Steve Martini - The Rule of Nine

Root and his friends began scrambling for some way out. They couldn’t transfer the funds without creating a paper trail and shooting off international warning flares for money laundering.

Quietly they appealed to the manhood of their Swiss bankers, questioning whether any sovereign nation should cede such intimate powers as bank secrecy to a bullying superpower. If the bankers would only push back, members of Congress would quietly knee the Treasury Department in the groin from behind.

It took nearly two years of testy negotiations with the State Department and Treasury before Josh and his friends could get the genie back in the bottle and hammer the cork into place once more.

Under the plan only a limited number of American account holders would be identified. These were to be selected at random. At least that was the theory. Since no one could be sure whether they would be in the group to be outed or not, the theory was that the random disclosures would force a large number of U.S. citizens to come clean. It was a good argument, except for one thing. The names of current and former members of Congress suddenly went off the banks’ official books. They would never be dropped in the hat, and therefore would never be disclosed. Business would go on as usual. At least that was the dream before Josh received the first e-mail.

Root couldn’t be sure, but he had a good idea of who the man was. In the two e-mails received so far, he’d signed off using the name “the Old Weatherman.”

The Weathermen were a loosely knit organization of student radicals dating back to the late 1960s. They were a splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society. Their goal was the violent overthrow of the United States government. Eventually the organization died like everything else, of old age.

Root knew all about them because he had once been a member. It was during the early seventies. Using a different name and a false ID, Josh had participated in a number of acts, including the bombing of two federal buildings and a Bank of America in Southern California. The bank bombing, which had taken place in the middle of the night, resulted in the unintended death of a guard no one knew was present. It was this that brought Root to his senses. He quietly dropped out of the organization a few weeks later and cycled back into the real world.

But the Old Weatherman, now sending missives to him, knew about it. Not only did he know about Root’s past, but he had details and evidence that could tie Josh to the bank bombing.

Root looked down at the single sheet of paper in his quivering hand. He’d known when he made the first payment that there would be no end to it. Now he wanted another half million. This to keep quiet. Or else he would send the information to the police. The Weatherman had already collected two and a half million, wired from Root’s Swiss bank account to another numbered account in Lucerne. The Old Weatherman was forcing Root to take dangerous chances wiring large sums of money around in the open. It was almost as if he was enjoying it. No doubt a true believer who never gave up the cause and was angry with Root, who had sold out and was now part of the power structure.

It was as if he knew that Josh had a bottomless pit filled with cash. But how could he know? He crumpled up the e-mail in his hands, balled it into a tight wad, started to throw it at the wall, then saw himself in the mirror and stopped. Sooner or later he would have to deal with the man, one on one. Root couldn’t chance going to anyone else. “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.”

My daily calendar sheet says her name is Joselyn Cole. She is from the state bar association. According to our receptionist, she called late yesterday afternoon, demanded a meeting, and mentioned something about irregularities in our client trust account. Given the recent chaos it’s probably a minor bookkeeping mistake, but it’s not something I can ignore. I’ve had to shoehorn her into my calendar this morning.

As I cross the threshold into my office she is already seated in one of the client chairs in front of my desk, attractive, sleek, and from appearances all business. She is wearing a dark blue suit and packing a briefcase, black leather, that is slung from her shoulder on a strap like that of an assault rifle.

I close the door behind me and step around the desk and into my chair on the other side.

I introduce myself. “Ms. Cole, is it?”

“That’s right.”

“What is this about, our client trust account?”

She looks at me a little sheepishly and smiles. “I suppose I should apologize for that. I have to confess I’m sailing under false colors. It’s true my name is Joselyn Cole. But I’m not with the bar. So you can relax. As far as I know there is nothing wrong with your client trust account.”

As soon as she says it, I’m like Bambi in the headlights.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m sorry for the deception but it was absolutely essential that I talk to you.”

She looks to be in her early forties, with blue eyes and shoulder-length sandy hair. There are just a few specks of gray, enough to let you know she is more interested in what she’s about than how she looks.

“I am with a group known as Gideon Quest. We’re a nongovernmental organization, an NGO.” She slips me a business card from across the desk.

“I don’t make contributions or respond to solicitations in the office.” I talk as I examine her card.

“I’m not here looking for money, Mr. Madriani. Our organization is involved in the international effort to stem weapons proliferation, both weapons of mass destruction as well as certain classes of conventional weapons. So I suspect you probably know why I’m here,” she says.

An electric chill runs down my spine, the kind of feeling you got as a kid when the nun called you to the front of the class with a ruler in her hand.

“No. I’m sorry, I don’t. And I have a very busy day, so I think we’re going to have to cut this short.”

“Part of my job involves incident inquiries, events that may represent a threat to public safety, and that may go undetected and unreported for any number of reasons.” She ignores me. “Events don’t always get covered in the general press.”

“It’s all very interesting, but as I said, I’m busy.”

“We’re one of a number of organizations that report on a regular basis to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. I assume you’ve heard of it.”

I’m still looking at her card, trying to collect my thoughts to figure out whether to toss her out now or let her go on to find out what she knows, if anything.

“I’ve got some questions I’d like to ask you,” she says.

That cuts it. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this.”

“It’s very important,” she says. “It’s not often that we see an incident like this. The fact is I’ve seen it only once before. And a friend was killed. They covered it up then too. I tried to warn people back then but no one would listen. The government made it sound as if I was crazy. So I did the only other thing I could do-I found others who shared the same concern and we founded Gideon Quest. Yes, accidents happen, but an attempted intentional detonation in a population center is a seminal event. You really have a moral obligation to talk about this.”

“Excuse me. You come here under false pretenses, scare the hell out of me with some story about problems in our client trust account. Then you tell me you’re with an organization I’ve never heard of…”

“I told you I was sorry, but it was the best I could do on short notice,” she says.

“No, you could have told the truth,” I tell her. I’m trying to shift from angst to indignation, so I can gain the moral high ground to get her back on her heels and out of here.