Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

“I can imagine.”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“Nope. Just me. ‘Independent’ is how I look at it.”

“Best to rely on yourself,” said Sylvia, without a trace of sympathy. She sipped her coffee before resuming her personnel director’s interrogation. “Tell me what really brought you to Switzerland. No one just ups and leaves a post at one of the top firms on Wall Street.”

“When my mother died, it hit me hard that I didn’t have any real roots in the world. All of a sudden I felt alienated from the States, especially from New York.”

“So you quit and came to Switzerland?” Her voice said she wasn’t buying his spiel.

“My father grew up in Zurich. When I was younger we came over all the time. After he passed away, we lost contact with our relatives. I didn’t like the idea of letting it all fade away.”

Sylvia stared at him a moment, and he could see she was evaluating his answer. “Were you close to him?”

Nick breathed easier, happy to be over that bridge. “My father? Tough question to answer after so many years. He was from the old school. You know, kids should be seen and not heard. No television. In bed at eight o’clock sharp. I don’t know if I was ever really close to him. That part was supposed to come later, when I had grown up.”

Sylvia raised the cup to her lips and asked, “How exactly did he die?”

“Kaiser never told you?”

“No.”

Now it was Nick’s turn to size her up. “So, we’re supposed to be honest with each other, right?”

Sylvia half-smiled and nodded.

“He was murdered. I don’t know by whom. The police never arrested anyone.”

Sylvia’s hand registered a minor tremor, and a few drops of coffee tumbled from her cup. “I am sorry for prying,” she said crisply. “Please excuse my being so rude. It was none of my business.”

Nick saw that she believed she’d gone too far, and that she was ashamed. He appreciated her respect for his privacy. “It’s all right. I don’t mind you asking. It’s been a long time.”

Both took a sip of coffee, then Sylvia said she had something to tell him, too. She moved closer to him, and for a moment it seemed that the din and roar surrounding them faded. He hoped she didn’t have some catastrophic family secret of her own to share. She gave him a puckish smile and he knew his fears were for naught.

“Since the beginning of the evening I’ve been dying to take these horrid little pieces of paper out of your hair. I was afraid to ask how they got there, then I realized that you must have had to dry your hair—because of the snow. Come on, lean a little closer.”

Nick hesitated for a moment, studying Sylvia as she shifted her body on the banquette to face him more directly. She looked at him and a puzzled expression wrinkled her brow. Her eyes were a soft brown, no longer so challenging, and for a moment they held his in their embrace. Her nose crinkled slightly, as if he had asked her a vexing question, and then she smiled and he saw that a small gap separated her front teeth. And in that smile, he spotted—if only for a moment—the girl who had grown into this, perhaps, too responsible executive.

“Don’t be afraid. I told you that my bark is worse than my bite. You must believe me.”

Nick inclined his head toward her. He came nearer her body, smelling her perfume, then sensing it mix with her own warmth, her own peculiar, feminine scent. He blushed, and as she removed the last pieces of tissue from his hair, he dismissed any worries he had had about her being his superior at the bank. Abandoning himself to her feminine charms, he could barely suppress a sudden and powerful urge to wrap his arms around her and bring his mouth to hers and to kiss her long and deep and hard.

“I think we’ve cured your rather nasty case of dandruff,” Sylvia stated proudly.

Nick brushed the top of his head, not quite ashamed of his secret thoughts. “All gone?”

“All gone,” she confirmed, a bright smile gracing her features. And then she added in a tone of hushed confidentiality, “If you ever need anything, Mr. Neumann, I want you to promise me right here that you’ll call.”

Nick promised.

Later that night, he spent a long time thinking about her final remark and the million and one things it might have meant. But right then, as she spoke the words, he could think of only one thing that she could do that would make him happy. Maybe, just maybe, she would call him by his first name.

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration chose the first floor of a nondescript three-story building in the Seefeld district as its temporary headquarters in Zurich. Number 58 Wildbachstrasse was a grim affair of plaster stucco and sober disposition, its only extravagance the pair of double-paned French windows that peered from each floor onto the street. Neither terrace, balcony, nor window box prettied its spinster’s facade.

Seeing the building for the first time, Sterling Thorne had declared that it resembled a cinder block wearing a bedpan. But the monthly rent of Sfr. 3,250 had been well within budgetary constraints, and the outdated floor plan, which divided the ground floor into six rooms of equal size, three on either side of a central corridor, was ideal for a staff of four or five United States government employees.

Thorne held a telephone close to his ear and stared anxiously out the front window, as if waiting for a tardy agent to cross over from the east. The morning fog, which during winter loitered on the Swiss plateau like an unwelcome houseguest, had at 11:45 A.M. Friday not yet lifted.

“I heard you the first time, Argus,” said Thorne, “but I didn’t like the answer. Now come again. Did you find the transfer I told you to look for?”

“We got zip,” said Argus Skouras, a junior field agent, from his post in the payments traffic department of the United Swiss Bank. “I was here until they kicked me out last night at 6:30. Came in this morning at 7:15. I have searched through a stack of papers taller than an elephant’s ass. Zip.”

“That is impossible,” said Thorne. “We have it on good sources that yesterday our man received and transferred a huge chunk of money. Forty-seven million dollars cannot just disappear.”

“What can I tell you, Chief? If you don’t believe me, come over here and we can do this together.”

“I believe you, Argus. Don’t get yourself all worked up. Settle down and keep doing your job. Give me that officious prick Schweitzer.”

A few moments later a gruff voice came through the receiver. “Good morning to you, Mr. Thorne,” said Armin Schweitzer. “How may we be of service?”

“Skouras tells me you have no activity to report from the account numbers we supplied you with on Wednesday evening.”

“That is correct. I sat with Mr. Skouras this morning. We reviewed a computer printout listing every electronic funds transfer the bank has received and transmitted since the surveillance list was last updated twenty-four hours ago. Mr. Skouras was not satisfied with the summary sheet. He demanded to check each individual instruction form. As we process over three thousand transfers a day, he’s been very busy.”

“That’s what his government pays him for,” Thorne said dryly.

“If you care to wait a moment, I will key in the accounts on your list. Our Cerberus system does not lie. Anything specific you are looking for? It might be easier if I had an exact sum, say the amount transferred, to use as a cross-reference.”

“Just check all the accounts on your list one more time,” said Thorne. “I’ll let you know if we find what we need.”

“State secrets?” joked Schweitzer. “Fine, I’ll enter all six accounts. This will take a moment. I’ll pass you Mr. Skouras.”