Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

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Numbered Account: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Former U.S. marine and Harvard Business School graduate Nicholas Neumann seems to have it all: a dream job, a beautiful fiancée, a future bright with promise. But beneath the dazzling veneer of this golden boy is a man haunted by the brutal killing of his father seventeen years before. And when new evidence implicates the venerable United Swiss Bank in the crime, Nick finds himself willing to do whatever it takes to uncover the truth. Leaving behind everything he holds dear, Nick takes a job in Zurich with the United Swiss Bank, and is soon plunged into a world where everything — loyalty, power, even life and death — can be bought and sold for the right price. As the secrets of the venerable bank are laid bare, suddenly Nick knows far too much — about the offer he never should have accepted, about the money he never should have handled, about the woman he never should have loved.

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Thorne stared straight ahead and shook his head. He chuckled in disbelief as if to say “How about that boy’s manners?” “Bear with me, Nick. I think it would behoove you to listen to what a representative of Uncle Sam has to say. As I recall, we did pay your salary a few years back.”

“All right. But make it brief.”

“We’ve been keeping an eye on that bank for some time now.”

“I thought you were looking at all the banks.”

“Oh, we are. But yours is my personal favorite. I wasn’t kidding when I told you you’re working in a viper pit. Your associates are up to a lot of funny business. Unless you think it’s normal procedure to accept deposits of a million dollars in precounted packets of tens and twenties. Or if you think it’s standard operating procedure for a client to open accounts in Panama and Luxembourg without giving his name, rank, or serial number, and for you to say ‘Of course, sir, it’s our pleasure. What else can we help you with today?’ But it’s not. That’s what my daddy called doing the devil’s handiwork.”

Nick looked at Thorne’s partner, a chubby man in a charcoal suit. The man was sweating. His hands nervously tapped the steering wheel. He didn’t want to be there.

“What’s this got to do with me?” Nick asked. As if he didn’t know the answer.

“We need your eyes and ears.”

“Do you now?”

“If you cooperate with us,” said Thorne, “we’ll cut you some slack when we bring that house of cards down. I’ll put in a word to the federal prosecutor. Get you out of here on the next plane.”

“And if not?”

“Then I’ll be forced to bring you in with the rest of your buddies.” He extended an arm out the window and tapped Nick’s cheek twice. “Tell you the truth, it’d probably feel pretty good to corral an arrogant cocksucker like you. But that’s your choice.”

Nick brought his face closer to the American agent. “Are you trying to threaten me?”

Thorne threw his head back and snorted. “Why, Lieutenant Neumann, where did you get that idea? I’m only reminding you of your sworn duties. Did you think that oath you took to obey the President and protect your country stopped when you took off your uniform? I got the answer for you: No. It sure as hell did not. You’re a lifer. Just like me. You can’t hide behind your little red passport. That blue one you got is bigger and stronger.”

Nick felt his anger welling up inside of him. He ordered himself to control it. “If and when the time comes, that’s my decision.”

“I don’t think you fully grasp the picture here. We’ve got your number. We know what you and your pals are up to. This is not a request. It’s a standing order. Consider it as coming from the commander in chief himself. You are to keep your eyes wide open and report when ordered. You legally blind pricks at USB and every other fucking bank in this town are helping a lot of dangerous individuals clean up their profits.”

“And you’re here to save us from them?”

“Put it this way. Without you, Neumann, they wouldn’t be sitting in a sixty-foot cabin cruiser off of Boca Raton smoking cigars, getting laid, and planning their next score. You’re as guilty as they are.”

The accusation incensed Nick. Heat prickled the back of his neck. He clenched his jaw, telling himself to calm down, but it was too late.

“Let me make something clear to you, Thorne. First off, I served my country for four years. I’ll carry the oath I took every day for the rest of my life. It’s a two-inch piece of shrapnel sitting behind what’s left of my knee. Every day it cuts a little more of my tendon, but it’s so far in there no one even wants to try to get it out. Second, you want to go chasing bad guys around the world, be my guest. That’s your job. But if you can’t stop them, don’t go running around looking for fall guys. I take my job seriously and I try to do it to the best of my abilities. All I see are a bunch of papers, people putting money in, moving it around. We don’t have guys bringing in a million bucks over the counter. That’s a fairy tale.” Nick put his hands on the windowsill and brought his face close to Thorne’s. “And finally,” he whispered, “I don’t give a good goddamn who you work for. You ever touch me again, I’m gonna haul your skinny ass out of that car and bounce it around the street until there isn’t anything left of you but your belt, your boots, and your fucking badge. My leg is still strong enough to do that.”

Nick did not wait for a response. He backed away from the car, straightening, grimacing as his right knee gave a sour snap, then set off toward the lake.

The black Mercedes matched his speed.

“Zurich’s a small town, Neumann,” called Thorne. “Surprising how often you run into your friends. I imagine we’ll be seeing each other again.”

Nick kept his eyes focused in front of him, vowing not to be baited by this asshole.

“I wasn’t kidding about those vipers,” Thorne shouted. “Ask Mr. Kaiser about Cerruti. Keep your eyes open, Nick. Your country needs ’em. Semper fi!

Nick watched the car accelerate down the Bahnhofstrasse and turn left toward the Quai Brucke. “Semper fi,” he repeated, shaking his head.

The last refuge for a scoundrel and the first for Sterling Thorne.

CHAPTER 12

Nick curled his fingers around the railing of the dock and peered into the night. Red storm lamps flickered at the ports of Wollishofen and Kilchberg, and on the Gold Coast, at the Zurichhorn and Kusnacht. Snow swirled in unseen eddies while agitated currents slapped the ice extending from beneath the dock’s pilings. He turned his face into the wind, willing the nettly gusts to wash away the memory of Thorne’s last words.

Semper fidelis.

Three years had passed since Nick had signed his separation papers. Three years since he had shaken hands with Gunny Ortiga, delivered one last salute, then walked out of the barracks into a new life. A month later he was searching for an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, buying textbooks, pens, and paper, and generally living in another universe. He recalled the looks he had attracted that first semester at business school. Not many students walked across Harvard Yard with a marine crew cut, hair trimmed high and tight, shiny whitewalls and half an inch of fuzz on top.

He had been gung ho from the day he arrived at Officer Candidate School until the day he got out. Loyalty to the Corps went beyond politics and beyond mission. It sat in your gut forever like an unexploded grenade, and even now three years since he last wore a uniform, just hearing another’s call of Semper fi triggered an unwanted flood of memories.

Nick stared into the snow and cloud that lay on top of the lake like a fleecy blanket. He mulled over the timing of Thorne’s contact. Why today? Did Thorne know about the Pasha’s biweekly calls? Did he know that Nick handled the Pasha’s account? If not, why had he mentioned Cerruti? Or had Nick been contacted only because he was an American?

Nick didn’t know the answer to those questions. But the timing of the visit aroused his distrust of coincidence—a distrust bred from experience. The gameboard was extending its field.

Semper fidelis ,” Thorne had bidden. Always faithful.

Nick closed his eyes, no longer able to fight back the torrent of memories that cascaded before him. Always faithful. Those words would belong forever to Johnny Burke. They would belong forever to a steaming swamp on the forgotten corner of a secret battlefield.

* * *

First Lieutenant Nicholas Neumann USMCR is sitting in the forward operations center of the assault ship USS Guam. The room is hot and cramped and rancid with the sweat of too many sailors. The Guam, commissioned from the San Diego Naval Shipyard twenty-seven years before, is moving at flank speed through the calm waters of the Sulu Sea off the coast of Mindanao, southernmost island in the Philippine archipelago. It is five minutes before midnight.

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