Numbered Account Read online

  “Payback, Keely. That one was for Burke.”

  # # #

  Nick’s memories faded as quickly as they had come. Only a second had passed. Maybe less.

  “I’m sorry, Thorne. I just can’t be of service to you. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Neumann, don’t make it hard on yourself. Once I tell Kaiser about your discharge, he’s going to have to fire you. He can’t have a convict working as his assistant. The way I see it, you don’t have much of a career left in this business anyway. Might as well do some good while you’re still there.”

  Nick brushed past the federal agent. “Nice try. Do what you gotta do. So will I.”

  “I didn’t have you figured for a coward, Neumann,” Thorne shouted. “You let the Pasha get away once. His crimes are on your soul!”

  CHAPTER

  35

  The office was dark, except for a halo of light focused on a stack of papers in the center of his desk. The building was quiet. No footsteps scurried through the hallways. Only the hushed electronic breathing of the computer disturbed the pall of silence that surrounded him like a fertile cocoon.

  Wolfgang Kaiser was alone.

  The bank once again belonged to him.

  Kaiser stood with his cheek pressed against the glass, staring out the arched window behind his desk. The object of his attention was a stout gray building fifty yards up the Bahnhofstrasse: the Adler Bank. No lights glowed from behind its shuttered windows. Squat and ominous it sat, eyes closed for the night. The predator, like its prey, was asleep.

  Kaiser peeled his cheek from the cold window and circled his desk. For twelve months he had been aware that the Adler Bank was accumulating USB’s shares. A thousand here, five thousand there. Never enough to upset the average daily volume. Never enough to bid up the price. Just small blocks. Slow and steady. He had guessed Konig’s intentions, if not his means. In response, he had conceived a modest plan to permanently cement his own position as Chairman of the United Swiss Bank.

  Twelve months earlier the bank had celebrated its one hundred twenty-fifth birthday. A celebratory dinner was given at the Hotel Baur au Lac. The collected members of the board of directors and their ladies were invited. Toasts were made, achievements recognized, and perhaps a tear was shed, but only by one of the pensioned board members. Kaiser’s active colleagues remained far too concerned with the evening’s final announcement to praise the labors of their predecessors. Their hearts were on money. Specifically, on how much of it they’d get their grubby hands on before the evening was over.

  Kaiser recalled the greedy glow that lit those ratlike faces that evening. When he had announced that each member of the board was to receive an anniversary bonus of one hundred thousand francs, he was greeted by silence. His guests were incapacitated, man and woman alike. For several seconds, they sat as still as the dead, perched on the edge of their seats. The pressure from a lone mouse’s fart would have sent them sprawling onto the dining room floor. And then came the applause. A thunderous barrage of hand clapping. A standing ovation. Cries of “Long live USB!” and of “To the Chairman!”

  How could he have doubted that the board was comfortably in his pocket?

  Kaiser allowed himself a self-pitying laugh. Less than a year later, many of the executives so content to pocket a cool hundred grand had joined Klaus Konig’s snarling wolf pack, eager to denounce his own “antiquated” management strategies. The future lay with the Adler Bank, they argued, with aggressive trading in options and derivatives, with controlling stakes in unrelated companies, with leveraged wagers on the directions of foreign currencies.

  The future, Kaiser summarized, lay with the inflated value of USB shares a takeover by the Adler Bank would bring.

  The Wild, Wild West had arrived in Zurich. Gone were the days of negative interest rates, when foreigners anxious to deposit their funds in a Swiss bank would not only forgo interest but actually pay the bank account-management fees to accept their money. Switzerland was no longer the only safe haven for capital “in flight.” Competitors had raised their banners both near and far. Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Austria all offered stable, discreet institutions rivaling their Swiss neighbor’s. The Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, and the Netherlands Antilles each provided sophisticated banking services catering to the harried businessman in need of a secure hiding place for funds spirited from under the blind eyes of a trusting partner or the vengeful maw of a wronged spouse. Swiss banks weren’t the only game in town.

  In this hostile environment, Wolfgang Kaiser had struggled to maintain USB’s position at the top of the private banking hierarchy. And succeeded. True, accounting measures of the bank’s profitability were down. Key indicators of the bank’s financial strength—its return on assets and return on equity—had suffered as internal investment was funneled toward those areas that would ensure continuing supremacy in private banking. Still, net profits would increase for the ninth consecutive year: a gain of seventeen percent over the past year was expected. At any other time such gains would be admirable. This year they were deemed a failure. How could you compare a rise of seventeen percent against the two hundred percent increase registered by the Adler Bank?

  Kaiser slapped his hand against his thigh in frustration. His course for the United Swiss Bank was sound and correct. It respected the bank’s history and played aggressively to her strongest points. For its first hundred years the bank had prospered as one of a dozen medium-size local institutions that catered domestically to the commercial requirements of Zurich’s smaller concerns and internationally to the discreet demands of those foreign neighbors, who wanted to place their earnings in an atmosphere of maximum security and minimum scrutiny. When deciding where to deposit these newly gotten gains, more than a few educated heads turned toward the far-off safety of Switzerland and to the private banking division of the United Swiss Bank. Others followed.

  Kaiser stood alone in the center of his dark office, savoring the past. He swore he would not allow Klaus Konig and his damned Adler Bank to take USB. Yet the situation was not encouraging. Even USB portfolio managers eager to lock in a decent return on their clients’ managed assets had taken to selling shares of USB stock. Meanwhile, the Adler Bank continued its purchase of shares on the open market, if at a calmer tempo. Was it too soon to hope that Konig’s inexhaustible supply of cash had dried up?

  The Chairman returned to his desk, sat down, and looked at his neatly stacked papers. The lacquered ear of a photograph protruded from the bottom of the pile. He pulled it out and gazed at its lifeless subject. Stefan Wilhelm Kaiser. Sole fruit of an acrimonious and short-lived union. His mother lived in Geneva, remarried to another banker. Kaiser hadn’t spoken with her since the funeral.

  “Stefan,” he whispered aloud to the ghosts hovering in his office. His only son had died at nineteen from an overdose of heroin.

  For years, Kaiser had shielded himself from the pain of his death.His son was still ten years old.His son loved skating at the Dolder Ice Rink.His son clamored to swim at the localhallenbad. He did not know this man on the slab, this unkempt ruffian with the matted hair and acned skin. This drug addict who had exchanged a soccer jersey for a leather jacket, who preferred cigarettes to ice cream cones. This man he did not know.

  Now Kaiser had a second chance. The son of a man he had known as well as a brother might replace Stefan. The thought of young Neumann on the Fourth Floor comforted him. The boy’s resemblance to his father was uncanny. Glimpsing him each day was like glimpsing the past. He saw every opportunity he’d taken and every one he’d missed. Sometimes when he looked at Nicholas he felt like grabbing him and asking him whether all his work had accomplished anything. And he could see in Neumann’s eyes that the answer would be yes. A resounding yes. Other times he felt as if he were staring at his own conscience, and he prayed for it never to betray him.

  Kaiser turned off the light. He leaned back in his chair and wondered where it all was going to end. He didn’t care
for the image of his tired body lying on the slag heap of deposed corporate chieftains. He’d give his last franc to remain Chairman of the United Swiss Bank until his death.

  Kaiser closed his eyes and willed himself not to feel, but to be. He was the bank. Its granite walls and impenetrable vaults; its quiet salons and frenetic trading floor; its imperious directors and ambitious trainees. He was the bank. His blood flowed in its veins and his soul was mortgaged on its behalf.

  “The Adler Bank shall not pass,” he declared aloud, taking the words of another embattled general. “They shall not pass.”

  CHAPTER

  36

  “I am positively sated,” declared Ali Mevlevi, allowing a last forkful of braised lamb to fall to his plate. “And you, my darling?”

  Lina puffed her cheeks. “I feel like a balloon filled with too much air.”

  Mevlevi examined her plate. Most of her midday meal had gone uneaten. “You did not enjoy it? I thought lamb was your favorite.”

  “It was very good. I am simply not hungry.”

  “Not hungry? How is that? Not enough exercise, perhaps?”

  Lina smiled wickedly. “Perhaps too much exercise.”

  “For a young woman like you? I think not.” Mevlevi slid his chair back from the table and walked to the broad picture window. He had devoured her that morning. Acted like a man just released from prison. One last time, he had told himself. One last moment in her arms.

  Outside, an army of clouds surrounded his compound. A weak storm from the Mediterranean advanced over the Lebanese coastal plain, gathering against the low foothills. Pockets of wind swept rain across the terrace and rattled the windows.

  Lina joined him, locking her arms around his stomach and rubbing her head against his back. Normally, he enjoyed her attentions. But the time for such enjoyment was past. He unclasped her hands. “I can see clearly now,” he declared. “The way ahead is shown to me. The path illuminated.”

  “What do you see, Al-Mevlevi?”

  “The future.”

  “And?” Once more, Lina laid her head against his back.

  He turned and pushed her arms to her sides. “Surely you know what it must bring.”

  Lina met his eyes. He could see she thought his behavior odd. Her innocence was disarming. Almost.

  “What?” she asked. “Doyou know what it will bring?”

  But Mevlevi was no longer listening. His ears were attuned to the staccato snap of Joseph’s footsteps, sounding from a distant hallway. He checked his watch, then walked out of the dining room and through the house to his office. “Do join us, Lina,” he called over his shoulder. “Your company would be most welcome.”

  Mevlevi entered his study and brought himself face-to-face with his chief of security. Joseph stood at attention, eyes drilled to the fore. My proud desert hawk, thought Mevlevi.

  Lina padded in a moment later and settled herself on the sofa.

  “News?” Mevlevi asked Joseph.

  “Everything is as according to plan. Sergeant Rodenko has two companies training on the south pitch. They are working with live grenades. Ivlov is giving a lecture on the deployment and detonation of antipersonnel claymore mines. Sentries report no activity.”

  “All quiet on the western front,” said Mevlevi. “Very good.” He sidestepped the soldier and began pacing the room. He clutched the back of his chair, then straightened a few papers on his desk. He moved to the bookshelf, where he selected a novel, examined its cover, frowned, then replaced it. Finally, he placed himself directly behind Joseph. “Has your affection for me waned?” he asked.

  Lina began to answer, but a quickly raised hand stopped her. He repeated the question, this time as a whisper in Joseph’s ear. “Has your affection for me waned? Answer me.”

  “No, sir,” the desert hawk replied. “I love and respect you as I would my father.”

  “Liar.” A sharp blow to the kidneys.

  Joseph fell to one knee.

  Mevlevi wrenched his ear and lifted him to his feet. “No father could be more ill served by a son. No man more disappointed. How could you fail me so? Once you would have given your life for me.” A finger traced the crooked scar that creased the hawk’s cheek. An open palm slapped the hawk’s face. “Would you still?”

  “Yes, Al-Mevlevi. Always.”

  A fist fired into the stomach.

  Mevlevi glared at his retainer. “Stand up. You’re a soldier. Once you protected me. Saved me from a suicide raid by Mong’s killers. Once you were proud and hungry to serve. And now? Can you not defend me?”

  Lina grabbed a pillow and clutched it to her chest.

  Mevlevi placed his hands on the bodyguard’s shoulders. “Can you not save me from an asp in my household? One so close to my bosom?”

  “I shall always do my best.”

  “Youwill never betray me.”

  “Never,” said the desert hawk.

  Mevlevi grasped Joseph’s jaw with his right hand and with his left caressed his minion’s closely shorn hair. He kissed him on the lips—a hard, sexless embrace. “Yes, in my heart I know this.Now I know this.” He released him and walked with measured steps to the couch where Lina sat. “And you,cherie ? When will you betray me?”

  Wide-eyed, she stared at him.

  “When?” Mevlevi whispered.

  Lina jumped to her feet and ran past him into the hallway.

  “Joseph,” the Pasha ordered. “Suleiman’s Pool!”

  # # #

  Fifty yards from Ali Mevlevi’s principal residence stood a low rectangular building, unremarkable in all aspects. Its cement walls had recently been whitewashed. Its terra-cotta roof was common to the region. Trellises laced with dormant bougainvillaea decorated its bland facade. A quick inspection, however, would yield several curious observations. No approach was cut from the manicured lawn surrounding the building. No door interrupted its plain exterior. Blackout curtains were drawn inside double-paned, soundproof windows permanently secured by a row of four-inch nails. But nothing was stranger or more inescapable than the odor that seeped from the house. It was an invasive smell that caused the eyes to water and the throat to burn. “An astringent or a cleanser?” one might ask. “A detoxicant?”

  Not exactly. Just the nastiest bits of all three.

  As he walked through the subterranean passageway, Ali Mevlevi kept his head bowed and his step pious. He wore a whitedishdasha, thonged slippers, and an embroidered Muslim prayer cap, inlaid with pearls and golden thread. In his hand he carried the Koran. The holy book was opened to a prayer appropriate for the occasion—the Exaltation of Life—and he read aloud from it. After a single verse, he approached the end of the tiled passageway. His eyes began to tear—a natural reflex to the abrasive odor that stung his nasal passages—and he stopped reading. He dismissed his discomfort as necessary to further the work of almighty God, Allah, and climbed the concrete steps leading to the hall.

  Before him lay Suleiman’s Pool: legacy of the greatest of Ottoman rulers, Suleiman the Magnificent. Thirty yards long and fifteen wide, the pool was filled with a brackish mixture of water, formaldehyde, and sodium triphosphate. For centuries, Turkish rulers had enjoyed preserving for months, even years, the youthful bodies of particularly treasured concubines. Somewhere during the twists and turns of history, the vagaries of corrupt Eastern rulers had turned from worship to torture, and from torture to murder. One was but a hop, skip, and jump from the other.

  “Al-Mevlevi,” Lina shrieked upon seeing him enter the pavilion. “I beg you. You are mistaken. Please . . .”

  Mevlevi guarded his devout pace and walked slowly to Lina, who was seated nude in a high-backed rattan chair. Her hands and feet were bound with sisal. He stroked her fine black hair. “Tsk, tsk, my child. No need to explain. You asked of your future. Behold it now.”

  Mevlevi averted his gaze from Lina and looked at the pool. He could make out the outline of a dozen heads below the surface. Hair meandered from the corpses like undersea plant
life on a tropical reef. He followed the bloated shapes downward to where bound feet were attached to dark oblong stones.

  Lina gasped and began anew. “Al-Mevlevi, I do not work for the Makdisis. Yes, they brought me to the club. But I never spied on you. I never told them anything. I love you.”

  Mevlevi laughed mirthlessly. He relegated his heart to a far corner of his soul. Devotion to a higher calling replaced it. “You love me? The Makdisis would be disappointed. I, though, am charmed. Should I believe you?”

  “Yes, yes. You must.” Her tears stopped. She was pleading desperately for her life. Sincerity remained her sole currency.

  “Tell me the truth, dear Lina. Only the truth. I must know everything.” Normally, Mevlevi enjoyed these last moments. The teasing and taunting. The luring of last hopes. But not today. He kissed her and found her lips hard and dry. He removed a handkerchief from his caftan and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  “Tell me the truth,” he said again, this time softly, as if lulling her to sleep.

  “Yes, yes. I swear it.” Lina nodded her head furiously. “The Makdisis found me in Jounieh. They spoke first with my mother. They offered her much money. One thousand dollars American. My mother took me aside and told me of their offer. “What do such men wish me to do?’ I asked her. One of the Makdisis answered. He was a short, fat man with gray hair and very big eyes, eyes like oysters. “Lina, we want you only to look. To watch. To learn.’ “What am I to learn?’ I asked. “Just watch,’ he said. “We will contact you.’

  “They wanted nothing specific?”

  “No. Just for me to watch you.”

  “And?”

  Lina licked her lips and opened her eyes as wide as they might stretch. “Yes, I watched you. I know you begin work at seven in the morning and that often you remain in your office until I go to sleep. Sometimes, you do not recite the mid-morning prayers. I think it is because they bore you, not because you forget. On the rest day, you watch the TV. Soccer all day.”