Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Nick watched from the backseat of the bank’s Mercedes limousine as the Cessna Citation taxied through the falling snow. The roar of its engines oscillated, alternately whining and growling, as they drove the jet off the skirt of the runway toward an empty patch of tarmac. Abruptly, the jet braked, bouncing off its front wheel as it came to a complete halt. The engines were cut and their purring faded. The door of the jet shuddered and collapsed inward. A flight of stairs descended from the fuselage.

A lone official from customs and immigration climbed the stairs and disappeared into the aircraft. Nick opened the car door and stepped onto the tarmac. He prepared his best welcoming smile while rehearsing his greeting to the Pasha. He felt curiously detached from himself. He wasn’t really going to spend the day playing tour guide to an international heroin smuggler. That was someone else. Another former marine whose knee was so stiff that every step felt like broken glass grinding into his joints.

He walked to within ten yards of the aircraft and waited. The man from customs reappeared a few seconds later. “You may go aboard,” he said. “You’re free to exit the airport directly.”

Nick said thanks, wondering why he had never cleared customs so quickly.

When he turned his head back to the plane, the Pasha was standing at the open door. Nick straightened his shoulders and covered the distance to the plane in four quick steps. “Good morning, sir. Herr Kaiser extends his sincerest greetings, both personally and on behalf of the bank.”

Mevlevi shook the extended hand. “Mr. Neumann. We finally meet. I understand thanks are in order.”

“Not at all.”

“I mean it. Thank you. I commend you on your sound judgment. Hopefully during my stay I can find some better way of expressing my gratitude. I try not to forget those who have done me a service.”

“Really,” said Nick, “it’s not necessary. Please come this way. Let’s get out of the cold.”

The Pasha was hardly the hardened criminal Nick had expected. He was slim and not very tall—maybe five eight or five nine—and weighed no more than one hundred sixty pounds. He was dressed in a navy suit, a bloodred Hermes tie, and polished loafers. In the manner of an Italian aristocrat, he had draped an overcoat over his shoulders.

Put me in a crowd next to this man, thought Nick, and I would take him for a high-ranking executive or the foreign minister of a Latin American country. He could be an aging French playboy or a prince of the Saudi royal family. He did not look like a man who made his business peddling thousands of kilos of refined heroin to the greater European continent.

Mevlevi drew the coat around him and shivered theatrically. “I felt the chill even at thirty thousand feet. I have only two bags. The captain is taking them from the cargo hold.”

Nick showed Mevlevi to the car, then returned to the plane to retrieve the suitcases. The bags were stuffed full and heavy. Lugging them to the limousine, he recalled the Chairman’s orders to do exactly as Mevlevi instructed. In fact, only one appointment had been fixed for the Pasha’s visit. A meeting with the Swiss immigration authorities in Lugano, three days from now, on Monday morning at ten. The subject: issuance of a Swiss passport.

Nick had arranged the meeting at the Chairman’s request but had no interest in attending. The same day he had spent hours cajoling Eberhard Senn, the Count Languenjoux, into moving his discussions with the Chairman forward by at least one day. The count had finally been won over. Monday at eleven would be fine, but only if the meeting could take place at the small hotel he owned on the Lake of Lugano where he made his winter residence. Kaiser agreed, saying that Senn’s six percent were easily worth the three-hour drive to the Tessin. Nick had wanted to be in on the meeting. The Chairman, however, was intractable. “Reto Feller will accompany me in your place. You will escort Mr. Mevlevi. You’ve earned his trust.”

Nick climbed into the limousine, ruing the day he’d taken the actions that had earned him that trust. It didn’t take a genius to know why Kaiser could never escort Mevlevi anywhere. Thorne’s accusations were true. Every one of them.

“First, we go to Zug,” announced Mevlevi. “International Fiduciary Trust, Grutstrasse 67.”

“Grutstrasse 67, Zug,” Nick repeated to the chauffeur.

The limousine set off. Nick didn’t feel like indulging in the usual pleasantries. He’d be damned if he’d kiss the ass of a drug smuggler. Mevlevi remained quiet. For the most part, he kept his eyes directed out the window. Every so often Nick would catch the Pasha staring at him, not unkindly, but from a distance, and he knew he was being sized up. Mevlevi would offer a faint smile and avert his gaze.

The limousine sped through the Sihl valley. The road wound steadily uphill through an endless pine forest. Mevlevi tapped Nick on the knee. “Have you seen Mr. Thorne lately?”

Nick looked him squarely in the eye. He had nothing to hide. “Monday.”

“Ah,” said Mevlevi, nodding his head contentedly, as if they were discussing an old friend. “Monday.”

Nick glanced at Mevlevi, turning the simple question over in his mind, allowing its myriad implications to confirm what he should have known weeks ago. A man like Mevlevi wouldn’t be satisfied keeping an eye only on Thorne. He’d want to know what Nick was up to also. An American in Switzerland. A former United States marine. No matter what Nick had done on his behalf, he hardly merited his trust. And then Nick knew why Mevlevi had really asked the question. Thorne wasn’t the only one being followed. He belonged in the same boat himself. Mevlevi had sent the dapper man in the mountain guide’s hat. Mevlevi had ordered his apartment searched. Mevlevi had been watching him the entire time.

The International Fiduciary Trust was housed on the third and fourth floors of a modest building in downtown Zug. A simple gold nameplate above the doorbell indicated the businesses housed here. Nick pressed the buzzer, and the door swung open immediately. They were expected.

A bent stick of a woman in her late forties asked them to come in and led them to a conference room overlooking the Zugersee. Two bottles of Passugger sat on the table. A glass and coaster, an ashtray, a tablet of paper, and two pens had been placed in front of every chair. The woman offered coffee. Both men accepted. Nick had little idea as to the subject of the meeting. He would sit and listen. Kaiser’s yes-man.

A polite knock and the door opened. Two men entered. The first, tall and jowly with a ruddy complexion. The second, short, thin, and bald, except for a strand of black hair twirled on top of his head like a sticky bun.

“Affentranger,” announced the heavy-set fellow. He approached first Nick and then Mevlevi, offering each a business card and a handshake.

“Fuchs,” said the smaller man, following his partner’s example.

Mevlevi began speaking as soon as all four men were seated around the table. “Gentlemen, it’s a pleasure for me to work with you again. A few years ago I worked with your associate, Mr. Schmied. He was of great assistance in opening a number of corporations for me in the Netherlands Antilles. A sharp man with figures. I trust he’s still with you. Perhaps I could say hello?”

Affentranger and Fuchs exchanged concerned glances.

“Mr. Schmied died three years ago,” said Affentranger, the jowly one.

“Drowned while on vacation,” explained Fuchs, the runt.

“No…” Mevlevi placed the back of one hand to his mouth. “How terrible.”

“I had always thought of the Mediterranean as a calm sea,” said Fuchs. “Apparently it gets quite rough off the coast of Lebanon.”