‘Why should I worry?’ said Packer. ‘As long as you aren’t too touchy about being Jewish,’ he added.
‘Just what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It might make just that tiny bit of difference when the heat’s turned on and one of their prime suspects is a right-wing Jew with an Israeli passport. At least, that’s the sort of suspect they’re going to be expecting. Otherwise, I was just narrowing down the odds on who might be behind this business. None of the Western powers, that’s for sure. They love the Ruler. Besides his oil and petrodollars, he’s our front-line defence East of Suez. In fact, most Western governments would pay hundreds of times what Pol’s paying us just to keep him alive.’
‘Am I reading you right, soldier —’ Ryderbeit’s voice was menacingly quiet — ‘if I think you’re suggesting that Fat Man’s taking his graft from the Russkies?’
‘Not necessarily. The Russians are interested in economic stability — at least, as far as it affects them. And if the Ruler gets knocked off, it’s not only going to be the Middle East that would be in turmoil, but the whole capitalist world, including even the United States.’
‘But the Russkies would just love that!’ Ryderbeit cried.
‘In theory, perhaps. But in practice, once the Ruler went, it might not be one of Moscow’s boys who put on his socks. There are any number of eager little candidates waiting in the wings — half crazed would-be dictators, like they’ve got in Libya and Iraq and Syria, most of whose regimes make Moscow’s look rather quaint and old fashioned.’
‘Then who would kill him, for Christ’s sake?’
‘I don’t know, Sammy. It’s you who should be answering that question, not me.’
‘Me?’ Ryderbeit was suddenly alert. ‘I know bugger all about politics.’
‘Perhaps. But you know quite a lot about Charlie Pol. And Pol might be the clue.’ He leaned closer across the table. ‘What do you know about Pol, Sammy?’
Ryderbeit tilted back his chair again and peered at the sky. ‘Just that he’s a fat old crook who eats like a pig, drinks like a fish, and sweats like a sponge.’
‘I’m talking about his politics,’ said Packer. ‘From what you told me about your Vietnam experience, he seems to have a pretty soft spot for Communists. Two billion dollars’ worth, I think you said it was?’
‘Yeah, well.’ Ryderbeit paused, his manner evasive — ‘Fat Man’s something of an enigma. Getting to figure him out is like peeling an onion — there’s always another skin underneath, and at the end of it, all you’ve got is tears in your eyes. I think he gets his kicks out of pretending to help the underdog, just as long as he stays top dog himself.’
‘But do you trust him?’
‘Trust him!’ Ryderbeit brought the legs of his chair down with a loud clank. ‘I’d trust him like I’d trust a blind guide dog to get me across the Place de la Concorde in the rush hour!’
‘And do you think he’d try and cheat us?’
‘’Course he’ll try and cheat us. And it’s part of our job to see he fucking doesn’t!’ He paused to look at his watch. ‘Where is the fat sod, anyway?’ But even as he spoke his eye caught sight of Pol waddling between the tables towards them.
‘Ah, mes chers amis!’ He stood swaying forward, balancing on the balls of his feet, and smiling ecstatically. ‘The moment has arrived. Before the sun has set, you will both be rich men. But we must hurry.’
Ryderbeit was left to settle the bill, while Packer followed Pol back to the street. It was still only just 3.30, and Swiss banks do not close until 4.00. Packer was expecting to find a taxi waiting, but instead Pol stopped beside a big Fiat sedan with Geneva plates. He handed a pair of keys to Packer. ‘You drive, mon cher. I have more confidence in you than in Sammy.’
‘Where to?’ Packer asked, as Ryderbeit joined them.
‘Take the autoroute to Lausanne,’ Pol said, as he settled in beside Packer, with Ryderbeit in the back.
‘Lausanne?’ Packer cried. ‘But I thought we were going to the bank?’
‘We are,’ Pol replied, with his roguish grin. ‘A little place called Aalau between Berne and Basel, close to the German border. It’s hardly marked on the map — so I don’t expect you’ve ever heard of it.’
Packer pulled out into the traffic and was following the signs towards the autoroute. ‘How long is it going to take?’
‘It’s 140 kilometres,’ Pol said, leaning back luxuriously in his seat. ‘But most of it’s autoroute. We should make it by five.’
‘It is a bank we’re going to?’ Packer said.
‘Yes, mon cher. A very exclusive bank.’
Ryderbeit broke in, in English. ‘“Bank” is the polite word they use round here. In the business they call them “Close Mouth Money Laundries”.’
Packer turned again to Pol. ‘And it stays open until five?’
Pol replied with supreme calm, ‘It will stay open until we arrive.’
They had passed the derelict brick-red palace of the old League of Nations building and joined the autoroute. Packer said, ‘You told me you didn’t expect I’d ever heard of this place we’re going to. Well I haven’t. What’s so special about it?’
‘For a tourist, nothing. It is a very small, very dull Swiss town. But it has one peculiarity. It possesses more private banks than any city in Europe.’
‘What’s wrong with a bank in Geneva or Zürich?’
‘Ah well, contrary to general belief, Geneva is not a large banking centre, and what business it does transact is entirely respectable.’ He gave Packer an oblique grin. ‘Whereas Zürich, and to a lesser extent Berne and Basel, nowadays deal mostly with big corporation money and international transactions. The little town of Aalau is more in our line.’
‘You mean they’re crooked?’
Pol sighed. ‘You are being a trifle naïf, my friend. In Aalau they merely exact a slightly larger premium for secrecy, without fear or favour — that is how the town made its wealth. As I said, it is very close to the German border, which is along wooded hills and difficult to guard. The town first became rich when the Jews started smuggling their fortunes out of Germany after 1933. At the time, the Swiss weren’t interested in German paper money — only in gold. And they gave the Jews thirty cents for every dollar’s worth. Under the circumstances the Jews were grateful.
‘Unfortunately, however, they were also still optimistic. Many of them returned to Germany, where they later disappeared up the chimneys of Dachau and Birkenau and Treblinka, while their family fortunes — estimated at several hundred million dollars — have continued ever since to ripen and multiply in the vaults of Aalau.’
‘Do you mean to say,’ Ryderbeit called from the back, ‘that these lousy Swiss can just sit on that money, while good Jewish families go hungry?’
‘There have been many attempts, particularly by the Jewish Agency, to persuade the Swiss authorities to have these accounts opened — if only to provide funds for victims of Nazi persecution. The Swiss have always refused. Aalau’s big coup was to come at the end of the war, when the Nazis started trying to get their money out of Germany. And again the good burghers of Aalau insisted only on gold. They got it in all shapes and sizes. Bormann’s believed to have made a personal deposit of bullion in March 1945, valued at between ten and twenty million dollars. Then there were the regular weekly visitors, known locally as the “dentists” — guards from nearby concentration camps who came down from Ulm carrying suitcases of gold rings and gold teeth — and the occasional gold spectacle frame.’
‘Didn’t anyone in Aalau baulk at that one?’ said Packer.
Pol chuckled. ‘Most of the professional people in Aalau are bankers, my friend. And as bankers they treat all customers alike, according to their financial standing.’
‘Yeah, but what happened to those fucking Krauts?’ Ryderbeit cried in English. ‘Did they wait till the dust had settled, then draw out their loot and start chicken farms in Brazil, or just get fat running a nice modern factor
y in Düsseldorf to the glory of the European Economic Community? The bastards.’ He spat towards the car ashtray, then got out a cigar.
Packer turned again to Pol. ‘Sammy wants to know if any of that Nazi money was ever claimed.’
‘Very little. Most of the big Nazis were killed, or were too frightened to show up — even in Aalau — for fear of being charged with war crimes. If there’s one thing the Swiss love, it’s money; and one thing they hate is scandal.’
‘But in Aalau they’re a little less touchy than most?’ said Packer. ‘I mean, they don’t mind having highly paid assassins on their books?’
‘Not as long as our accounts remain in credit.’
They reached the town an hour and ten minutes later, along a winding secondary road off the main Berne to Zürich highway. It was a narrow cheerless town, surrounded by hills that looked like storm clouds. The houses along the main street had the tidy, drab appearance of private business premises. Packer noticed that at least two out of three buildings were banks, their names usually proclaimed by a discreet bronze plaque beside the door.
Pol told him to stop at a house halfway down, and not to worry about the parking restriction. He bounced out of the car with great energy, pressed a bell in the polished door, and was shown in by a pale man in a grey tie and bifocals, who gave Packer — and particularly Ryderbeit — a fishy stare, before standing back and closing the door behind them.
He now led them down a marble passage into a deserted hall no larger than a private office, with two grilles, no partitions or counters; instead, half a dozen green leather-topped tables, each with its own pen set and pristine pad of blotting paper, and green leather swivel chairs placed on either side. Except for a digital clock with an electric calendar on the wall, the room was unadorned. It smelt neither fresh nor musty, but was filled with an antiseptic gloom.
The pale man in bifocals showed them through a door at the far end, into a quiet dark-panelled room with button-backed leather chairs arranged opposite an executive desk on which stood a white telephone, an intercom and a bronze bust of Voltaire.
A man rose from behind the desk and greeted them with a professional smile. Apart from his grey suit and gold cufflinks, he was not at all as Packer imagined a Swiss banker to be. He was a short, athletic man in his middle thirties, with a large head of wavy blond hair and that deep, slightly orange suntan that comes from the mountains.
His manner was cordial and relaxed. He obviously knew Pol well, but showed no trace of deference towards him — rather, a certain boisterous familiarity, as one who is privy to the secrets of another. He was a man to whom the fiscal rules of the outer world were irrelevant: Foreign Exchange controls mattered less to him than parking on a yellow line. After all, banking was just as respectable in the main street of Aalau as in St Mary Axe — providing it remained within the limits of Swiss law; and in these matters Swiss law was almost limitless.
The formalities were swift and simple. An elderly man, with the grave servility of a wine waiter, appeared with two sheaves of documents which he placed on the desk, then withdrew. The young banker arranged the six copies in a neat row in front of him; then sat back and smiled.
‘I think, for the benefit of our two new clients here, that I should explain something about our Swiss banking system. There are altogether more than 260 private banks in Switzerland. Most people — businessmen working for big companies, and even foreign governments — prefer to deal with the better known names like Le Crédit Suisse. But some people are happier to take advantage of the rather more specialized, personal services which we smaller banks are able to offer. The main service, of course, is secrecy. Complete and absolute secrecy. We ask no questions, and we give no answers.’ He paused and ran his finger along the edge of the desk.
‘However, we do impose conditions. These conditions vary from bank to bank — though only slightly.’ He gave a quick glance at Pol. ‘At this point I feel I should mention what is called “Swiss Negative Interest”. I do so, because it is a practice often misunderstood by those unfamiliar with our methods. On an initial deposit of not less than $50,000, we levy an interest of seven and a half per cent.’
Ryderbeit let out a hiss. ‘There’s no misunderstanding so far as I’m concerned, mister. That’s not banking — it’s not even usury. It’s bare-faced robbery!’
The banker held up his hand. ‘Please. I have not finished. Here, at the Volkskantonale Bank, the minimum deposit accepted is $50,000. If it should fall below that sum — by even a few francs — the account is temporarily frozen, until further funds are received; and during that period an interest rate of nineteen per cent is levied.’
Ryderbeit was scowling fiercely at him, but said nothing. The banker went on.
‘We have a further, more stringent condition. If the client’s deposit drops below $25,000, his account is closed.’
‘And if he pays in a couple of billion next day,’ said Ryderbeit, ‘is it opened again?’
‘I regret, no.’
‘Holy Moses!’ Ryderbeit turned to Pol, his eye glaring dangerously. ‘I’d rather keep my loot in a piggy bank!’ His eye swivelled back on to the banker. ‘What are we getting out of this crummy little place, anyway?’
‘You are getting privacy,’ the banker replied quietly. His face cleared, and he leaned forward with his arms on the desk. ‘Now, for the details. It is usual for an individual account holder to be given a seven-figure number. Theoretically the client has only to produce this number, accompanied by his signature, which must correspond to that held by the bank, and he will be permitted to draw what funds he desires.
‘However, in the recent climate of international crime — as well as with these meddlesome foreign government investigators — we have felt obliged to introduce a couple of simple extra precautions. We now require two Polaroid photographs in colour of each client — full face and profile — and —’ he gave a small gesture of apology — ‘a set of fingerprints.’
‘And what guarantee do we have that these photos and prints aren’t passed — unofficially, of course — to some foreign Intelligence agency?’ Ryderbeit growled.
‘You have no guarantee,’ the banker said smoothly. ‘But you have my word that it would be against the most basic ethics of our banking system.’ He paused, and began to gather up the six documents from the desk; stood up and handed them across to Pol, together with a gold pen.
Pol glanced through them with an air of bored familiarity, scribbled his signature six times, then handed the pile to Packer. There were two copies on vellum, closely covered in copperplate typescript, in French, German, and English; and four duplicate sheets on onion-skin paper.
Packer studied them with a mixture of awe and suspicion. The English text was correct, and unusually lucid for such a document. The sum of £500,000 was typed both in figures and in words, next to its exact equivalent in more than two and a half million Swiss francs, down to the last centime, as calculated against the IMF index at noon the day before. At the foot of the page, above Pol’s signature, were seven figures.
The document represented the formal opening of a joint numbered account, in his and Pol’s names, which could be drawn on only with the production of both their signatures. The penultimate paragraph stipulated that in the event of the decease of Monsieur Pol, the account would be frozen in perpetuity. Packer noted that no such provision had been made in his case.
He turned to Pol and pointed out the omission. The Frenchman replied, with his mischievous chuckle: ‘Mon cher Packer, you are surely not anticipating an accident, are you? Or a serious illness, perhaps?’ His eyes glittered.
Packer glanced uneasily at the banker, who sat impressively behind the desk, his face a mask of indifference. Packer hesitated, unwilling to provoke an argument at such a delicate moment.
Pol was patting his belly, with a half nod towards the banker. ‘I am sure we do not wish to take up any more of our friend’s valuable time.’ He reached out and handed Packer the gold
pen. Packer declined it.
‘Eh, alors?’ Pol was frowning, but his eyes were still bright. ‘Are you not satisfied with the arrangements, my friend?’
‘Not satisfied at all.’ Packer waited for Pol’s response, but when none came, he went on: ‘Charles, it’s the old story — heads you win, tails I lose. I do all the thinking, take all the risks —’ he was already ignoring the banker, as his voice grew with emotion — ‘and just supposing we do succeed in carrying out the operation, and even escaping afterwards — then, poof! I get knocked down by a Rolls-Royce in Park Lane or fall out of the top-floor suite in the Georges V.’ He broke off, all discretion gone now, with an expectant glance at Ryderbeit. ‘Or perhaps just a bullet in the back of the neck.’
But Ryderbeit, like the banker, did not seem to be listening. He had taken out his cigar case, and without offering it to their host, or even asking his permission, was busy igniting one of his coronas.
Packer asked wearily, in English, ‘What’s your view, Sammy?’
‘I got no views, soldier. It’s none of my business.’ He drew on his cigar, leaned back and breathed two blue tendrils of smoke through his nostrils. ‘Remember, you’re my bossman,’ he added, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. ‘You take the decisions, not me.’
Packer had an angry suspicion that Ryderbeit was enjoying his discomfiture. He stood up and dropped the papers and pen on to the desk in front of the banker. ‘I want an extra paragraph inserted on all six copies. Exactly the same wording as the last-but-one, but substituting my full name for that of Monsieur Pol here.’
He heard Ryderbeit’s cackle from behind him. ‘Good on you — you devious Welsh bastard! I once trusted the fat sod with a couple of billion US and finished up as a fucking seamstress for the Reds.’
Shah-Mak Page 9
