Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Lina struggled against her bonds. She whimpered at her inability to move her feet or to free her hands.

Joseph whispered in her ear that Allah would love her forever. He carried her onto a narrow span that bridged the pool, and when he stood over the water, he lifted her as high as his strength would permit and threw her into the pool. Her scream mixed with the tumult of the splashing water, and for several seconds after she had fallen below the surface, her voice echoed through the vaulted pavilion.

Outside, a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter sat with rotors turning at idle on the main lawn of the compound. The sky was bleak. A light drizzle fell.

Mevlevi walked toward the chopper, his hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “Lina jeopardized Khamsin. You understand there was no other solution.”

“Of course, Al-Mevlevi.”

“I am growing to be a sentimental fool. I felt for her. It is harder to live without emotion at my age.” He paused and in a rare loss of temper, cursed the Almighty. “Our priorities are clear. Khamsin must be allowed to take shape. You must leave at once to take responsibility for our latest shipment. You will fly to a freighter steaming in the Adriatic, near Brindisi, off the Italian coast.”

“May I gather my belongings?”

“No. I’m afraid you may not. No time.”

For once, Joseph protested. “I only need a few minutes.”

“You will leave immediately,” Mevlevi commanded. “Take this bag. Inside you will find a passport, some clothes, and five thousand dollars. Once you are safely on board, I will contact you with further instructions. The profit from this transaction is essential. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Al-Mevlevi.”

“Very good.” Mevlevi wanted to tell Joseph more. He wanted to tell him that in two days his men would begin moving south toward the Israeli border; that they would travel in two groups, each three hundred strong; that they would move under cover of darkness, between the hours of two and six when American satellites did not have the region of southern Lebanon in their purview. Mostly, he wanted to tell Joseph that without the profits from this transaction, and the far greater sums those profits would almost immediately make available, Khamsin would surely fail—yet one more vainglorious, and ultimately suicidal, border incursion. But alas, such knowledge was his to bear alone.

“The men who will meet you in Brindisi…”

“Yes?”

“I no longer know if they can be trusted. They may be with the Makdisis. Take precautions. Our shipment must reach Zurich as soon as possible. Once the merchandise is unloaded, accept no delays.”

Joseph reached for the athletic bag. He grasped the handle, but Mevlevi refused to give it up. He stared deep into his retainer’s eyes. “You will not betray me.”

Joseph stood straighter. “Never, Al-Mevlevi. I am beholden to you. You have my holy word.”

Marco Cerruti sat up in his bed. His breath came fast and shallow. He was soaked with perspiration. He opened his eyes as widely as possible, and slowly the room came into focus. Shadows looming in the dark took form. Phantoms sought refuge behind heavy curtains and antique dressers.

Cerruti untangled his legs from the covers and turned on the bedside lamp. He was confronted with a portrait of his mother staring at him from the confines of her beloved armchair. He turned the picture facedown on the table and rose from the bed. He needed a glass of water. The cold tile of the bathroom floor sent a wash of clean sensation through his body, restoring his nerves. He drank a second glass of water, then decided upon a quick inspection of the apartment. Best to ensure he’d properly locked the windows and secured the elevator door. This done, he returned to bed, first arranging the sheets and covers. He climbed in, fastened the top button of his wool pajamas, then slid under the covers. His hand reached for the lamp but stopped midway there. He recalled the dreadful nightmare. Maybe it was smarter to leave the light burning a little longer.

Cerruti laid his head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. For weeks, the dream had not come. His recovery had progressed. Night was no longer a time to be feared. A return to work was hardly out of the question. And then the visits from Thorne.

The American frightened him. So many questions. Questions about Mr. Mevlevi, about the Chairman, even about young Mr. Neumann, whom he had met only once. Cerruti had been polite, as he was with all his guests. Had offered the rude man a Coca-Cola and some biscuits. Had answered his questions respectfully. Of course, he had lied. But he had done it diplomatically, and with what he hoped was aplomb. No, Cerruti had sworn, he did not know a man by the name of Ali Mevlevi. No, he did not know a client at the bank nicknamed the Pasha. A supplier of heroin to the European continent? The bank did not work with such people.

“You have a moral responsibility to assist us in our investigation,” Thorne had argued. “You are not just an employee of a dishonest bank. If you insist on keeping your mouth closed, you’re also an employee of Ali Mevlevi, a criminal just like him. I don’t plan on resting until I stop him. And after he’s sitting in a black hole forty feet underground, I’m coming after you. Count on it.”

Funny, Thorne so concerned about Mevlevi being a big wheel in the heroin trade. Didn’t he know about the guns? Cerruti was a major in the Swiss Army—intelligence, of course—but he knew his way around the standard armaments of a light infantry battalion. He had never imagined that a private individual could purchase the monumental store of arms and munitions, the near mountain of materiel he had seen only two months ago at the Pasha’s compound: crates of machine guns, ammunition, pistols, grenades—both antipersonnel and incendiary. And that was the small stuff. He had seen several Stinger ground-to-air missiles, three anti-tank guns, and at least a dozen mortars, some large enough to lob a projectile five kilometers. Enough, Cerruti concluded, for a very messy little war.

He reached for the glass of water on his night table. Recalling his last visit to Ali Mevlevi’s compound in the foothills above Beirut led inexorably to the root of his distress, the cause for his psychic dysfunction. Suleiman’s Pool.

He had never in his life borne witness to so horrific a sight. He winced at the memory of the smell: the rank odor of a hundred midnight laboratories. He shut his eyes against the recollection of the pale bodies drifting in the pool. He covered his ears to muffle the laugh. Mr. Mevlevi howling with glee as poor Marco fainted.

Cerruti sat up in his bed for the second time that night. Perhaps Thorne was right. Perhaps Mevlevi did have to be stopped. The guns, the pool, heroin, too, according to the DEA. What more did he need to recognize a villain?

Cerruti clutched the sheets to his chin as the nightmare returned. The black water. The demons lurking just beyond the periphery of his vision. He couldn’t go back to sleep with the dream awaiting him. Instead, he rocked gently back and forth moaning “Suleiman’s Pool.” He repeated the words like a mantra. Suleiman’s Pool. Switzerland had a law for just such a situation. And even though it remained more or less untested years after its inclusion in the country’s legal tomes, he knew that no one qualified more aptly as “a client whose activities lead the employee to infer illegal business practices” than Mr. Ali Mevlevi.

Cerruti drew in several deep breaths. Tomorrow morning he would call Mr. Thorne and show him the papers that sat in his desk. He would turn over evidence of the Pasha’s accounts at the United Swiss Bank and confirmations of the transfers made twice each week. He would help the international authorities bring the scoundrel Mevlevi to justice.