A Woman Involved (30 page)

It was just after twelve o’clock that morning when Danziger walked into the pub. Morgan was already there. Danziger went to the other end of the bar, and slowly scratched his face with his left hand. Using his left hand meant that he had seen nobody suspicious during his final reconnaissance.

Morgan said to the barmaid: ‘A double cognac, please.’ His voice felt husky.

Danziger raised his eyebrows. The barmaid poured the liquor and Morgan picked up the glass. It trembled slightly. He took a big mouthful. It almost made him retch. He controlled it, and hunched over the bar, trying to steady himself.

Self-confidence and high morale … 

The seaplane had landed two hours ago. Morgan had spent an hour practising the signature again. Then they had left the motel, identified their two rented cars parked on either side of the lake; then driven into the city. Morgan had gone straight to the bar. The others had separated, each doing their final reconnaissance.

Now Makepeace came into the bar. He went to an empty stool. He stroked his eyebrow with his left hand.

Morgan took a deep breath.

This was it, then … It was hard to grasp that he was actually about to do it: he did not even know which name to use. If he screwed that up, it wouldn’t be the Comrades or Carrington who hauled him away, it would be the Swiss police. He took another swallow of cognac. He did not taste it. He looked at
his hand – he could not register whether it was trembling or not. Then he quaffed back the cognac in one big swallow. He banged down the glass, and walked out of the bar.

It felt as if the eyes of the entire world were upon him. He hardly felt the cold. He walked briskly up the sidewalk. Unreal. Trying to look like a man with honest business on his mind. He turned the corner into Bahnhofstrasse. And there, ahead, were the bank doors, and everything was real all right. He glanced across the road and saw Stillgoes strolling past the shops. There were no parked cars. There were plenty of people, but they all seemed to be moving. He took a deep breath and turned into the big doors of the bank.

To the left, a commissionaire sat at a desk: straight ahead, the banking hall. To his right was a waiting area with armchairs. Elevators. A marble staircase leading down. Morgan said to the commissionaire: ‘Safety-deposit department, please.’

The commissionaire pointed at the stairs.

Morgan’s ears felt blocked, as if he were descending from a high altitude. Yet his footsteps sounded loud. Down the stairs. Round a bend. To the bottom. A red carpet, a glass door. The doors slid open automatically. Beyond was more red carpet, armchairs, desks, a marble counter, vases of roses. To the right, a grille guarding the portal to the deposit boxes beyond. Morgan walked up to the counter. His throat felt thick and his legs felt shaky.

A clerk with receding hair came up to the counter. ‘
Bitte, mein Herr
?’

Morgan cleared his throat. He tried to smile. His voice sounded loud: ‘I’d like to go to my box, please.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The clerk produced a book of forms. ‘Your number, please?’

‘Seven two two four.’

The clerk scribbled the number on the form. ‘Your name, sir?’

His stomach contracted. The dreaded question.

‘Constantine … Maxwell Constantine.’

He expected a siren to start wailing. The clerk printed the name. He murmured: ‘Your passport, sir?’

Morgan pulled out Max Constantine’s passport. He pressed it on the counter so it would not tremble. The clerk pushed the
book of forms at him. ‘Fill in the counterfoil, please, sir, and sign.’

Morgan took out his ballpoint pen. This was really it. He pressed his arm hard on the counter.

He bent over the form. He printed Constantine’s name on the counterfoil. The box number. He pressed the pen hard, trying to stop his hand trembling. The last item, the signature. The blank space shrieked at him. His ears blocked. What he was about to do could land him in a Swiss jail for a long, long time. He took a deep breath, and held it. Then, before he could hesitate, he scribbled the signature.

His ears were ringing. He shoved the form over the counter.

The clerk had the passport open. He glanced at Morgan, comparing him with the photograph. He looked at the form, then at the signature in the passport. He said:

‘One moment, sir.’

He turned away. Morgan stood, staring at the man’s back. It was unreal. The next few moments decided it all. And then, suddenly, he felt almost calm. He had done it. Done his best. If all was lost, so be it. The clerk was bent over a pile of cards. He pored over one, and the passport and the form.

He straightened up. He said something in German to the clerk at the next desk. He walked back to Morgan.

He reached below the counter and pressed a button.

The iron grille slid open, and Morgan jerked. A dapper man in a suit was striding officiously towards him.

The clerk ripped the form from the counterfoil. He handed it to the dapper man and said:

‘Take Mr Constantine to his box, please.’

He was walking on air. He felt laughy with relief. He followed the dapper man through the grille. He had to work at it to keep a grin off his face. He wanted to do a little skip. Through a vault with red carpet, the walls gleaming with the tiers of silvery boxes from floor to ceiling. Through an arch into another big room. More vaults led off. Red carpet all the way, the walls gleaming with boxes. Into another vault. A spiral staircase leading down to more vaults.

The dapper man stopped at box 7224. He inserted his own key and turned it. ‘Now your key, please, sir.’

Morgan pulled out the bunch of keys. ‘I forget which one it is.’

‘It will be this one, sir.’

Morgan inserted it shakily, and turned it. The man opened the little door. Inside was a metal box about two inches in depth. He handed it to Morgan. ‘This way, sir.’

Morgan clutched it. He could hardly believe he had it. The man led the way into another room. There were rows of tables, divided by partitions.

Morgan said huskily: ‘Haven’t you got private rooms?’

‘Cabins? Yes, sir. Follow me.’

He led into a corridor. It had doors down each side. Above each shone a light, some green, some red. He went to the nearest door showing a green light, and opened it. The cabin had a desk and a chair.

‘When you are finished, press the bell, sir.’

‘Thank you.’ Morgan closed the door behind him. And locked it. He leant against it, and closed his eyes. He was trembling with relief.

‘Thank You, God …’ he whispered.

He pulled out the chair, and sat down at the desk. He lit a trembly cigarette.

He lifted the lid off the box.

He was looking at a small metal cylinder, a tape-recorder cassette, and an envelope.

He picked up the cylinder slowly. He unscrewed the cap. He looked inside. Then he tipped the contents out, into his hand.

So this was it. This was what everybody was after, the British, the KGB.

It looked like a small roll of camera film. He felt helpless. How do you develop microfilm? Who could he trust to do the job? Could you do it in an ordinary darkroom, with the ordinary equipment?

He picked up the envelope, and opened it.

Inside were some papers, and some film negatives. He glanced at the papers. One was a photocopy of a banker’s letter. The other document was an airline waybill. He held the strips of film negatives up to the light. Black-and-white negatives. Indistinct, of people, not documents.

He picked up the cassette.

Handwritten on the label was:
Klaus Barbie, 1982.

Morgan stared. Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons!

On that tape, he was sure, was a verbal explanation of what was on the microfilm … 

Of course it was! What would you do if you were Klaus Barbie? – what does any blackmailer do? He
tells
his victim what he’s got against him – he doesn’t show the original, he shows a copy! But Barbie could not make a copy of the microfilm so he summarizes his evidence verbally, on this tape!

Morgan felt feverish. If he could play that tape, he would know what this whole business was about. Know what they were up against, what to do about it. And he was not going to leave the security of this building until he had listened to that tape … He rang the bell.

A few moments later there was a knock on the door. He opened it. ‘Yes, sir?’ the dapper clerk said.

‘I want to dictate some notes onto a tape. You haven’t a portable tape-recorder, have you?’

‘No sir. But we could hire you a stenographer.’

‘Where’s the nearest shop I could buy a tape-recorder?’

‘Jemboli, sir. A department store, a few blocks away.’

‘Jemboli. Thank you. May I use your telephone?’

The man led him back to the room which contained the desks. Morgan was clutching the deposit box. ‘The telephone directory, sir.’ The man pointed, and walked away.

‘Thank you.’ Morgan pulled out Danziger’s note of the public telephone in the Carlton Pub. He dialled it feverishly.

It rang twice: ‘Hullo!’ Makepeace said breathlessly.

Morgan said carefully: ‘I’m not ready to leave yet. Now listen. A few blocks away is a store called Jemboli. Go there, and buy a portable tape-recorder. The type that can play one tape and record it onto another cassette. Get a couple of blank tapes. Plus good batteries. And it must have an earpiece, so I can listen without anybody else hearing. Got that?’

A stunned silence. ‘A tape-recorder? What kind?’

‘Any goddam kind! And then bring it into the bank. Down to the safety-deposit department. They’ll be expecting you. Tell them it’s for Mr Constantine.’

‘
Constantine
?’ Makepeace whispered.

‘Correct. And then you have to stay
in
the bank in case the Comrades jump you. Sit upstairs in the foyer. Danziger must take your place by the telephone.’

Makepeace said worriedly, ‘He’s not going to like this.’

‘
Fuck Danziger! Do as you’re told!
’

He hung up. The dapper man strutted back to him. Morgan said, ‘My assistant will come shortly with a tape-recorder. Would you bring it to my cabin?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

At that moment another clerk walked into the room. He was leading another client to the corridor of cabins. The client was Sergei Suslov.

Morgan paid no attention to him. He was trying to think what to do with the microfilm after he had listened to the tape. Then suddenly he knew. At least it was the first step. He said to the clerk: ‘I think I need to rent a new box – a bigger one.’

‘You have to go to the front desk for that, sir.’

The man led him through the vaults, back into the front room. The clerk behind the counter came forward. Morgan said huskily, ‘I’ve decided my box is too small. I’d like to rent a bigger one, please. In fact, I’d like to make it a numbered account. Is that possible?’

‘Yes, sir. It is more expensive. But it means that henceforth you will be known to us only by your number. Your signature will be your
number
, written in words. Instead of your name, you write out your number, in words, and we compare your writing with the word-numbers on your original application form – and
that
is your signature. It means that nobody could forge your normal signature and get to the box.’

‘I see. Yes, I’ll have one of those, please.’

Fifteen minutes later he was back in his cabin. With his new, bigger box, and his new keys.

Now he was the only person in the world who knew where the microfilm was.

He picked up the banker’s letter and read it hurriedly.

It was a photocopy of a letter from the Vatican Bank, signed by two officers with Italian names. Dated September 1st, 1981. It was addressed to Banco Ambrosiana, Andino, Peru, and to Ambrosiana Group Banco Commercial, Nicaragua. Morgan’s
pulse fluttered. Banco Ambrosiana? God’s Banker’s bank. The letter read:

The attached statements showed an indebtedness by the Vatican Bank to the South American banks of 907 million dollars.

Morgan frowned. So? God’s Banker owned Banco Ambrosiana, and his bank evidently had partnerships in other banks in Peru and Nicaragua. So, the companies listed in the letter had borrowed money from the Peruvian and Nicaraguan banks, and as the Vatican Bank owned or controlled the companies, it owed the money to those banks. So? On the face of it, nothing remarkable about that. 907 million was an awful lot of money, but not to the Vatican Bank. Anna had told him that God’s Banker and the Vatican Bank did some business together, and this simply confirmed it.

But what was this letter doing in Max Hapsburg’s deposit box?

Morgan snatched up the airline waybill, and speed-read it.

It was a carbon copy. It was simply a contract note specifying that this airline, called Meteor Air, was going to deliver sixteen crates of bulldozer hydraulic lifts from Malta to Bellatrix SA, in Panama. The delivery date was June 17th, 1982.

Morgan tried to concentrate. Bellatrix was one of the companies mentioned in the letter, owned by the Vatican Bank. So? So, okay, Bellatrix dealt in bulldozer parts, and it had
bought sixteen pieces in Malta, and Meteor Air was going to deliver them to Panama. So what? The only thing that was possibly significant was the delivery date, three days before Anna’s, birthday last year, the day before God’s Banker was murdered.

Then he realized something else. This was a
carbon
copy of the waybill, which is given to the consignee: when his goods arrive at their destination, he presents this copy to identify himself and his goods, takes delivery and the waybill is receipted. But there was no receipt on this. It appeared, therefore, that these sixteen crates of bulldozer parts had never been delivered.