True Blue

CHAPTER 105

I APPRECIATE you meeting with me, Cassie.”

Roy was walking along K Street with Cassie Benoit, who worked at DLT, the escrow agent Shilling & Murdoch used for its business transactions.

“No problem. I was heading out for a sandwich anyway. What’s up?”

“Just a document snafu, at least I think. You remember the Dixie Group purchase we closed two months ago?”

“A bunch of shopping malls in Alabama and Texas. Purchaser was a partnership in the U.A.E.”

“Good memory. That’s the one.”

“What’s the snafu? Money got there, I know that.”

“Seven hundred and seventy-five million plus assumption of debt.”

“I remember it was something like that. I can’t keep all the figures straight after a while. Too many deals.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But anyway, we only dealt with the cash, not the debt assumption, of course,” she said, biting into her tuna fish sandwich as they walked along.

“The cash got there, but two of the contingencies may not have been met.”

“Which ones?’

“One deed recordation might’ve had a problem. And there’s an outstanding issue with the anchor tenant in the Dallas-Fort Worth mall that was supposed to be resolved prior to the funds going out. There was supposed to be a release in the file but there’s not.”

“Shit, did we screw up?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure if we screwed up either. I wanted to come by your office and take a look at the records you have.”

“I’m swamped today, Roy. That’s why I’m eating my sandwich on the run.”

“How about after office hours?”

Cassie looked doubtful. “I had concert tickets at Constitution Hall.”

“I haven’t mentioned anything to the client. I was hoping to clean up the issue before anyone had to make those calls. And you know the U.A.E. guys. If there was a foul-up you and I might have to jump on a jet and go and apologize to the sheiks.”

The blood drained from Cassie’s face. “But I hate to fly.”

“Better we get it resolved on this side of the world, then.”

Cassie sighed and threw the rest of her sandwich into a trash bin. “How about seven tonight? Everybody will be gone but I can let you in.”

“That sounds perfect, Cassie, I really appreciate it.”

Roy left her, checked his watch, and called Mace. She filled him in on her meeting in Newark. She also told him she’d tried to catch an earlier train, but it was full. And the train she had just gotten on was delayed because a piece of equipment on a train in front of them had fallen off, been run over by the engine, and part of the power grid for the Northeast corridor might have been damaged.

“It’s going to be a while,” she’d said glumly. “Maybe tonight. Hell, I could probably walk there faster.”

“Let me know when you get in. By the way, I’m being sued by my old firm.”

“What? Why?”

“I looked at the complaint. It’s all bullshit.”

“Well, if I hear of a good lawyer I’ll let you know.”

A minute before seven, Roy appeared at the office of DLT. The firm shut down at six-thirty, which seemed early but DLT opened at six a.m. because of all its international work. After long days of crunching numbers, meeting strict deadlines, and authorizing the catapulting of electronic currency around the globe, most of the firm’s employees stampeded to the door right at closing.

Cassie answered his knock and let him in. She had taken her hair out of its usual bun and it swept around her shoulders. Her heels had been replaced with socks and tennis shoes.

“I pulled the docs that we have,” she said. “Come on back.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“I went through everything but I couldn’t find what you were talking about. But then I’m not a lawyer.”

“That’s okay, I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out.”

He went over the records slowly, looking for an opening while Cassie hovered behind him in her small office. He noted the pack of cigarettes sticking out of her purse where it lay on her desk. He looked up and smiled. “This may take a while. You want to smoke ’em while you got ’em?” He tapped the protruding pack of cigarettes.

“I’ve been dying for one since lunch. But it’s a no-smoking building and I’ve had no time to sneak out.”

“The sidewalk is an option right now.”

Cassie’s fingers curled and uncurled slowly as she eyed her pack of Winstons. “Okay, I give. I won’t be gone that long. I might actually need two cigs.”

“And isn’t there an Au Bon Pain across the street?”

“Yeah, I love their stuff. Our coffee sucks.”

“Then go smoke and when you’re done go get us some java.” He gave her some money. “Take your time. Looks like we’re going to be here a while. No room for error with the Middle East guys,” he added ominously.

As soon as she was gone, Roy started clicking keys on her computer. Luckily he didn’t need her password as he was already in the database. He wasn’t familiar with their electronic filing system, but he figured searching the names of clients would be sufficient. And he was right. He quickly skimmed half a dozen transactions that he and Diane had worked on over the last eighteen months. Now he understood why Cassie had been confused about the dollar amount earlier. The escrow instruction letters that Diane and Roy had prepared for these deals, which basically told DLT how much money would be sent and on what conditions it could released, did not match up with the DLT records in one critical respect.

The cash.

From his own records Roy had jotted down various facts for each of the six transactions he wanted to compare with DLT’s records. The Dixie Group shopping center deal had been for $775 million plus debt assumption. That’s what Roy had written down from the Shilling & Murdoch instruction letter they’d sent DLT. DLT had scanned all the instruction letters into their computer system. But the instruction letter Roy was looking at, which appeared to be on Shilling letterhead, had the cash purchase price at $795 million, a $20 million discrepancy. At her level, Cassie would not have caught this because she just followed the instruction letter. And if the funds coming in matched the amount stated in the letter, there would be no red flag. And apparently the incoming funds hadmatched.

Roy sat back. Why would his client in the U.A.E. have sent extra money? No purchaser paid more than the contract price. Or had the client even sent the extra money? He clicked a few computer keys and looked at the confirmation slips on the wire transfers for some of the deals. Money wires coming in from overseas were dealt with a bit differently from wires between U.S. banks, particularly after 9/11. Roy knew there was a list of sensitive countries and American authorities kept a close watch on monies flowing from these places into the United States in case they were being used to fund terrorist activities.

All bank wires, whether domestic or foreign, still ended up moving through the Federal Reserve System in some fashion and with varying levels of scrutiny. But it was still an arena that was fraught with the potential for abuse. Roy glanced at the date of the instruction letter he was looking at on the screen and then looked at the cheat sheet he’d prepared from his own records. The date on the screen was two days after the one from Roy’s records. He knew that instruction letters were updated all the time as conditions changed. But conditions hadn’t changed in this instance. Roy’s date was for the absolute final instruction letter. Someone else had later changed it, and had added $20 million in the process.

He remembered the string of extra numbers that he’d seen on the computerized records he and Mace had looked at over dinner at Altman’s guest house. He inputted the name of that client and looked at the instruction letter for that deal. Roy knew that the purchase amount had been $990 million for the manufacturing facilities. But on the instruction sheet another $25 million had been tacked on and the date on the letter again was after the latest date Roy had. And on a confirmation sheet it showed the $990 million going to the seller’s bank in New York. But where did the other monies go? To another bank? And who’d sent it? Again, Roy didn’t think his client had thrown in an extra $25 million out of the goodness of their heart.

Roy sat straight up as the answer hit him.

This was a classic piggyback scheme.

You open the financial tunnel with a legitimate transaction coming from a country in the Middle East not on the sensitive list. The purchase price goes out, but added to it are funds from another source. The legit dollars run interference for the illegitimate dollars and, when they reach the U.S. pipeline, the purchase-price dollars go to where they’re supposed to, and the other dollars go somewhere else. But if the instruction letter has the overall correct amount and delivery accounts for the monies, no one would be the wiser. And if an audit was done later the facts might be so muddled that no one could figure it out. There was so much electronic money flying around the world that it was like trying to track down a particular molecule of air.

Roy knew what this was. This was a way around the Patriot Act, which obviously was very concerned about suspicious transfers of money. The extra funds could have come from anywhere, including enemies of the United States.

These could be drug dealers laundering money. Or operating funds for terrorists. Or spies.

And they might have someone at DLT on the inside. And then it struck Roy. DLT was just following instructions. It was far more likely they had someone at Shilling in their pocket. He looked at the revised instruction letter. It had Diane’s electronic signature on it. But that was easy to get. Especially for someone in management at the firm.

Chester Ackerman. The biggest rainmaker at the firm.

He doubted Ackerman was the driving force behind this. But he felt sure the man knew who was. Roy inserted a flash drive in the USB slot and made copies of as many pages as he could and slipped it in his briefcase. He was walking to the office foyer when he heard Cassie open the door.

“I’m all done, Cassie,” he called out. “Found the problem.”

The door closed and he stopped.

It wasn’t Cassie. It was a petite woman with brown hair, but her gun looked awfully big.