Numbered Account

CHAPTER 42

Wolfgang Kaiser gunned the twelve-cylinder engine of his BMW 850i along the expanse of the General Guisan Quai. To his right, lights burned from the windows of Zurich’s century-old concert haus, the Tonhalle. To his left, a skirt of ice extended thirty meters from the lake’s shore. Past it, the surface of the lake was ruffled by a strong north wind.

Kaiser shivered involuntarily, glad he was warm and dry inside the automobile with the heater roaring. Things were looking up. Thanks to the rapid implementation of Maeder’s share accumulation plan, the bank had picked up three percent of its outstanding votes today. Young Neumann had added another one percent to the kitty, sweet-talking Hambros into committing their shares to current USB management. Perhaps most encouraging, the Adler Bank had been silent the entire day. Their traders had stood by passively as USB snapped up all available shares of its own stock: a packet valued by market’s close at over one hundred million Swiss francs. Maybe Konig was finally tapped out. Was it too much to hope for? Poor Klaus. An auction’s really no place to be without a checkbook in hand.

Kaiser allowed himself a moment of silent elation. He turned onto the Seestrasse, accelerating down the two-lane straightaway that would carry him to Thalwil, fifteen kilometers along the lake’s western shore. He checked the car’s digital clock. It read 9:08. He was late.

And now a chore. A task. A wayward baron’s final errand to secure his fiefdom.

Once completed, there was no reason Mevlevi shouldn’t turn over the two hundred million francs Kaiser required. The funds would guarantee his continued stewardship of the bank and doom Klaus Konig’s gamble to ignominious defeat.

First, one chore.

Kaiser appraised the clumpy object wrapped in oilskin that sat on the passenger seat. He had been surprised at its weight when he withdrew it from his private vault. It seemed much heavier than when he had last used it. But he had been a younger man then.

One task.

Kaiser checked the rearview mirror for traffic and found another man staring back at him. A man with dead eyes. His elation smoldered. Self-loathing replaced self-congratulation. How did this come to pass? he asked the unfeeling man. Why am I driving to Thalwil with a loaded pistol in the seat next to me? Why am I going to the home of a man who has worked by my side for thirty years, my only intention to fire a bullet into his skull?

Kaiser returned his gaze to the road. The automobile whisked past the turnoff to Wollishofen. He shrugged, disposing of his self-pity. The answer’s simple, he said, explaining his predicament to the weaker man. My life belongs to Mr. Ali Mevlevi, the distinguished trader from Beirut. I handed it to him years ago.

“I require the services of a Swiss bank.”

Patrolling the night, Kaiser hears the words as clearly as if they were spoken by an invisible passenger. They are words from another era, another lifetime. Days long past when he was a free man. He recalls the dashing figure of Ali Mevlevi, some twenty years ago. And instead of negotiating the final stretch of the slick road that leads to murder, he is at its beginning, and the road, like the weather, is dry. For no longer is he in Switzerland, but Beirut, and the year is 1978. “I require the services of a Swiss bank,” says the dapper client, dressed like a British gentleman in a navy blazer, cream slacks, and red striped tie. He is a youngish man, no more than forty, with thick black hair and a razor-sharp nose. Only his skin betrays him as a native.

“At your disposal,” answers the newly arrived branch manager, eager to be of service.

“I would like to open an account.”

“Of course.” A smile now. Show the client he has been wise to follow his instincts by choosing the United Swiss Bank as his financial partner, by entrusting the young and not yet altogether polished Wolfgang Kaiser to safeguard his money. “Will you be wiring funds to the account or making deposit by means of a check?”

“Neither, I’m afraid.”

A frown. But only fleeting. After all, there are many ways to begin a business relationship, and the new manager is the model of ambition. “Did you wish to make a cash deposit?”

“Precisely.”

A problem. Cash deposits to foreign institutions are not permitted in Lebanon. “To our office in Switzerland, perhaps?”

“To your office at 17 Al Muteeba Street, Beirut.”

“I see.” The branch manager informs his fastidiously groomed client that he cannot accept a cash deposit. Such an act would put his company’s banking license in jeopardy.

“I will be depositing a trifle over twenty million dollars.”

“Well, that is a large sum.” Kaiser smiles. He clears his throat but stands firm. “Alas, my hands are tied.”

The client continues as if he hasn’t heard. “The entire amount is in American banknotes. Primarily hundred-dollar bills. I am sorry but you will find some fifties and some twenties. Nothing smaller. I promise.”

What a reasonable man, this client, this Mr… Kaiser consults the silver tray that bears the prospective client’s carte de visite, this Mr. Ali Mevlevi. No tens. No fives. He is a saint. “Should you wish to deposit this amount in Switzerland, I’m sure arrangements could be made. Unfortunately…” The manager motions with his good arm that he appreciates the opportunity but in this instance must let it fly away.

Mr. Mevlevi is undaunted. “Did I mention the fee I am willing to pay for you to accept this deposit? Is four percent adequate?”

Kaiser cannot hide his astonishment. Four percent? Eight hundred thousand dollars. Double his projected profit for the entire operating year! What is he to do? Pack it in his suitcase and transport it to Switzerland himself. The thought crosses his mind, lingering a moment longer than wise. His throat has dried and he requires some water. He forgets to offer a glass to his fabulously wealthy client.

Mevlevi pays the faux pas no heed. “Perhaps you should discuss how you wish to treat the deposit with your superiors. Will you join me this evening for a late supper? Mr. Rothstein, a close friend, manages a charming establishment. Little Maxim’s. Do you know it?”

Kaiser smiles graciously. Does he know it? Every man in Beirut short of the hundred-dollar entry fee and the clout to gain admittance knows Little Maxim’s. An invitation? The branch manager does not hesitate. The bank would insist he accept. “It would be a pleasure.”

“I hope to have a favorable response by then.” Mevlevi offers a soft handshake and departs.

Little Maxim’s at the height of the Lebanese civil war. A sultry Friday evening. Wolfgang Kaiser is wearing his favorite garment, a tailored silk dinner jacket, its ivory color chosen to offset his burnished skin, suitably darkened by the Levantine sun. A burgundy kerchief flares from his breast pocket. His hair is rich with brilliantine, his mustache impeccably groomed. He waits at the side entrance. His appointment is for ten P.M. He is twelve minutes early. Timeliness outranks godliness on the banker’s list of virtues.

At the appointed hour he mounts the stairs. The club is dimly lit, some corners nearly obscure. His eyes swallow a dozen objects at once. The voluptuous blonde on stage twirling quite naked around a ceiling-high silver pole. The hostess walking to greet him whose scant silver tunic covers only one breast. The tuxedoed gentleman drawing deeply from a hookah of gigantic proportions. He stares until a rough hand lands on his shoulder and guides him to a smoky corner of the club. Ali Mevlevi remains seated, gesturing to an unoccupied chair across the table.

“Have you spoken to your colleagues in Zurich? Mr. Gautschi, I believe.”

The young branch manager smiles nervously and unbuttons his jacket. Mevlevi is well informed. “Yes, I reached them late this afternoon. I am sorry to say that we cannot help you in this instance. The risk of losing our banking license is simply too great. Believe me, it is painful for us to pass up the opportunity to initiate a business relationship with an eminent businessman such as yourself. Should you, however, wish to deposit your funds in Switzerland, we would be more than happy to assist your banking needs.”

Kaiser fears his host’s response. He has asked around about Mevlevi. It seems he is involved in all manner of activities, some of them even legitimate: money brokering, real estate, textiles. But rumor suggests his primary means of income derives from the international transport of heroin. In no uncertain terms, he is a dangerous man.

“The money is here!” Mevlevi brings a hand down on the table, upsetting a glass of Scotch. “Not in Switzerland. How am I to take my money to your bank? Do you think your customs officials welcome a Turk from Lebanon with open arms?” He scoffs. “You think we are all members of the Black September. I am an honest businessman. Why do you not wish to help us?”

Kaiser has delivered his canned response. He is at a loss for words. Mevlevi’s unflinching gaze tears into him. He fumbles for something to say, and when he speaks his tongue has reacquired the clumsy accent of his country. “We must follow regulations. There are so few alternatives.”

“You mean no alternatives. Do you expect me to leave my money with this bunch of thieves?”

Kaiser shakes his head no, confused. It is his first lesson in the topsy-turvy calculus of Middle Eastern business practice.

Mevlevi leans across the table and grabs Kaiser’s withered arm. “I can see that you wish to help me.”

Kaiser is shocked at the affront to his deformity. But it is his eyes, not his arm, that feel Mevlevi’s grasp, and as if hypnotized, he nods yes.

Mevlevi calls for a waiter and orders a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. The Scotch arrives. He proposes a toast. “To the spirit of enterprise. The world belongs to those who fashion it in their image!”

An hour or two or three later, Kaiser enjoys the attentions of a slim young woman. A waif, he would call her. Long black hair frames a sensuous face. Frail dark eyes flash from under thick lashes. Another drink and the strap of a sequined cocktail dress dangles off a soft but well-muscled shoulder. Her English is impeccable. She asks in a throaty voice for him to move closer. He cannot draw himself away from her probing fingers and her sweet breath. She insists on saying the nastiest things.

Mevlevi is smoking another of his filthy Turkish cigarettes. Black tobacco bombs expelling rivers of blue smoke. His glass is full. Isn’t it always?

The raven-haired waif has insisted that Kaiser accompany her to her apartment. Who is he to deny? After all, it is only three blocks from the club, and the grand Mevlevi has given his benediction, a fraternal pat on the back and a sly wink that all would be taken care of at Little Maxim’s. The girl asks for a drink and points to the bar. Kaiser splashes liberal helpings of Scotch into two glasses. He knows he has drunk too much but is not sure if he cares. Perhaps recklessness becomes him. She puts the glass to his lips and he takes a sip. She swallows the rest in one fearsome gulp. She staggers and searches the folds of her handbag. Something is awry. An unpleasant cast crosses her features. Suddenly, she is smiling. The problem is resolved. An immaculate pile of white powder sits on the underside of a perfectly manicured fingernail. She sniffs and then offers the like to her evening’s companion. He shakes his head, but she insists. He bends forward and sniffs. “The white pony,” she giggles and offers him another pile.

The banker from Zurich is growing disoriented. He has never felt such a roar of blood through his veins. The pressure builds in his head, only to be replaced a moment later by relief. His chest tingles. Warmth suffuses his entire body. He wants only to sleep, but a greedy hand rouses him, its kneading grip drawing the heat from his chest to his loins. Through glazed eyes, he sees the lovely woman from Little Maxim’s undoing his pants and taking him into her mouth. He has never been harder. His vision blurs and he realizes he has forgotten her name. He opens his eyes to ask. She is before him, her dress peeled down to her waist. Her chest is flat, her nipples too small and pale and surrounded by tufts of black hair. Kaiser sits up, yells for this woman… for this man to stop, but another pair of hands holds him back. He struggles drunkenly, vainly. He neither sees nor feels the needle that enters the prominent blue vein running across the top of his shrunken left hand.

“If you’ll sign at the bottom of the paper, we can put this messy situation behind us.”

Ali Mevlevi hands Wolfgang Kaiser a receipt issued by the Beirut representative office of the United Swiss Bank for the sum of twenty million U.S. dollars. Where he has procured the official paper is a mystery. As is so much else.

Kaiser meticulously refolds his handkerchief and places it in his pocket before reaching forward to accept the document. He places the receipt on top of a stack of color photographs, eight by tens. Photographs of which he, Wolfgang Andreas Kaiser, is a prominent subject, one might even say the star. He and a horribly mutilated transvestite he has learned carried the name Rio.

Kaiser signs his name to the document, knowing with each loop of the pen that this “messy situation” will never be behind him. Mevlevi watches with detached interest. He points to three worn duffel bags stuffed to bursting slumped in the entryway. “Either you discover a way to deposit the money within three days or I will report it stolen. Your country looks rather harshly upon bank fraud, does it not? Lebanon is no different. But I fear her jails are not so comfortable as your own.”

Kaiser straightens his back. His eyes are puffy and his nose stuffed. He tears off the top copy of the receipt, places it in an empty plastic tray, then gives the yellow copy to Mevlevi. The Swiss banker’s refuge is order; procedure, his sanctuary. The pink copy, he says, will stay in this office. The white copy will go to Switzerland. “With the money,” he adds, managing a smile.

“You are a remarkable man,” says Mevlevi. “I see I have chosen the proper partner.”

Kaiser nods perfunctorily. Now they are partners. What torture will this relationship hold in store for him?

Mevlevi speaks again. “You may tell your superiors that I have agreed to pay a special fee of two percent of funds deposited to handle the administrative costs of opening my account. Not bad. Four hundred thousand dollars for a day’s work. Or should I say a night’s?”

Kaiser does not comment. He strains to keep his back pinned to his chair. If he loses contact with the hard surface, if the pressure against his spine slackens, he will go mad.

The next morning the branch manager boards a flight to Zurich, via Vienna. In his four suitcases he has packed twenty million one hundred forty-three thousand dollars. Mevlevi had lied. There were three one-dollar bills.

At passport control, Kaiser is waved through. At customs, though pushing a cart laden with a mountain of bulging suitcases, he does not receive a second glance. The passenger following him, while carrying only a small valise, is detained. Kaiser signals his understanding to the immigration official. What else is one to do with a dirty Arab?

Gerhard Gautschi, chairman of the United Swiss Bank, is too stunned to speak. Kaiser explains that he could not turn down the opportunity to generate so substantial a profit for the bank. Yes, there was a risk. No, he cannot envision committing such a foolhardy act again. All the same, the money is safely deposited in the bank. A sizable commission has been earned. Better yet, the client wishes to invest in securities. His first purchase? Shares of the United Swiss Bank.

“Who is he?” asks Gautschi, referring of course to Kaiser’s new client.

“A well-respected businessman,” answers Kaiser.

“Naturally,” laughs Gautschi. “Aren’t they all?”

Kaiser leaves the Chairman’s throne room, but not before Gautschi has a last word.

“Next time, Wolfgang, let us send the plane for you.”

A smattering of snow slapped the windshield and brought Wolfgang Kaiser back to the present. A sign ahead indicated that he had reached Thalwil. Seconds later he sped through the shadow of the Lindt and Sprungli chocolate manufacturer, an industrial monstrosity painted a lavender blue. He slowed the car, lowering his window and extinguishing the heat. A numbing cold invaded the cabin.

Sick of him, aren’t you? Kaiser asked himself, referring of course to Ali Mevlevi, the man who had destroyed his life. Of course I am. I’m sick of the midnight calls, of the tapped phones, of the unilateral orders. I am sick of living under another man’s heel.

He sighed. With luck, that might soon change. If Nicholas Neumann was as willful as he estimated, if he was as mean-spirited as his military records indicated, Mevlevi might soon be a memory. Tomorrow young Neumann would be introduced to the guileful ways of Ali Mevlevi. Mevlevi himself had stated that he planned to make sure Neumann was “one of us.” Kaiser could well imagine what those words meant.

For the past month, he had allowed himself the fantasy of using Nicholas Neumann to get rid of Mevlevi. He knew that Neumann had spent time in the Marine Corps, but his record of service was a mystery. Some of the bank’s better clients were higher-ups at the U.S. Department of Defense—procurement analysts. Rich bastards. A little digging had yielded some startling answers. Neumann’s military record had been officially sealed, labeled “Top Secret.” More interesting, the boy had received a dishonorable discharge. Three weeks prior to his discharge on medical grounds, he had ruthlessly attacked a civilian defense contractor named John J. Keely. Beaten the man senseless, apparently. Rumor said it was retribution for a failed operation. All very hush-hush.

No more information was forthcoming, but to Kaiser it was more than enough. A soldier with a bad temper. A trained killer with a short fuse. Of course, he could never ask the boy outright to kill another man, a client, to boot. But he could see to it that someone with a bent toward mayhem came up with the idea himself.

After that, it had been easy. Assign Neumann to FKB4. Give him some time working with account 549.617 RR. Cerruti’s illness and Sprecher’s departure had been marvelous coincidences. The arrival of Sterling Thorne, even better. Who better to prime Neumann on Mevlevi than the United States Drug Enforcement Administration? And now Mevlevi actually coming to Zurich. His first visit in four years. If Kaiser were a religious man, he would call it a miracle. Being a cynic, he called it fate.

At 9:15, Kaiser parked the car in a private lot abutting the lake. He placed the weighty oilskin in his lap and turned it over and over until the weapon’s silver skin flashed in the darkness. Cupping the pistol in the craw of his left hand, he drew back the slide and chambered a round. With his thumb, he clicked the safety to its off position. He looked in the mirror and was relieved to find the man with dull, lifeless eyes staring back at him.

First, one chore.

A block from the apartment building, Kaiser slowed his pace and sucked in the brittle air. Lights burned in every corner of the penthouse. Was that a shadow crossing the window? He lowered his head and walked on. His hand stroked the smooth metal object in his pocket, as if like some magical talisman it might deliver him from this circumstance. He reached the door too soon. The voice that blurted from the speaker was nervous and high-strung. Kaiser could already see the blinking eyes.

“Thank God you’re here,” said Marco Cerruti.