Spin Move

by David Lender

  Ducasse settled back in his chair. “Well, that was a tease. Care to give me a little more detail on this investment?”

  Rudiger leaned forward like a sportscaster eager for a baseball star’s interview. “Five years ago I invested in a propylene deal in Houston, Texas. It was on the site of a defunct ExxonMobil refinery. But the concrete pads were there, a lot of the building structures, gas, water and electrical lines, roads, pipelines, emissions permits, whatever. Long story short, to build out a full-fledged state-of-the-art propylene plant on that site cost 30% less than to do a greenfield plant on a de novo site. I funded most of the equity, assisted by a number of private equity funds. I’ve got another site where I could cookie-cutter the same deal, only over on this side of the Atlantic. The Houston plant took us three years to build out. With that experience behind us, we could do the new one I’m talking about in a year and a half, allow us to tie up the whole European, African and Middle Eastern markets for propylene. I’ve already bought the site, an old refinery, for only $2 million down and a note for the balance.”

  “Was this Houston deal the Milprow Straights propylene plant?”

  Rudiger raised his eyebrows. “You’re familiar with it?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know you were involved.”

  Rudiger didn’t blink, immediately came back with, “I invested through a blind offshore partnership in the Caymans.”

  Ducasse said, “The returns were extraordinary.”

  “Yeah, it was a great deal, and this next one should be even better.”

  Katie watched as Rudiger took Ducasse through his own pitch, seeing the difference between a metrosexual dilettante droning on about a stodgy old firm and some private investment results, and a man who could use his wit, intellect, overall energy, and even his hands to make his investment idea really sing. Amazing.

  In the end Ducasse agreed to consider Rudiger’s pitch, saying he’d consult with his lawyers about the possibility of accommodating his request in light of his ability to deliver transactions to the new fund.

  “Yeah, and there’s just one more thing. I noticed in your documents that you pay a .5% origination fee to intermediaries who bring investors into Fund V, and to advisors who present deals that you invest in. I’d expect the same thing for Angela for any money I invest, and for me for any deals I present that you invest in.”

  Ducasse didn’t respond at first, then nodded.

  “Good,” Rudiger said. “If you do the propylene deal I’d expect that .5% on the full $1 billion plant cost.”

  Ducasse didn’t respond.

  “Up front, at the time I invest,” Rudiger said. “I’m sure you’ll get your mind around it. You’ve got it baked into your documents, right?” He sat back in his chair, looked over at Katie, then back at Ducasse. “I consider this has been a very productive day.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Angela? How about I take you to some of the places I know in Geneva, and then we have a quiet dinner?” Katie stood up, a little afraid of Ducasse’s reaction, then smiled as she saw him stand and watch Rudiger stride to the door of the conference room. Rudiger turned back as if it was an afterthought and extended his hand to Ducasse. “A pleasure, Philippe. We’ll be in town until tomorrow.” He handed Ducasse a business card. “You can reach me on my cell. I have one other meeting with another investment group tomorrow, then tomorrow afternoon I fly to Paris, then London for three other meetings. I hope I hear your response, at least in concept, by the time I leave Geneva.”

  He turned to Katie. “Angela, shall we?”

  Katie walked toward the door, turned as she passed Ducasse and said, “Thank you for your time, Philippe.”

  They left without looking back. In the hallway Katie said, “Did you intentionally dis him as you were leaving? You walked right past him, then only gave him a perfunctory handshake.”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I? The prissy little jerk’s got $30 million of my money.” A moment later he said, “I saw you looking at me like I was crazy when I was sniffing that painting. Great-great-uncle Nathaniel, painted in the 1700s, my ass. That was fresh oil paint, still gassing off. I could smell the linseed oil when I walked into the room. Bush league. Even a half-assed forger knows to add lead naphthalene to the paints to speed the drying.”

  Katie laughed.

  Once they were inside a cab, Rudiger said, “Well, I think we dangled the bait as well as we could. Now let’s see if he’ll take it.”

  Katie grabbed one of his hands in both of hers, couldn’t resist. “Oh, I think you did more than that, Rudiger. I think he bit hard and you set the hook. Turned the whole thing around on him.”

  Rudiger shrugged. “We’ll see if he calls me back today or tomorrow morning.”

  “For somebody who said he only had a few ideas, seems like you thought through that deal you pitched to Ducasse pretty clearly.”

  “I had four days to do some more research, make some calls and check things out.”

  “What the hell is propylene, anyhow?”

  “Plastic. They make everything from plastic garbage bags to car dashboards to carpets out of the stuff. It’s a huge business. Over $65 billion a year worldwide. Ducasse’s Fund III documents showed a small investment in a similar plant in Algeria that never fully panned out. One of the few deals they acknowledged wasn’t a home run. So I think I found an idea that will appeal to his ego. Everybody likes to look like a hero on a concept that once blackened his eye. And besides that, the best way to scam a greedy guy is to tickle his greed.”

  Katie sat back and smiled. “I can’t wait to see how it unfolds. But now I’m looking forward to the sightseeing you promised, a quiet dinner and flying back home tomorrow to see Daddy and Styles.”

  “Yeah, with one stop first.”

  Katie sat up. “What?”

  “The more I think about it, I’m convinced Ducasse is in with both feet. We’re flying to Morocco tomorrow afternoon.”

  “What for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Holden was looking at the memo that Shepherds and Johnston had prepared for him on the latest developments in extradition laws and treaties, the two men seated in front of his desk in his New York office. He looked up and smiled. “Oh, it’s Johnston. With a T. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Johnston laughed.

  “So you guys don’t think a snatch-and-grab from Cape Verde works?”

  “I don’t think the attorney general will buy it,” Shepherds said. “We’ve only used that approach for drug lords and terrorists. And not even for that lately. That was de rigueur during the Bush administration, renditions of terrorists to Guantánamo, or to black ops locations in countries where they didn’t care what we did to make prisoners talk. But today?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Holden could see Johnston squirming in his seat. Holden looked at Shepherds and said, “What’s the big deal? We aren’t talking about bringing them to some black ops site, waterboarding them or hooking up car batteries to their gonads until they confess. We’re talking about grabbing them and bringing them back to the States to stand trial.”

  Shepherds said, “And what if we went ahead without the AG’s knowledge or approval, and somebody asks you if you knew anything about it, or even orchestrated it? If you admitted it you’d get fired. If you were put on the stand and lied, you could potentially get disbarred for it. Are Conklin and Katie worth risking that?”

  Holden felt his reaction viscerally. “I’ve been after this SOB Conklin for over a decade. And there’s not much I wouldn’t do to bring in that little wise-ass, Katie. She swiped millions right out from under our noses, bullshitting me the entire time.” He looked at Johnston. “You look like you have something to say.”

  Johnston said, “The term is irregular rendition. The laws are on the books, and they say that we can do a snatch-and-grab—an ir
regular rendition—”

  Shepherds said, “You mean kidnapping—”

  “—of wanted felons and prosecute them in the U.S., as long as it doesn’t violate an extradition treaty we have with the country where we apprehend them.”

  Shepherds said, “Yes, but we don’t have an extradition treaty with Cape Verde.”

  “That’s the point,” Johnston said.

  Holden got it. “I love it. We snatch them from Cape Verde, where we’re not violating any extradition treaty because we don’t have one. So who cares how we got them here? Once they’re here, they’re here. Conklin and Katie, the two of them hung up on a meat hook. Beautiful.”

  Shepherds said, “I understand that. But any irregular renditions that have ever been done have been limited to risks to national security, like terrorists, or major risks to the public interest, like drug traffickers, or those who are suspected murderers. I’m telling you the AG won’t let us do it. But even if he did, the snatch-and-grab would probably be ruled an illegal seizure and a judge would let them walk. And then we could never prosecute them again under double jeopardy.”

  Holden said, “Alright, so how about this? We knock them out and grab them in Cape Verde—”

  “—knock them out?”

  “—yeah, knock them out. Have a CIA team slip them a mickey, or whatever it is they do, and then drop them someplace, say the UK, where folks like the Brits will work with us. We call the Brits and tell them we have a lead that two felons are on the loose and we think we know where they are. Conklin and Katie wake up in a London train station with a hangover and the Brits arrest them, then extradite them the usual way. Does that work for you?” Holden looked directly at Shepherds. Shepherds didn’t say anything for a moment, so Holden added, “And I know AG Martin better than you do. You might think this is stretching it, but I think I can get him to buy it.”

  Shepherds thought for a moment, then said, “Aside from the fact that it sounds like a cheesy spy movie, it leaves open the question of culpability. How did they get to the UK in the first place?”

  Holden shrugged. “Culpable deniability. Damned if we know. We just got this anonymous tip they were there.”

  Johnston was smiling. Shepherds said, “Okay, but what about resources? You’re talking about an expensive operation.”

  “Leave that to me. I’ll talk to the AG. If he signs off on it he’ll talk to the FBI or the federal marshals’ office. They’ll send five, six guys in there on a private jet or a Blackhawk and it’s done. I’ll handle it.”

  Rudiger and Katie landed in Oujda, Morocco, in the evening, so it wasn’t until the next day they rented a Jeep. Rudiger made a stop at a bank he was directed to by his Cayman Islands bankers and then drove out into the desert. Monotonous miles of sand. Sand in their eyes, their mouths tasting of sand. As they drove, Rudiger wondered what was up with Katie. She seemed tentative, not quite herself. Maybe she was still mortified about getting conned out of the $30 million, but he thought something else was bothering her, too. He’d booked separate rooms again at the hotel in Oujda, not wanting to seem pushy, and intentionally hadn’t made a move on her because he thought if it was going to happen, it would just happen.

  About an hour into the drive she said, “Where are we going?”

  “The northeastern corner of Morocco, right on the Algerian border.”

  She was quiet most of the rest of the drive, but as they drove over the hill and approached the site she leaned forward and stared.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Rudiger said.

  Katie looked from the site to Rudiger, back to the site and back at Rudiger again, her mouth open. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Rudiger laughed. “No. Everything is here, just like I was telling Ducasse about that Houston plant. Look at the infrastructure.” He looked out the windshield and pointed. “Foundations, roads, electrical lines, water, even a pipeline that comes in from the Algerian national oil company.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I am. It’s a defunct refinery that we’re going to repurpose as a propylene plant.”

  “It’s a rusting pile of garbage,” Katie said. She pointed through the windshield. “Half of the equipment’s lying on the ground, worthless. It looks like a meteor hit the place.”

  “The existing equipment doesn’t matter. All that stuff gets torn down and the new equipment for the propylene plant gets put in.”

  “Are you actually talking about building the thing?”

  Rudiger laughed. “Hell no. But we just have to make it look like we’re going to.”

  Katie shook her head. “You’re crazy, you know that? We’ll never pull this off.”

  “Watch me. And where’s that mischievous Katie Dolan I knew in New York a year or so ago, who had a blast putting on a wig and big-boob falsies to go into a JPMorgan Chase branch on Pine Street and lift $50 million in bearer bonds from a safe deposit box?”

  Katie sat back and exhaled. “Okay, I’ll play along for now. So who owns this thing?”

  “The guy’s name is Carter Bowles. He bought it about five years ago, what for I’m not sure, then he went bust and disappeared, I guess to hide from his creditors.”

  “So the plan is to buy it from him and use it for the deal with Ducasse?”

  “No. The whole thing is a sham. We show the property to Ducasse, but that’s as far as it goes. We get him to invest the money based on our plans to build a propylene plant on the site.”

  Katie shook her head. “This will never work. They’ll have lawyers crawling all over the place. Title searches, due diligence on environmental issues, engineering studies, the works.”

  “We’ll make them up.”

  “You can’t make up things like a title to the property, for starters.”

  “That exists. It’s someplace where they file those things, in Bowles’ name.”

  “Yes, but we don’t have Bowles.”

  “We get somebody to play him.”

  “There’ll be engineering studies, architectural plans. Have you thought about that?”

  “Sure. Why do you think I got to know so much about that Houston propylene deal? I found documents on it from when it went public, and everything’s there. All their old engineering studies, architectural plans, everything.”

  “Yes, but that’s for a deal in Houston.”

  “I’m having them knocked off. Some guy with a CAD/CAM program, or whatever they do this stuff with, is working on it right now. Did you ever hear of Fiverr?”

  “Fiverr?”

  “It’s an online service in India. For five bucks you can get somebody to do just about anything—write your college paper, do market research, create advertising, anything. They’ll also do more complicated projects for a negotiated fee. One of my sources in New York has worked for years with somebody over there through Fiverr who knows how to do this stuff. He contacted the guy for me and assured me he’s fully vetted him. After I personally checked his references and saw some samples of his work, I pitched him to create the plans we’d need for this project. I sent the guy the link for the Houston deal, and he’s working on it right now, knocking off the exact same plans, changing all the names, locations, whatever. He’s smart, he’ll know what to do. My source in New York has three other guys working on the Private Placement Memorandum, the business plan and the PowerPoint management presentation. I paid them two grand against a final price of ten grand. We’ll have everything in a week, in plenty of time for edits.”

  “What about a law firm?”

  “You’re a lawyer. You can draft all the documents in your sleep, right?”

  Katie turned and looked out the windshield again. “It’s not that complicated. Letter of intent, a purchase agreement, a partnership agreement, financing documents.” She turned back to Rudiger. “I can draft whatever we need. But there are
things that have to exist that we can’t make up. Building permits. Easements. Environmental permits. I could keep going all day.”

  “We’ll get the locals to issue them.”

  “How?”

  “You’re forgetting about Antigua. I got pretty good at getting to the right officials, paying them off for whatever I needed. And Antigua’s pretty squeaky clean. We’re in Morocco, the corruption capital of the world. Remember that movie Casablanca? Claude Rains as Captain Renault witnesses Humphrey Bogart shooting the Nazi major dead and then says to one of his patrolmen, ‘Round up the usual suspects.’ ”

  “But you don’t know anybody here.”

  “I found a guy who does. He specializes in smuggling untaxed cigarettes. European, Asian, American, any brand you want. He knows everybody in Morocco, has to be bribing half the government.”

  “How’d you find him?”

  “You think I’m playing Angry Birds on my iPad all day? I found a record of his arrest by searching the Internet.”

  “Arrest?”

  “What, are you losing your nerve? Yes, arrest. He got off, surprise, surprise. The article had his whole background. So I called him. He wasn’t that hard to find.”

  “And he’s agreed to help us?”

  “He’s on the way here now to meet us. I offered him a 10% cut. He’ll make it work. He pays the bribes out of his cut. He tells me it won’t cost more than $200,000. I’m going to advance it to him for his expenses when he gets here.”

  “How do you know he isn’t just going to skip with your money?”

  “That’s a chance I’ll take on the theory he stands to make $3 million or so for only a couple of weeks’ work.”

  Katie thought for a moment. “Are you going to have him play our seller, this Carter Bowles?”

  “No, the seller is an American.”