The Clayton Account (8 page)

Thursday and Friday, they got down to work in Speer’s office. Any two lawyers representing either side of a fifty-million-dollar deal would have their desks littered with contracts and argue a thousand dollars’ worth of billable time over each clause. But these attorneys had different terms of engagement. They were simply asked to get results. Their principals were not interested in technicalities. No agreements were ever signed. When things went wrong, they were given the chance to offer explanations but if these were not acceptable, no writs would ever be served. Settlement was always out of court and, if appropriate, payable in blood.

So they talked and agreed the points to the finest detail. The Banker would release the money to Sweeney Tulley McAndrews, into their clients’ account in Geneva. Entirely clean funds would then be available to Speer’s client. On Speer’s instructions, Sweeney would in turn transfer those funds to the accounts of Malaga Construction in Uruguay and Spain. Malaga’s new branch office in Medellín would act as main contractor. It would select and pay the subcontractors out of the fifty million it would receive from abroad, in turn invoicing the Morales Foundation for the entire project. In time, the Foundation would pay Malaga back. Some of the capital required to do this would be raised by collecting donations in Medellín. But when a firm donated ten thousand, Morales would pay in twenty or thirty thousand, in that firm’s name, using the ever-increasing stream of banknotes that came in with each new shipment of cocaine. In Speer’s estimate, if the total
cost
of the project came to fifty million, at least ten would have been raised from local contributions. In the process, Morales would have laundered a further forty million without paying any intermediary a single cent.

‘When do you think your end can be in place?’ Speer asked, once details were agreed.

‘I understand instructions for the transfers have already been sent.’

‘Excellent. In that case I shall start the ball rolling straight away,’ replied Speer, satisfied.

On Friday night they drove off the central plateau to the coast at Puntarenas and ate fresh lobsters by the Pacific Ocean. They drank a passable Mexican Chardonnay and accompanied the best coffee Sweeney had ever tasted with a few rounds of smuggled Chivas Regal. They then drove back to San José, collected girls from the club – just two this time – and returned to Speer’s place. Mid-morning on Saturday, Enrique drove Dick to the airport and watched him board the fight back to New York.

The difference between a secret and an item of common knowledge is no more than the degree of openness with which information spreads. In Colombia, even under threat of Morales’ own version of justice, the most closely guarded of secrets will still reach those for whose ears it was never intended. Such is the power of gossip.

Julio Robles, like his predecessors and those who undoubtedly would succeed him, bought secrets. Everyone in Medellín knew Julio, the Forestry Sector Specialist from the Inter-American Development Bank.
EL BID
, as the bank was commonly known – an acronym of its Spanish name – loaned billions of dollars that might never be repaid. In theory the bank was funded by all the
governments
of the American continent. In reality most of its resources were provided by the United States, which is why its headquarters were in Washington, DC. The majority of its staff was Latin American and all of its money was ‘loaned’ south of the Rio Grande, where politicians and businessmen perceived it as a soft touch: the source of hard currency for the grandest of infrastructural projects.

It made sense to be close to the men of
EL BID
.

So Julio Robles had no problem making friends. He was a familiar figure. Dressed in jeans and carrying a rucksack one day, as he went off into the jungle. Back in a suit or tuxedo the next evening for the city’s social rounds. Always sought after, invited to lunch here and receptions there; the jovial young Guatemalan could dispense large cheques for forestry conservation and job creation. A strikingly good-looking, dark-haired bachelor, Robles had Caribbean-blue eyes and a smile which broke many a Medellín heart. But whereas most Sector Specialists in the BID were posted for two years at a time, the incumbent in Julio’s job would be pulled out every six months or so, because that was how long his masters judged their envoy could remain alive.

In truth he was neither named Robles nor a Guatemalan, and the salvation of the tropical rainforests was only of passing interest to him. Julio Cardenas was a US citizen in the employ of the United States Department of Justice and totally committed to the aims of its Drug Enforcement Administration. How the DEA got its men into the BID, Julio did not ask. But they did, and so far not one had been exposed. Perhaps, he thought, this was thanks to the power of money. One man lost, whoever was at fault, and the host country would see a number of official-enriching projects suddenly targeted
for
budget cuts. So Julio just got on with his job – both his jobs – and took care.

He left the Peruvian consul’s cocktail party before nine, having exchanged greetings and embraces with at least a quarter of the guests, then drove his car out of Medellín towards Cartagena. Two kilometres out of town, where the road turned sharply left and right, he checked his rear-view mirror, then brought the vehicle to a sudden stop. A small man in his thirties, simply dressed in peasant garb, stepped out from the bushes and into the car.

‘You have something for me, my friend?’ Julio enquired lightheartedly as they drove off.

‘I have something very good for you, Don Julio,’ replied the man guardedly, his weather-beaten face betraying his anxiety. ‘You will reward me, of course?’

‘Hey!’ interjected Robles. ‘You question my generosity?’

The man shook his head, embarrassed. Everyone knew that the man from BID would give you fifty dollars – in greenbacks – for any information to do with land, especially land containing trees. And while there were relatively few trees on the land in question, trees were trees and stories could always be embellished. So he told him. Mayor Romualdes was buying up land in Medellín: the old Krugger lots in the town centre, and the telephone company’s derelict yard, which had been vacant for over a year.

Robles shrugged. Interesting, but so what? Did he know what the land was for?

‘No,’ said the man, ‘but there’s more.’ There were three large tracts being bought as well. Two of them on the Bogotá road: ‘Lots of trees there. Used to be part of the Angelini
finca
. And the bit we just passed,’ he added, waving his arm in the direction of the city. ‘About ten hectares by the side of this road.’

Julio nodded appreciatively and slowed the car down. He gazed into the darkness straight ahead, then checked the rear-view mirror once more. Taking advantage of a wide shoulder on both sides of the single carriageway, he turned the car right round and headed back towards town. His informer took the cue and looked at Robles expectantly.

‘How do you know?’

‘
Qué?
’

‘How do you know this is taking place,
amigo
?’

‘My wife told me,’ replied the man reservedly.

‘Your wife works in the town hall?’ Robles asked firmly.

‘No, not my wife.’ He hesitated, then added: ‘Her sister.’

The South American grapevine, thought Julio. Dribs, drabs, but woe to him who ignores it. It can be more reliable than the Reuters wire.

‘What does your sister-in-law do there?’

‘My what?’

‘Your wife’s sister,’ explained Robles patiently. ‘What’s her job at the town hall?’

‘She … she works for the Mayor – you know?’

A cleaner, Robles guessed. He decided to change tack: ‘So who is buying these lands? Romualdes or the city?’

‘No, not them,’ said the man eagerly. ‘It’s the Morales Foundation.’

‘I heard of it,’ said Robles, concentrating hard to appear nonchalant while his entire body tensed up at the very mention of the name.

‘Yeah,’ volunteered the man, mistaking Robles’ sudden silence for an invitation to continue. ‘They say it’s a charity from Don Carlos, help the poor like –’

‘Interesting story, Alberdi,’ commented Julio, trying to sound dismissive. ‘Not much, but thanks. I always appreciate the odd bit of gossip. Now’ – he lowered his voice
conspiratorially
– ‘what I cannot understand is how your wife’s sister
knows
that. She’s not a secretary there, is she?’

‘No,’ Alberdi had to concede.

‘Is she good-looking, then?’

‘You want to meet with her?’ the man’s quick wit had spotted another potential avenue of income.

‘No,’ replied Robles angrily. ‘I want to know how the hell a cleaner in the town hall can have this information.’

‘She fucks the Mayor.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Big breasts,’ smiled the man, cupping his hands, fingers fully expanded several inches out from his chest as he smiled to reveal dirty teeth. ‘Skin like olives, ass like a watermelon.’

‘Getting poetic, eh?’ Robles had to laugh.

‘I’d fuck her myself, but my wife would cut my throat!’

‘Listen, my friend,’ lied Robles, now in a serious tone. ‘The Krugger plots I don’t give a damn about. But the other land, well, that’s rural, technically speaking. And if anyone is asking for money to develop it, then that’s
my
business. You understand?’

Alberdi did not understand, but what did that matter? His payment was clearly coming closer, so he told all he knew. Alicia, his wife’s sister, had been sleeping with Romualdes for some time. No, the Mayor did not talk business in bed, and in any event Alicia was not interested. But yes, she was a cleaner, and only she was allowed to clean the Mayor’s office. When she went in to do her work the Mayor would not interrupt his business. He talked on the phone to everyone and discussed affairs of government as though the woman were not there. To Robles this made sense, for that fat slob Romualdes possessed all the shortcomings of the Latin macho and none of his virtues. Therefore, the woman he thought he was giving such a
heavenly
time through – in his mind at least – his virtuoso humping performance, had to be totally, unquestionably loyal and subservient to him. And Alicia repeated nothing with disloyal intent. Nonetheless, at home, where her sister disapproved of her, she would as a matter of course recount those matters of state that she knew of. She felt this restored some dignity to her status in the family.

Julio Robles’ mind was racing. The information was worth at least five thousand, but paying that sort of money to Alberdi would be crazy. So he thanked the man, gave him eighty dollars in four bills, then drove straight to the office of the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo in Medellín. There he looked up his code books – more as a precaution, for Julio Robles was a professional who carried all the agreed phrases in his head – and then typed a memo to the head of the DEA’s Medellín unit. After double-checking its contents, he dialled a number in Washington and sent the message through.

And though the area code he dialled was indeed that of the US capital, the numbers that followed it were a code in themselves, sufficient for the AT&T computer in Jacksonville, Florida, to intercept the transmission and divert it to whichever of Julio’s team-mates was on duty that evening at the DEA’s field office in Miami.

‘Maybe it means something, maybe not,’ thought Robles, as he watched the sheet pass through the fax machine. He remembered his training officer in Quantico several years ago. ‘You look at one bit of a puzzle,’ he had said, ‘and it probably tells you nothing. But
you
ain’t got the goddamn board! Remember that. You find a bit? You send it across. Maybe it fits, maybe it don’t. But that ain’t your business. You mothers just
send
it. Any piece could complete the puzzle, and might even save your ass.’

So Julio Robles always sent his bits. And, in this instance,
while
it would by no means complete the puzzle, it would trigger a sequence of events that would shake the entire cocaine business in Colombia.

Bruno Hoechst’s title was Accounts Manager, Private Clients, at UCB Zurich. He was one of several employees in similar positions at Head Office. As he sat at his desk reading his mail on Friday morning, he was feeling upset. Earlier in the week he had been ordered by his divisional vice-president, Dr Brugger, to hand over one of his good accounts to Julius Ackermann, a colleague of equal standing with barely a year’s seniority over Hoechst.

The Clayton account was considered good in banking terms. Money moved in and out regularly yet at any given time in recent years it contained an average of thirty million dollars. Of course a modest rate of interest was always paid to customers on such balances, but
modest
was the key word: leaving ample margins for the bank to earn from overnight deposits and money-market lending – and for Bruno to take the credit in his superiors’ eyes.

Then he read the letter.

Each day the post office delivered mail three times. At eight in the morning, at noon, and finally at four in the afternoon. All mail went first to the bank’s post room for sorting. From there it reached the right section by internal messenger, so that Hoechst’s first post was always with him by 8.40 a.m. The letter from Professor Michael Clayton had arrived with the first post and as he read it Bruno smiled, barely able to conceal his excitement. It consisted of a single paragraph above the writer’s signature, instructing the United Credit Bank to close the account in question and transfer the entire balance to Messrs Sweeney Tulley McAndrews, Attorneys-at-Law, c/o Banque Credit Suisse, Geneva. His joy only increased as
he
envisaged that bore Ackermann having to inform Brugger that he had managed to lose the entire deposit within forty-eight hours!

His first reaction had been to take the letter to Ackermann in person, but then he thought better of it and adhered to the system. On a little memo sheet he wrote
Ackermann, J., Room 543
. This he appended to the letter and placed it on his out-tray, ready for the 12.40 collection. He then got on with the rest of the day’s business, still smiling. Maybe, he thought, he would time his departure for lunch to coincide with Ackermann’s and get in the lift with him – just to see the look on his face.