The Devil's Banker (26 page)

Without another word, he stalked from the room, leaving the door yawning behind him.

Leclerc threw his leg over the saddle of the Ducati, zipped up his jacket, and slid the key into the ignition.
Chapel,
he was thinking,
you really must learn to close your mouth.
He knew it was stupid to expect so much. Americans were a loudmouthed bunch in general, even when they spoke in whispers. A thought had yet to cross their minds that they did not feel obliged to share with the rest of the world. Turning the key, Leclerc started the engine, but a second later, he turned it off again. Inexplicably, he felt nailed to that very spot.

It isn’t right,
a voice from a long-silent corner of his soul repeated.

Leclerc scoffed at it, but answered nonetheless. “I’m a soldier. I follow orders. That’s that.”

A soldier who cowers in the stairwell when the others charge.

“A smart one,” he answered, amazed at his conscience’s newfound temerity. “One who does as he’s told. I’m alive. They’re dead. Don’t confuse being foolish with being brave. Besides, who else could have found out about the Trust or Monsieur Ange?”

So why didn’t you tell them about him? Surely they’d be interested.

Finally, Leclerc had no more answers. He mumbled something about Chapel being an ingrate, but his words lacked conviction. He was looking for ways to hate the American, only to keep from hating himself. Chapel, who ran into danger without a backward glance. Chapel, who had every right to ask what Boubilas had said. Chapel, the accountant, who was every inch the soldier Leclerc should be. Suddenly, he raised his fist and crashed it down on his leg. The pain was welcome, if only to distract him from the lingering burn of Gadbois’s huge palm on his back. A swat on the back was the general’s ultimate compliment.

“You can give them the Holy Land Trust,” he’d said when Leclerc had met him at five-thirty that morning to debrief him about the Boubilas interrogation. “But that’s all.”

“They need to know the other thing, too,” Leclerc had protested. “You know, the other man. Maybe the agency has a line on him. He’s the boss. They’ve got to know.”

“No,” said Gadbois. “Ange is for us alone.”

“You know him?”

“Know
who
?” Gadbois shook his head, the old lion looking his age. “There is no such person.”

It wasn’t much, but it was something. When you were as thirsty as Chapel, as desperate for a lead, it looked like a long, tall glass of water. The Holy Land Charitable Trust. The Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden. One more account. One more chance. He felt the currents tugging at him, yanking him east. Still, for a moment he resisted. Maybe because he disliked Leclerc so intensely. His unassailable confidence. His flagrant disregard for the rules of human conduct.

Sarah drove the Renault south through town, the traffic light, a cheery sun behind them. They crossed through St.-Germain-des-Prés and dashed past the Ile de la Cité. A bag of croissants sat between them, filling the car with a buttery, inviting scent. The mention of the bank in Dresden was no coincidence. First the DIB, then the Gemeinschaft Bank. Hijira was hiding in Germany. They didn’t just know the rules, they knew more. About the nasty interplay between governments. About the petty backbiting and adolescent uncooperativeness. Someone had made them privy to all the backroom secrets no one ever talked about.

Chapel was on the phone yet again, this time to a nondescript office building in Vienna, Virginia, home to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, another unsleeping crusader in the unsleeping war.

“Hey, Bobby. This is Adam. I need you to run a search for me double-quick. The Holy Land Charitable Trust. Reporting financial institution is the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden.”

“Know them well,” said Bobby Freedman, a twenty-five-year-old analyst full of piss and vinegar even at three-thirty in the morning. “Picked up by Thornhill Guaranty in an all-stock deal thirteen months ago, primarily to expand Thornhill’s private banking operations in Europe. A clean operation. Very white shoe, or white boot, or whatever it is they wear over there on the Elbe.”

“The Trust is anything but. It’s a conduit of funds to Hijira. Go all-out on this one. Even if the search comes up negative, get on to Thornhill and have them run up a set of account records along with the Trust’s opening docs. Give me anything and everything you got. If they so much as blink, call Admiral Glendenning and have him read them the riot act.”

“Roger that.”

Chapel had barely hung up when the phone chirped again. It was Halsey. “I got Schumacher on the horn. It’s a nonstarter. The presiding magistrate won’t hear about issuing a writ for the Deutsche International Bank without a hearing. We never had a chance. The judge is a lefty—a Green, no less. He sees a fascist behind every minister.”

“Didn’t you tell him about the video? What does he think we want the information for?”

“You’re going to show it to him yourself. He’s deigned to fit you into his schedule this afternoon at three
P.M.
There’s a flight leaving from DeGaulle at eleven. Frank Neff, the FBI legat, will meet you there and give you a DVD of the video.”

Chapel checked his watch and considered skipping the appointment with Dr. Bac. Awakening, he’d been met with a ferocious headache. His shoulder had stiffened. The slightest movement exacted a terrific revenge. Even so, he’d forced himself to forgo another Vicodin. It was more important to have all his wits about him at the bank than to avoid the worsening pain.

“I can’t make the eleven,” he said. “I’ve got to see a doc here about my shoulder. It got fried pretty bad.”

“You sure?”

Damn you,
Chapel thought. “Yes. I’m sure.”

“Okay. Hold on and let me check. Lufthansa’s got a flight at one that will put you into Berlin at two-thirty. We’ll have a car waiting. Pray that the plane is on time. We can’t afford to tick off this judge.”

Chapel hung up. “Step on it,” he said to Sarah. “We’ve got to be clear of the hospital by eleven.”

Sarah plunged her foot onto the accelerator. “What’s the occasion?”

“Get out your passport. We’ve got a plane to catch.”

Chapter 28

Traffic came to a standstill along the international Friendship Bridge linking the cities of Foz do Iguaçú, Brazil, and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Seated on a peppy Honda 125, Marc Gabriel waited patiently. To his right, a string of laborers, traders, and Guarani Indians plodded along the narrow walkway. Most struggled beneath huge packages wrapped in newsprint. One by one they passed him by. The border checkpoint consisted of a metal cabin built in the center of the road. Three patrolmen lingered outside it, waving traffic past. Twenty-five thousand people crossed the decaying iron bridge each day. Few were stopped. Security was not an issue. In Ciudad del Este, the law was of secondary importance. Economics came first. People flocked to Ciudad del Este to make money, and the government didn’t care how.

The cars inched forward, eight automobiles crammed into four lanes. A fissure opened in the crush, a disjointed line clear to the checkpoint. Flipping down his sun visor, Gabriel guided the bike across the bridge, revving the motor as he cleared the border. The guards didn’t give him a second look. Ahead rose a smudged urban landscape: steel and glass skyscrapers, a few halted in midconstruction years ago; a collage of red-tiled roofs; a welter of billboards. All framed by the ever-encroaching jungle.

Located at the heart of the Triple Frontier area, at the meeting point of the Brazilian, Argentinian, and Paraguayan borders, Ciudad del Este—the City of the East—had served for thirty years as a mecca for smugglers, counterfeiters, tax evaders, and gangsters. It was a filthy town. Overcrowded streets gave way to overcrowded alleys where tiny stores,
lojas,
some barely six feet by six feet offered everything that could fall off the back of a truck: car stereos, in-line skates, Xboxes, even Viagra. Watch sellers, money changers, hawkers, and vendors of every stripe infested the sidewalks.

Gabriel had been coming to Paraguay for ten years. He felt comfortable amid the dazzling heat, the ripe humidity, and the permanent fog of exhaust. A ten-minute ride delivered him to the offices of Inteltech in the Las Palomas district. The low-slung warehouse had been freshly whitewashed and fairly sparkled in the morning sun. Three cars were parked in the lot. All carried Brazilian plates. He didn’t recognize any, but it had been six months since his last visit. Seventy percent of the cars in Ciudad del Este were “hot”—stolen and imported from Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. It was not uncommon for residents to frequently change vehicles. They did not, however, frequently change a silver Mercedes 600.

He parked the bike at the rear of the whitewashed warehouse. Strolling through the packing line, he waved hello to a few familiar faces. Box after box stood on the conveyor belt. Most bore easily recognized corporate logos: Microsoft. Corel. Electronic Arts. Oracle.

He stopped in the rest room, using the last of the hand towels to wipe the sweat from his face. He spent a moment checking that the floor was clean, the toilet flushed. Raising a hand to the vent, he felt that the air-conditioning was functioning. He might pay his workers the local wage, but he made sure they labored in decent conditions.

Using his key, he opened the service entrance to the executive offices and strolled down the hallway, popping his head into the offices on either side of the corridor. Several men jumped to their feet. Most were programmers charged with breaking transcription code on new and popular programs.
“Buenos días, Jefe,”
they repeated, one after another. With a smile and a “Please, don’t bother,” he waved them down.

“Ah, Gloria,” he said, as he reached the reception area.
“Cómo está?”
She was a pretty girl, twenty, married with two children, unfailingly polite, but not too smart. She wore a pink rayon pant suit that did not flatter her hips.

“Señor Gabriel,” she said, placing a hand to her chest, rising from her chair. “This is a surprise. Please, what may I bring you? Coffee? Tea? Perhaps with a little Cachaca?”

Music tinkled from the intercom. It took Gabriel a moment to recognize it as the same dreadful tune he’d listened to while on hold the day before. “Mineral water would be fine.” Gloria rose, her smile stretched to the breaking point. As she circled her desk, he grabbed her wrist. “Where is Señor Gregorio?”

Her vivacious brown eyes fluttered, weighing a lie, finding it too heavy. “He has not arrived yet.”

“Surely, he called to inform you of his tardiness.”

“He said he would not be in today. He mentioned a trip.” She added quickly, “He did not say where.”

“Bring me the water in his office,” said Gabriel, releasing her wrist and smiling. “I am sure you will not phone him.” Over dinner at Café Iguana during the last visit, he remembered Gregorio boasting that he’d bedded the girl.

Gloria shook her head no, and hurried down the hallway. By the time she’d set the bottle of San Pellegrino on Señor Gregorio’s desk two minutes later, Gabriel had located the company’s financial records. He was surprised to see that Inteltech had recently moved its business to a new bank. The Banco Mundial de Montevideo. Inteltech moved on average thirty thousand units a month to wholesalers in Panama, Bogotá, and Marseilles. The bank statements showed a steady revenue stream of approximately nine hundred thousand dollars. The company boasted gross margins of seventy-four percent and booked a net profit each month of more than five hundred thousand dollars. The figure was not entirely accurate. It was Gabriel’s practice to over-invoice the cost of the compact disks and production machinery, wringing an additional fifteen thousand a month out of the company and sending it directly to an account in Germany.

Selecting the most recent statement, Gabriel called the number at the top, introduced himself as Gregorio, and asked to be connected to the vice president in charge of Inteltech’s account. A short discussion ensued and Gabriel learned that the twelve million dollars was no longer in Banco Mundial’s coffers. Pleading a clerical error, Gabriel asked where the money had gone. He hoped the answer would be the Bank of Dublin, as he had ordered. He was disappointed. Gregorio had, in fact, wired the money to a numbered account at the Bank Moor in Switzerland. Gabriel’s hand shook as he drank the water.

Before leaving for the police station, he stopped briefly at the reception desk. “I know you will not think of contacting Señor Gregorio,” he said to Gloria. “You have two children. Pedro and Maria.”

The patrol boat was an old Boston whaler, rusting at the gunnels, with a string of bullet holes in the port side. Four men sat in the bow. They wore jeans, sunglasses, and black T-shirts beneath new Kevlar vests. They carried AK-47s on their laps and side arms on their belts. All were officers of the Paraguayan federal police. Colonel Alberto Baumgartner stood at the wheel, steering the boat through the placid, muddy waters of the Paraná River. After an hour’s ride, the river began to narrow. The banks grew closer. The jungle loomed over and around them. Baumgartner opened up the two Suzuki engines, calling out to Gabriel. “Snipers. They like to take a few potshots at us to keep us honest.”

Gabriel didn’t answer. He stared at the mass of vines and trees and scrub, too focused to remark on anything but his anger. Smoke from cooking fires rose above the tree line. Baumgartner pointed to a series of chutes, carved from the riverbanks. “Smugglers,” he said. “They slide bales of marijuana into the river, float it to the Brazilian side.”

Baumgartner was tall and blond, with a slight paunch and not quite a square jaw. His father, Josef, an SS
Standartenführer,
had fled Nazi Germany for Paraguay in the last days of the war, and had served as Alfredo Stroessner’s—the strongman who had ruled the country as a private fief for thirty years—chief of federal police. His son would likely soon assume the same post.

A ten-minute conversation and a fifty-thousand-dollar bribe had enlisted his active support.