Michael Ridpath - Free To Trade

'That's the clever bit. By giving the money back, no one will know that a crime was committed. They can carry on living normal lives, and perhaps try the same trick again, forty million dollars richer. If they were to get greedy and not repay the forty million dollars they had borrowed, then an investigation would be started, and they would run the risk of getting caught.'

'They raised twenty million dollars from De Jong. Where did they get the other twenty million dollars from?' Tommy asked.

'From Harzweiger Bank in Zurich,' I said. 'I spoke to a Herr Dietweiler there, who pretended they had never bought the deal. He must have got some kickback for getting involved. That must be why they use accounts at Harzweiger Bank, where Herr Dietweiler can keep his eye on the funds.'

'OK. So how do they manage to make all this money out of borrowing forty million dollars. What is this "Uncle Sam's Money Machine"?'

I shook my head. 'I don't know. It seems to be the key to the whole thing. I don't know what the hell it is.'

'Perhaps it's a government agency?' suggested Tommy.

'Maybe,' I said. 'But I don't see how anyone ever got rich by giving money to a government agency.'

'Uncle Sam could refer to the army,' said Tommy. 'A lot of people make money out of that. Defence contractors and such like.'

'Could be,' I said. We discussed the possibilities for several minutes without coming to a satisfactory conclusion.

'So – how can I help?' Tommy asked.

'Are you sure you want to?' I said. 'You know what happened to Debbie Chater and Greg Shoffman.'

'Hey, I don't have a job, and I need something to do. This beats selling bonds. And the more I stir up that sticks to Bloomfield Weiss, the better.'

'Well you could try to find out a bit more about Greg Shoffman,' I said. I told him about my attempts to discover more about his disappearance. 'I would like to know who killed him. Just as important, I would love to know what he found out before he died. He may have turned up some useful evidence against Cash and Waigel. I would do all this myself, but I won't be in New York for very long. If you come across anything, call me at the conference in Phoenix.'

Tommy said he would do his best, we paid for the coffee, and we left.

I liked Tommy. For a moment I was concerned that I had needlessly put him in danger by telling him what I knew. No, that was silly. I knew more than Tommy. And I wasn't in any visible danger.

I got back to my hotel room, hot and sweaty. The red light on the phone was on. I left it there and jumped straight into the shower, letting the cool water lower my blood temperature. Feeling much better, I went to the phone and rang the message desk. Hamilton was coming into New York the next day. He wanted to meet me for lunch at a fashionable Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. It would be good to see him. Everything was jumbled in my mind. Talking it through with him, I knew it would all fall into place.

The next day was my last in New York before flying to Phoenix. I was scheduled to see a couple of investment banks in the morning. At one of them a persistent little man called Kettering insisted on lecturing me on the opportunities in South American debt, even though I had no interest. He regaled me with a mixture of scolding and abuse. He succeeded in making me feel stupid for not agreeing with him about the financial wonders of that continent, but also irritated the hell out of me.

Tired and battered by the morning's hard sell, I decided to walk from the investment bank's offices up to the restaurant. I needed the air, even though it was only New York's hot atmosphere, which managed to be both dusty and clammy at the same time. I sauntered diagonally through side streets and up the main avenues, slowing myself down, just looking.

I walked along a deserted side street, high buildings on either side. Thin eerie music echoed off the walls of the canyon. A group of short square men, wearing what looked like shawls and bowler-hats, clustered round some rugs, acoustic equipment and a set of primitive drums. They had dark, wind-beaten skin and high, hardened cheekbones. There was just me and them alone on the street. I stopped to listen. The music had a magical quality to it, evoking sheer mountainsides, swooping birds of prey, the age-old loneliness of the Andean altiplano. I don't know how long I stood there, bewitched by the music. Eventually they paused, and only then acknowledged my presence, smiling shyly. I bought one of the tapes they had laid out on the sidewalk. The cover was a picture of the group looking very serious, with the caption 'Las Incas'. I walked on, the music still swirling and swooping inside my head. Within a minute I was back in the blaring bustle of Third Avenue.

The restaurant was light and airy. Skylight and metal tables suggested an informal garden trattoria in Italy. The other diners' sober suits or chic dresses confirmed what it really was: an expensive New York restaurant currently enjoying its brief turn as the place to be.

I saw Hamilton lost in a sheaf of papers. He looked quite out of place amongst the other tables of smart diners. As I drew up a chair, he glanced at his watch and frowned slightly. I looked at my own and saw it was 12.33 p.m. Three minutes late. Who but Hamilton would care?

Stuffing his papers into his briefcase, he asked 'How are you finding New York?'

'Oh, I like it,' I said. 'It's so,' I paused, 'unexpected.' I told him about the Peruvian band I had encountered on my way.

Hamilton looked at me, slightly puzzled. 'Yes, I see,' he said. And then, with an edge to his voice. 'You have seen some investment banks, haven't you?'

As usual with Hamilton I felt slightly foolish. Of course Hamilton was not interested in my thoughts on New York as a city, he wanted to know what was going on on Wall Street.

I told him the highlights of what I had heard. He questioned me closely about one or two conversations I had had which I had thought were completely unimportant. He probed me with questions which I realised I should have asked and hadn't, digging to discover who was buying what. My self-confidence began to wane as I realised that by Hamilton's standards I had done a superficial job of finding out what was really going on.

The waiter had been hovering throughout this interrogation, nervous of interrupting Hamilton. Finally he saw his chance and, after forcing a hurried glance at the menu, coaxed an order from each of us. Hamilton stuck with a Caesar salad, which seemed a bit Spartan to me, given the exotic attractions of the menu. Reluctantly, I gave up the starter, and after a swift glance, asked for a complicated-looking meat dish. Hamilton ordered a large bottle of mineral water. I looked enviously at the next table, where a couple were enjoying a long, relaxed meal and were already on to their second bottle of Montrachet. Why come to a restaurant like this and gallop through a lettuce and a glass or two of water? Oh well.

'How have your other investigations gone?' Hamilton asked.

I told him everything I had found out: how Waigel had been evasive about his involvement in the original deal, about Shoffman and his disappearance, and about the diagram I had found in Waigel's office.

Hamilton listened carefully to every word. When I had finished I looked to him for a response. He was silent for what seemed an age, gently stroking his beard. Then he smiled. 'Good work, Paul. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.'

After my poor showing earlier in the conversation, I was pleased. 'So what do you think Uncle Sam's Money Machine might be?' I asked.

'What do you think?'

I had thought about this hard over the last twenty-four hours, but had not come up with anything. 'A government defence agency? Some sort of computer? Some kind of government bond fraud?' I guessed wildly, looking to Hamilton for a reaction. He didn't seem too impressed with these ideas.