An Almighty Conspiracy – A novel, a thriller, four people doing the unexpected

by Schäfer, Fred

“The purpose of this letter is threefold. Firstly, I ask you to cancel every aspect of your plan concerning Bohemia Park. Forget it! It’s a stupid idea. Trust me. Secondly, cancel your plans of becoming the mayor of New York. Forget it. This too is a stupid idea. Trust me once more. Pretend in your own mind that you never even considered it. And thirdly, arrange for a payment of five million dollars into one of my accounts. You will find details about how to complete this transaction in the second attachment to this letter.

  “To avoid any misunderstanding, it will not be good enough if you comply with one or two of the above mentioned requests only. You must comply with all three without the slightest deviation. Please also be aware, although this letter was given to your daughter and she probably gave it to your wife who gave it to you, whatever you decide, neither your life nor the lives of your family members will be in danger as far as I am concerned. If you do not comply I will hand over all evidence that I have against you to the authorities. You will end up in prison for around ten years. (If the authorities discover that you were also involved in murder, things will look a lot worse.)

  “I believe what I am asking of you is not an excessive price for staying out of trouble with the authorities and ultimately out of prison. I could have asked for fifty million dollars, which I know you have at your disposal, and could have made death threats, but nothing of that kind will happen. If you do what I asked you to do, then this will be the end of it.

  “It is probably not a good idea to give this letter and its attachment to the police. It would be like admitting yourself voluntarily to a long prison sentence. You of course can hire private detectives. This is okay. It doesn’t bother me, as long as you don’t miss the following deadlines: Declare publicly the end of your candidacy for the job of mayor of New York within the next 48 hours. With respect to the payment of five million dollars, make sure everything in the attached instructions is complied with by noon on Friday this week. I will interpret the fulfilment of these two requests as meaning that you have also cancelled every aspect of your plan concerning Bohemia Park. Should at any time in the future this interpretation turn out to be wrong, I will provide the relevant authorities with the documents outlined above.

  “Thank you for your attention.”

  “Wow! That’s it?” Christina asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “And it worked?”

  “It worked; the same in other cases. It worked to the dot almost every time. Only in a couple of cases it didn’t work.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Exactly what I said in my letter.”

  “I guess that meant you didn’t receive any money.”

  “That’s right. I handed the matter over to the authorities and that was the end of it as far as I was concerned.

  “I like it, I really do. But now tell me, who is we?”

  “My mother, her partners and I.”

  “Your mother? Really.”

  “Yes. She is a very nice, kind elderly lady. I think the two of you will get on very well.”

  31

  “What is your speciality?” Nancy asked Tony.

  “I am good at transferring other people’s money into my accounts.”

  “Are you a hacker?”

  “The Internet is an open book for me, but that’s not what I had in mind.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Okay. I am good at selling other people’s properties and keeping the money for myself,” Tony replied. “I’ve done that a few times. Actually, when we arrived at the airport and when Daniel Brice and his colleague asked us to follow them, I thought it was about me. You see, some years ago I advertised myself as an English gentleman with a United Kingdom and French real estate licence. Soon afterwards I sold a property in the south of France on behalf of a corrupt French politician to an Arabian sheik.”

  “And the French politician is still waiting for his money?”

  “Well, I think by now he has given up waiting. Besides, I wouldn’t say it was exactly his money. He sold weapons to the Iranians and bought the property from the profit he made in that business. A few years ago the French authorities put him in jail. Today he is a sick and destroyed man.”

  “Did you bring him to their attention?”

  “No. I had nothing to do with it. I conned him and relieved him of a small part of his undeserved wealth, that’s all. His wife discovered that he had an affair. When she confronted him things got out of hand and he strangled her. This is one thing the French don’t like. They don’t mind affairs, they don’t mind a bit of corruption, but they do not like it when men kill their wives.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s true. In return for having affairs men are meant to treat their wives generously.”

  “You’re not making this up?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “How come you know so much about French culture?”

  “I lived in France for nearly ten years,” Tony replied. “It was only three years ago that I returned to New York.”

  “What else are you good at?”

  “What else am I good at? I can cook a good pizza, I think of myself as a great lover, I …”

  “No, no Tony, be serious,” Nancy interrupted him. “What else are you doing professionally apart from selling other people’s properties and keeping their money?”

  “Not really their money, please,” Tony corrected her. “I only take money from disgustingly bad people.”

  “Do you have a definition of disgustingly bad people?”

  “Okay. In my book disgustingly bad people are people who deliberately and knowingly engage in profit making activities that cause harm to poor and disadvantaged people.”

  “Like weapon dealers, drug dealers, corrupt politicians?”

  “Yes, that kind of people,” Tony confirmed.

  “But they don’t always have real estate to sell?” Nancy wondered.

  “That’s right, but they almost always have a problem that most wealthy people have.”

  “I didn’t know wealthy people have problems,” Nancy commented with a smile.

  “For some it is a problem, for some a challenge,” Tony replied. “You, too, are confronted by it. What could it be?”

  “You tell me.”

  “They have to decide what to do with their money. They have to invest it. They want to double and triple it. It doesn’t matter how they got their money, by honest means or by deceitful means, once they have it they want it to grow.”

  “And … this is where you come in?”

  “I can help them to double their money by perfectly legal means in half the time other investment gurus can do it. I am not only saying that, I can prove it because I can show them that I have an impeccable money management record that goes back nearly thirty years.”

  “How can you show them?”

  “I show them the taxation records of my twenty eight year old boutique options and other derivatives trading company. But not only that, I invite them to check these records with the taxation office.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “A very smart programmer created these records. They hang like balloons in the taxation database. They do not appear anywhere. They float, one could say, seemingly unattached to anything. Except when certain online enquiries are performed for very specific accounts, they connect themselves temporarily and do their work. Apart from that they don’t cause any questions, any headaches, any statistical conflicts … They are there and they are not there. They are there when they are needed and they are not there when they are not needed. They have remained undetected by every audit that has taken place so far.”

  “Wow!”

  “There is one challenge however.”

  “What is that?”

  “They have to be removed, modified, sometimes totally rewritten and then reinserted every time the tax people make changes to their system. That can be a headache and that’s when I well and truly earn my money.
”

  “What are you saying?” Nancy looked puzzled. But then, before Tony replied, she asked almost in disbelief, “Are you the very smart programmer you talked about?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Wow! You are not just a good looking playboy.”

  “I am not a playboy!”

  “You can actually hack into the taxation database and systems and whatever they call this technical stuff and more or less do what you like?”

  “That makes it sound very simple, but in a nutshell, yes.”

  “But how then do you get your hands on the money from these disgustingly bad people?”

  “They give it to me. They transfer it into one of my accounts, usually an account with a reputable NY bank. Of course, the account is not in my real name. It’s an investment company account.”

  “But that account can be linked to your name?” Nancy challenged.

  “No. I use fake names, fake IDs; with every new disgustingly bad person I first recreate my entire personal and investment company identity, including the relevant details in the taxation database. As I indicated, I really do earn my money.”

  “Ha!”

  “What do you mean, ha!?”

  But Nancy did not allow herself to be side-tracked. She pretty much had the rest of Tony’s scam worked out, she just needed to have it confirmed in her own words. “So,” she continued Tony’s story, “once the money is in your New York bank account, you transfer it into an overseas account and that is more or less it.”

  “More or less. It’s a bit more complicated. So that the money can’t be traced I place it through several fake investment schemes first, then through a few South American banks, then I have to wipe out every record of the fake investment schemes and then more or less I have the money where I want it.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Yes, that’s it. – Well, there’s one more important thing. I have to provide the disgustingly bad person with an investment certificate, which looks a bit like a piece of art and which confirms that his money has been received and that the company guarantees that it will be doubled, usually within two and a half years.”

  “You give a guarantee?”

  “Of course, wouldn’t you like one, if you gave me a few millions to invest?”

  Nancy was impressed. She realised that Tony’s scheme was no less sophisticated than her own so called money laundering scheme. She couldn’t help thinking, This is my man. I do love him; not because of his money, but because of his values and his courage and his sense of humour. Because of everything. Then she thought of another question. “If Will Gates offered you a hundred million or so to invest, what would you do?”

  “He actually did,” Tony replied. “Not exactly a hundred millions, but quite a bit.”

  “Really! What did you do?”

  “I invested it.”

  “In what?”

  “Cash deposits. Very conservatively, until the time is right to move back into growth stocks.”

  “Did you give him a guarantee?”

  “No way. Money guarantees are lies; everybody should know that. Actually, this is one of the things they should teach kids in school.”

  “I agree. They don’t teach kids nearly enough about money. But to come back to Will Gates, did you give him a receipt?”

  “Oh yes, I gave him a receipt. He is a good friend of mine, but you still have to give a receipt.”

  32

  Mike introduced Christina to the elderly lady who had assisted him in providing a new ID and a new life in Australia for the abused woman and her boyfriend. “Mamma, this is Christina Hoffman, the woman I told you about. Christina, this is my mother; her name is Natalie Richard and I’m certain she doesn’t want you to call her Mrs Richard.”

  “I have been looking forward to meeting you Christina,” Natalie Richard said and took Christina’s right hand in both of her hands and gave it a gentle squeeze. Christina noticed that she spoke with a light accent, perhaps a French accent, but then the thought flashed through her mind that it was more likely an Italian accent. The name Natalie Richard may not be her real name, but a name that implied a French background and at the same time was reasonably common in the USA, especially in a multicultural city like New York.

  “You are very kind,” Christina replied. “I, too, have been looking forward to meeting you Mrs Richard.”

  “Please call me Natalie. Mike is quite right, I would prefer it if you didn’t call me by my surname.”

  “Thank you Natalie,” Christina acknowledged.

  “There are three more people we need to introduce you to,” Mike said to Christina. “They are Sarah, Vanessa and Steven, an integral part of this household. They are friends and partners and they assist mum in hundreds of ways and also provide protection when needed. They should be here any moment.”

  They arrived within a few minutes and were formally introduced. They were all in their early forties. After they and Christina had exchanged a few words, during which Christina paid attention to their use of the English language, she concluded that they had an English speaking background, but whether it was American, Canadian, English or perhaps even Australian, she was unable to guess. Their English sounded polished and yet natural, a bit like the well practised English of some TV journalists who had trained themselves to speak their own brand of English, which allowed their audiences to recognize them as soon as they had spoken just one or two sentences.

  “Sarah, Vanessa and Steven have been with me for over ten years,” Natalie said to Christina. “They are members of my family, they know every aspect of my business and you can talk openly in their company.” After a short while she continued, “The decisions we have to make tonight will impact their lives as much as our lives.”

  They moved into a room which was a combination of library, reading room and relaxation room. There was a coffee table with a four seater sofa on one side and several comfortable arm chairs on the remaining sides. Vanessa and Steven went into the kitchen. A few minutes later they served coffee and cookies. The cookies looked home-made. After Christina had tasted one she decided that she would have to ask the person who had baked them for the recipe.

  For the next twenty minutes there was little talking going on. Everybody seemed to focus on the cookies and coffee, concurrently perhaps contemplating on what the future may hold. Christina didn’t want to count how many cookies the others consumed, but she couldn’t help noticing that Mike ate five, Steven more than five, Sarah and Vanessa at least four each and even Natalie ate three or four. Christina didn’t feel bad when she realized that she, too, had enjoyed four cookies, about one every five minutes. They weren’t exactly small and she couldn’t remember when the last time she had eaten four cookies in twenty minutes. The one who seemed to enjoy them most was Steven. He dunked each cookie briefly in his coffee and then, when no coffee dropped off the cookie, he bent his head slightly backwards and made a reasonable part of the cookie disappear in his mouth. He closed his eyes and although he did not make any sound, it was very obvious that his mind was submerged in the flavour of the delicious taste in his mouth.

  After a while Mike took the initiative and said, “A group of people are trying very hard to kill me. They are most likely the same people who killed the publisher. We don’t know why they killed him and we don’t know why they are after me. We know that the publisher wanted to talk to me about the copy of a text he had received a week prior to his death. We also know that he had come across a story that may help the police to resolve a major crime which had taken place some time ago.

  After a short pause Mike continued, “Obviously, I don’t like the attacks on my life, but they are an insignificant concern in comparison to the fact that someone, a woman, has unearthed parts of our family’s background. When I say our, I mean mum and myself. This is not just a concern, this is a big problem. This requires us to take action. Not only don’t we know who that someone is or could be, that someone went one step further and inf
ormed the police. She spoke to my boss and told him where I was born, that my father is a dead Italian gangster boss by the name of Antonio Garcia and, apart from other bits and pieces, that mum escaped to the USA with me and the money my dad stole from a bank. Converted into the currency used in Italy today, he robbed the bank of five million euros. This all happened around the time I was born, fifty three years ago, at a time when five million euros was more like the equivalent of what you can buy with forty million euros today. My dad’s bank robbery was the most successful bank robbery in Italy’s history. Whether or not this is all the woman knows about my family, we don’t know.

  “We don’t know if she is working on her own or if there are people behind her. We don’t know how much she knows about mum. We don’t know if she is aware of the location of this building and we don’t know how anybody could find out about our family background after fifty three years in New York.

  “But that’s not all,” Mike continued, “Christina has successfully blackmailed drug dealers for the past five years. This made her millions of dollars richer and the drug industry millions of dollars poorer. In my opinion, this is good. In the opinion of the law, this is illegal. As a drug enforcement officer they want her to take the money away from drug dealers, but they don’t want her to keep it. Until yesterday, this was no problem, because apart from Christina and us nobody knew about it.”

  Christina interrupted and said, “Did Vanessa, Sarah and Steven do the background check on me before you accepted me as your partner?”

  Steven and Mike nodded, and Mike continued, “But someone, a male, phoned Christina and told her told her bits and pieces about her past, which was a very unpleasant surprise. We don’t know who that someone is and we don’t know what he intends to do with the information.”

  “Isn’t it amazing how things can change from one day to the next,” Steven commented.

  “It is indeed,” Christina agreed.

  So far Mike’s mother had listened quietly and said nothing. Mike looked at her and said, “What do you think?”

  The elderly lady took her time before she replied, “We have become a target and we don’t know who is shooting at us. This applies to Christina as much as it applies to our family. The people shooting at Christina may not be the same that are shooting at us, but since Christina and Mike have been together professionally and privately for some time, I would not be surprised if they turned out to be the same.”