Emperor’s Lair, where Kaiser dished out instructions on what line to give dissenting shareholders, then placed a few calls himself to show how to charm the greedy bastards. Lunch was spent in one of the bank’s private dining rooms, veal chops, a ’79 Chateau Petrus and Cohibas all around for the jolly good fellows from Bank Vontobel and Julius Baer. Both banks held large blocks of USB. During the afternoon, rolls of USB shareholders were reviewed and telephoning chores divvied up between Nick and Reto Feller. At seven, dinner was sent in from Kropf Bierhalle. Bratwurst mit Zwiebeln. The three hours since had passed in a flurry of calls to stock analysts in Manhattan. Go, go, go.

And now Thorne. Nick’s first instinct was to throw him against a wall and demand whether he’d been the asshole who’d broken into his apartment on Friday.

“Working late, are you, Neumann?” Thorne asked, hand extended in welcome.

Nick kept his hands buried in his pockets. “There’s a lot to do these days. The general assembly is coming up soon.”

Thorne lowered his hand. “You gentlemen announcing another year of record profits?”

“Are you angling for some inside information? Trying to beef up that government paycheck? I remember how skimpy Uncle Sam can be.”

Thorne tried to smile affably but wound up looking like he’d bitten into a rotten apple. Something had soured on his end. Nick was sure of it. Why else the strained courtesy? “How can I be of service to my country this fine evening?”

“Why don’t we take it inside, Nick? Get out of the cold.”

Nick considered the request. Like it or not, Thorne was an officer of the United States government. He deserved some respect. For now. Nick showed Thorne into the apartment’s alcove and led the way up the single flight of stairs to the second floor. He unlocked the door to his apartment and nodded for the agent to go in.

Thorne stepped inside the apartment and looked around. “I thought bankers lived a little better than this.”

Nick took off his coat and hung it over the chair. “I’ve been in worse.”

“So have I. You been mulling over our conversation? Been keeping your eyes open?”

“I’ve been keeping my eyes where they belong. On my work. Can’t say I’ve come across anything that might interest you.”

Nick sat down on the bed. He glared at Thorne, waiting. It was his show. Finally, the lanky agent unbuttoned his jacket and took a seat across the room. “I’m letting down my guard tonight because we need your help,” he said. “It doesn’t happen often, so you’d stand well advised to take advantage of my kind disposition. Won’t last long.”

“Noted.”

“Numbered account 549.617 RR ring a bell to you?”

Nick didn’t answer right away. He kept his face passive, while inside him Thorne’s bell clanged mercilessly. Account 549.617 RR. The Pasha.

“It does, doesn’t it?” continued Thorne. “Has to be hard for a poor city boy to forget seeing so much money being moved around.”

Impossible, if you really want to know, Nick replied silently. “I can’t comment on either a client’s identity or account activity. You know that. It’s confidential information. Bank secrecy and all that.”

“Account 549.617 RR,” Thorne repeated. “I believe you fellas call him the Pasha.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Not so quick, Neumann. I’m asking you a favor. I’m as close to falling onto my knees as I’m ever going to get. I’d like to give you a chance to do some good.”

Nick smiled inadvertently. He couldn’t help it. A government agent doing good was in his experience the most fundamental of oxymorons. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

“The Pasha is a bad man, Nick. His name is Ali Mevlevi. He’s a Turk by birth but lives in a monumental private compound just outside of Beirut. He’s an important player in the world’s heroin trade. We estimate he’s responsible for the importation into Europe and the former Soviet Union of about twenty tons of refined number four heroin—China White, in our lingo—each and every year. Twenty tons, Nick. This is no dilettante we’re talking about. Mevlevi is the real thing.”

Nick put up both hands in front of him, signaling Thorne to stop. “And so? If he is, what about it? How does that concern me or the bank? Haven’t you gotten it through your skull that I am prohibited by law to discuss anything I do for USB with you, or with anybody else for that matter? I’m not admitting that this Pasha fellow is my client. I’m not saying he is, or he isn’t. Doesn’t matter. I could have Satan calling me twice a day and still I couldn’t tell you.”

Thorne just nodded his head and kept talking as if the sheer brunt of his evidence would eventually win over Nick’s essentially good soul. It was a good strategy.

“Mevlevi’s got himself a private army of about five hundred souls in his backyard. Trains them morning, noon, and night. And he’s got a mountain of materiel on top of that. Russian T-72s, a few Hinds, plenty of rockets, mortars, you name it. A ready mobile battalion of mechanized infantry. That’s what’s got us worried. You remember what happened to our boys at the marine barracks in Beirut. Several hundred good men had their lives taken by a lone suicide bomber. Imagine what five hundred of them could do.”

Nick leaned closer, the infantry officer in him cognizant of the havoc to be wreaked by such a force. Still, he did not speak.

“We have hard-copy proof of the transfers Mevlevi’s been making to and from your bank for the last eighteen months. Irrefutable evidence that your bank is laundering his dough. Our problem, Nick, is that the Pasha has gone under. Three days after we put his name on your bank’s internal account surveillance list, Mr. Ali Mevlevi has stopped making his weekly payments. We were expecting about forty-seven million dollars to hit his account on Thursday. Did it?”

Nick kept his mouth closed. There it was. No more whacking around whether the DEA had the right man or not. They even knew how much he was transferring day in, day out. Mr. Ali Mevlevi—the Pasha—was squarely in their sights. Time to line up the crosshairs. Time for First Lieutenant Nicholas Neumann to help them pull the trigger.

As if sensing Nick’s impending acquiescence, Thorne leaned closer, and when he spoke his voice acquired a conspiratorial edge. “There’s a human aspect to this case also. We have an agent on the inside. Someone we planted a long time ago. You know the trick?”

Nick nodded, seeing where Thorne was going. He could feel the mantle of responsibility the agent wanted to lay on his shoulders. A second ago he had been ready to sympathize with Thorne, maybe even help him. Now he hated him.

“Our man—let’s call him Jester—has also disappeared. He used to call us twice a week to give us Mevlevi’s weekly take. I’ll let you guess which days. Yep. Monday and Thursday. Jester hasn’t called, Nick. E.T. did not phone home. Hear what I’m saying?”

“I understand your dilemma,” said Nick. “You’ve put a man into a hot situation. You’re scared he may be compromised and now you can’t get him out. In short, you’ve left him hanging on a two-penny string in a shitstorm and you want me to salvage your operation and save your man.”

“That’s about right.”

“I appreciate the situation”—Nick paused for effect—“but I am not going to spend the next couple of years in a Swiss jail so that you can get your next promotion and maybe, just maybe, save the skin of your man.”

“We will get you out of here. I give you my word.”

There it was. The lie Nick had been expecting. He was just surprised that it took so long to come. The anger inside him crested. “Your word doesn’t mean spit to me. You’ve got no say over who the Swiss jail or who they release. You almost had me there for a second. Sound the bugle and the loyal marine comes running. I know you guys. Out there playing God, thinking you’re doing some good. You’re just getting your rocks off, seeing how much power you can exercise over your little slice of the world. Well, forget it. You’ll have to count me out. That’s not my game.”

“You got it all wrong, brother,” Thorne shouted. “You can’t use me as an excuse to pretend Mevlevi doesn’t exist or that you, as his banker, as the man who day in, day out, helps him hide the fruits of his illegal labors, are not responsible. You two are on the same goddamned team. In my world, Nick, there’s us and there’s them. If you’re not one of us, you’re one of them. So where do you stand?”

Nick took a while to answer the question. “I guess I’m one of them.”

Oddly, Thorne seemed pleased by the answer. “That’s too bad. I told you to take advantage of my kindly disposition. Now you’ve gone and pissed me off. I know about your old friend Jack Keely. What went wrong down there in the P.I. must have been something powerful bad for you to fly off the handle like that. You’re lucky you didn’t kill that man. So you think long and hard about helping me out, or others will know about your escapade, too. I don’t think Kaiser would be too happy to learn that you left the Corps with a dishonorable discharge. I don’t think he’d be too keen to learn that you’re a convicted felon—maybe in a private military court, but convicted just the same. Hell, maybe I should be afraid of you, too. But, I’m not. I’m too busy worrying about Mevlevi. And about Jester. You may want to piss on guys like me, but I crush guys like you. That’s not my job—it’s my reason for living. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” Nick said. “Do what you have to do. Just stay the hell away from me. I don’t have anything to say to you. Not now. Not ever.”