Numbered Account

CHAPTER 51

The number 10 tram lurched out of the morning mist like an arthritic serpent. Its blunt blue snout and reticulated body rattled through the curtain of dew, groaning and sighing as it drew to a halt. Doors jerked open. Passengers got off. Nick lifted a hand to help a stooped old lady whose slow descent threatened the punctuality of the entire transit system. The witch batted it away with her bent umbrella. He dodged the blow and stepped aboard. So much for starting the day on the right foot.

Nick shuttled down the aisle looking for an empty seat. Gray faces sagging with the burdens of living in the world’s wealthiest democracy greeted him. Their unsmiling countenances shoved him with a thump out of Sylvia’s bed and back into the real world. The world where he was an accessory to murder, conspirator to fraud, and prisoner of a man who might very well have had a hand in murdering his father.

Nick sat down at the rear of the tram. An elderly man in front of him was reading Blick, the country’s daily scandal sheet. He had the paper open to the second page. A photograph of Marco Cerruti slumped in a leather recliner occupied the upper left-hand corner. The headline read “Despondent Banker Takes Life.” The text was short, included so to dignify the lurid photograph. Cerruti looked peaceful enough, sleeping except for a small black crater carved into his left temple. His eyes were closed and a fluffy white pillow was propped on his stomach.

Nick waited for the old man to finish reading the paper, then asked if he might have a look. The man eyed him long and hard, as if assessing his creditworthiness. Finally, he handed him the paper. Nick stared at the picture for a while, wondering how much cash the paper had slipped the police photographer, then directed his attention to the brief article.

“Marco Cerruti, 55, vice president of the United Swiss Bank, was found dead at his home in Thalwil early Friday morning. Lt. Dieter Erdin of the Zurich Police classified the death as a suicide and listed the cause as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Officials at the United Swiss Bank reported that Cerruti had been suffering from nervous exhaustion and had not worked on a daily basis since the beginning of the year. A memorial scholarship in his name will be established by the bank at the University of Zurich.”

Nick studied the picture closely. It took him a few seconds to locate the detail that irked him—the bottle of Scotch upended in his lap. Cerruti didn’t drink. He didn’t even keep a bottle for guests. Why didn’t the police know that?

Nick closed the paper, frustrated at the police’s incompetence. Headlines emblazoned across the front page caught his eye. “Crime Boss Gunned Down in Platzspitz.” A color photograph of the crime scene showed Albert Makdisi’s corpse lying on the ground next to a stone wall. He folded the newspaper and handed it back to the man in the next row, thanking him for his kindness. He didn’t need to read the article. After all, he was the killer.

Nick unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside. Every time he came home, he wondered if someone might have been snooping around during his absence. He didn’t think anyone had broken in since the day three weeks ago when he had smelled the traces of a sickly sweet eau de cologne and found that his gun had been tampered with. But he could never be sure.

He leaned forward to open the dresser’s bottom drawer, then ran his hand under his sweaters until he felt the smooth crease of his holster. He grabbed ahold of it and set it down in his lap. He withdrew the Colt Commander and held it snugly in his right hand, staring at it as if it were an extension of his own person. The familiar heft of the gun allowed him to relax for several seconds. It was a false comfort and he knew it. Still, he had to take what he could get.

Nick stood and walked to his desk. He removed a chamois cloth, spread it out, then laid his gun down on top of it. He set about taking apart and cleaning his pistol. He hadn’t fired a round in months, but right now he needed to fall back on the rigorous order of his past. He wanted to reside in some distant universe where rules still existed for everyday conduct. As far as he knew there was still only one way to clean a Colt.45-caliber pistol. No one could tamper with that.

Nick ejected the clip and popped out the bullets. All nine of them. He locked back the slide and turned the gun on its side, allowing the chambered round to fall onto the beige cloth. His hands assumed a rhythm of their own, following steps ingrained in his memory long ago. But only half his mind supervised the cleaning of his pistol. The other half damned him for his selfish actions.

His willful deceit had led him to be a participant in fraud and a witness to murder. If he hadn’t delayed the Pasha’s transfer, Mevlevi’s accounts would have been frozen; the bank, under severe scrutiny, would not have embarked on its insane plan to manipulate its customers’ discretionary accounts; the Pasha would not have dared come to Switzerland; and, most important, Cerruti would still be alive.

Maybe…

Nick fought a sudden rush of heat that flooded his neck and shoulders. He tried to concentrate harder on his weapon, willing the tide of emotion to recede. But it was no good. Guilt won. It always did. He felt guilty for shielding the Pasha and guilty for Cerruti’s death. Hell, he felt guilty for every fucking thing that had happened since he’d come to Switzerland. He wasn’t just an innocent bystander; he wasn’t even an unwilling accomplice. He was a one-hundred-percent willing participant in this mess.

He unscrewed the gun barrel and raised his eye to it, checking for any oil residue. The grooves were clean, dulled by a sheen of lubricant. He put the barrel on the cloth, then paused in his work. Yesterday’s actions came back to him in an instant. He stood helpless as Albert Makdisi crumpled under the force of three shots point-blank to the chest. He watched stunned as the Pasha tossed him the pistol and he caught it. His muscles twitched with the recollection of raising the gun and pointing it at Mevlevi’s leering face. Even now, eighteen hours later, he felt a feral desire rise in him to kill another man.

Nick held the chassis of the pistol in his hand. The last thought he’d had as he pulled the trigger had been of his father. Arm extended, aim taken, standing there with no doubt in his mind whatsoever that he was going to willingly end the life of a bad man, he had looked to his father for approval.

Nick moved his gaze from the gun to the window. A Slavic woman walked briskly down the street, dragging her young son roughly by the hand. She stopped suddenly and raised a finger at the boy, chastising him loudly.

Nick replaced her muted shouts with the plaintive strain of his own mother’s voice. “Do as you’re told,” she had said to his father. “You said yourself you didn’t really know if he was doing anything wrong. Stop making such a big deal about it!”

Dammit, Dad, Nick demanded, why didn’t you do as you were told? Why did you have to make such a big deal about it—whatever “it” was? You’d probably still be here today. Alive. We could have been a family. Fuck the rest of it! Your discipline, your dignity, your integrity. What good has it brought any of us?

Nick slammed the gun down on his desk. He heard a voice telling him that all his life he’d been doing what other people had wanted him to. That the marines was just another excuse not to have to make his own decisions. That a degree from Harvard Business School and the high-paying career it promised would have made his father proud. And that abandoning his career to come to Switzerland to investigate his father’s murder would have been Alex Neumann’s only recommended course of action.

As Nick stared out the window into the bleak morning sun, a strange sensation took hold of him. He felt as though he were seeing himself from a distance. He wanted to tell the man standing in the dim apartment to stop living for yesterday, and that while finding his father’s murderer might make the past easier to deal with, it wouldn’t provide any magic path into the future. He’d have to find that path for himself.

Nick nodded, taking the advice to heart. He finished cleaning the components of his pistol, then put the Colt back together again. He screwed the barrel back in, reracked the slide, shoved home the clip, and chambered a round. He couldn’t sit back and watch anymore. He had to act.

Nick raised the gun and took aim at a ghostly figure only he could see—a shadowy silhouette looming in the dusky middle distance. He would clear his own path into the future. And Ali Mevlevi was standing right in the middle of it.

The phone rang. Nick holstered his weapon and put it away before answering. “Neumann speaking.”

“It’s Saturday, chum. You’re not at work, remember?”

“Good morning, Peter.”

“I suppose you’ve heard the news. Just saw the papers myself. Didn’t think the jumpy bastard had it in him.”

“Neither did I,” said Nick. “What’s up?”

“Since when don’t you return phone calls? Three times I called yesterday. Where the hell were you?”

“I wasn’t in the mood for a drink last night.”

“I sure as hell wasn’t calling about a drink,” complained Sprecher. “We need to talk. Serious business.”

“I heard your message. That was Sylvia’s number you called.”

“I wasn’t calling about the shareholder lists. It’s a damn sight more important than that. Something came up yesterday that I—”

“Keep it short, Peter. To the point.” Nick imagined that if his place had been searched, his phone had probably been bugged. “Let’s keep our conversation private. Follow?”

“Yeah,” Sprecher replied hesitantly. “Okay, I follow. Maybe what you were saying about our best client wasn’t entirely off base.”

“Maybe,” answered Nick noncommittally. “If you want to talk about it, go to our favorite watering hole in two hours. I’ll leave instructions where to meet me. And Peter…”

“Yeah, chum?”

“Dress warmly.”

Two hours and fifty minutes later, Peter Sprecher staggered to the highest deck of the steel observation tower, two hundred fifty feet above the crest of the Uetliberg. “You’ve a helluva nerve,” he puffed, “bringing me all the way up here in this weather.”

“It’s a beautiful day,” Nick said. “You can almost see the ground from here.” He had taken a circuitous route to their rendezvous, ducking through the back alleys of the old town until he reached Central. From there, he took a tram first to the Stadelhofen train station, and then to the zoo. Certain no one was behind him, he assumed a direct course to his destination. The entire trip had taken two hours—including forty minutes to climb the path up the mountain to the crest of the Uetliberg.

Sprecher leaned his head over the safety railing. The tower disappeared into the mist fifty feet down. He reached into his jacket pocket for a Marlboro. “Want one? It’ll keep you warm.”

Nick declined. “I should ask you for some identification. I didn’t recognize the man who called me earlier. Since when have you grown so inquisitive, O cynical one?”

“I blame any recent changes in my condition on one too many a beer in your company. My time in England made me sympathetic to the plight of the underdog.”

“Thanks,” Nick said. “I guess. So what have you learned about Mr. Ali Mevlevi that has you spooked so badly?”

“I overheard something very disturbing yesterday afternoon. In fact, right after I called the Widows and Orphans Fund of Zurich.” Sprecher inhaled, then pointed the ember of his cigarette at Nick. “You’re a clever lad. Next time, though, do spice it up a bit. We may want to take off the bag to see who we’re fucking.”

There wouldn’t be a next time, thought Nick. “Who slipped your team my notes?”

“No idea. They were in Von Graffenried’s possession. He intimated that they came at a bargain price.”

A strong wind blew and the tower swayed like a drunken sailor. Nick grabbed hold of a railing. “Any hint that it was Armin Schweitzer who gave them to you?”

“Schweitzer? That’s who you think is stealing your notes?” Sprecher shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t help you there. Anyway it doesn’t matter a shit. Not anymore. Yesterday afternoon, right after calling your specious fund management company, I overheard my neighbor on the trading floor, Hassan Faris, take a call from Konig. A large buy order was sent to the exchange. An order for one-hundred-odd thousand shares of USB. You’re sharp with figures; do your math.”

Nick tallied up the cost of a hundred thousand shares of USB going at four hundred twenty Swiss francs each. Forty-two million francs. Something about the sum sent a dagger into his gut. “Once you capture those shares, your holdings will top thirty-three percent.”

“Thirty-three point five percent, to be exact. Not including the Widows and Orphans Fund.”

Nick could not rid himself of the nagging figure. Forty-two million francs. About forty million dollars at the current exchange rates. “You’ll get your seats. Kaiser’s reign will be history.”

“It’s his successor who worries me,” Sprecher said. “Listen carefully, young Nick. Eighty percent of all USB shares we own are held in a special account that belongs to the Adler Bank’s largest investor. Konig exercises proxy over the shares, but he doesn’t own them. The name of that account is Ciragan Trading.”

“Ciragan Trading?” Nick asked. “As in Ciragan Palace? As in the Pasha?”

Sprecher nodded. “You don’t think me daft for assuming it to be the same man? I don’t fancy either the Adler Bank or USB being owned by—what did you call him? A major heroin supplier? If your friend Thorne is correct, that is.”

Oh, he’s correct all right, Nick wanted to say. That’s the whole problem.

“You say the buy order was for a hundred thousand shares? Around forty million dollars? Would you believe me if I told you that I transferred that exact amount out of Mevlevi’s account yesterday at four P.M.?”

“Not happily, I wouldn’t.”

“To the banks listed on matrix one. The Adler Bank’s nowhere on that list. How could you have already received the money?”

“I didn’t say we had received the money. As a matter of fact, Konig asked Faris to ensure that settlement won’t be made until Tuesday. We’ll claim an administrative error on our part. No one will care if payment is twenty-four hours late.”

Nick ran his hands along the guardrail and peered into the mist. He played with the question of why Mevlevi would be backing the Adler Bank’s takeover of USB but gave up after a few seconds. The realm of possibilities was too great. Another idea came to him. “There is an easy way for us to confirm if the Pasha has been behind all of Adler’s purchases. Match his transfers through USB with the Adler Bank’s purchases of USB shares. If every week Konig bought shares worth the amount Mevlevi transferred through USB, we’ve got him. Of course, that assumes that Mevlevi followed the same pattern as yesterday.”

“The Pasha is nothing if not a creature of habit,” said Sprecher. “Never missed a transfer in the eighteen months I worked with Cerruti—God rest the poor bugger’s soul.”

Nick sighed heavily. “Peter, there’s more to this than you can imagine.”

“Shoot, sport.”

“You don’t want to know.”

Sprecher stamped his feet on the metal platform while vigorously rubbing his arms. “Yesterday, the day before even, you’d be right. Today I want to know. Let my reasons be my own. Now out with it.”

Nick looked Sprecher in the eye. “I know where Mevlevi’s getting the forty million dollars.”

“Pray tell?”

“A shipment of refined heroin is due in on Monday morning. Mevlevi arranged to be prepaid for the merchandise by Gino Makdisi.”

Sprecher looked skeptical. “May I inquire as to the source of your information?”

“I am the source,” said Nick, giving vent to the full range of his frustrations. “My eyes. My ears. I watched Mevlevi murder Albert Makdisi. In return for his battlefield promotion, Gino transferred the money for the shipment up front. Forty million bucks. New terms on trade, says the Pasha. Don’t like ’em? Bang bang, you’re dead. Termination effective immediately.” Nick wiped at his nose. “Jesus, Peter, my life is royally fucked.”

“Calm down. You sound like you’re a member of the Cosa bloody Nostra.”

“Not yet, I’m not. But he’s trying like hell to pull me in.”

“Go easy, Nick. Who’s trying to pull you in?”

“Who do you think? The Pasha. He owns Kaiser. Don’t know how, don’t know why, or for how long, but he owns him, lock, stock, and barrel. And what about Cerruti? He didn’t drink. You know that. Did you see the picture in the paper? Whoever killed him left the bottle right on his lap. And what about that pillow? It was from his bedroom, for Christ’s sake, and I bet there’s a bullet hole smack dab in the middle of it. Can you see it? Cerruti is drunk as all hell, ready to blow his brains all over the living room wall, but he’s still concerned not to disturb his neighbors. Boy, he’s a real saint. Mr. Considerate till the very end.”

Nick broke off his tirade and circled the restricted platform. He stared at Peter, and Peter stared back. A sharp wind whistled through the trestles of the observation tower, blowing with it a smattering of frozen rain and the smell of damp pine.

“So why kill him?” Sprecher asked finally. “What does he know now that he hasn’t for the last five years?”

Nick halted his pacing. What about our nagging problem? Mevlevi had asked Kaiser yesterday afternoon. The one that threatens to do us so much harm.

“The way I see it, Cerruti was going to talk to Sterling Thorne or to Franz Studer. Mevlevi got wind of it and had him killed.”

As Sprecher shook his head in disbelief, Nick explained his predicament with the conviction of the damned. He told Sprecher everything that had happened during the past two weeks. Maeder’s plan to liberate the equity shareholdings of USB’s discretionary clients, the theft from DZ of the Pasha’s correspondence, how he’d foolishly put his own fingerprints on the pistol that shot and killed Albert Makdisi. Finally, he told Sprecher about his true reasons for coming to the bank. He explained how his father was murdered. He described his interest in the USB Los Angeles rep office monthly activity reports and underlined his growing certainty that Mevlevi had been involved in his father’s killing. He left nothing out.

Sprecher whistled long and low. “You really believe the Pasha had a hand in your father’s death?”

“If Mevlevi is Allen Soufi, then I’m sure of it. What I have to discover is why my father felt so strongly about not working with him. What was Goldluxe up to? The only person who can tell us is Caspar Burki.”

“Who?”

“Allen Soufi was recommended to my father by a portfolio manager out of USB London. His name was Caspar Burki. He’d have known what Soufi and Goldluxe were up to. You’ve been at the bank twelve years. Name ring a bell?”

“I don’t know anyone by that name in our London office.”

“He retired in 1988,” said Nick. “Used to live in town. I have his old address. I went by before coming to see you. The place was deserted.”

Sprecher shifted his gaze from Nick to the panorama of drizzle that enveloped the tower. He fished for another cigarette. “Can’t say I know a Caspar Burki. Only fellow I know who dates from that period is Yogi Bauer. In fact, we both know Yogi.”

“Both of us?” Nick raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know anybody named Yogi.”

“Au contraire, mon chere. You’ve even bought the man a drink. At the Keller Stubli. Fat bloke with greasy black hair, white as death. We toasted Schweitzer’s talented wife.”

Nick remembered him. “Some luck. The guy’s a full-blown alcoholic. He can’t remember how he gets to the bar every day, let alone a stranger from twenty years ago.”

“Yogi Bauer worked in the London branch of USB. He was Schweitzer’s assistant. If Burki was there at the same time, Bauer is bound to have known him.”

Nick laughed at their situation. “Are you getting the feeling that this is a pretty tangled web we’re caught up in?”

Sprecher lit the cigarette that had been dangling from his mouth. “I’m sure the authorities can unravel it just fine.”

“The authorities won’t be of any help. We have to take Mevlevi down ourselves.”

“Far beyond our domain, I’m afraid. Tell the proper authorities. They’ll see to it that all is set right.”

“Will they?” Nick was incensed by Sprecher’s willful naivete. “Any documents we show the police will incriminate us. The bank will press charges that we stole them. Violation of bank secrecy laws. I can’t see nailing the Pasha from the inside of a jail cell.”

Sprecher was unconvinced. “I don’t think the federal government will be keen to learn that two of its most important banks were being controlled by a Middle Eastern drug lord.”

“But, Peter, where are the drugs? Mevlevi’s been convicted of no crime. We have numbered accounts, money being laundered, maybe even a tie to the Adler Bank. But no drugs. And, I might add, no name. We have to do this ourselves. Do I have to mention what happened to Marco Cerruti? Or to Marty Becker?”

“Please don’t,” said Sprecher, blanching.

Nick thought he was finally getting through. “You agree that we can match Konig’s purchases of stock to the Pasha’s transfers through USB?”

“Theoretically, it’s possible. I’ll grant you that. I’m afraid to ask what you want of me.”

“Get me hard-copy evidence that the Ciragan Trading account holds eighty percent of the USB shares. It’s got to be clear that the shares do not belong to the Adler Bank, but that they are only being voted on their behalf. We need a historical record of Adler’s accumulation of USB shares through that account: dates, quantities, and purchase prices.”

“Should I bring you back Cinderella’s glass slipper while I’m at it?” Sprecher’s tone was as flip as ever, but Nick could see that his jaw was set and his eyes harder than before.

Nick smiled. For a split second he felt that they might even have half a chance. “I’ve got to get a copy of all the transfers made for account 549.617 RR since last July, when Konig began accumulating shares. Plus a copy of the Pasha’s banking instructions. Our records show where the money went on its first leg. Your records will show which bank it came from on its last leg. Together that’s a pretty good map.”

“Maps are all well and good. But who are we going to show it to?”

“We don’t have much choice. There’s only one man reckless enough to move while Mevlevi is in Switzerland.”

“Besides you and me, you mean. Who is it?”

“Sterling Thorne.”

Sprecher looked as if someone had just stolen his cigarettes. “You’re joking? I don’t disagree that the man is reckless. The portrait you’ve painted makes him sound absolutely possessed. But what of it?”

Nick was careful to hide his own misgivings. “Thorne will do anything to get his hands on the Pasha. He’s the only one who can use any evidence we manage to steal. If he knows that Mevlevi is in this country, he’ll put the full efforts of the DEA behind our plan. I bet Thorne will bring in a fucking Ranger A-Team to kidnap the Pasha and take him back to the States.”

“If he can find him…”

“Oh, he can find him. Monday morning at ten A.M., I’ll be escorting the Pasha to a meeting in Lugano with an employee of the Federal Passport Office. Seems Kaiser has arranged for Mevlevi to obtain citizenship in this fine country as a way to get the DEA off his back.”

“Kaiser set that up?” Peter gave a soft laugh. “Like you said, ‘lock, stock, and barrel.’ So how does one go about finding our Mr. Thorne?”

Nick patted his pocket. “I’ve got his card. Didn’t he give you one too?”

“He did, but I’m a smart lad. I threw it away.” Sprecher shivered suddenly. “All right, mate, let’s make the plan. It’s too cold up here to continue our little parley.”

Nick thought of what he needed to do that afternoon. He wouldn’t be free until six at the earliest. “Let’s hook up at the Keller Stubli tonight at eight,” he suggested. “I’m looking forward to seeing Yogi.”

“Keep your fingers crossed,” said Sprecher. “Hope that Bauer hasn’t quaffed one too many beers.”

Nick placed his palms together and brought them up to his chest. “I’m praying.”