Numbered Account

CHAPTER 6

At 8:30 A.M. the following Tuesday, a convocation of portfolio managers was held on the Fourth Floor. The subject was the bank’s response to escalating demands it formally cooperate with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and other international agencies like it. The meeting constituted Nick’s first invitation to set foot on the hallowed Fourth Floor, known throughout the bank as the Emperor’s Lair—in deference to the Chairman—as well as his first visit to the executive boardroom.

The boardroom was cavernous. The doorway was twelve feet high, the ceiling twenty. Nick walked solemnly across a plush maroon carpet whose borders were inlaid with the symbols of Switzerland’s twenty-six cantons. At the carpet’s center, under a prodigious mahogany conference table, lay the seal of the United Swiss Bank: a black Hapsburg eagle rampant dexter on a mustard yellow field, its broad wings outstretched and three keys grasped in its talons. A swirling golden ribbon, captured in the eagle’s prominent beak, advertised the bank’s dictum: Pecuniat Honorarum Felicitatus. Money welcomed gladly.

Nick stood with Peter Sprecher at the room’s far corner, near the windows that overlooked the Bahnhofstrasse. He knew he should feel intimidated, but he was too busy watching the other portfolio managers. To a man, they gawked at the room’s trappings like a bunch of nervous tourists—pinching the port leather of the conference chairs, running a discreet hand along the burnished wood paneling, puffing up with pride as they studied the bank’s elaborate seal. It was the first visit to the Fourth Floor for many of his colleagues, too.

He shifted his view to the doorway and caught sight of Sylvia Schon entering the boardroom. She wore a black skirt and blazer. Her hair was pulled back severely into a tight bun. She looked smaller than he remembered, though not the least bit vulnerable in this sea of male executives. She moved around the room greeting her colleagues, smiling, shaking hands, and exchanging a hushed word here and there. It was a textbook display of working a room, and he was impressed.

Abruptly, the boardroom fell silent. Wolfgang Kaiser entered and strode to a chair positioned directly beneath a portrait of the bank’s founder, Alfred Escher-Wyss. Kaiser did not sit down but stood with one hand placed on the table before him. His eyes traveled the room, a general of the army appraising his troops before a perilous operation.

Nick stared at him intently. At his cold blue eyes, at his indulgent mustache, and at his limp arm that was buttoned to his left coat pocket. He recalled the first time he had met Kaiser, during his father’s last trip to Switzerland seventeen years ago. Then, he had been terrified of him. The booming voice. The spectacular mustache. It had been too much for a ten-year-old boy. Now, seeing him surrounded by his peers, he felt proud of his family’s association with him and honored that Kaiser had offered him a position at the bank.

Three men followed Kaiser into the room. Rudolf Ott, vice chairman of the bank (with whom he had interviewed in New York), Martin Maeder, executive vice president in charge of private banking, and last, close behind but a continent apart, an unknown gentleman, tall and reed thin, clutching a battered leather briefcase. He wore a navy suit whose stiff lapels cried out American—Nick should know, his own lapels were the same—and brown cowboy boots whose spit shine would have earned a long, low whistle from the toughest D.I.

Rudolf Ott called the meeting to order. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and stood with the defensive posture of a man accustomed to ridicule. “As this bank’s representative to the Association of Swiss Banks,” Ott began, his Basler accent lending his words a nasal inflection, “I have in the past days met with colleagues in Geneva, Bern, and Lugano. Our discussions centered on measures that must be taken in light of current unfavorable winds, to avoid formal federal legislation mandating divulgence of certain confidential client information, not only to the office of the federal prosecutor but to a committee of international agencies. While the secrecy afforded our valued clients remains paramount to the Swiss philosophy of banking, a decision has been made to voluntarily comply with the demands of our federal government, the wishes of our citizens, and the requests of the international authorities. We must take our place at the table of advanced industrialized Western nations and help root out those individuals and companies using our services to spread evil and wrongdoing across the globe.”

Ott paused to clear his throat, and a murmur rose through the assembled ranks.

Nick looked at Peter Sprecher and whispered, “Weren’t we advanced and industrialized enough to sit at that table during the Second World War?”

“You forget,” Sprecher answered, “during the Second War, there were two tables. We Swiss simply couldn’t decide which one to sit at.”

Wolfgang Kaiser raised his head sharply, and silence descended on the room with the finality of a guillotine.

Ott lofted a hand in the gangly American’s direction. “The United States Drug Enforcement Administration has provided us with a list of those transactions which they define as ‘suspicious,’ and likely to be linked to criminal activities—in particular the laundering of money from the sale of illegal narcotics. To give you more detail about our proposed cooperation, I present Mr. Sterling Thorne.” He turned to Thorne and shook his hand. “Don’t worry, they won’t bite.”

Sterling Thorne did not appear unreasonably worried, thought Nick, as he watched the American agent face the assembly of sixty-five bankers. Thorne’s brown hair was unruly and cut a little too long, as if to say he didn’t belong with the pretty boys at headquarters. He had gunslits for eyes, and cheeks that in his adolescence had fought a battle against acne and lost. His mouth was small and weak, but his jaw could break a pickax.

“My name is Sterling Stanton Thorne,” began the visitor. “I am an agent for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, have been for near twenty-three years. Lately, the powers that be in Washington, D.C., have seen fit to appoint me chief of our European Operations. That means that today I’m standing before you gentlemen asking for your cooperation in the war against drug trafficking.”

Nick recognized the type if not the exact model. Nearing fifty, lifetime in law enforcement, a civil servant masquerading as a latter-day Eliot Ness.

“Over five hundred billion dollars was spent on illegal drugs in 1997,” said Thorne. “Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, the works. Five hundred billion dollars. Of that sum, roughly one fifth, or one hundred billion dollars, made its way up the food chain into the pockets of the world’s drug supremos. The big guns. That’s quite a sum to be traveling around the world looking for a safe home. Now, somewhere down the garden path a large chunk of that money disappears. Vanishes into a black hole. No individual, no institution, no country ever reports receiving it. It just ceases to exist en route to the narcotraficantes. Location unknown.

“Banks all over the world—including plenty in the United States, I’ll readily admit—help launder this money, help recycle it, and put it back into play. Phony invoicing, paper companies, unreported cash deposits to numbered accounts. A new way to launder money is being created every other day.”

Listening closely, Nick detected a faint country twang, a stubborn reminder of home that had resisted bullying. He thought that if Thorne had been wearing a cowboy hat, he’d tip it back on his forehead right now and raise his chin the smallest bit, just to let us good people know that he was getting serious.

Thorne raised his chin and stated, “We are not interested in the average clients of this fine establishment. Ninety-five percent of your clients are law-abiding citizens. Another four percent are your small-time tax evaders, bribe takers, lower-level arms traffickers, and bottom-feeding drug dealers. As far as the United States government is concerned, they do not exist.

“Gentlemen,” Thorne announced, as if they were now united in cause, “we are going after the big game. The top one percent. We have, after these many years, received a license to go elephant hunting. Now, the rules of the hunt are strict. The Swiss gaming authority doesn’t want just any elephant brought down. But that’s all right. We at the DEA have a clear idea of which elephants have the biggest tusks, and they’re the ones we’re after. Not the baby elephants, not even the mama elephants. We’re going after the rogue males. See, they’ve been tagged by you Swiss ‘game wardens’ at one time or another, so even if you don’t admit to knowing their name, you certainly know their serial number.” He grinned slyly, but when he spoke next his voice assumed a solemn tone. “What matters is that once we provide you gentlemen with the name or serial number of one of those rogue males, for which I remind you we have received a license, you cooperate.” Thorne cocked one knee and pointed into the audience. “If you so much as think of protecting one of my rogue males, I give you my word that I’ll find your sorry ass and kick it to the fullest extent of the law. And maybe then some, too.”

Nick noted more than a few flushed cheeks. The normally calm Swiss bankers were getting pissed off in a hurry.

“Gentlemen, please pay attention,” Thorne continued. “This is the important part. If any of the rogue males—hell, why don’t we just call them what they are—if any of the criminals we’re looking for deposits large sums of cash, amounts in excess of five hundred thousand dollars, Swiss francs, German marks, or the equivalent, you people must call me promptly and let me know. If any of these criminals receives wire transfers in excess of ten million dollars or the equivalent, and transfers more than fifty percent of that amount out again, to one, ten, or a hundred banks, in less than twenty-four hours, you gentlemen must inform me, pronto. Keeping your money in one place, that’s being a wise investor. Moving it around day and night, that’s laundering—and his ass belongs to me.”

Thorne relaxed his stance and shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, the rules of the hunt are strict. You people are not making it easy on us. But I am counting on you to give me your entire cooperation. We’re trying out this arrangement as a gentlemen’s agreement. For now. Don’t play with this one, boys, or it will explode in your face.”

Sterling Thorne picked up his briefcase, shook hands with Kaiser and Maeder, then accompanied by Rudolf Ott, walked from the boardroom.

Good riddance, grimaced Nick, as the spasm of a painful memory grasped his spine. He had his own reasons for not liking the man.

For a moment, the room guarded a funereal silence. There seemed to be a sort of collective confusion, whether to stay or whether to go. But as long as Kaiser and Maeder remained no one left the room.

Finally, Wolfgang Kaiser drew a labored breath and rose to his feet. “Gentlemen, a word. If you please.”

The bankers drew themselves to attention.

“We are all hoping that our cooperation with the international authorities will be at once brief and uneventful. Mr. Thorne clearly has some unsavory characters in mind when he speaks of going elephant hunting. ‘Rogue males’ and all that.” Kaiser’s blue eyes smiled as if to say that he too had seen some interesting customers over the years. “But I am confident that none shall be counted among our esteemed clientele. The foundations of this bank were built upon fulfilling the commercial requirements of the honest businessmen of this country. Over the years, the services we offer to our countrymen, and to the international community, have grown more diverse, more complex, but our commitment to working exclusively with honorable individuals has never wavered.”

A collective nodding of heads. Nick’s fellow bankers appreciated their Chairman’s affirmation of the bank’s innocence in any unseemly matters.

Kaiser pounded his fist on the table. “We have no need now, nor shall we ever, to seek profit from the bitter fruit of illegal and immoral commerce. Please go back to your posts confident in the knowledge that while Mr. Thorne may search far and wide for his rogue males, he shall never find what he is looking for within the walls of the United Swiss Bank.”

And with that, Kaiser marched from the room. Maeder and Schweitzer followed on his heels like two overgrown acolytes. The assembled bankers milled around for a few minutes, either too shocked or too stunned to say much. Nick maneuvered through their ranks toward the tall doors. He walked out of the boardroom and down the hallway. He shared an elevator with two men he didn’t know. One was telling the other that the whole thing would blow over in a week. Nick was only half listening to them. He kept replaying Wolfgang Kaiser’s words over and over again. “… while Mr. Thorne may search far and wide for his rogue males, he shall never find what he is looking for within the walls of the United Swiss Bank.”

Were they a statement of fact or a call to arms?