Robert Baer - Blow the house down

India handed the phone to the woman.

"Yes, madam… yes, madam… You're sure you know the young lady? Of course, thank you, madam."

She put her phone back in her purse, looked at the two of us, certain something was not right, and apologized.

As she watched us in puzzlement, we walked down the hill arm in arm, me with my shopping bag crammed with who knows what, India with her backpack minus the pigeon gun. Somewhere in the ether overhead, I was certain, Frank Beckman and Michelle Zwanzig were in earnest conversation. We had to get out of Switzerland fast.

I was on the couch, watching India packing, when there was a knock on the door. "Service," a muffled voice said.

I looked at India. She shrugged her shoulders to tell me she hadn't ordered anything. It couldn't be the Swiss police. It was too soon for them to have figured out what happened.

"Service, s'il vous plait.'"

"Un instant," I said.

I motioned for India to go into the bathroom and close the door. Then I turned off the lights and drew the curtains. I knew the interior. I was betting whoever was in the hall didn't. I crouched low beside the door and threw the latch. As soon as I turned the knob, the door flew open with a hard kick and someone threw himself into the room. I swung my leg around in an arc and caught him in the shins. His momentum carried him across the room. I could hear the crack of a chair leg breaking over by the

windows. I was on him, my foot in his crotch, by the time he recovered and tried to scramble to his feet. One downward thrust, and he lay still on the floor, panting. The door to the hall must have banged against the wall so hard it closed again. The room was still too dark for me to see who I'd pinned to the floor.

"Was she a good fuck?" Raspy, through clenched teeth, but I'd know Frank Beckman's voice anywhere. He must have already been in Geneva when he got the call from Michelle. How he found India and me so quickly I had no idea.

I stepped hard on his crotch. This time he screamed until I eased up.

"I said. Was she a good fuck?" He was breathing hard, gasping.

"Frank, I just want to know one thing: Did you know why you were buying airline puts in 1994?"

The puts were a hunch. Until I had the time to go through the documents from Michelle's safe, I wouldn't know for sure Frank was into them. Still, it was a bluff that couldn't hurt.

"Fuck you."

"You don't care that you have blood on your hands," I said.

"Let me up."

"Let's try another question…"

"Fuck you."

"What is it now, tankers, refineries?"

"Let me the fuck up."

I stepped harder on his crotch. He screamed again.

"Who's running Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, you or Channing?" I yelled.

Frank didn't respond this time.

"You got Webber to frame me. You knew I was getting close with the photo, that one day I'd find out KSM took it, that he was your inside guy."

I was talking mostly to myself by then. Maybe I'd been doing that all along. Frank had passed out somewhere along the way. He wasn't making a noise. I took my foot off him. A few minutes later he started to stir, groaning. It was clear he wasn't going to talk. I bent over him, patted him down. I was thinking of that Beretta he'd bought to kill India's stepfather

with. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd brought it with him on this trip, too. What else are private jets for?

"I thought about it," he said, reading my mind. His body was limp, jelly.

"You'd be better off thinking what your next move is. One is: Don't think about going to the Swiss police. I'll lay it out right here. I've already e-mailed Danny Pearl at the Wall Street Journal with half the story. I get rolled up and he gets the rest. Move two, you stop whatever is going down: airplanes, refineries. If you don't, it'll be a cinch tying you to it with the paper I got."

When I was through, I pulled him up, half carried him to the door, and pushed him out into the hall.

Then I opened the door to the bathroom. India lay curled on the floor, sobbing.

I went downstairs to the business center and called Chris Corsini. "It's me, Max." "Why are you bothering me? I thought we had an agreement that you got your last favor."

"Here, take down this number." I read off Webber's cell phone number, the one he had given me my last day at headquarters, the same one I'd already given Chris to get Webber's calls. "Do a quick credit check on him. Call me back with his bank and bank account number." "This isn't legal, is it?"

"It's okay. I owe the guy money and I lost his financial coordinates. If I don't make the transfer today, I'm cooked." "Right. I think I've heard that before, too." But Chris called back right on cue, ten minutes later. "Whoever Webber is, he has only one bank account, domestically and

in his name at least: the Bank of America in Falls Church." He gave me the number.

"One more favor, Chris. I'm running out of time. Look up the IRS's fax number in Philadelphia."

"Jesus, Max, what are you up to?"

"You don't-"

"You're right. I really don't." Happily, he seemed to have the IRS number on his Rolodex.

As soon as I hung up with Chris, I pulled out a three-by-five card I'd grabbed at the last minute from Michelle Zwanzig's office: the pin code to her UBS account. It had been taped to the inside of the safe door. Using it, I logged onto her account and transferred twelve million dollars from David Channing's Morgan Stanley account to Webber's checking account at the Bank of America in Falls Church, Virginia. I printed a copy of the transfer and faxed it to the IRS.

Next, I called John O'Neill, hoping he, too, was still speaking to me.

"Can I get back in?" I asked him. "I gotta see you now."

"JFK okay?"

"I'll see you there."

"I won't be at the airport. A friend, though."

"Okay. But this can't wait."

"One other thing: I got you immunity."

"What for?"

"You know. Millis. But that doesn't mean they can't tag you. If there's any chance of cleaning up your act, do it now."

Too late for that.

"John-"

"Oh, no…"

"One last request ever."

"I mean it. You're like the clap, like some herpes virus. You just keep mutating and erupting all over the place."

"I need a meeting. Justice. CIA. FBI. Set it up, will ya?"

"Fucking nuts," O'Neill said as he hung up.

I'd lied to Frank; I hadn't e-mailed Danny Pearl anything. But I did now. David Channing's options buys. Not enough to write a story, but if anything happened to me, Pearl would never let the story go.

When I got back to the room, India's bag was waiting by the door, but she was gone. I was lying on the sofa two hours later when she let herself back in. She looked as if she'd been crying for days.

"I have to leave."

"I know," I told her. I tried to put my arms around her, but she backed away. "Our flight's in-"

"Now, Max. Now. I can't stay here anymore."

"What did he say?"

"A lot. He's giving me forty-eight hours to get my things out of the house."

"It's time for you to move out, anyhow."

"Yeah, but not this way."

September 6, 2001

CONDI, UE CONTINUE TO NEED IN THE MOST PRESSING WAY A PRINCIPALS LEVEL REVIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S APPROACH TO MIDDLE EAST POLICY, BOTH IN ITS BROAD FORMULATION AND IN ITS SPECIFICS. GOD'S IN THE DETAILS…