The Wreckage

11

The Soho wine bar has black painted walls, black doors and black furniture. It’s full of the kind of people who en masse intimidate Luca most: men in designer suits and women with ballerina bodies and little black dresses. Daniela doesn’t look out of place-she’s a New York girl-she probably has a wardrobe full of cocktail dresses and tailored suits.

Keith Gooding has been entertaining her with stories about Afghanistan; shared adventures with Luca, embarrassing moments. He’s telling her the story about a grizzled old warlord in Jalalabad who promised to show them a former al-Qaeda training camp. Two days into their journey through the mountains the old warlord crept into their room and Luca woke with hands fondling his genitals. His scream brought the warlord’s bodyguards bursting into the room, threatening to shoot them.

“What in God’s name were you doing?” Gooding had hissed.

“The old pervert had his hands on me.”

“Couldn’t you give one up for the team?”

Daniela laughs and Luca tells her that she shouldn’t believe everything Gooding tells her.

She kisses his knuckles. “I know.”

He needs the bathroom. The doors are marked XX and XY-the language of chromosomes. As he exits he notices a tall man with craggy eyes sitting opposite a woman in a camisole and skirt. Holding hands. Lovers. His eyes aren’t looking into hers. Instead they’re focused on Luca.

“What’s wrong?” asks Daniela.

“I’ve just seen someone I recognize, but I can’t place him.”

“In Baghdad?”

“Maybe. Go to the bathroom in a couple of minutes. He’s sitting near the pillar.” Luca looks at Gooding. “Did you book this table?”

“Yes.”

“Who else knows we’re here?”

“Oh, come on, Luca, relax, you’ve been living in a war zone for too long.” He raises his glass. “This is supposed to be a celebration.”

Luca smiles and apologizes, but the disquiet stays with him like an unpleasant aftertaste.

“So what did you find out about Yahya Maluk?”

Gooding takes out his iPhone and runs his finger across the screen.

“Egyptian billionaire. Educated at Charterhouse. Second eldest son of Salim Ahmed Maluk, who rose from being an illiterate moneychanger to found banks in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Married. Three grown-up children. Personal wealth estimated at three billion pounds. Family fortune twice that much. Dozens of companies and charitable trusts.”

“Does he still have links with banks in the Middle East?”

“He’s a former director of a Dubai-based private equity firm and non-executive director of the Bank of Syria.”

“What about in the UK?”

“He’s a non-executive director of Mersey Fidelity.”

Luca repeats the name. He’s heard it before.

“It’s been in the news,” explains Gooding, biting a wedge of lime between his teeth and sucking, letting the sourness hollow out his cheeks. “A missing banker.”

Luca remembers the story that he read in the Herald Tribune.

“Richard North disappeared more than a week ago,” explains Gooding. “The bank says fifty-four million pounds is missing.”

“Tell me about Mersey Fidelity.”

The journalist picks at the label of his beer bottle. “Now there’s an interesting story. It’s the only UK bank that rode out the global financial crisis without needing a taxpayer-funded bailout. Barclays, Lloyds, Bank of Scotland-they were all rescued from bankruptcy and effectively nationalized-but Mersey Fidelity weathered the storm.”

“How come you know so much about it?” asks Luca.

Gooding looks at him sheepishly. “I’ve been working on a book.”

“A book?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Newspapers are dying. You make money where you can.”

“What’s the book about?” asks Daniela.

“The global financial crisis-why some banks survived and others didn’t.”

“So how did Mersey Fidelity survive?”

“There were whispers.”

“What sort of whispers?” Luca asks.

Gooding leans a little closer. “OK, let me draw you a picture. First you have the credit crisis, the meltdown, major banks hemorrhaging. Lehman Brothers has filed for bankruptcy. Nobody is lending any more. You’re on your knees. Facing ruin. What do you do?”

“You ask for a bailout?”

“Yes, but before that-before you know that central banks are going to ride to the rescue.”

“I don’t know.”

“You take anybody’s money. And I mean anybody. The Mafia, Triads, Colombian drug barons, corrupt regimes, criminal gangs-anybody.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Two years ago the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released a report saying that drug money was the only thing keeping some major banks in business. The UN estimates that three hundred and fifty-two billion dollars of drug and Mafia money was laundered by major banks at the peak of the global financial crisis. That’s a third of a trillion dollars.”

“What about the regulators?”

“They turned a blind eye because it helped keep bank doors open.”

“And you think Mersey Fidelity was involved?”

“It’s a theory.”

Luca glances at Daniela, wondering how much to tell Gooding. Scanning the bar, he notices the couple from earlier have gone. A fresh beer arrives. He centers it on a coaster and begins.

“Just over a week ago the Zewiya branch of the al-Rafidain Bank in Baghdad was robbed. Four bank guards helped engineer the break-in. We aren’t sure how much they stole-perhaps as much as fifty million US dollars. Less than twenty-four hours later they were found executed outside of Mosul. This wasn’t the first such robbery-Iraq has been averaging about one a week-but this was US dollars. Daniela checked with the Iraqi Central Bank and discovered that the money had been delivered only a few hours before the bank was raided.”

“What does this have to do with Mersey Fidelity?” asks Gooding.

“Before we flew out of Baghdad we found a former truck driver who told us how he smuggled cash out of Iraq into Syria. US dollars. There were two truckloads, but one lorry went off the cliff and spilled the payload. The second lorry went to a warehouse on the outskirts of Damascus owned by an import/export company registered in Syria. Alain al Jaria. It doesn’t have a physical office address, just a postbox. And no tax returns in ten years…”

Daniela adds, “The same company was subcontracted to rebuild a stadium in Baghdad in 2005 and paid forty-two million dollars. The work was never done.”

Luca: “The controlling shareholder of Alain al Jaria is a company called May First Limited, with a registered address in the Bahamas. And the only name associated with both companies is Yahya Maluk.”

Luca places his elbows on the table, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“I think stolen money is being smuggled out of Iraq using the same routes that Saddam Hussein set up to overcome the international sanctions and blockades of the nineties. Maybe that’s how Mersey Fidelity avoided the credit crisis: it found a new source of funds.”

“What evidence do you have?”

“Not enough.”

Gooding is staring at him, his eyes slightly glazed by the alcohol, but there’s something skulking behind his countenance-a tense energy or the shadow of a secret. Luca searches his eyes for a clue. Over Gooding’s shoulder, he can see a miniature version of himself in a far-off mirror.

“There’s something else,” says Luca.

“I’m listening.”

“The truck driver who delivered the cash to Damascus said he was met by a man called Mohammed Ibrahim.”

Luca nods towards Daniela.

“His full name is Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Muslit,” she says. “He was responsible for setting up dozens of bank accounts in the name of front companies in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon for Saddam Hussein. He was arrested in 2003 and gave up Saddam’s hiding place.”

“Why isn’t Ibrahim in prison?”

“Four years ago he walked out of Abu Ghraib. Accidentally released, due to a case of mistaken identity. It was just before the US handed over control of the prison.”

“Unfortunate.”

“I would have chosen another word.”