by David Lender
The man paused. Stillman said, “I understand.”
Out of his peripheral vision, Ducasse could see Johnston staring at him. He shifted his gaze to meet the man’s. The man held his. After a few moments Ducasse looked away at Shepherds, yet he could still feel Johnston’s gaze on him. Ducasse’s neck began to feel prickly where it met his collar. He sensed perspiration on his forehead. He told himself to breathe evenly.
Shepherds continued. “We have not yet informed the Swiss authorities, or filed with them any preliminary papers regarding extradition.”
Stillman nodded.
“Our purpose here today is to assure you of the gravity of the charges and discuss how the matter might be resolved without presenting them to a grand jury and formally filing them.”
Ducasse glanced at Stillman. Their agreement was no deal today, even if something that looked attractive presented itself. They would just listen, then decide later how to proceed.
Stillman didn’t respond to Shepherds. He sat waiting.
Ducasse took in a deep breath.
Shepherds said, “We know you’re acquainted with an American woman, Caitlin Dolan, posing as Angela Conklin, who invested $30 million in your Fund V. Caitlin Dolan is a lawyer formerly with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York who is now a wanted felon in the U.S.”
Ducasse thrust his head back as he felt a bolt of shock. Formerly? Wanted felon?
“We also know you’ve met a man, Walter Conklin, another felon wanted in the U.S., under the alias of John Rudiger.”
Where is this going? Are they both professional con artists? Is that what they were about with that phony propylene deal?
Shepherds went on. “Dolan and Conklin approached U.S. Attorney Charles Holden in New York about bartering their help in bringing about your arrest and prosecution in exchange for immunity from prosecution in the U.S. for both of them. They believe we cut a deal to do just that. I can assure you we haven’t. We provided them with the complaint they sent you so that they could follow it up by meeting with you to discuss the terms of your cooperation with us. They intend to represent that Dolan is still with the U.S. Attorney’s Office working undercover, and that Conklin is cooperating with us in various sting operations to apprehend financial frauds in exchange for leniency in sentencing for his crimes. I can assure you that none of that is true, either. Do you understand?”
Stillman said, “Yes.”
Shepherds looked Ducasse in the eye. “Mr. Ducasse?”
Ducasse nodded. The realization was coming to him that this wasn’t going to proceed as he first assumed. He was beginning to feel lightheaded.
Shepherds said, “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is interested in apprehending these two felons and extraditing them back to the United States. I’m authorized by Charles Holden to offer you this deal: cooperate with us in apprehending Dolan and Conklin, and if we are successful in doing so, we will bury the complaint we sent you, never to file it with a grand jury to result in formal charges against you in the United States, and never to have it surface again. Further, we will neither show it to nor discuss it in any manner with the Swiss authorities.”
Ducasse had to force himself from exhaling his relief in a whoosh. He sank back into his chair, seeming to lose control of his muscles.
He spoke for the first time. “What are you asking me to do?”
Shepherds looked directly at him again. “Wait in your office for them to arrive for your scheduled 3:00 p.m. meeting today and we will do the rest.”
Stillman said, “The rest?”
“The Swiss authorities have been informed that Dolan and Conklin are likely here in Geneva already. They will apprehend them as they attempt to enter your offices and will be extradited to the United States.”
No one spoke for a few moments. Then Stillman said, “When will we get this in writing?”
Shepherds said, “You won’t.”
Stillman said, “Then how can we be certain we really have a deal?”
“You can’t.”
Stillman wrinkled his brow as if in pain and said, “But surely you can’t expect—”
“Rupert, stop, please,” Ducasse cut in. He looked at Shepherds. “I accept your proposal.”
Holden woke up at 6:00 a.m. without his alarm that morning. Shepherds and Johnston were supposed to call him at the office at the open of business New York time to report back on the meeting with Ducasse. By 7:00 a.m. he got tired of sitting around wondering and preempted them, phoning their hotel from his apartment. Shepherds answered and put him on speakerphone.
“So how’d it go?” Holden said.
“Just as we planned,” Shepherds said. “Ducasse will play ball. As if we left him a choice. His meeting with Conklin and Dolan is set for 3:00 p.m. Geneva time today. The Geneva police will pick them up as they arrive at Ducasse’s office.”
“Great,” Holden said. “Any issues?”
Holden heard one of them clear his throat, then Johnston say, “Only the issue of the immunity letter.”
“And that’s a nonissue. Johnston, you’re a smart lawyer, right? I took you guys through this before.”
“But Conklin and Dolan have a binding immunity letter from the AG of the United States.”
Holden exhaled, impatient. “If, and only if, they help us arrest and prosecute the Ducasses. And like I told you before, we won’t be arresting and prosecuting the Ducasses. The Swiss will. It’s our loophole to neuter their immunity letter.”
“Yes,” Johnston said, “but the Ducasses have defrauded U.S. investors. It’s an actionable offense for us. We can’t just walk away from that.”
“We can and we will,” Holden said. “The Ducasses are peanuts compared with bringing in Conklin and Dolan.”
“They’ve orchestrated a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.”
Holden raised his voice. “And if we wanted to prosecute them, we wouldn’t get a shot at them until they got out of jail in Switzerland. Maybe you guys will still be around in 20 years, but I’ll be on the beach someplace.”
Johnston wouldn’t let it go. “We can turn them over to the Swiss, show them everything we have.”
“Not on your life!” Holden shouted. “That’s one step away from pursuing them ourselves. If we took everything Conklin and Dolan gave us and handed it to the Swiss, they’d be prosecuting the Ducasses as our proxy. It would make it too easy for Conklin and Dolan to convince a U.S. judge that they fulfilled their end of the deal on the AG’s immunity letter. The judge lets them walk—with full immunity—we lose our splashy bust, and we look like idiots on top of it.”
Holden paused, ready to slam Johnston if he went on. When all he heard was silence on the line, he said, “I appreciate your youthful zeal, but AG Martin would have my ass if we even flirted with anything that would allow Conklin and Dolan to rely on his immunity letter. We’re gonna do this my way.” He paused again, waiting until he heard a few more moments of silence at the other end. Then he said, “Great job today, guys. We’re almost there,” and hung up.
At 2:30 p.m. Geneva time, Rudiger decided Katie and he should have another cup of tea. He thought it might help calm Katie down. She showed few outward signs of tension, and she wasn’t a pacer or fidgeter, but she was alternately doing both. She’d cross from the living room of their suite into the bedroom, preoccupied, walk onto the balcony to glance off at the view, her mind probably not even taking it in. She’d packed her bag hours earlier, and now periodically reopened it to check for things, even walking back into the bathroom to make sure she’d collected all her toiletries.
Rudiger made two cups of tea and put both of them on the table on the balcony.
“Join me for a last cup of tea on the balcony?”
Katie smiled at him and crossed the room. They sat beside each other at the table, looking out over Geneva, Old Town speckled with sun on the
hill, the lake off in the distance, green extending seemingly forever beyond it.
“We have plenty of time,” Rudiger said.
Katie looked at her cell phone. “Not really.”
“We’re going to be late for this meeting,” Rudiger said. “On purpose.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I always try to be late to meetings like this. Let Ducasse stew a little, let Holden worry that something’s gone wrong. Puts everybody off balance, gives us the advantage.”
“However slim,” Katie said. She smirked at him.
“Alright, there’s another reason, too. Remember Krause, whose PI firm I hired to check up on Bemelman and watch our backs? I asked Krause to put some of his people on the ground out there, eyes and ears to make sure we aren’t walking into something. Particularly not another goon with a gun like the one Ducasse sicced on me last night.”
He saw Katie cringe and decided he wouldn’t bring up the subject of his encounter last night again. He said, “I’m okay, really,” and smiled. “Just some bruises.”
After a moment she said, “I think it was back in London I told you, ‘Remind me never to underestimate you.’ ”
Rudiger reached for Katie’s hand, sipped his tea. They sat like that for a while longer, and then he said, “I told you last night I packed a blond wig and a fake mustache for me, and our cosmetic contact lenses.”
“I touched up my dark hair in case I need to remove my wig for a getaway disguise,” Katie said.
Rudiger looked over at her and smiled, squeezed her hand. “Good. We’re ready, then.”
As he said it he was aware of the butterflies in his stomach.
Ducasse stood in his office, comfortable in its enveloping familiarity and security. He looked out the windows, standing in front of them between the chairs that faced his desk. It was one of the rare times he had the motorized window shades pulled up and the mahogany shutters open to allow the day to illuminate his cave.
He held the prepaid cell phone he’d received an hour earlier by messenger, a mysterious note enclosed in the envelope from Holden that said, ‘It is essential that you keep this with you. I will call you once the show starts. Holden.’ Its bulk felt awkward in his hand, but less so than if he put it in his coat pocket, where it would cause an unsightly bulge and press into his side in his form-fitting custom suit.
He kept watching Rue Beauregard below, expecting to see a taxi or limo drive down the one-way street from the right and stop in front of his building, anxious to get this meeting over with. He checked his watch again.
3:15 p.m. They’re late.
He looked to the left down the street, checking for the Geneva police. He knew they must be there, but couldn’t see anyone milling around. Activity was usual for midafternoon. He glanced to the right again, now saw a van blocking the middle of the street, congestion behind it, then both rear doors open on a taxi a few cars back. A tall man with brown hair and a slight-framed woman with midlength strawberry-blonde hair got out of the taxi, both dressed in conservative business suits. They walked down Rue Beauregard, then joined together on the sidewalk, heading toward Ducasse’s building.
His pulse picked up. They were half a block away, no one following them, still heading toward his building.
Where are the police?
Ducasse saw two men climb out of a parked car, then block the sidewalk in front of the couple. Another six men emerged from three more parked cars and jogged down the sidewalk from behind. The men encircled the couple, spoke to them for a few moments and then piled them into one of the parked cars. The other men walked back up the street and climbed back into their cars. The drivers of the last two cars placed portable revolving police lights on their roofs and pulled out into the street with sirens wailing.
Ducasse’s heart was thumping as all four unmarked police cars drove off in a convoy. He began to laugh, and then tears flushed into his eyes and his knees started to buckle. He stepped to the side and leaned on one of the chairs.
Oh my God, it’s over.
The prepaid cell phone in his hand rang, startling him. He stood up straight and put the phone to his ear.
“I need you to listen carefully and do exactly what I tell you to do,” the voice said. It was Rudiger, or Conklin, or whatever bloody name the man was using today. “First check your cell phone for an email I sent you.”
He pulled his phone from his coat pocket and looked at it.
“You see it?” Rudiger said. “It’s from [email protected].”
Ducasse found it.
“It’s a draft I forwarded to you. Do you see the list of people the final is addressed to? One is the guy who writes DealBook for the New York Times, another is one of the senior reporters for the Wall Street Journal and the last is the guy who writes the Lex column for the Financial Times. I knew all those guys in my former life, and still talk to them every couple of years. The email is only two pages long, concise for its sensational content. It also has about a ten-page attachment in a Word document. Don’t let me stop you from reading, but it summarizes the complaint from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including the sworn affidavits of the witnesses. I have that email teed up in my iPhone right now, and all I need to do in order to destroy you completely is hit ‘Send.’ You want me to do that?”
“Don’t be absurd. What do you want?”
“I want you to get your father and go downstairs immediately and get into the black SUV you’ll see out front with the door open. Do it now. Don’t think, don’t stop, don’t do anything else. I’m watching you through my eyes and ears on the street and if you try anything, I’m going to hit send. Go, now.” The line cut off.
Ducasse ran from his office, his heart pounding again, retrieved Father and then rushed downstairs. He found the SUV with the door open. A man in a suit and tie ushered Father and him in, and then sat down by the left side door. Another man in a suit and tie was in the front passenger seat. The SUV drove off. The man next to him said, “Gentlemen, your cell phones please.” Ducasse took Father’s from him, pulled his from his pocket and handed them both to the man, who opened the backs and removed the batteries, then put them in his pocket. Ducasse realized he was still clutching the prepaid cell phone.
The man said, “You can keep that one if you want.”
He saw another black SUV start to pull out from the curb, causing their driver to swerve around it, barely missing it, and then he heard the crunch of fenders behind him, spun his head and saw that another black SUV had crashed with the one they’d almost hit. He heard horns honking from the inevitable pileup of cars behind the crash. The driver of their SUV sped down the street, waited for a moment at a red light, then pulled out and ran it straight through the intersection, cars screeching to a halt, some swerving around them. Now he heard police sirens behind him. His hopes rose, thinking maybe the police would rescue Father and him.
The man next to him said, “Nothing to be alarmed about. Please continue to look straight ahead.”
The SUV proceeded out of Old Town across the Pont du Mont-Blanc and on for a few more blocks, turned onto Rue de Lausanne, then entered the parking garage across the street from the Warwick Hotel. It drove all the way to the back of the garage and stopped next to a van marked with the name Dunkel Laundry Service Company.
The man next to him said, “Gentlemen, if you’ll come with us, please.” The man got out of the SUV, as did the other man in the front seat, and they ushered Father and him into the back of the van and closed the doors. He heard the SUV drive away. Two other men were inside the van wearing tan coveralls and caps with the name of the laundry on them. They put identical coveralls on Father, then him. The men put caps on their heads as well.
One of the men in coveralls seated them on the floor of the van. “Don’t yell, don’t make a scene or you’ll regret it. Remember that “Send” button on Mr. Rudiger’s ce
ll phone,” the man said directly to him. Ducasse’s mind started racing, his knees feeling weak again. He looked at Father, who seemed resigned and calm.
The van started moving and a moment later he heard sounds of the city as it pulled out into the street.
Ducasse felt his heart sink.
Rudiger and Katie were seated on the sofa in the suite they’d rented at the Hotel du Rhone. He’d just finished explaining to Katie the arrangements he made with Michel, their StudioCanal producer in France, for his actors to perform the little charade on the street in front of Ducasse’s building. And with Krause’s PI firm for the snatch of Ducasse and his father.
“You could have told me,” Katie said.
“I didn’t want you to worry, thought it might throw you off,” Rudiger said. He heard a knock on the door.
“That’s them.” Rudiger’s pulse quickened.
He got up and opened the door. Four men in tan coveralls and hats walked in. The PI’s men stripped the coveralls and hats from Ducasse and his father. They threw the coveralls and hats on a chair, then left the suite.
“Sit down,” Rudiger said and pointed to chairs across the coffee table from where Katie sat. He scrutinized Ducasse; he had the look of a frightened animal, ready to attack out of panic. Rudiger sat down next to Katie and held up his iPhone. He said to Ducasse, “Remember, all I need to do is hit ‘Send.’ So keep yourself under control.”
Ducasse’s father reared back and said, “This is an outrage. Do you honestly think you can—”
“You should be quiet, old man,” Rudiger said.
Ducasse said, “Yes, Father. Be quiet.”
His father muttered something under his breath and then held his tongue.
Ducasse said, “What do you want?”
Rudiger stared him in the eye. “We’ll do the talking.”
Katie leaned forward and said, “Our original game plan was simply to get the $30 million, plus expenses, that you bilked me out of with your scam. Then things got a little more complicated. We ran into our old friend, Charlie Holden.”
