Double, Double, Oil and Trouble

by Emma Lathen

  Burton Claster, the almost retired head of the Sloan Investment Division known as a “knucklehead” throughout the organization, who keeps getting the Sloan into bad investments including National Calculating Corporation among others.

  Mr. Elliman, Head of Sloan travel department seeking to broaden the horizons of Sloan executives business travels by including sightseeing, and usually failing.

  Characters only in Double Double Oil and Trouble

  Davidson Wylie, Macklin’s European manager

  Herr Leopold Grimm, Union Suisse boss.

  Paul Volpe, Macklin employee with Davidson Wylie when abducted.

  Hugo Cramer, Macklin boss in Houston

  Arthur Shute, New President of Macklin in Houston

  Captain Harbak, Turkish Police in charge

  Francesca Wylie, Davidson Wylie’s estranged wife.

  Simon Livermore, a senior civil servant in the Department of Energy who’s input was critical to determining the winner of the Noss Head contract.

  Jill Livermore, attractive young wife of Simon Livermore.

  Herr Klaus Engelhart, Marketing manager for Norddeutsche Werke GmbH of Hamburg, the major competitor to Macklin for the Noss Head project.

  James McMurtrey, Houston FBI agent assigned by Interpol to solve the kidnapping by examining Davidson Wylie

  Emma Lathen Political Mysteries

  As R. B. Dominic

  31. Murder Sunny Side Up 1968. Agriculture.

  32. Murder in High Place 1969. Overseas Travelers.

  33. There is No Justice 1971. Supreme Court.

  34. Epitaph for a Lobbyist 1974. Lobbyists.

  35. Murder Out of Commission 1976. Nuke Plants.

  36. The Attending Physician 1980. Health Care.

  37. Unexpected Developments 1983. Military.

  Tom Walker Mysteries

  Patricia Highsmith Style

  Deaver Brown, Author

  01. 18. Football & Superbowl.

  02. Abduct. Sexual Misconduct.

  03. Body. Planned Eliminations for Money.

  04. Comfortable. Avoiding Consequences.

  05. Death. Wrong Place at the Wrong Time.

  06. Enthusiast. Opportunity Murder.

  07. Fraud. Taking Your Chances.

  08. Greed. Heirs Who Know Better.

  09. Heat. Heir Arrogance.

  10. Island. Startup.

  A similarly popular Simply Media mystery series.

  Financial & Other Facts

  Emma Lathen and Tom Walker

  are about money and emotion.

  Simply Media will be offering Emma Lathen and Tom Walker

  eBook Collections at a discount.

  Thank you for reading our series.

  Enjoy and prosper!

  Deaver Brown, Publisher & Editor.

  www.simplymedia.com

  Chapter 1

  Raising the Rig

  On Wall Street, grief does not drape city lampposts in black. Joy can reign without leaving rose petals and laurel leaves for the Sanitation Department. In the financial community the emotions may be the same, but the symbols are different. One omitted dividend beats all the sackcloth and ashes in the world. Frequently it rivals suttee.

  Thus, whatever happens to Dow Jones, wreaths do not appear on the steps of the Federal Reserve, where they would not only be inappropriate, they would be misplaced. Because Wall Street transcends the short, narrow thoroughfare in the Borough of Manhattan. Wall Street is a creed, linking true believers on the Rue de la Bourse and the Paseo de la Castellana. Every non-collective onion sold in Moscow proves that the Real Presence can materialize anywhere.

  John Putnam Thatcher of the Sloan Guaranty Trust knew this very well. Unlike many people, he also knew that the best place to exploit his knowledge was on Wall Street proper, the Borough of Manhattan, the City of New York.

  But senior vice presidents are fair game. Important events demand important men. Let Australia expand her nickel capacity and Thatcher would find himself on Macquarie Street, Sydney. If Battle Creek planned to saturate Scandinavia with cornflakes, Thatcher would get to Copenhagen before the cereal sales people.

  It was inevitable, therefore, when the Sloan decided on a major reshuffling of its European credits, that John Thatcher, supported by his second-in-command, Charlie Trinkam, should expect to spend several weeks on one of the most heavily trafficked extensions of Wall Street—the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, Switzerland.

  This expectation did not include being awakened in the middle of the night in his comfortable bedroom at the Baur au Lac by a transatlantic call from the Sloan’s chairman of the board.

  “John! Thank God! I was afraid you might be out.”

  Thatcher stared at the phone. Voice, action, and words all suggested that in New York, George Lancer, that bulwark of respectability, was roaring drunk.

  “George, it’s three o’clock in the morning here. Why should I be out?”

  “Never mind. Just listen to me. It’s another terrorist kidnapping.”

  Thatcher automatically ran down the list of Sloan employees in South America. “Which one?” he asked tightly.

  “Oh my God, I never thought of that! It’s not one of ours. You remember I’m on the board at Macklin?”

  “Calm down, George.” Thatcher could think and speak more freely now that the victim was not someone he knew. “All right, you’re on Macklin’s board of directors. I suppose it’s one of theirs.”

  “Their European manager was kidnapped in Istanbul yesterday by some splinter group called Black Tuesday. They want a million and a half in bills deposited in a numbered account in Zurich tomorrow.”

  Thatcher could already foresee his distasteful role in this melodrama.

  “Macklin’s paying, I take it?”

  “We’re all down here at the Sloan, counting the money out. It’s going with a courier on the next plane to Zurich. He’ll give it to you, together with the kidnappers’ instructions and the number of the account. John, you won’t like some of the details these SOB’s insist on.”

  “What do you mean, some of them? The whole thing turns my stomach. What bank is the account at?”

  “Union Suisse.”

  “Wonderful!” Thatcher had left the executive offices of Union Suisse a bare nine hours ago. “Has anybody warned Grimm?”

  “John, I wanted to get you first. As soon as I hang up, I have to call Grimm—” Lancer paused painfully “—and then the TV stations.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  Thatcher had long since accepted the fact that doing business abroad separated him from his well-appointed office at the Sloan, from his invaluable Miss Corsa, and from all the other comforts of home.

  “But this takes the cake,” said Charlie Trinkam the next day.

  He and Thatcher, each carrying two large briefcases, were proceeding up the Bahnhofstrasse.

  “It is unusual, I grant you,” said Thatcher. “And I, for one, refuse to say that it’s all in a day’s work.” He had not turned his head. Without looking, he knew that Trinkam was scowling darkly. But there was another departure from normalcy. “Why are you talking out of the corner of your mouth, Charlie?”

  Charlie did not relax his precautions. “Lip readers,” he said lopsidedly.

  Still progressing, Thatcher considered this. “I doubt if anybody cares what we’re saying. It’s what we’re delivering that counts.”

  Charlie could hardly disagree. In the four bags were enough small unmarked bills to make up the ransom.

  Bad as this was, it was not the worst. Trained upon them as they traversed the final block of the Bahnhofstrasse were TV cameras from the BBC, TV Française, and CBS. Clattering overhead was a helicopter hired by Paris Soir, intent on an aerial view of this episode of history-in-the-making.

  “Goddamned bunch of nuts,” Charlie snarled.

  “Look on it as a tribute,” said Thatcher, shifting his burden as they finally neared the end of their ordeal by camera. “This whole absu
rd scenario is a compliment from some primitive minds.”

  Just ahead, a policeman was pulling open the great brass door of Union Suisse. Blinking unhappily, Leopold Grimm emerged, flinched visibly at the firing squad of photographers, then peered past the barricades in their direction.

  “Try selling Grimm that line,” Charlie replied with a resurgence of his usual irreverence. “You know, I’ve never seen him in broad daylight before. Terrible sight, isn’t he?”

  “He’s suffering,” said John Thatcher charitably.

  “Look at him! You’d think he’d had to hoof it three blocks, like us,” said Charlie.

  With the witching hour at hand, Thatcher ignored this complaint by a confirmed taxi-taker. In seconds, one and a half million dollars were going to be off the Sloan’s hands.

  “Good morning, Leopold,” he said soberly.

  Just then Paris Soir, coming in for a close-up, filled the heavens.

  “Such stupidity,” Grimm retorted, bobbing his head in truncated greeting. With a glare at the helicopter, he hurried Trinkam and Thatcher indoors. “I must apologize. They insisted on a camera in the lobby. But in my office we will be safe.”

  When they reached this sanctuary, Leopold Grimm’s agitation fell away to reveal the true man.

  He was cold, formidable, and angry.

  “So!” he grunted, waving Thatcher and Trinkam to chairs. “Games for children! Evil children!”

  Rescuing Davidson Wylie, Macklin’s European manager, was an international exercise in fury. Across the Atlantic, the Sloan and the U.S. Treasury growled and rumbled. Here, authorities of the Canton of Zurich and the Republic of Switzerland cursed in four languages. No doubt the Turks were fulminating all over Asia Minor.

  Thatcher himself resented force under duress.

  Charlie Trinkam could always tell when it was time for him to pick up the ball: “Here is one and a half million dollars in small bills, Herr Grimm,” he said formally, depositing his share on Grimm’s desk and stooping for Thatcher’s. Straightening, he tried to relieve the tension. “You’d better count it, Leopold.”

  This mild pleasantry nearly tripped them up. Grimm had to force a smile. “Somebody will certainly count it, Herr Trinkam,” he said, training a crisp flow of German at his intercom. “We, meanwhile, will drink something.”

  By the time various minions had removed the ransom and provided coffee, brandy, and a pastry tray, the atmosphere had improved. But no amount of strudel makes an obligatory hour less tedious.

  Grimm was aware of this. “Again, I apologize. But Hummel says that it will take at least an hour.”

  Hummel was the Zurich police. Thatcher had dealt with him at the Hotel Baur au Lac before he and Charlie set forth. Here at the other end, Hummel was still stage-managing. But the script had been written by others.

  “Have we covered the points in the ransom note?” Thatcher asked, pulling out his copy and adding a final tick mark.

  American exploiters of the emergent world! Take warning! Today we have seized a prisoner of war from the Macklin Company. He will be executed unless you follow these instructions.

  1. A restitution of $1.5 million must be made to us. You will assemble this sum in small unmarked bills at the Sloan Guaranty Trust in New York.

  2. An officer of the Sloan will carry the money into the main office of Union Suisse in Zurich on Wednesday, July 22. There will be live coverage by CBS, BBC and TV Française.

  3. The money will be deposited in account numbered: 703 1218 of Union Suisse.

  4. There will be no police surveillance of any person leaving Union Suisse on July 22.

  If these instructions are followed, clemency will be granted and the prisoner released within thirty-six hours.

  By order of BLACK TUESDAY

  “Now it’s up to them,” Thatcher concluded.

  During the next few hours, somebody would enter the Union Suisse and leave with $1.5 million in cash.

  “With ‘no surveillance,’ “Grimm quoted scornfully. “That was a condition. Switzerland has solemnly promised not to interfere.”

  “There’s another tribute for you, John,” said Charlie.

  “Exactly,” Thatcher replied. “Black Tuesday certainly trusts the Swiss.”

  Grimm was unmoved by the compliment. “They are right to do so. They will not be shot down like dogs the minute they appear. We will cooperate fully to regain your Davidson Wylie. But then, we will teach this Black Tuesday a little lesson.”

  Thatcher could only hope that Switzerland would succeed.

  “We will provide an example to would-be kidnappers,” continued Grimm with steely satisfaction. “No, they will not enjoy this ransom!”

  “Money isn’t everything,” Charlie said heretically. “I’d put my marbles on Turkish justice. That is, I would with garden-variety crooks. With loonies like Black Tuesday, you never can tell.”

  The idiom puzzled Grimm, but he grasped the thrust of Charlie’s argument. “You mean that the terrorists ignore deterrents? I agree. To stamp out this scourge, we should refuse to deal with such scum, no matter what they threaten!”

  If the three of them had not been sitting in Grimm’s office, obeying the kidnappers to the letter, this martial pronouncement would have sounded better.

  “But it is a difficult decision,” Grimm conceded to the unvoiced rebuttal. “I can comprehend Macklin’s policy. It would not be easy for them to say, ‘Do what you will! We do not pay!’”

  “In addition, I understand they really need Wylie,” said Thatcher. “Macklin hasn’t done much building in Europe and Wylie is their expert.”

  “North Sea oil,” said Grimm, knowledgeably. “Macklin is one of the construction firms bidding on the tanker farm off Noss Head. I remember now.”

  Repressing a smile, Thatcher nodded. The billion-dollar facility in north Scotland would involve tanker berths, onshore pumping stations, and pipelines to outrun the imagination of man. The British Department of Energy had received bids from German firms, Swedish firms, Japanese firms, and Macklin. Behind every bidder was bedrock engineering expertise—and a powerful bank. Somewhere, somehow, Leopold Grimm and Union Suisse were deeply involved.

  “So Davidson Wylie is worth far more than one and a half million dollars, if he can get Noss Head for Macklin.” Grimm was reassessing the whole situation.

  “That certainly entered their calculations,” said Thatcher. “In principle, Macklin and the U.S. government, and the Sloan, I might add, agree with you about terrorists completely.”

  With a tidy gesture, Grimm waved principle away. “Still it would be satisfying to capture these kidnappers.”

  “For all of us,” said Thatcher truthfully.

  Yet he could not help a selfish sense of relief that Davidson Wylie’s fate was no longer in his hands. With luck, he and Trinkam could return to their intensive scrutiny of foreign-exchange desks.

  Charlie was not superstitious about putting optimism into words.

  “Well, it could have been worse,” he said, checking his watch. “Getting up the cash was no real problem.

  What if these clowns had wanted us to empty Sing Sing? Just as long as they deliver Wylie safe and sound.”

  “I am sure they will,” said Grimm quickly.

  The automatic reassurance amused Thatcher. The kidnappers trusted Swiss banks and vice versa.

  He did not ruffle Grimm by saying as much, but followed Charlie’s lead. “Your people must be just about through, Leopold. We leave Davidson Wylie in your capable hands,” he said.

  In the larger sense he was premature, as the weeks and months to come would prove. In the smaller sense, he was corrected immediately.

  After a perfunctory buzz, a trim competent woman entered Grimm’s office, notebook in hand. Out of deference to the visitors, Fräulein Leutenegger, a spiritual sister to Miss Corsa if Thatcher had ever seen one, made her report in serviceable English. Like Miss Corsa, she planted her darts with no visible emotion.

  “We
have completed the tally, Herr Grimm. I am afraid that the money brought by Herr Thatcher and Herr Trinkam—” here Fräulein Leutenegger glanced briefly at them “—is exactly $17 short.”

  Instinctively, two bankers thought about reprimands for cashier’s desks and supervisory personnel. The third thought about escape.

  “Leopold,” said Charlie Trinkam, “will you take a personal check?”

  Chapter 2

  Exploratory Drilling

  Following his appearance on world TV, Thatcher was delighted to retire to private life or, in this case, the Hotel Baur au Lac. The service was excellent, the view was breathtaking and, best of all, there was not a camera in sight. After the Bahnhofstrasse, it was a haven.

  But only for a very short time. Thatcher was relaxing with Charlie over a well-earned drink when he idly noticed a latecomer haranguing the headwaiter. Since the altercation was in rapid-fire French, his attention would have shifted if the dispute had not headed his way.

  “Mr. Thatcher, this gentleman desires to speak with you,” said the waiter, disassociating himself from any consequences.

  His catch was nothing to fill any maître d’hôtel with pride. The young man’s clothes, hair, and chin line all gave evidence of neglect. He did not believe in wasting time on niceties either. Speaking in unmistakably American accents, he sank into a spare chair and blurted:

  “Did it go all right? Did Black Tuesday get their money?”

  Charlie Trinkam had already been interviewed by too many people. “Why didn’t you watch it on TV?” he retorted. “Everyone else did.”

  “I just got off the plane,” the young man explained earnestly. “It took hours to get cleared out of Istanbul.”

  “Istanbul?” Charlie repeated, while John Thatcher frowned.

  There was a harsh laugh. “Talk about locking the stable door too late! The terrorists have got Dave somewhere right under the noses of the Turkish police, and the cops give me a hard time about going to Switzerland. Then I got tangled up with some kind of rock festival at the Zurich airport. There are thousands of longhairs—”

  “Just a minute,” Thatcher interrupted. “Exactly who are you?” -