The Devil's Banker (33 page)

It was blackmail of an enlightened variety. Marc Gabriel conducted his business as he pleased. Richemond prospered. The victim rose through the ranks and grew wealthy. All he had to do was turn a blind eye and supply the occasional snippet of information. Of late, he had been particularly helpful.

“This is a first call for Air France, Flight 382 to Paris. All passengers are requested to proceed to Gate 66 for immediate boarding.”

Gabriel disconnected his laptop and slipped it into his case. Leaving the lounge, he accessed his voice mail one last time. Again there was no message. He was disappointed.

“George,” he whispered with silent anger. “Have you failed me?”

But already he was planning his revenge.

They drove.

Chapel surveyed Sarah from behind half-closed lids, secretly mapping every inch of her face, from the careless swell of her lower lip to the tense set of her eyes, from the sculpted chin to the warrior’s scar that traced a jagged crescent on her cheekbone.

He’d never been able to get women right. He was no ladies’ man, but he’d had his share of girlfriends. Somehow, though, they never turned out to be the people he thought they were when he met them. The shy ones turned into blurters. The loud ones suddenly shut up. The athletes were self-absorbed. The bookworms as nosy as a pew of spinsters. Did the women actually change, or was he just terrible at figuring them out?

The car passed beneath a streetlight. The halogen glow slashed Sarah’s face and he was left with a vivid image of her.

Who are you?
he wondered silently.
Beneath the uniform? Beneath the cocksureness and the call to duty? Who are you when you take a bath and wash off the day’s reality? Are you so deep inside your secret world that you’ve lost all trace of yourself and that you look for your job to tell you how to act, what you should feel, and who you ought to love?

But in the end only one question mattered.
Are you the one? Is this the way I’m supposed to feel when I’m in love?

“Look, Adam, it’s late. Let’s find a place to pull over and get some rest.”

“Keep going. I don’t want to miss that meeting.”

She pulled off the road forty minutes later at an AGIP truck stop on the other side of the border from Basel. Guiding the car down the off ramp, Sarah threw her eyes to the Autobahn. A BMW 535i painted the green and white of the German police slid past, languid as a shark.

“Our escort?” said Chapel.

“You knew?”

“So much for keeping our destination hidden. The Swiss are probably waiting on the other side of the border. Glen’s been keeping an eye on us all the way.”

“If he is, it’s for our own safety. That’s part of his job—to look after his own.”

If it is, in fact, Glen,
Sarah added silently. She doubted it. Excusing herself from the conference room in the Deutsche International Bank, she’d phoned Owen Glendenning herself to let him know the extent, if not the details, of their discovery, and their plan to drive to Zurich. He had no need to follow them. Someone else had been keen to learn their destination. Who had alerted the police? The FBI? Judge Wiesel? Gadbois? She’d spotted the eyes, but she had no idea as to their ultimate allegiance.

The parking lot was half-full with big rigs, eighteen-wheel juggernauts, and RVs. Sarah pointed the car to a far corner of the lot, pushing the car over the curb and keeping the speed low as she crossed a wide meadow of waist-high grass.

“Where are we—”

“Patience, Mr. Chapel. Patience . . . unless, that is, you’d like to wake up in an hour, when every one of those trucks hits the road.”

The headlights played across a wide bank of trees fifty yards ahead. Rolling down the window, Sarah breathed in the cooling rush of fresh water. She killed the engine, and for a while they sat in silence, listening to the muted roar of a fast-flowing river.

“I won’t ask how you knew about this.”

“I didn’t. Just that there was a river in this direction. I figured it might be nice to relax somewhere more private than a truck stop. Call me a snob.”

She stepped out of the car. The night was warm and still. Crickets sawed restlessly while somewhere a motorbike puttered down a country road. She walked to the riverbank and stared at the moon’s curdled reflection in the black water. Adam joined her a moment later. She looked at him. Though he was staring into the sky, she could sense his expectation, scent his desire.

“How’s your shoulder?” Delicately, she ran a hand along the contours of his burn.

“Not bad,” he said, wincing. “Actually, it hurts like hell.”

“Nothing I’m doing.”

“No,” he answered rapidly.

“Can you get it wet?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You have more meds, don’t you?”

“Yeah. In the car.”

“Okay, then. We can’t show up in Zurich smelling like swine.” Sarah stepped away from him, and raising her hands in the air, pulled off her tank top. She enjoyed the sweep of his eyes over her breasts, the near rabid hunger there. A year without a woman. Poor boy. Bending, she removed her slacks and panties. She lingered a moment, sure to erase any objection. “Coming?”

They dried each other with their bodies. Sarah kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his neck, before allowing herself to taste him. He kissed her softly and she loved him for his restraint, knowing he wanted to devour her as much as she wanted to devour him. His body was as she’d imagined, the muscles sculpted, the skin pale and taut, every ridge of his abdomen visible. She looked at the shoulder and felt a wave of genuine pity. “My, my,” she said. “You’re braver than I thought. Third-degree?”

“Only a small patch of it.”

“We’ll have to be very careful with you, Mr. Chapel.”

“Not too careful,” he said.

Wrapping her arms around him, she lowered the both of them to the grass, silently ordering Adam to lie on his back. She ran her fingers across his body until he was rigid, his back arched, anxious. Only then did she climb on top of him. Suddenly, he paused. “Sarah Anouska Churchill, right?”

“Cross my heart,” she said, gasping as he entered her.

Closing her eyes, she fought back the biting recrimination. She had no choice but to lie. She had to ensure that Adam trusted her. After all, it was her job.

Chapter 36

Bank Menz hid on the second floor of a sixteenth-century building on the Augustinergasse, a winding, cobblestoned alley just off the Bahnhofstrasse in downtown Zurich. If the exterior of the building remained unchanged but for periodic renovations since Father Zwingli’s time, the interior was a state-of-the-art mélange of halogen lights, plasma screens, and stainless steel. At seven in the morning, the office bristled with the urgency of a ship at flank speed. The staff was present, the corridors brightly lit and humming with what Chapel could only think of as “Swiss efficiency,” the scent of freshly brewed coffee tickling the air.

“I hope the early hour didn’t cause too much of a problem,” said Dr. Otto Menz as he shepherded Chapel and Sarah Churchill through the warren of offices. “We like to make a good start on things.”

“Not at all,” replied Chapel. “We appreciate you seeing us at such short notice.”

“Short notice? We’ve been waiting six months to hear back from you.”

Menz was a spry, handsome seventy-year-old, his face tanned from weekends in the Alps, his white hair combed through with brilliantine, his blue eyes glinting with resolve. Directing his guests through the hallways, he never took his hand from Chapel’s back, patting him all the way as if he were welcoming home a long-lost son. The banker was as far from a gnome as Chapel could imagine.

“Right this way,” said Menz, motioning toward an open door that led to a conference room.

A second man waited inside, business card at the ready. He was tall, dark, funereal, with oversize horn-rimmed glasses. “Good morning,” he said in accented English. “My name is Dr. Irwin Senn. Corporate counsel.”

Chapel took the card and returned the firm handshake. The crisp professionalism of the place left him feeling distinctly underdressed. Khakis and a polo shirt didn’t cut it when you were going up against tailored three-piece pinstripes. Even his Lobbs failed to stare down Menz’s thousand-dollar ostrich-skin lace-ups.

“Good morning,” said Sarah. “The pleasure is ours.”

“Dr. Irwin Senn,” the lawyer repeated, carefully selecting another business card from his billfold and offering it to her across the table. “Corporate counsel.”

“Please, let us take our seats,” said Menz, and they all sat at once around the square glass table. “Well, well, you’re here at last. You were a bit vague last night. The security of the United States is a rather large statement.”

“We’ve come in connection with the bombing in Paris earlier this week,” explained Sarah. “Our investigation into the identity of the culprit and his associates turned up some transfers made to an account at your bank.”

“Five transfers, to be exact,” continued Chapel, “totaling two and one half million dollars that were made during the last half year.”

“Yes, yes, from the Deutsche International Bank,” said Otto Menz. “I’m well aware of what you’re talking about. We provided all pertinent information about the account to your good offices months ago.”

“You did?” Chapel had never heard of the Bank Menz until yesterday. Any reports of suspicious account activity—especially activity of this magnitude—should have crossed his desk immediately. Why hadn’t anyone at FTAT—Glendenning or Halsey, or whoever had caught the squelch, done something about it?

“You are with the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center?” Menz asked.

Chapel and Sarah said yes.

“Admiral Glendenning told us he was grateful for your assistance,” she added, lying with such grace and sincerity that for a moment even Chapel believed her. “Unfortunately, when investigations move so rapidly, it’s difficult for us to cull through past warnings.”

“You get a lot, do you?”

“Not enough,” said Sarah.

Menz raised an eyebrow. “Any about nuclear physicists?” When neither Chapel nor Sarah answered, he continued. “As I had suspected, the matter was potentially of vital importance. National security, you said.”

“Absolutely,” said Chapel.

“Well, then.” Folding his hands, Menz glanced at Dr. Senn, who nodded curtly, as if to say that Menz had been discharged of his obligations of client confidentiality. “The recipient of the funds is Dr. Mordecai Kahn. Does the name mean anything to you?”

Sarah and Chapel indicated it did not.

“He is an Israeli. A nuclear physicist. At least, he wrote as much on his account documents. Also a professor. He came into our offices nine months ago asking to open a numbered account. Quite concerned about confidentiality, I’ve been told. He informed us up front that he would be receiving large sums from abroad.”

“Did that strike you as odd?”

“Not at all. Most of our clients wire in money from foreign banks. It was only later, when the money arrived, that we grew concerned. Two and a half million dollars to a professor? A modest man, by all appearances. What could it be for? Royalties? Speaking fees? An inheritance, perhaps, but in five equal sums? I think not.”

“You met him?”

“Of course not.” Menz dismissed the suggestion out of hand. He might as well have been accused of replacing the toilet paper in the public rest rooms. “Our account officer took notes.” Menz consulted a sheet of paper. “ ‘Client poorly dressed. Digital watch. Tennis shoes. Nervous. In need of a shower.’ We like to be aware of these things.”

“Of course,” said Chapel, but something in his tone angered the older man.

“You see, Mr. Chapel, one must either ask no questions or ask many,” Menz argued. “There is no in-between. Willful ignorance is no longer tolerated.”

“What prompted you to contact us?” asked Sarah, touching Menz’s arm. “And may I say, we’re ever so grateful.”

“It was later,” said Menz, calmer now, “when we noticed the sums were coming from a dubious account. I can only say that this Claude François had raised some questions in the past. We bankers do talk. And, of course, there was the beneficiary: an Israeli scientist receiving money from a questionable account in Berlin. Why? For what reason? What services might he have performed? I was too frightened even to imagine. So I called you.”

So this was the new Switzerland, thought Chapel. The Swiss financial industry had undergone a sea change in the last six years. From impenetrable bastion of bank secrecy to an engaged, active, and cooperative partner in the international combat against money laundering and terrorist finance. Several factors had been responsible for the shift. First, the country had decided it was uncomfortable with its image as a partner of crooks and criminals. Second, many other countries had stepped up to challenge Switzerland as a fortress of secrecy. Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, and a slew of stamp-sized republics in the South Pacific all promised to guard a client’s secrecy against any and all intrusions. No longer did bank secrecy offer the Swiss banks a marketing advantage, a leg up on their opponents, as it were. It was this that decided the matter. Bank secrecy simply didn’t pay anymore. It might even be costing the Swiss money.

“Has Dr. Kahn withdrawn any money from the account?” Chapel asked.

“Seventy-seven thousand dollars wired to a BMW dealership in Vienna. That’s all. Not a dime more.”

“And would you happen to have an address for him?”

“Naturally. I have all the particulars here.”

At his beckoning, Dr. Senn passed copies of the documents to Chapel and Sarah. Kahn’s address was listed as Jabotinsky Street in Tel Aviv. His profession as “professor/research.” There was a home and work telephone. He’d named his wife as a beneficiary of the account. It all looked on the up-and-up. Except that a banker with forty years’ experience had sniffed that something was wrong and had decided that a Jewish physicist wearing cheap clothing, a digital watch, who was in need of a shower and acting nervously could only be receiving large sums for illicit acts.
Well then,
as Menz might have said. That was the way the system was supposed to work. Why did it feel to Chapel like such a miracle that for once it had?