Pinnacle Event

25

“There is a great view of Kowloon across the bay,” Mbali said, “or at least there was before they put up the blackout curtains. Welcome to our upscale offices.”

“CIA spares no expense when it comes to their own real estate needs. They’ll say it adds credibility to their cover, whatever that is,” Ray replied as he walked into the conference room filed with computer monitors, television screens, headsets, and other electronics.

“We’re a hedge fund, Emerging Opportunities,” a man with Mbali explained. “Peter Mason, Base Chief Hong Kong.” He looked like he might have been an Assistant Professor of Economics, in a blazer, bow tie, and horn-rimmed glasses. “They’ve finished the small talk over breakfast and are convening in the hotel conference room on fifty-two. The audio and video feeds are working well from the room and we are running the audio from their cell phones as backup. All set.”

“I wish we were closer, in case anything goes wrong,” Mbali said to Ray. “Pacific Place, where the hotel is, even though it looks near, would take us almost half an hour in this traffic.”

“We’re fine. You have two guys in the hotel and two guys outside. Peter, here, has twice that number. And Hong Kong Police have undercovers everywhere, including doing counter surveillance to see if anybody else is here.”

“You mean besides Danny Avidar’s team,” she said.

“I told the Commissioner they were ours. No need to complicate things. Where are they?” Ray asked.

“In the next room,” the CIA Base Chief answered for her.

“A nice young couple. They live here full time. He actually does work at a hedge fund, when he’s not doing errands for Mossad. They are getting the same audio feed we are, but they have some special link back to Tel Aviv so they wanted their own space.”

“So we have Israeli, South African, American, and Hong Kong agents all set up on this meeting. I am sure no one will ever notice,” Ray deadpanned.

They could see the meeting beginning. Five people arranging themselves around a round table, placing their coffee mugs and teacups next to their papers. “Amazing that Coetzee is using a room with videoconferencing,” Mbali noted.

“All of his conference rooms have videoconferencing,” the Base Chief observed. “He just thinks the camera is off. He unplugged it. We swapped it out for a look-alike with a battery pack and a wireless feed.”

Robert Coetzee began. He was still a large man, even though he was in his late seventies, with a pink head of thinning white hair. “We meet as the Trustees of a charitable foundation, created to care for the needs of those who became exiles after the fall of the government of South Africa. We are fiduciaries of that fund. Yes, we are compensated for managing the fund’s investments, but fundamentally we are the leaders of a global fund that is housed in several different countries. We each manage a portion of the money individually, but we decide together how the funds are spent.”

Coetzee continued. “As you know, the tradition among our predecessors was that there was no chairman. The meetings rotated among the five cities and the host always played the role of informal chair. So, it falls to me under these sad circumstances to welcome us all as new members of the Trustees, to our first meeting. Rachel, I am glad that you asked for this session. I am sure that we need it. Before we hear from Rachel, however, maybe we could each introduce ourselves and say a little about what we do, who we are. Paul Wyk, will you start? You are the youngest.”

Wyk looked even younger than the twenty-nine years that he was. Tall and thin, with the wiry look of a tennis star, he was in fact an investment banker. “I live in Wellington, New Zealand. I replace Willem Merwe of Sydney, who replaced his father before him. My late father was the head of Army Research and Development in South Africa. He resettled in New Zealand when I was little. I have no real memories of Africa. The books I have taken over from Merwe show that we have slightly over 1.8b U.S. dollars under management from the Sydney office, some of it newly arrived. I can go into the details of how it’s invested when we get to that part of the meeting.”

“Hesitant, very matter of fact,” Mbali observed to Ray Bowman in their observation post a half mile away.

“Like he’s not sure what it’s all about,” Ray added.

“Liz Pleiss, from Toronto. I replace my father, Marius, who lived, and, ah, died in Dubai.” She looked to be in her early forties, dressed in a gray business suit. She looked like she felt at home in a boardroom. “I have been a management consultant, specializing in making mergers work, but now I think I may have to leave that work to do full time on these investments. I have an MBA from the Sloan School, but investing is not my expertise. My father’s data show a book value of 1.3b U.S. dollars, although much of the original 800 million dollars is tied up in real estate.”

“Notice that she didn’t mention what her father did in South Africa. Didn’t mention South Africa at all,” Mbali said.

“What did her dad do back then?” Peter Mason, or whatever the CIA man’s name was, asked.

“He was the CFO of ARMSCOR, their big defense industry,” Ray Bowman replied.

“I am Rachel Steyn, a mother of two girls. I worked at Google in Israel. I managed databases and had a small R-and-D team on new projects in data storage. I served in the Israeli Army before that. My late husband, Dawid, who was murdered, was the investor. He had 2.1 billion dollars in the accounts. His father made nuclear bombs in South Africa, but I will wait to talk about that.”

“Nicely done,” Bowman observed. Mbali nodded, pleased.

“Johann Potgeiter, Vienna. My father also worked on the nuclears, lately for the UN. I had been working with him on the assets for some time. We have 3.1 billion U.S. dollars under management, much of it in real estate.”

“Short and sweet,” Mbali said.

“From a man who told me he was not a Trustee,” Ray added.

“Well, back to me,” Robert Coetzee began. “I was a South African Special Forces officer. My brother was in intelligence. He was the Trustee. With the new money, we have almost three billion dollars in book value, which, if I have done my sums, gives us collectively slightly over ten billion dollars U.S. in assets under management. We are going to have to discuss at some point what we do with it all, because it must kick off far more than we need to pay for the widows and orphans. But, first, Rachel, you wanted to discuss the, ah, recent events.”

“My husband was murdered,” she began. “Your father was, too, Elizabeth, as was yours Johann. And your brother, Robert. And Willem Merwe.”

“Well, Rachel, we can’t be sure of that yet. The police think that the deaths in Dubai, Sydney, and Vienna may have been accidents,” Johann Potgeiter replied. “Although I admit it would be an extraordinary series of coincidences.”

“They were not coincidences, Johann,” Coetzee said. “That is why I am willing to provide for all of your protection at home in your countries using the global security company we own. All former Special Forces and Special Branch types from several countries. Very good. Very solid.”

Rachel resumed. “They were all murdered shortly after they received large deposits of half a billion dollars each. They were killed by the men who paid them that money, who paid them for something.”

“What? I don’t understand,” said Wyk. “Why pay and then kill them. Why not the other way round? What did they sell them?”

“Nuclear bombs,” Rachel said.

No one replied, for a moment.

“How do we know that?” Robert Coetzee asked.

“Mossad. They told me. They have proof,” Rachel said confidently. “Proof that the original Trustees took with them when they left South Africa not only cash, diamonds, and gold, but also six nuclear missile warheads. There are five left. One they tested secretly to prove they work still. Then they sold the five.”

“That’s incredible,” Wyk said.

“No, I think it could be true,” Robert Coetzee interjected. “Cornelius always told me there was a secret program that he could not read me into. He also told me before he died that they had made what he called a Deacquistion Decision that would result in a great deal of additional cash. They sold something to somebody.”

“But, as Paul asked, then why would the buyers kill them? Maybe it was someone else who killed them because they sold whatever it was they sold?” Liz Pleiss thought out loud.

“They killed them to cover their tracks. Now no one knows who bought the bombs,” Rachel said looking around the table. “Unless one of us does.”

Johann Potgeiter squirmed in his seat. “It is possible,” he said. “My father and I used to have long discussions about his work at the IAEA, over schnapps, after my wife and the children would retire.” He seemed reluctant to go on, but then added, “I remember him asking me whether the best way to deal with Iran’s nuclear program would not be to give the Saudis nuclear weapons.”

“That’s crazy,” Paul Wyk said.

“Maybe, but if Iran has the bomb, they can intimidate everyone in the region. Unless another equal power also has the bomb. Just like India’s program balances Pakistan’s. Like America’s balances Russia’s and China’s. I think he wanted Saudi Arabia to have the bomb. He believed the answer to nuclear proliferation was balance.”

“Lovely,” Rachel observed.

“Well, you already have nukes in Israel,” Johann replied.

“Balance could mean someone else,” Robert Coetzee interjected. “It could mean South Korea getting some to counter what the North has made.”

“Or it could be al Qaeda,” Rachel noted.

“My brother would not have done that,” Coetzee shot back. “Never. If he did this, he must have thought the buyer was a responsible party.”

“Responsible for killing him,” Liz Pleiss added. “So, let me get this straight, we are all accepting the fact that we have about 2.5 billion dollars in dirty money, money made from selling nuclear bombs? That makes us all criminals, even if we didn’t know, they could arrest us, or at least seize the assets, or both. This explains why they raided my office yesterday. I heard about it just after I landed here.”

“Who?” Johann Potgeiter asked. “Who raided your office?”

“Apparently the RCMP, the Canadian police.” Liz Pleiss replied. “They took all my files, according to my secretary.”

“The Shin Beth took mine,” Rachel answered.

“God, the Mounties going through everything. That’s all I need with my taxes as they are,” Liz said.

“Taxes? Is that all you are worrying about, your taxes,” Paul Wyk asked. “Don’t you get it? Somebody is getting ready to blow up bombs. Nuclear bombs that we, our organization sold them. Shit. We need to turn ourselves in.”

“To who?” Robert Coetzee asked.

“The UN, I don’t know,” Wyk stammered.

“No, it’s not that we sold them,” Liz Pleiss insisted. “We did nothing wrong. We knew nothing about this. We just inherited the money as fiduciaries of a charity for South African exiles. No, we did not sell bombs. We did nothing.”

“Who could arrest us?” Wyk asked.

“The Americans certainly,” Liz Pleiss answered. “They have all sorts of laws related to anything they think is national security. Christ, we are going to need some good lawyers.”

“Maybe we give the money back,” Paul Wyk offered.

“To who?” Rachel asked.

“To the Americans, for starters,” Liz Pleiss suggested. “Maybe they can trace it.”

“Mossad couldn’t,” Rachel replied. “They told me they tried.”

“Do you work for them?” Johann Potgeiter asked. “You said you were in the Army.”

“Ten years ago I was in the Army. We all do that in Israel,” Rachel answered. “The only intelligence service I worked for was Google. We collected intelligence so we can sell ads to people. The first time I met Mossad was when they came to tell me that my husband’s dying was no accident.”

“It’s all so incredible,” Paul Wyk repeated. “How have I gotten involved in all of this?”

“Rachel, if there were bombs somewhere, they must be ancient. Did Mossad say that they think they would still work?” Liz Pleiss asked.

“Yes. They say the test bomb worked in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And then, recently, something else happened.”

“What was that?” Robert Coetzee asked.

“In South Africa, there was a truck hijacking, ah, what do you call it, a heist,” Rachel explained. “Someone stole some special material called tritium. That is what is needed to make the old weapons work. Around the same time, Mossad thinks, the bombs left their storage area on Madagascar.”

“Oh, dear,” Robert Coetzee replied. “That does sound like al Qaeda or some group, not Korea. Korea would just have made its own stuff, Trit, whatever it was.”

“We need to find out who they sold the bombs to because we need to stop them from being used,” Rachel interjected. Her voice was higher now, her pace faster. “What if it is al Qaeda? I know Dawid would not knowingly have sold to someone who would threaten Israel, but what if they were al Qaeda pretending to be somebody else? I love Israel. It is my home, my children’s home. If it is a risk, I must do everything I can to save it.”

It was Paul Wyk who broke the ensuing silence. “If any country is at risk of a nuclear attack, we all must do everything we can to save it and not just because we personally will be to blame.”

Robert Coetzee had his head in his hands. He looked up, ran his fingers through his thin white hair. “Yes, of course, but the question is how can we help. We have all been through our predecessors’ records. I assume no one found a receipt for the sale of a nuclear bomb? Or anything else that might lead us to who the recipient was?”

“So,” Johann Potgeiter said, “we are all assuming Rachel’s story is right. That what the Mossad told her is true?”

“We have to,”Liz Pleiss answered. “We have to assume it’s true, for now. It’s certainly not impossible and it does answer the question of why we suddenly have so much new money.” She opened her laptop. “We need a timeline, a unified timeline. Where were our predecessors in the month or two before they died? Did they meet together somewhere? Did a couple of them go somewhere first to negotiate on behalf of the group?” She tapped the keyboard. “I have all of his travel records.”

“I have Dawid’s, too,” Rachel added.

“In the two months before he died, my father went to New York twice, Taipei once, London once, and Vancouver twice,” Liz Pleiss read from the screen.

“Taipei?” Robert Coetzee queried. “My brother was in Taipei as well. Was that your father’s first trip there?”

“As far as I know,” Pleiss answered, staring at her records.

Paul Wyk was busy tapping on his iPhone. “We may be on to something here. I just checked with my office. Merwe also went to Taipei six weeks before he died.”

“That’s it, that’s the balance my father was talking about,” Johann Potgeiter interjected excitedly. “Taiwan was one of the examples he used. He said they were building a nuclear bomb in the eighties, but the Americans caught them and made them stop. He said if they had gone ahead, they could have stood up to China better. He talked about that after he returned from a trip to Asia. I didn’t know it included Taipei, but it must have.”

“Rachel?” Coetzee asked. “Was Dawid in Taipei?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. “But it does make sense that he would be willing to sell nuclears to them. They would be no threat to Israel. And Dawid hated Communism.”

“Well, it seems plausible that our predecessors as Trustees sold old nuclear devices to Taiwan. There would be nothing dishonorable in that, just helping an ally of old South Africa to defend itself. Taiwan is peaceful, doesn’t threaten anyone,” Robert Cotzee mused aloud. “And I suppose perhaps the Taiwanese could have been somewhat duplicitous and killed off the men who sold them the weapons, just to make sure no one knew about the deal. They have a large intelligence service.”

“So, is that what we think?” Paul Wyk asked the group.

“It explains it all rather well, actually, fits all the pieces together,” Johann Potgeiter added.

“And it may not even have been illegal,” Liz Pleiss suggested. “You said, Rachel, the bombs were stored in some African country?”

“Madagascar, it’s an island, a country, off Africa.”

“Okay, I bet they don’t have laws there against selling nuclear bombs,” Liz said, gaining in enthusiasm for her own theory. “Maybe the bombs were stolen property, but I bet that can be argued either way. Maybe our fathers and brothers owned the bombs when they moved them from South Africa. Anyway, it could all be a legal transaction, maybe violated some UN resolutions, but nothing that could cause us to be arrested. A sovereign government did a transaction with our funds and paid us for goods received. We’re off the hook.”

“That’s a relief,” Wyk replied. “It does leave the fact that the Taiwanese may have ordered our predecessors murdered, but maybe we just forget about following up on that.”

“That would be wise, Paul,” Coetzee suggested. “If we try to do anything about it, we will be telling Taiwan that we know who bought the bombs. Then they could come after us. No, I think we remain silent about our suppositions about whether there were bombs, who they were sold to, and who ordered the hits on our people. Silent.”

“I agree,” Liz Pleiss replied. “Completely. And I suggest that we also all agree that this conversation never took place.” There was murmured concurrence around the table.

“Then, let’s take a break and go out on to the roof deck for some tea and coffee,” Robert Coetzee suggested. “When we come back, we can deal with the issue of how we spend what these funds earn, in a way that benefits the diaspora that we represent.”

From their little war room, Mbali and Ray watched on their screen as the new Trustees pushed back and got up from the conference table. Mbali looked at Ray without a word, but with a face that asked for comment.

“Taiwan? I doubt it, but let’s check with Dugout and see if the records match up,” he said. He tapped on a keyboard and another image appeared on the large screen in the room, a long-haired man, with glasses, wearing a black T-shirt. “I assume you were listening to all of that Duggie.”

There was a brief static as the audio connection from Washington was established. “Yes, good evening to you, too. It’s evening here, of course. And thank you for introducing me to Miss Hlanganani. Pleased to meet you. My name is Douglas Carter and I have the pleasure of working with the gentleman to your right.”

Ray Bowman rolled his eyes. “Delighted to finally meet you,” Mbali said to the video camera.

“As to your implied question, Raymond, I’m not buying it,” Dugout continued. “Yes, Pleiss, Coetzee, and Potgeiter were all in Taipei at the same time six weeks before they were murdered. The others weren’t there. Those three gentlemen were there to close on an investment in a large, new hotel and high-end retail mall that each of them put some money in. But we would know if the Taiwanese had bought bombs and there is no indication that they did.”

“How would we know?” Ray asked.

“First of all, we have their government fairly well penetrated and second, there is no record of funds like that leaving any Taiwanese accounts around then. And do you think the Taiwan intel service could stage everything else involved: murdering these Trustees all over the place, the tritium heist, the covert shipment from Madagascar, the attempted hits on you?”

“Probably not,” Ray replied. “But it wouldn’t hurt to confront them with the story and see what happens, see if they panic and say something internally, something we can pick up.”

“You two are forgetting something,” Mbali interjected.

“What’s that?” Dugout asked over the video link.

“We just had Rachel do something to see if anybody panics. She laid out the fact that we know what is going on, or at least Mossad does.” Mbali was proud of how her newly recruited agent had done as an actress in the meeting. “If you two are right and it’s not really Taiwan, then somebody will panic shortly when they find out that we are on their trail and we are closer than they thought.”

“Well, one of them better panic quick. ’Cuz we got an election in eight days and a lot of people at CIA, FBI, and DHS are telling the President that nukes are going to go off in this country between now and then,” Dugout answered.

“Patience,” she said. “You Americans need to learn patience and the skill of laying in the tall grass, waiting, listening, like a lion. You are all flapping and flying like your eagle. We are like the cat. Still, ’til we pounce.”