Crown Jewel

by Christopher Reich

  “You didn’t like that.” Simon recalled visiting Isabelle at her office. A sense of rectitude was as much a part of the furnishings as the Paul Klee watercolors. There was no word for “overdraft” in the Swiss banking lexicon.

  “Finally,” she continued, “we sent him a letter informing him that he had to make good or we were going to close his account.”

  “But you didn’t,” said Simon, powering a long curve in the road.

  “He did as we asked.”

  “I’m listening.” He veered left.

  “About nine months ago, just after the beginning of the year, Dragan started making deposits into his account through our rep office in Monaco. I’m not talking twenty thousand here, thirty thousand there. I’m talking real money. Millions.”

  “Maybe one of his start-ups paid off?”

  “Doubtful. Start-ups burn through cash—they don’t mint it. Every few days Dragan would show up at the rep office down there and deposit cash and checks issued by the casino to a dozen different people, all signed over to him.”

  “Sirens didn’t start flashing?”

  “In Monaco? God, no.”

  “Monaco isn’t Cyprus,” said Simon.

  Since the rise of the oligarchs and their systematic pillaging of the former Soviet Union, Cyprus had become the black money capital of Europe. Banks there had learned to turn a blind eye.

  “A close relation,” said Isabelle.

  “And in-house? Nothing from compliance?”

  “Not a whisper,” said Isabelle. “It gets worse. Dragan didn’t even keep the money at the bank. A day after depositing the money, two days at most, he’d wire all of it out.”

  “Not to the same account, I’m guessing.”

  “To a dozen, maybe more. An account in the Netherlands, one in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Panama. The usual suspects.”

  “Did you get a total of the amounts Dragan wired out to all the accounts?”

  “So far around two hundred million euros.”

  Exactly the amount Toby stated had been stolen from the casino.

  “You have a record of the wire instructions?”

  “Of course. All holding companies. What else is new?” Isabelle read off a slew of them. “Granite Partners. Oak Ventures. Quartz Millennium Group. Linden Concerns.”

  The pattern wasn’t lost on Simon. Stone. Wood. “No names?”

  “That would defeat the purpose.”

  “Thought I’d give it a shot. I’m rusty.”

  “Try again.”

  Simon put on his figurative jacket and tie and sat down at his old desk in the City. “Any of the accounts at Pictet?”

  “Maybe you’re not so rusty after all. Four of the accounts he regularly wired the money to were opened at our Geneva offices.”

  “Were you able to take a look?”

  Isabelle paused, and Simon knew he was pushing too hard. “Access was denied,” she said finally. “The accounts were blocked. The only person allowed to see them was his personal banker.”

  “But you have the account docs,” said Simon, meaning the original paperwork.

  “There were no names, but all of them had something interesting in common,” explained Isabelle. “All four accounts were opened with a referral from a member of our executive board of directors. The same member.”

  A bank’s executive board usually comprised corporate and social luminaries, retired executives, philanthropists, politicians, aristocrats from inside and outside the region. In this case, none worked directly for Pictet.

  “Let me guess,” said Simon. “Lord Toby Stonewood.”

  Isabelle was unable to hide her surprise. “Know him?”

  “Not as well as I should.”

  “Are they his accounts?” she asked.

  “I’d say he controls them.”

  “So you know what this is all about…Dragan’s deposits, his transfers—the bunch of it.”

  “Now I do. If I’d known earlier, I would have told you.”

  “What are we looking at, Simon?”

  “Cash deposits. Wire transfers in and out. Holding companies. A pattern of suspicious activity from a client with no proven means of income who was until recently flat broke. You tell me.”

  “A criminal endeavor. It should have been caught on day one.”

  “And it wasn’t,” said Simon. “For a reason.”

  “This is bad.”

  “Isabelle, listen to me. Be careful who you bring this to. This is more serious than you can imagine. These are dangerous people.”

  “One of our outside attorneys is a friend. I’ll ask him to make it look like it was his firm that discovered the problems. Toby Stonewood won’t learn about it until he gets a call from the police.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Simon. “And move quickly. Freeze the accounts as fast as you can. Today, even.”

  “That’s impossible. You know that it takes a court order to freeze an account.”

  “Put an internal block on them.”

  “I can’t do that without authority from the top.”

  “Tell your friend the attorney and set up a meeting with him and the president of the bank. And Isabelle: today.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will.”

  Chapter 68

  The helicopter put down at an old airstrip near Samedan. A Land Rover waited on the tarmac. Two people got out of the car: a trim, alert man in a leather jacket and a beautiful younger woman with dark blond hair and green eyes. The man put flexicuffs on Vika’s wrists and told her not to speak. The woman hugged Ratka and kissed him on both cheeks.

  “This is Elisabeth,” said Ratka to Vika. “My daughter.”

  “And my fiancée,” said Toby, looping an arm around her waist and kissing her. “Hello, darling. As I said, we’re going to be closer. Family, in fact.”

  “Maybe she’ll be a princess one day, too,” said Ratka.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Elisabeth to Vika in flawless German. “Your son is a very polite young man.”

  Vika threw herself at the woman, but Ratka grabbed her and bundled her into the car.

  “Calm yourself,” said Toby.

  Elisabeth looked on, bemused. She had her father’s dead gaze. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

  The Land Rover drove rapidly along the highway, making no concession for the snow. Toby rode in front. Vika was sandwiched between Ratka and his daughter.

  Until now, Vika had been able to rationalize her fear, to explain away her vulnerability. Somehow, she would get out of this. She would escape from Ratka. She would save Fritz. She’d been taught that confidence wins out, that positive thinking yields the desired result. That was wrong. She wouldn’t escape. She could not save Fritz. She was driving to her death.

  She looked across the lake at the town of St. Moritz, at the tower of the Palace Hotel and the angular steeple of the Lutheran church. There was a hollow pit where her stomach used to be. Her skin was ice-cold, her heart beating much too fast. She was scared.

  Scylla. Charybdis. Stream.

  The words arrived on her tongue unbidden. She closed her eyes, recalling the only other moment in her life when she’d been as frightened. She hadn’t been in danger, at least not like this. In imminent peril. She had been twelve, and if possible she’d been even more scared.

  Curzon. Brabazon. Rise.

  Vika threw herself back in time. There was a narrow white chute before her, a tall groove of ice so cold as to be blue, and at her feet a sled. To be precise, it was a skeleton, a rectangle of scarred black leather for her to lie down on attached to two long, razor-sharp struts.

  Gunther, Mama’s silver-haired boyfriend, handed her a helmet and she put it on without hesitation, essentially some kind of automaton. By now she was hyperventilating, out of her mind with terror at what she was being made to do.

  For the last three weeks, Gunther had been teaching her how to ride the skeleton. Short runs on hard snow. She’d
learned to drag the toe of her right foot and lean left when she wanted to guide the skeleton left and the toe of her left foot and lean right when she wanted to guide it right. She’d learned never to touch the ice with her hands and to keep her head absolutely still. She’d learned to never try and slow down lest she lose control of the skeleton altogether and be rocketed out of the run like a bullet from a gun. But not once had she traveled more than one hundred meters without falling off.

  Gunther had drawn her a map of the course and they’d reviewed it turn by turn. Each section had a name. Curzon. Brabazon. Rise. Scylla. Charybdis. Stream.

  To each name, an instruction.

  Turn right. Turn left. Straightaway.

  She’d memorized them all, but there was no way to practice the run before attempting the entire course. Once on the ice, you couldn’t stop. You could only go faster.

  It was called the Cresta run. It was two kilometers long, with a total of sixteen curves. She would reach a speed of 140 kilometers per hour. A week before, a man had lost control of his skeleton and flown out of the run, breaking his back. It had all happened in the blink of an eye. He would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. If Vika finished, she would receive a medal.

  The starter’s tower stood behind her.

  A tocsin bell rang once.

  A man called her name. All of it, with her title. A crowd of spectators drew near.

  Vika stepped to the starting line. Her body quivered like a violin string strung too tight.

  “Locker,” said Gunther. Relax.

  Despite her terror, Vika smiled at him. Even now, thirty years later, she regarded the smile as the single bravest act of her life.

  It had been a cloudy day with light flurries, visibility poor, the temperature well below freezing. Vika remembered none of that. Nor did she remember the run itself, or her time of one minute sixteen seconds, a record for a first timer younger than fifteen years of age.

  She remembered only the moment when Gunther had said “Go,” and she’d started running and thrown herself onto the black leather square. A blink and she was barreling into the orange foam cushions that stopped her flight. It was over. She’d done it.

  No one had been there to congratulate her.

  She opened her eyes. Ratka was staring at her.

  Vika looked at him and grinned.

  Chapter 69

  The town of La Turbie sat atop the mountain like a tile and terra-cotta crown, gazing down from on high upon Monaco and the Côte d’Azur. It was a quiet place, just three thousand inhabitants, famous as much for the Trophée des Alpes, a towering Roman ruin dating from the Emperor Augustus, as for its training grounds, where AS Monaco, the local soccer team, practiced year-round.

  Simon guided the Daytona through the narrow streets, slowing to a crawl as he approached the town hall, where participants in the time trial had gathered in the parking lot. There were enough fancy cars and colorful banners and pretty young women with fat older men to look almost like a real Formula One race. A timer straddled the main road. A Jaguar E-type convertible (“roadster,” to those in the know) in British racing green, chrome spokes, so pretty that Stirling Moss should have been driving it, took the start flag and roared off. A leaderboard showed the best time as seventeen minutes, sixteen seconds, which counted as either insanely foolhardy or just plain brilliant, given the wildly curving course and the poor condition of the roads.

  It was 9:24. Dov Dragan was next to run.

  Simon revved the engine as he entered the lot. He wanted Dragan to see him. He wanted Dragan’s ass to pucker as he realized that the jig was up. Simon didn’t know if it was the smartest move in the book, but it was the only one he could think of. He hadn’t slept in a day. He hurt all over. He had no way to locate Vika. He was desperate.

  There was a space waiting for him with his name stenciled on the pavement. He killed the engine and climbed out of the car. Many of the drivers were attired in racing gear: jumpsuits decorated with stripes and badges and the makes of their automobiles. Mercedes, Porsche, Lamborghini. Or Bugatti. Wearing sky blue, Dragan was easy to spot, helmet in one hand, a socket wrench in the other.

  Simon shouted his name. The Israeli turned. He stared at Simon for a long second. His mouth moved as if he was trying to shout back, but no words materialized.

  “Where is she?” asked Simon so everyone would pay attention. “Where did Ratka take her?”

  Heads turned. Dragan tried to wave Simon off but couldn’t manage it. The knowledge of being a rat caught in a trap robs a man of confidence.

  “I have one of your laptops,” Simon went on. He could only hope that Harry Mason had found it. “It was Radek’s, actually. That’s some cheating program. Radek bragged that whoever wrote it was a mathematical genius. Who am I to argue? You and your boys stole over two hundred million from the casino. Hear that, ladies and gentlemen?” Hands held out wide, Simon turned so that all would pay him note. “This man, Dov Dragan, formerly the director of Unit 8200 of the Mossad, a real-life spy in the flesh, wrote a software program that allowed him to cheat at baccarat so efficiently that no one could catch him. Of course, it turns out he had some help on the inside.”

  A half-dozen people drew nearer, unsure of what was transpiring.

  By now Simon was face-to-face with Dragan. “You have one chance to tell me where she is.”

  “You have nothing,” said Dragan. “I don’t know how you got out of jail, but that’s where you’re going back to. Get out of here. You are embarrassing yourself.”

  “I have this.” Simon opened his palm to reveal the cuff link. “I also have you on disc driving the Rolls from Stefanie’s apartment building thirty minutes before she died. I suppose that’s something.”

  Dragan looked at the cuff link and swallowed, his eyes suddenly blinking far too rapidly.

  “Is everything all right?” It was André Solier, the president of the Monaco Rally Club. “Is he bothering you, Dov?”

  “Am I?” asked Simon.

  “Mr. Riske,” Solier continued. “This is no place for personal disputes. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “You heard him,” said Dragan. “Leave.”

  When Simon didn’t move, Solier said, “Should I get the police?”

  “Be my guest,” said Simon.

  “This man is crazy,” said Dragan. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

  “No?” said Simon. “Maybe this will jog your memory. Account five one five point seven eight eight ZZ.” Simon spoke each number as if counting down a launch. “Banque Pictet. Geneva. Tell me again that I’m crazy.”

  Dragan’s face drained of color. He shook his head, swallowing dryly, a man who had received a terminal diagnosis.

  “And you’re right,” added Simon. “It is the finest private bank in the world.”

  Dragan lashed out with his wrench, clubbing Simon across the face, knocking him to the ground.

  When Simon was able to stand, he saw that Dragan had reached his car and was driving rapidly through the crowd, men and women jumping aside, crying out, banging on his chassis.

  Brushing aside offers of help, Simon ran back to the Daytona. He put a hand to his face and it came away covered with blood. He felt nothing, only rage and the will to avenge. He fell into the driver’s seat and fired the engine. Dragan and the Bugatti had a lane clear to the starting area and passed beneath the official time clock, accelerating madly as the race officials ran after him, shouting and waving for him to stop.

  Simon nosed the car forward, hemmed in on all sides by the race competitors and their support teams. He rode the horn, window down, calling “Out of the way! Emergency.” People recoiled at the sight of him.

  Finally, Simon entered the starting area. A band of race stewards blocked his path. Burned once by Dragan, they maintained a solid front, standing with arms akimbo on the starting line. Simon waved them away, to no avail. When they refused to move, he threw the car into first, swore at the
top of his lungs, and accelerated as if they weren’t there, knocking the men aside like bowling pins. The man positioned in front of the car rolled onto the bonnet, his face pressed against the windscreen. After fifty meters, Simon braked hard and the man rolled off the car onto the pavement. Simon decided he’d never liked race stewards to begin with.

  Simon rounded the first bend and caught sight of Dragan’s silver-blue Bugatti half a mile ahead. It was a two-lane road, following the contours of the ridgeline with plenty of curves and a few straightaways. A light rain was falling, with darker clouds spilling over the mountaintop. Simon drove the car as hard as he knew how, keeping the rpms high, using the engine to decelerate, rarely lifting his foot off the accelerator. He knew where Dragan was headed: to the north side of the mountains, where there was an on-ramp to the A4 superhighway. If Dragan made it, Simon would never see him again. Dragan would slip out of the country. Harry had made the car faster, but not fast enough.

  Simon flew past a sign for the Grande Corniche and braked, searching for Dragan’s car on the feeder road snaking up the hillside. He had a clear view of the road to the top of the mountain. There was no sign of the Bugatti and he brought the car back up to speed. The speedometer read 130 kilometers per hour—well over eighty miles per hour. Too fast. A burst of rain blurred the windscreen, forcing Simon to brake.

  But Dragan suffered the same obstacles. The rain was playing havoc with his skills. He over-accelerated on the short straightaways and braked too early and too long on the curves. Despite driving the fastest production car on the planet, he couldn’t get out of Simon’s sights.

  The road climbed a hill, the first long straightaway on the course, and Simon pushed the pedal to the floor. The Ferrari growled magnificently and he picked up speed faster than he could have imagined. A tall stone wall ran to his right, a field strewn with rocks and gravel to his left. There were few houses or structures of any kind on this part of the course. Simon reached the crest of the mountain. The road narrowed considerably. He braked and downshifted, preparing for a ninety-degree left-hand turn. He slowed, only a little, and touched his foot to the gas as he completed the turn. He was a moment too soon. The car traversed a slick patch of asphalt and began to slide out behind him. Ahead stood a squat weathered mile marker on the side of the road: a block of immovable stone. He turned the wheel in the direction of the skid and pumped the gas. The car straightened and missed the marker by a finger’s width.