Beth had a theory that Gartenberg would never use a bank, an island, or a company twice. He was a one-and-done kind of guy, so she made a complete list of all the offshore companies that Elias had organized for Gartenberg, and deducted from that list the offshore companies that Gartenberg had already used for Caribbean bank accounts since the Presidents’ Day holiday. That left a group of six unused companies. Beth reasoned that Gartenberg would use these companies for his final stash of the stolen funds.
Next, Beth created a potential universe of Caribbean banks that Gartenberg hadn’t used yet, figuring that they would be available for this final stash. She started this with a list of all the Caribbean countries that had a reputation for bank secrecy and a list of all the banks in those places.
From those lists, Beth eliminated all Caribbean countries that Gartenberg had used so far and all banks in those countries whether or not he had used them. She was left with the islands of Antigua, St. Kitts, and Guadeloupe. If Gartenberg was using Antigua as his home base, St. Kitts and Guadeloupe were within easy sailing distance.
Beth now had a manageable universe that fit within the parameters she had created. She figured Gartenberg would be using one or more of the seven Caribbean banks on her list that had offices on those three islands and the accounts would be in the names of some of the six virgin offshore companies that Elias had formed for him. She had to locate accounts in six possible names located at seven banks on three islands.
Beth was confident that if she was going to find the money before it disappeared forever and get Gartenberg before he sailed off into the sunset, she had to scrap the convenience of computers and go down to the Caribbean herself. The search required a hands-on, face-to-face investigation, a project that she faced with great anticipation. Now she needed to form a team to help her beard the lion in his den.
Chapter 54
“Mel, got a minute?” Beth asked as she stuck her head into Mel Bergeraque’s office.
“Sure. Come on in,” replied the litigator, buried behind his desk in a mountain of exhibits and transcripts from one of the active cases he was supervising.
“I have a couple of questions about the Smythe case.”
“It’s been kind of stalled, Beth. The Smythe estate hasn’t been able to serve Gartenberg with a summons, and with Chord Masters stuck in the hospital, they haven’t been pushing it.”
“Okay, but I want to focus on Gartenberg and the thirty-five million he stole from our clients. I have a fairly good idea where he is, and where the money is. Both are down in the Caribbean.”
“But remember we decided not to file a cross-claim against Gartenberg in the Smythe case. Are you talking about starting a separate case against him now?”
“Yes, but only if your litigation guys get me a writ of attachment that I can serve on a handful of Caribbean banks before Gartenberg even knows we’ve started the suit.”
“I love it! Let me get a couple of the associates to do some research on it.”
“Thanks, Mel. Time is of the essence, so get back to me yesterday if you can.”
* * *
—
Beth woke up suddenly from a dream at 2:30 A.M. She sat up and kissed Sean’s warm body sleeping quietly next to her. “I want us to go down to Antigua,” she said still half asleep. “Kind of a working vacation.”
“Well, we’re not going there tonight because I’m still sleeping,” he protested, still enjoying his own dream.
“I want you to come with me,” she whispered, with hands gently reaching out to explore his body.
“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he replied, his body interested, but his reflexes still semiconscious.
“And I may want Max to come also.”
“Who’s going to run your office then?” his mind now in control.
“So maybe I won’t take Max.”
“Do you want me to make some coffee?” Sean was now wide awake.
“Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the night. We’ll talk in the morning.” She put her head on Sean’s chest, took a deep breath, and was back asleep before he could respond.
Chapter 55
“Max, I have a pretty good idea of the offshore banks where Gartenberg deposited the Pendayans’ money. I’m going to attach the accounts before he has a chance to withdraw any of it.”
“How do you plan to do that, Beth?”
“Mel’s filing suit today and getting a writ of attachment that doesn’t require any notice to Gartenberg.”
“When did the Pendayans authorize the suit?”
“Yesterday.”
“And how do you plan to actually attach the accounts?”
“I’m going to personally deliver the attachment order to the banks myself. Sean and I are flying down to Antigua tomorrow.”
“That makes you a pretty expensive process server, doesn’t it?”
“Well, if it’s okay with you and Mom, we can save money by staying on Red Sky instead of a hotel. I’m going shopping with her this afternoon, and I’ll ask her.”
“What do you plan to do about Gartenberg after he learns you’ve frozen all his money? He can be violent.”
“We’re going to get the cops on Antigua to board Tanks Banks and arrest him.”
“Sounds like a plan. The part I like best is about your taking Sean along with you.”
“Don’t tell Mom. Let her hear about it from me.”
* * *
—
Beth unlocked the door to her parents’ condo and let herself in. “Mom, I’m here,” she announced. “You ready to hit Saks?”
“Beth, you are insane!” Andi announced as she came out of the master bedroom, buttoning her coat. “I’m going to have you committed!”
“Hi, Mom. I see Max told you about my trip.”
“Of course he did, and we’re both furious and terrified. Me more than him.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry. It’s my job.”
“Look, Mom, Gartenberg tried to destroy Max and the firm he spent his life working for. I’m not going to let him get away with it.”
“You listen to me, sweetheart. None of that requires you to put your life on the line. He already had you mugged and stabbed in Central Park.”
“We don’t know that for sure. Sean will be with me, and all we’re doing is serving papers on some banks down there.”
“There must be plenty of professional process servers in the Caribbean who would only charge you a few bucks for the same result.”
“And somehow word would get back to Gartenberg and the money would be gone.”
“But you’d be safe.”
“Sean and I agree, Mom. We need to do this ourselves. It’s the fastest and most secure way to do the job.”
“Please don’t.”
“We’ll be fine,” Beth said as she hugged her mother. “Now, come on, the doorman is holding a cab for us downstairs. Let’s go over to Saks.”
Chapter 56
“It’s a crapshoot either way,” Beth said to Sean, as their plane taxied to the terminal on the island of Antigua. “We have three banks here to hit, two on St. Kitts, and two on Guadeloupe. One island will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“So Gartenberg may have time to move those last two accounts,” Sean replied.
“That’s the risk. What did Laura have to say about it?”
“She thinks we should hit Antigua first, of course, and Guadeloupe second.”
“Why Guadeloupe?”
“Because it’s French so they’ll be slow in contacting Gartenberg.”
“Makes as much sense as anything else. We’ll hold off on the St. Kitts accounts until tomorrow.”
“I suppose we should now synchronize our watches….”
At that, the plane’s
door opened. Beth and Sean grabbed their carry-on bags and headed toward immigration.
After clearing customs and immigration, Sean called the FBI’s overseas office in Bridgetown, Barbados, to alert them to his presence on Antigua. Then he made his way past the airline counters over to the charter office to find his plane for the short hop to Guadeloupe while Beth headed toward the line of taxis outside the terminal and grabbed a cab into the capital city of St. John’s.
By 2:00 P.M., Beth was in St. John’s waiting in front of the Antigua Barbuda Investment Bank on High Street. When her cell rang, she saw a text from Sean indicating he had landed in Guadeloupe and would be at the Banque des Antilles Françaises by 2:20. His second bank, BNP Guadeloupe, was only a block away.
Beth replied that they should both plan to enter their first banks at 2:25, serve them with the writ of attachment, get a stamped receipt, and be on to the second bank by 2:35, which would give Beth fifteen minutes to get into her third bank and serve them. Their choreography should result in five accounts attached by the 3:00 P.M. bank closing time.
At precisely 2:25, Beth entered the ABIB, went over to the bank manager, and handed him two certified copies of the writ of attachment. Without a blink, the manager took them both, date and time stamped them, kept one copy, formally signed the other copy, and handed it back to Beth. One down.
Her second bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, was only a block away from the ABIB, and she was ahead of schedule. At 2:40, she entered the RBC, located the manager, and repeated the process with the same result. Two down. She checked her cellphone and saw that Sean had already served both of his banks on Guadeloupe and was headed back out to the airport.
The end result for Beth at the Swiss American National Bank, the third bank, was the same, but the procedure went a little differently. At this bank, the manager excused himself, went back into his office with both copies of the writ, and Beth saw him make a phone call before returning at 3:10 to give her a receipted copy. Beth had expected the call and was only surprised that it didn’t happen earlier at the first two banks she visited.
She figured Gartenberg had been alerted to the attack he was under, but since the banks on St. Kitts were now all closed for the day, they still had a chance to make a clean sweep of it tomorrow.
She called Mel Bergeraque at the office and brought him up to date on what she and Sean had accomplished. She asked him to contact all seven banks the next morning to find out how much they had frozen in Gartenberg’s accounts. She was excited by the prospect of recovering the Pendayans’ losses.
Sean then called her from the airport on Guadeloupe while he was waiting to board his flight back to Antigua. They talked about plans for dinner in some local restaurant near Red Sky and their anticipation of a night onboard her. They agreed to meet on Red Sky for further discussions over a bottle of wine, or maybe two, from the large selection Max always kept on board.
Beth got back to the marina before Sean, and was in and out of the shower on Red Sky before he arrived just after dark carrying a shopping bag of basic essentials for live-aboards while in a port: chips and dips, cheese and crackers, and, most important, a sack of ice cubes.
After they shared the first bottle of wine, sitting quietly and relaxing in the cockpit, Sean said he wanted to take a shower and went below while Beth uncorked another bottle of wine and waited for his return.
Chapter 57
On Friday morning before dawn, Sean and Beth were up and on their way out to the Antigua airport in the SUV that Max kept at the marina. Sean went to the charter plane office at the airport and got them on an immediate flight to St. Kitts, another of the Leeward Islands, smaller than Antigua and only sixty-five miles away.
By 8:30, they were on the ground in St. Kitts, driving toward its capital city of Basseterre. In less than a half hour, they had their two signed bank receipts and were ordering breakfast in a waterfront restaurant around the corner from the banks.
Beth called Mel from the restaurant, but he had nothing to report yet on what balances were in the accounts they had been successful in attaching. She urged him to keep on it and report back as soon as he heard anything.
Sean then called the police department on Antigua, identified himself, and requested their cooperation in arresting Gartenberg as a dangerous felon wanted by the FBI. He gave them the details, and they assured him of their cooperation and promised to send two patrol cars out to Tanks Banks immediately.
* * *
—
Beth and Sean were back from St. Kitts and onboard Red Sky by noon, relaxing in the sun while waiting for further reports to come in. They intended to spend the rest of the day and all of Saturday in Antigua and fly home to New York on Sunday. Then Beth started getting the first reports in from Mel.
The banks Beth had served on Antigua had replied to the attachment order. The RBC had frozen $6.5 million and the ABIB had frozen $11.75 million. Beth texted Mel to keep after the other four banks and to make an immediate application in court for a turnover of the funds attached.
Then, of course, came bad news: The police reported that they had gone down to the marina at English Harbour to arrest Gartenberg, only to find out that he and his yacht were gone. Slip 16 on pier H was vacant, and a patrol of the entire harbor turned up nothing.
Before the police left the marina, they interviewed the harbormaster, Mac McEwen, who confirmed that Tanks Banks had sailed the previous afternoon after fueling up at the diesel pump, including two extra seven-gallon containers, indicating plans for a long cruise. McEwen also told them that Gartenberg paid cash for the fuel and didn’t leave any itinerary or forwarding information.
The police apologized to Sean, but said there was nothing else they could do because of their limited jurisdiction.
Chapter 58
After a cozy Saturday morning on board Red Sky, Beth wanted to go over to English Harbour so she and Sean could focus on their own Gartenberg investigation. Sean resisted in the name of earned relaxation, but relented when Beth suggested that after they finished at English Harbour, they could spend the rest of the day sunning and funning on one of Antigua’s adult beaches.
They drove Max’s SUV into the town of St. John’s from their mooring in the harbor and had brunch at a local restaurant before driving all the way across the island to Nelson’s Dockyard in English Harbour.
Beth found the harbormaster’s office located in a restored eighteenth-century building decorated with cutlasses and flintlock pistols from the sailing days of the British navy. She introduced herself to Mac McEwen. “I want to thank you for all the assistance you’ve been able to provide about Gartenberg,” she said to him.
“I’m glad we were able to help,” he replied.
“The police filled us in about yesterday.”
“I told them what we knew.”
“They said something about an argument one of your men overheard.”
“Yes. Before Gartenberg sailed, he had a big argument with his hired captain about some planned destination of theirs.”
“Did your man give you any details?”
“He’s not here today, but apparently the captain tried to quit, then agreed to stay on when the local immigration officer refused to let him go ashore without an airline ticket for a flight off the island.”
“Is the immigration officer around?”
“Yes. Angus McQueen. His office is right next door to mine. Come on, I’ll introduce you to him.”
When Beth questioned the immigration officer, he said he had spoken to the couple in the slip next to Tanks Banks, and they told him the fight had something to do with Gartenberg’s intention to sail to the Panama Canal in the middle of the hurricane season.
Beth then walked over to the supply store in the marina and chatted with the manager. He remembered that a few days before, Gartenberg’s captain had bought just about every electronic
chart of the area between here and the canal, and had paid for it with ten new crisp hundred-dollar bills. The strange thing about it was that the captain also bought charts for the South American coasts of Guyana and Venezuela—parts of the Caribbean that had nothing to do with the usual sailing routes to the canal.
Chapter 59
Beth felt an adrenaline rush and no small amount of anger as she stood with Sean and stared at the empty slip vacated by Gartenberg. In his haste to leave, he had simply thrown off all the lines used to tie up Tanks Banks and abandoned them, still tied to cleats on the dock with loose ends dangling in the water, lurking to foul the propeller of the next yacht.
A bag of garbage, apparently thrown on the dock by Gartenberg as he left the slip, lay rotting in the hot sun, flies buzzing around, but Beth had watched too many crime shows to pass up the opportunity. She took the bag over to a bench on the dock and worked with Sean to read Gartenberg’s discarded mail and other personal papers, throwing what they didn’t want into the dumpster when they were finished.
She was eager to hunt down Gartenberg for his attack on Max and the firm. Her motivation was payback, while for Sean, it was a matter of his sworn duty. Different reasons, same intention, same goal.
Beth called Max to discuss the practicality of her staying in the Caribbean for a few extra days, but he reminded her that the Pendayan family was not their only client and her attention was required back in the office. Sean spoke to his office and got a similar reaction.
Responsibility trumped emotion as a compelling force for both of them, and so the next day, they reluctantly boarded the Sunday flight from Antigua back to New York. Before they pulled back from the gate, Beth had texted Mel for an update on the bank accounts in Guadeloupe and St. Kitts, but he replied that he didn’t really expect to hear anything until the next day. Sean then texted the FBI office in Barbados to update them, and asked them to keep their eyes open for Gartenberg. Their texting continued for as long as the plane was parked at the gate or taxiing. The airport wasn’t busy, however, and the flight attendant soon announced they were next in line for takeoff and requested all cells to be shut off.
Alumni Association Page 14
