It wouldn’t have been clever to leave Martina standing on the landing alone so I took her hand, ‘Stay close to me.’ We went in together.
The place was trashed: furniture turned over, cushions ripped open, stuffing everywhere, picture frames broken - glass smashed, pictures torn. The kitchen was worse. The fridge was standing open, its contents strewn about the floor. Whoever had done it was long gone. Spilled milk on the floor stank the way only milk can. It was turning green. I relaxed a bit.
It wasn’t a search. Maybe they had been looking for something, but the destruction was a message. Whoever had done it was pissed off with me and wanted to show it. I got the message. Trouble was, I could think of a number of people who might want to do it to me. They never left a calling card – that is if you exclude the drying turd coiled in the middle of the coffee table. Nice touch.
We didn’t unpack. If I had ever had anything of value in the apartment, it had been destroyed; and anyway, the apartment was rented. We turned our backs on the carnage. I had no idea where to go. Martina’s place was out of the question, ‘they’ would have her address for certain.
Then I realised that I was still thinking poor. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford a hotel. Our taxi was still skulking about, looking for a fare. We piled back in and got him to take us to the Marriott. It wasn’t far away and was also conveniently close to the Savarin Casino.
We checked in as Mr and Mrs J Wayne; not very imaginative I know. The receptionist must have been a fan of old Westerns because he raised an eyebrow when I filled in the name on the registration card; but I slipped one of my last hundred dollar bills to him under the card and his eyebrow returned to its resting place.
I wouldn’t make a good James Bond. Naturally they wanted a deposit. The name on the credit card didn’t match. I’d run out of dollars so I slipped him a hundred francs, courtesy of Mossad. It seemed to overcome the identity crisis. I chose the Moser Suite, the best in the hotel. At over seven hundred euros a night it wasn’t cheap, but money is relative. When you’ve got fourteen million dollars in your bank account it’s chump change.
Martina was having more trouble than I was getting used to the lifestyle. If it wasn’t for the thick pile carpet in the room she might have hurt her jaw when it hit the floor. She stood in the entrance to the room as if in a trance.‘Ti vola!’
I gently led her inside, paid the bellboy, closed the door behind us.
It was more an apartment than a room. We were in the opulently furnished living area. Big screen TV, dining table for six, drinks cabinet. I didn’t get further than that. What I really needed was a beer. I pulled two Budwar’s from the fridge - the real Budweiser not the watered down cat’s piss you get across the pond – handed one to Martina, led her to the couch, left her there, went to scratch the itch that had begun plaguing me shortly after leaving Zurich.
Herr Vogel had told me that the money would be transferred to my account. I had no reason to doubt him, but I knew that I wouldn’t rest until I saw the balance for myself. I also wanted to pay Denis. My parting comment had been a joke of course. I wanted him to have his money as soon as possible.
I unpacked my laptop, took it to the desk, logged in to the hotel’s network, logged on to my bank. The security process seemed to take an age: user name, password, code. Finally I was in. I held my breath as the page loaded, waiting to see what my balance would be.
It was there! The whole bloody lot was in my account. I jumped up, knocked the chair over, punched the air, shouted, ‘Yes!’
Martina nearly shat herself.‘Co? What? What it is?’
‘We’ve been paid. The money’s in the bank.’
She abandoned the television and came over to look. I showed her the balance: $14,507,983.22. The excess was the remainder of what I’d accumulated over the years. Of course it wasn’t all mine. I still had to pay Denis and Bill. My bank manager must have had a heart attack when he saw that deposit.
Martina kissed me on the cheek and returned to the television, changed the channel to Fashion TV, already spending her share in her mind.
I pulled out a piece of paper with Denis’ bank account details. I first had to add him as a beneficiary, enter the code they sent to my cell phone, confirm it, go back to the payments page.
I clicked on Denis and filled in the amount: EUR 500,000.00 – I would pay him his expenses later. I clicked ‘Pay.’ The screen went blank for a moment. When it refreshed it hadn’t changed – except for a small pop-up box in the middle of the screen. In the middle of the screen were ten words in red capitals: ‘THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN FROZEN. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR BRANCH MANAGER.’
Chapter 27
I stopped breathing, stared at the screen, didn’t say a thing. I must have let out some sort of noise - some distress call - because Martina looked up from the television. I could tell from her look that my poker face had slipped.
‘Ježíš Maria. What is matter? You white.’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’ I muttered. ‘Probably just a mistake.’ I tried the transfer again. Same message. ‘Fuck!’
I sat: slumped. Martina came up behind me, looked over my shoulder. ‘What is matter?’
‘I don’t know.’ Maybe it’s just the deposit. They want to check because it’s such a large amount.’ I tried transferring one thousand dollars. I had seven thousand of my own money in there. Surely I could use that?
No I couldn’t. Same Message: account frozen. I looked at my watch. It was just before five o’clock: closing time. There wasn’t much chance that there would still be anybody in the bank. That didn’t stop me.
I pulled the headset out of the computer bag, plugged it in, fired up Skype, dialled the bank. Martina stayed standing behind me, one hand on my shoulder.
They answered, put me through to the manager. I took a deep breath before speaking. ‘This is Noah Stark. I have an account with your bank.’
‘Ah yes, Mr Stark.’ He sounded like he was expecting my call. I bet he was.
‘I am trying to transfer funds from my account and it says that the account is frozen. Is there a problem?’
‘Ah… Yes… I am afraid Mister Stark we have been instructed to freeze the account.’
‘The deposit hasn’t cleared?’
‘No. Not at all. All of the funds have been cleared.’
‘Then why is the account frozen?’ Of course I had an idea; a bit more than an idea really. But I let him tell me anyway.
‘It has been held under the Swiss Federal Banking Commission Money Laundering Ordinance.’
‘I’m not laundering money. That was a legitimate commission payment.’
‘Nevertheless…’
‘Why would they think it is money laundering?’
‘Ahem… I… The ordinance also has to do with terrorist funding.’
‘Terrorist funding! I’m not a terrorist.’
‘Of course not.’ They’re so polite the Swiss, so diplomatic, so bloody obsequious. He probably would have said the same thing to Osama Bin Laden. ‘I’m afraid our hands are tied. It is the law.’
‘How do I get them unfrozen?’ An obvious question I thought. I would just explain that the deposit was commission for a legitimate – well reasonably legitimate – transaction carried out in a Swiss bank and they would unfreeze my account.
‘You can not.’
‘What?’
‘Ah… Well… I am afraid it is impossible. You see, the account was frozen on instructions from the highest quarters. Only they can unfreeze it.’
Bloody marvellous. The Swiss Government, or whoever was in charge, had pinched my money. I could hardly go and ask them to give it back. They might ask some very awkward questions.
There wasn’t much more to say. I grunted, cut the connection. The phone rang. It was the room phone. I hadn’t ordered anything.
Martina answered.‘Ano?’
I could hear the caller making chipmunk sounds on the other end.
‘He not here.’ She put down the ph
one.
‘Who was that?’
‘Somebody want Mister Wayne.’
‘Who?’ I’d already forgotten about the pseudonym on check-in.
The phone rang again.
I answered. ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Mister Wayne?’ The voice was unmistakeably American.
‘Er… Yes.’
‘Mister John Wayne?’ the hint of a sneer.
I recovered quickly. ‘Yes. Who the hell is this?’
‘This is Bob Grunter, I’m with the Embassy. May I come up?’ Not the American Embassy, just The Embassy. Arrogant prick.
Someone had just looted my bank account and this smarmy yank wanted to come up and talk to me. Of course I wasn’t thinking straight; wasn’t asking myself why someone from the Embassy wanted to talk to John Wayne.
‘No. I’m sort of busy right now.’
I was putting the phone down when I heard his voice trailing from the receiver. ‘… about the telephone call you just made.’
That surprised me. I thought that Skype calls were secure. How did he know that I had just been on the phone?’
‘What?’
‘I’m on my way up.’ and he put the phone down.
‘Who is it?’ Martina asked.
‘Some American. He wants to talk to me.’
‘About what?’
‘About our money.’ We looked at each other dumbly as if we were trying to find the answer to the mystery in each other’s faces. There was a knock on the door.
Martina stayed at the desk, arms held protectively around her waist; I went to open the door.
Bob Grunter didn’t look like his name. He didn’t look like his voice either. I was sort of expecting a linebacker with Marine Corps brush cut. You know the type.
Instead he was Mister Ordinary. Brown hair, average height, average build, neither good looking nor ugly; the kind of person you forget about completely when you’re not with them: a nobody, an invisible man – the perfect spy. I let him in.
He made himself comfortable on the couch. Martina watched him from the corner like a leopard eying its prey. I sat down opposite him, but Martina held her position. She was a little behind him, just out of his peripheral vision. He had to turn his head to see her.
‘Well?’ I asked. ‘What can you do for me?’
He twisted in his seat to see where Martina was. She didn’t move.
He turned back to me. ‘Let’s cut to the chase Mister Stark. You’re in a lot of trouble.’
That much was obvious. ‘I’m used to it.’
‘Not like this you’re not. Whatever trouble you’ve been in before is soon going to seem like a visit to Disneyland.’
Disneyland! What planet was this guy from? ‘You’re going to have to spell it out. I’m a little slow.’
Martina took a step forward. He caught the movement and turned, glanced at her again. She just glared at him. She was making him uneasy.
‘Okay. Here it is. You’ve just delivered five kilograms of osmium to the Iranians, about enough to make twenty nuclear warheads. That Mister Stark is illegal. There are United Nations Sanctions against Iran.’
‘So arrest me.’ I was showing more bravado than I was feeling.
He ignored my churlishness. ‘During the delivery of the osmium you murdered two Mossad agents and disposed of their bodies.’
So much for the bravado. What didn’t he know? He clearly didn’t know where the agents were; didn’t know what we had done with them. They hadn’t found the bodies. I wasn’t left empty handed, still had a card to play.
‘As you can imagine, Mossad are pissed. They don’t like losing agents. They want your head.’
‘So what are you doing here?’
‘I’m here to help you.’
Yeah right. ‘How? Are you going to give me my money back?’
‘If you do exactly what we tell you to do.’
‘And Mossad?’
‘They are prepared to let it go if you cooperate with us. But they do want to know what happened to their agents. They want the bodies back. You know what they’re like about things like that.’
Yes I did know what the Israelis were like about things like that. They had started wars for things like that.
‘What if I refuse?’
‘That would not be in your best interests.’ What a nice way of putting it! But he was right, getting assassinated by Mossad was decidedly not in my best interests.
Martina had been watching quietly until then. She understood his meaning. She let out a low growl that I’ve never heard from a human before. It was like the noise a wild animal might make when protecting her young. It made the hairs on my neck stand on end.
Bob heard it. Oh he definitely heard it. For an instant I saw terror in his eyes. Mister CIA, or whatever he was, wasn’t as tough as he made out. I looked across at Martina with new respect.
Bob glanced over his shoulder. The look on his face said he wouldn’t have been surprised to see some beast crouched behind him. There was only Martina. He wasn’t the same after that: on edge.
‘Well… er… I…’ He had completely lost his train of thought. That Martina, I was so proud of her I nearly cried.
‘Do you want to get to the point?’
He finally began to pull himself together. ‘Mister Kermani will contact you soon.’
‘Who?’
‘Jahangir… Hossein Kermani… your Iranian contact.’
‘Oh yeah, him. How do you know he’ll contact me? There’s nothing more I can do for them.’
‘There’d better be. They are still looking for uranium. They have lost their current supplier. You have just provided them with osmium, something that nobody else was able to do. They will ask you to find the uranium for them too.’
The osmium had fallen into my lap. I had no idea where I was going to get uranium from. ‘He’s already asked, but I don’t know anything about uranium.’
‘Yes you do. You have a friend who is currently head of security on a uranium mine in Africa.’
‘I do?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘Piet Hanekom. Remember him?’
Of course I remembered Piet. We had served in the Legion together. He was ex South African Special Forces. He’d done a five-year contract and then moved on to the security business. I’d lost contact. ‘Sure I know Piet. Haven’t spoken to him in years. Where the hell is he?’
‘In the Congo, at a place called Shinkolobwe.’
‘Where?’ I’d never heard of it.
‘It’s about seventy-five miles north-west of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.’
I’d heard of Lubumbashi, never been there. Once known as Elizabethville, Congo’s second city, capital of Katanga Province, and the heart of the Congolese mining industry; Mad Mike Hoare country. ‘Okay. But I don’t understand why you want me to help them. Mossad was trying to stop the delivery of the osmium, why would you want me to provide them with uranium too?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘I guessed. What’s the catch?’
He looked around at Martina again before speaking. I don’t know what was going through his mind, but he turned back to me and laid his cards on the table. ‘The Iranians have hired a Pakistani scientist to help with their nuclear program. Until now they’ve been blundering around in the dark. They had some information, but not enough to put a bomb together.’
‘And the Pakistani has got the goods?’
‘Oh yeah. He’s got the goods alright. He was the one behind the Muslim bomb, the Pakistani nuclear program. Since then he’s gone freelance: selling the technology to the Koreans and now the Iranians.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’
‘He’s a hands-on kind of guy. He likes to travel. We think that if we can find uranium for the project he will go there to inspect the stuff himself. Likes to make himself needed. I guess he can push up his price that way.’
‘What then? What if he swallo
ws the bait? What if he does go to Africa?’
‘We’ll take care of that.’
Charming. I guessed I didn’t need to know his name either, but I asked anyway. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Doctor Younis Awan.’
I’d never heard of him. There were too many things I didn’t know. But my balls were in a vice. There wasn’t much point sparring any more with Mister Bob Grunter. ‘So what happens now?’
‘You wait for Mister Kermani to call you. And then you keep us informed.’
‘There’s one small problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t have any money. You’ve frozen it all.’
‘Yeah we have haven’t we?’ He opened his briefcase and pulled out two blocks of hundred dollar bills, put them on the table, pushed them over towards me. ‘This should keep you going for a while.’ He looked around the suite. ‘Don’t know if it will keep you in this sort of style though.’
I picked up a block, flicked through it: about ten thousand dollars per block. He was right, twenty grand was not going to go far; the suite cost about a grand a day.
Grunter wrote down two numbers on a piece of paper, stood, tossed the paper on top of the money. ‘The first one is the number of Mister Hanekom in the Congo. The other’s mine.’
‘Hang on.’ I said, stepping to block the door. ‘What about Mossad?’
‘As long as you’re with us you’re safe from them.’
‘And the Russians?’
‘You sure make some interesting enemies. They’re not in our jurisdiction. You’re on your own there buddy.’
Nice!
Chapter 28
When the door closed behind Bob Grunter, I looked across at Martina. She was still standing next to the desk, arms crossed, glaring at Bob through the door.
I went over to her, put my arms around her. She wilted, held me, pushed her face into my neck.
‘You were brilliant.’ I said. ‘I think you scared the shit out of him.’
‘Co?’ She had no idea how scary she was.
‘Never mind. Let’s try to forget about this for a couple of days, go out for dinner, go gambling.’
Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller Page 13
