Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Nick looked his interrogator in the eye. Don’t waver. Show them you’re a true believer. Become one of them. “If anyone else were there, I would never have been presented with this dilemma. But to answer your question, yes, I would have acted in a similar manner. Our job is to ensure the safekeeping of our clients’ investments.”

“What about following your clients’ instructions?”

“Our job is also to faithfully execute instructions given by our clients. But…”

“But what?”

“But in this instance, execution of this particular set of instructions would have endangered the client’s assets and brought unwanted”—Nick paused, searching for the right word to tap-dance around the ugly facts—“‘attention’ to the bank. I don’t feel qualified to make decisions that may have a damaging effect, not only on the client, but also on the bank.”

“But you do feel qualified enough to disobey the bank and ignore the commands of your section’s biggest client. Remarkable.”

Nick didn’t know whether this was a compliment or a condemnation. Probably a little of both.

Maeder stood up and strolled around the side of his desk. “Go home. Don’t go back to your office. Don’t speak with anyone in your department, including your buddy Sprecher—wherever the hell he is. Understood? The court shall deliver its verdict on Monday.” He patted Nick on the shoulder and grinned. “One last question. Why such an urge to protect our bank?”

Nick rose from his chair and reflected before answering. He had always known that his father’s past employ offered him a mantle of legitimacy. No matter his private suspicions, he was the bank’s kin. Not quite the dauphin returning to claim his throne, but not a wandering contract laborer—an auslander, to wit—either. Tradition. Heritage. Succession. These were the bank’s most hallowed grounds. And it was on these grounds that he would stake his claim.

“My father worked here for over twenty-four years,” he said. “His entire career. It’s in our family’s blood to be loyal to this bank.”

The job was done quickly enough. He had been given a key and it didn’t take more than thirty minutes to search such a small apartment. He had watched the man leave and before entering the building waited a quarter of an hour until he received confirmation that the mark had boarded a tram, direction Paradeplatz. He knew almost nothing about him, only that he worked at the United Swiss Bank and that he was an American.

He set to work immediately once inside the apartment. First he took instant photographs of the single bed and the night table, of the bookshelf and the desk, and of the bathroom. Everything must appear exactly as it had been left. He started at the doorway and worked his way clockwise around the one-room flat. The closet held no surprises. A few suits—two navy, one gray. Four ties. Several white shirts just back from the laundry. Some blue jeans and flannel shirts. A parka. A pair of dress shoes and two pairs of sneakers. All were neatly arranged: clothing hanging in the same direction, shoes aligned. The bathroom, though cramped, was immaculate. The American had few toiletries—only the necessities: toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, an obsolete double-edged razor, one bottle of American aftershave, and two combs. He found a plastic bottle of prescription medication: Percocet—a strong painkiller. Ten tablets were prescribed. He counted eight still in the container. The tub and shower were spotless, as if wiped down after every bath. Two white towels hung from the rack.

He backed out of the bathroom and continued his tour of the apartment. A pile of annual reports sat on top of the desk. Most were from the United Swiss Bank, but there were others—the Adler Bank, Senn Industries. He opened the top drawer. Several pens and a block of writing paper lay inside. He moved the writing paper to one side and found a letter from the bank. He opened it and read it. Nothing interesting—just a few words confirming the mark’s start date and his salary. He moved to the lower drawer. Finally, there was some trace that this guy was a human being. A stack of handwritten letters was bound by a thick rubber band. They were addressed to a Nick Neumann. He slipped one out of the bundle and flipped it over to see who had sent it. A Mrs. Vivien Neumann from Blythe, California. He considered opening one but saw that the postmark was ten years old and put it back.

There were thirty-seven books on the shelves. He counted them. He skimmed the titles, then removed each and skipped through the pages to see if any papers might be secreted inside. A couple of photographs fell from a thick paperback. One showed a group of soldiers in full jungle camouflage, faces painted green and brown and black, M-16s strapped across their chests. Another showed a man and a woman standing in front of a swimming pool. The man had black hair and was tall and skinny. The woman was brunet and a little chubby. Still, she wasn’t too bad. It was an old photograph. You could tell by the white borders. The last two books didn’t have a title written on the spine. He pulled them off the shelf and saw they were agendas, one for 1978, the other for 1979. He scanned the pages but saw only what he would consider routine entries. He looked at the date of Tuesday, October 16, 1979. Nine o’clock was circled, and next to it was the name Allen Soufi. Another circle at two P.M. and “Golf” written next to it. That made him laugh. He replaced the agendas as they were.

Finally, he moved to the chest of drawers near the bed. The top drawer was filled with socks and underwear, the second drawer with T-shirts and a couple of sweaters. Nothing was hidden in the corners or taped to its underside. The bottom drawer held a few more sweaters, a pair of ski gloves, and two baseball caps. His hands delved under the caps and came to rest upon a heavy leather object. Aha! He removed a well-oiled holster and stared at it for a few seconds. It held a Colt Commander.45-caliber pistol. He took the weapon out of the holster and saw that the gun was loaded and that a round was chambered, the safety on. He drew aim on an invisible adversary, then, ashamed of himself, holstered the pistol and slipped it back into its hiding place.

A glass of water and a few magazines sat on the nightstand. Der Spiegel, Sports Illustrated—the swimsuit edition—and Institutional Investor, which had a mean-looking fellow with a brushy mustache on the cover. He probed the mattress, then lay on the floor and looked under it. Nothing. The flat was clean except for the pistol. That was hardly unusual. Every man in the Swiss Army kept a service revolver at his home. Of course, they probably didn’t keep it next to their bed with nine bullets in the butt and a round chambered. Still, he didn’t think it strange for the mark to have a gun. After all, Al-Makdisi had called him “the marine.”

Wolfgang Kaiser slammed his hand onto the conference table. “It’s in his blood to be loyal. Did you hear him?”

Next to him stood Rudolf Ott and Armin Schweitzer. All three focused their attention on a beige speakerphone marooned in the mahogany sea.

“Knew it all along,” said Ott. “I could have told you five minutes into our first interview.”

Schweitzer muttered that he had heard him, too, but the tone of his voice said he didn’t believe a word.

Kaiser had reason to be content. He had kept an eye on Nicholas Neumann for years. Followed the boy’s difficult childhood, the mother’s peregrinations from one town to another, his stint in the Marine Corps. But only from a safe distance. Then three years ago, he’d lost Stefan, his only child; his beautiful, doomed dreamer. And soon afterward, he had found himself thinking of Nicholas more and more. He suggested that the boy enroll at Harvard Business School, and when Nicholas agreed, he said aloud what he’d been thinking for over a year: “Why not bring him to the bank?” He’d been disappointed when Nicholas chose a post on Wall Street. He hadn’t been surprised, though, when he called six months later, informing him he hated the place. Nicholas had too much European blood in his veins to fall into that go-go lifestyle. And hadn’t he just said it? It was in his blood to be loyal to the bank.