The Rwandan Hostage

by Christopher Lowery

  Then the slaughter started.

  FEBRUARY, 2010

  ONE

  Geneva, Switzerland

  La Bise is a French word meaning ‘The kiss’. It is also the name of the cold, sharp wind from the east which regularly sweeps across central Europe, especially Switzerland. Local people will tell you that it always appears for one, three or five days, but everyone knows it can blow for a week or more. It was blowing strongly as the young woman climbed out of the taxi in front of the private bank in Plainpalais at nine twenty-five on a freezing cold February morning. She pulled her coat tighter around her against the chilly air, grateful for its warm cashmere fabric and hurried across the pavement and through the massive double doors.

  “Bonjour, Madame Bishop, I hope you are well.” The man waiting in reception shook her hand. “Welcome back to Klein Fellay. Everyone is here, expecting you. Please follow me.”

  They entered the lift and he pressed six. “Did you have a pleasant trip, Mme Bishop?”

  “As usual, Mr. Schneider, but a more pleasant prospect this time.”

  “Indeed.” He nodded his head. “It has not been an easy time for you. I understand. It’s been rather a difficult period for us here at the bank also.” When the woman said nothing, he took out a handkerchief, blew his nose loudly then continued, “May I say that I admire your determination and courage in fighting this matter and I’m personally delighted that it has been resolved in your favour.”

  She smiled grimly. “Thank you, Mr Schneider. Then we’re both delighted.” Jenny Bishop didn’t like Eric Schneider and she didn’t like Klein Fellay. The litigation was the only reason she still had her accounts there, but that’s going to end today, she told herself.

  They exited the lift and she handed her coat to a woman assistant. Schneider led her to what she assumed was the bank’s main conference room, extravagantly large, with a high painted ceiling featuring a baroque scene, nudes, angels, cherubs and all. The room was beautifully furnished, with a number of recognisable old masters on the walls. Jenny had attended several meetings at the bank and each time it seemed they found a larger and more opulent ambience to display their wealth. Designed to impress and intimidate, she thought, but it won’t work this time.

  Four men and a woman were already seated at a magnificent Boulle baroque style table, made for Louis XIV, inlaid with tortoiseshell and red leather veneer. Twenty Hepplewhite armchairs were placed around it, which to Jenny looked rather incongruous. The table was set with eight leather writing pads, two on one side and six on the other, each with a matching ballpoint pen and pencil. Jenny shook hands with them all then sat with her lawyer on the client side of the table. Schneider sat on the other side with his boss, Emile Bluchner, the bank’s Chief Executive, and the four lawyers.

  Six to two, she registered suspiciously. Why so many when the matter’s already resolved? Her own lawyer, Sylvestre Prideaux, smiled confidently at her and poured her a glass of water. Prideaux was reckoned to be the best of Geneva’s new breed of techno-lawyers, specialising in the recent phenomenon of cybercrime; embezzlement, fraud and robbery over the Internet. He had been recommended by a Swiss colleague of José Luis Garcia Ramirez, her Spanish lawyer, and she had hired him a year after the dreadful experience with d’Almeida, the psychopathic murderer. That was when she had finally come to terms with the death of her husband, Ron, his father and his partners and the catastrophic events she and her friends had lived through at the Angolan’s hands. After months of wrangling, she was still fighting to recover the money he had stolen from her and this was her last attempt to settle the matter before the court case, scheduled to begin in March.

  Bluchner himself served coffee to everyone and there were a few minutes of general conversation as they settled in their places. Jenny had met all of them before, except for the female lawyer and knew their style, what to expect from them. The men had always deferred to Bluchner, adding only legal footnotes to his long monologues about new technology, client protection and bank liability. She listened carefully to the woman’s few remarks, trying to gauge her attitude to the meeting and anticipate her position on the litigation. To Jenny, she sounded self-opinionated and bossy.

  Finally Bluchner opened the meeting. “Mme Bishop, thank you for coming to meet with us today and I hope that it will prove to be worthwhile for everyone concerned.” Jenny said nothing and he turned to the woman lawyer. “Mme Wyss, can you please summarise the bank’s proposal for Mme Bishop.”

  “Certainly Herr Bluchner.” The woman cleared her throat and started reading from a set of notes in a fast staccato rhythm with a Swiss German accent so strong that Jenny couldn’t understand half of what she said. What she could understand was that she, Mme Wyss, had been brought in to deliberate on the extent of the bank’s liability and she proposed to do this by reference to the few available precedents in the field of financial fraud by Internet.

  After a minute or two of this incomprehensible rhetoric, Jenny sat forward and said, “Please don’t continue Mme Wyss. I can’t understand you and I don’t want to listen to any more long legal speeches. I’ve had almost a year of them already.”

  Prideaux, her lawyer, put his hand on hers as if to say, hold on, don’t interrupt, but she pulled it away and went on, “Mr Bluchner, I came here today because you advised my lawyer that you acknowledge that an error was committed by your bank in making a transfer without proper authority. If that is the case then there is no need to examine precedents or to make any kind of a proposal. You must simply reverse the transfer and we can both pay our lawyers and forget the matter. If not, then we’re going to proceed with the court case scheduled for next month. It’s as simple as that.”

  “But Mme Bishop, the fact that we agree that an error was committed doesn’t settle anything. We must decide on reciprocal culpability and discuss the amount of appropriate damages. Please let Mme Wyss continue with her analysis and our proposal.”

  “We deny that there is any reciprocal culpability.” Prideaux was now on his feet. “My client and her two companions were held at gunpoint and forced to disclose their PIN numbers. The perpetrator had already received the security codes from one of your own employees and he sent all of the information himself via your Internet Banking System. Your bank therefore executed a transfer of twelve million dollars based upon improper instructions. Subsequently, Mr Peterson, one of your clients whose account was pillaged, was shot dead by the villain who then also died in the fracas.” He stopped for a moment, letting this last awful statement hang in the air.

  “The law is clear on this matter. Your duty to your clients is to only operate their account with instructions received from the account holders themselves, not from a third party, unless they are in possession of a power of attorney, which we know is not the case. Please inform me where my clients’ culpability arises in this case.”

  Mme Wyss sat forward and started speaking to Prideaux in French, with an even stronger Swiss German accent, a hard grating sound to Jenny’s ear. She caught the words “Internet” and “PIN securité”.

  “Please speak English Mme Wyss, my French and Swiss German are a little rusty,” she said.

  The woman looked at her contemptuously and continued haranguing the lawyer until Bluchner called for order. Everyone sat back down and lowered their tone, but within a moment the conversation became heated again and continued for several minutes, each side trying to make their point against the other, until Jenny stood up and banged on the table.

  “Stop this arguing immediately. You sound like a bunch of market traders trying to settle the price of a second hand fridge. Please listen to me carefully, because my return flight to London leaves in two hours so I don’t intend to stay here much longer.

  Prideaux, who knew Jenny and her temper quite well by now, put his hands over his eyes and sat back in his seat. The others, shocked, said nothing and waited for her to speak.

  “Firstly, you have agreed with my lawyer that you made an error in
making the transfer of twelve million dollars. You didn’t specify the error, but Mr Prideaux is right, it is because none of the account owners, neither I nor Adam Peterson nor Leticia da Costa actually sent any instructions to you and this has been confirmed by the police investigation.

  “Secondly, I know that the bank has a professional liability indemnity policy in place for two billion Swiss Francs, for just such errors as this. That should be enough to cover my claim.

  “Thirdly, thanks to the stupidity of the actions of the UBS, after its sixty billion dollar bailout, the Swiss banking system is under immense scrutiny right now, not just by the United States, but by Europe and even here within Switzerland. I don’t think your parent bank, the International Bank of Paris, would be very happy to see their Swiss subsidiary’s name all over the international press and on TV in connection with a Geneva law-suit involving cyber-fraud, a serial murderer and two very unhappy clients who have lost twelve million dollars because of an error that you admit was your fault.”

  She squared up to Bluchner, looking him straight in the eyes. “Mr Bluchner, if you want to fight, then you’re going to have to fight my way, because I don’t have two billion francs of insurance. I came here to collect my money and get on with my life. If I can’t do that, then I’ll have to find my satisfaction in some other way.”

  Jenny sat down, shivering with fury and fright, in equal measure. Prideaux put his hand over hers again, this time to signal, well done.

  “So, Mme Bishop.” Bluchner took a deep breath. “You’re saying it’s twelve million dollars or a battle?”

  “Exactly, Mr Bluchner. But a battle on my terms.”

  TWO

  Geneva, Switzerland

  An hour after Jenny’s impassioned speech, Mme Wyss placed a three page document in English before her on the table then turned and walked away without a word. Sylvestre Prideaux read it over carefully and nodded his agreement. Jenny read it for her own satisfaction, registering mainly the sentence; KF agrees to rectify the error by crediting, with immediate value, the amount of Twelve Million US Dollars to the aforementioned bank account in full and final settlement of TAC’s claim against it.

  She fleetingly thought of making a further argument for accrued interest but decided that she had had a pretty good run for her money. Don’t push your luck, Jenny, she thought. Besides, interest rates are so low it makes very little difference. We’ve won, that’s all that counts. Jenny took out her own pen and signed the agreement, in triplicate, on behalf of The Angolan Clan, the business created by Charlie Bishop, her father-in-law, over thirty years before, bringing success and wealth to the members for many years before being targeted by a pathological genius, ending in catastrophe and death. There, Charlie, she said to herself. I got our money back for you. I hope you’re proud of me, getting the better of this crooked bank. She pushed the papers over to Bluchner, who signed them without comment.

  “Thank you everyone. That concludes our business and you’ll be receiving further instructions from Leticia and I, properly signed, in due course.” She got up and went over towards the door. Only Bluchner came to shake her hand.

  “I’ll just tidy up here, Jenny.” Prideaux was still fussing over the papers on the desk. He shook hands with her and turned back to his administrative work. “My secretary will send copies of everything together with my invoice in a day or two.”

  I’m sure she will, thought Jenny. There’s the first chunk of the money gone and I did most of the work myself. Her agreement with the lawyer was an hourly consulting fee plus one per cent of the settlement. This was going to cost her and Leticia almost two hundred thousand dollars. She shrugged resignedly and replied, “Thank you, Sylvestre. Au revoir.”

  “Let me accompany you, Mme Bishop.” Schneider opened the door for her and they went to reclaim her coat from the cloakroom. Stepping into the lift, he once again pulled out his handkerchief, this time only to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead.

  “May I say something, Mme Bishop?” He held the handkerchief against his mouth and she could smell the fragrant after shave he had sprinkled on it.

  When she nodded, he said, “I have never witnessed such a magnificent performance in my life. Mr Bishop would have been proud of you. I must say I miss his visits, and now I suppose I’m going to miss yours too.”

  “Thank you, Mr Schneider. I’m pleased it’s over, but thank you for your kind words.”

  They walked to the door and he asked if she needed a taxi.

  “I don’t think so. A walk in the fresh air will do me good. Goodbye Mr Schneider.”

  Jenny shook his hand and walked away, pulling the collar of her coat around her. It was still bitterly cold. There was a taxi stand on the corner of Rue Jaques-Balmat and she climbed thankfully into the one waiting cab, giving the driver an address in Pâquis, the red light district on the other side of the lake. She hadn’t wanted Schneider to know where she was heading. Switching on her mobile she texted two words, ‘12 million’, then sent it to Leticia, in Spain. She couldn’t know that it was the same as the message sent by d’Almeida, the murderer, to Esther, his girlfriend, just before he died.

  Good job I got her to agree to joint signatures, she thought to herself. Unlike Jenny, Leticia was a new born big spender, revelling in the fortune she’d inherited from Charlie, her former lover and father of her son, Emilio. Hopefully Patrice, her French fiancée, who was a banker, could advise her well enough to cover her expensive tastes. Anyway, this money’s going to be safe, she thought, then put the matter from her mind for the moment.

  Jenny hadn’t told the truth about her airline booking. She had a reservation on a Swiss International flight to Malaga at two thirty, which gave her enough time to make two more visits before leaving this freezing place. As they passed over the lake on the Pont du Mont Blanc the Bise brought the air temperature down to well below zero and she admired the fantastic shapes created by the frozen waves as they were blown along the sides of the Lac Leman. The taxi pulled up in front of a six storey building and when Jenny rang the bell, one of the heavy double doors swung back, revealing a young man in a dark blue suit.

  “Madame Bishop. How nice to see you again. Please come inside from the cold.” He ushered her into the reception area and shook her hand.

  “Gilles Simenon. What a surprise. I didn’t think you’d still be here after almost two years. Young people change jobs quite a lot these days.”

  “It’s not so easy to get a good job here anymore, Mme Bishop. The economic problems are starting to affect Switzerland now, like every other country. So I’m glad to be in a secure position with a very good company. I suppose you wish to visit your safety deposit box?”

  “Yes please.” Jenny signed the large book that Gilles opened for her. “Is Mr Jolidon still in charge?” She asked, as they walked to the lift which he opened with a code on the key pad.

  “He is, although he spends a lot of time in the offices on the other side of the building. We’re a bit short handed because they’ve cut some staff. That’s where he is now. Do you want to see him?”

  “No, it’s not necessary.” Jenny was relieved. She neither liked nor trusted the manager.

  They descended two floors then went through two sets of steel doors into the massive circular vault. Gilles removed a key from the cylindrical rack in the secure key cupboard and inserted it into the top lock of box 72 and turned it. Jenny took two keys from her purse, each with an elastic band on it, one green, which she turned in the middle lock, the other yellow, which opened the lower lock. Gilles turned away as she entered fifteen-eleven-forty-five on the keypad and the door clicked open.

  “Excellent! I’ll wait for you upstairs Mme Bishop.” The young man closed the security doors behind him and left her alone in the vault.

  She took out the steel box and placed it on the large central table, self-consciously looking around to ensure there were no prying eyes, even though she knew the room was virtually hermetically sealed. She removed
Charlie’s battered old briefcase from the box, opened it and laid the ten chamois leather pouches on the table. Untying each one, she spilled the contents into ten piles on the table top.

  Jenny hadn’t been back to Ramseyer, Haldemann since April, 2008, almost two years ago, when she was accompanied by Leticia and Adam Peterson, just before his tragic death at the hands of d’Almeida. Her breath was once again taken away by the burst of brilliant light reflected from the ten miniature pyramids of Angolan diamonds in front of her. Beautiful, but deadly, she mused, not for the first time. Henrique’s diamonds had been the source of great wealth and happiness and great poverty and revengeful jealousy in equal measure.

  Because of the long drawn-out dispute with Klein Fellay, Jenny had never found the time or the energy to move them to another safety deposit facility, as she’d originally intended. Now, she realised, she might just as well leave them where they were. No one else knew she had both keys and she intended to keep it that way. She had taken the second key from Adam because she didn’t fully trust him. There were parts of his story which didn’t ring true and he had lied about the terms of the contract with Charlie. Who knew what might have happened if he had survived the confrontation with d’Almeida?

  The immense fortune they were inheriting was also causing her more and more concern. She knew that great fortunes and happiness don’t always go hand in hand and subsequent events had proved her sixth sense right. Leticia, who had given her the other key, was too young and inexperienced and she had taken it from her to avoid inviting any further tragedy in their lives.

  Jenny didn’t consider that the diamonds belonged to her. She thought of them as belonging to no one. They would stay untouched and unannounced in the vault until, God forbid, there ever there came a day when one of her or Leticia’s family needed them, then they’d still be there.