To Save a Son

by Brian Freemantle

  They arrived almost at once. Anthony Dore was an accountant who sat with Podmore on the boards of the French and Italian companies. Nigel Kenham—who, with Hunter, sat on three boards—was a solicitor and the overall company secretary whom Franks had instructed to make the Swiss arrangements. Donald Wise and Thomas Phillips were, respectively, an accountant and a solicitor, who completed the necessary nonvoting directorships. Franks greeted them individually. They were all staid, respectable professional men, chosen specifically for that reason, the necessarily solid balance to his own entrepreneurial attitude. They were going to be shocked, Franks decided. For the first time he wondered if what he was going to tell them would make them unwilling to continue with him.

  To the men who came after him, Franks said, “You saw those two men outside, when you came in?”

  Kenham, who was plump—although not as fat as Waldo—wore glasses and looked owlish because of them, said, “Who were they?”

  “FBI,” announced Franks. He’d spent weeks sneering at theatricality and was now indulging in it himself, he thought.

  “What?” said Dore.

  Indicating Podmore and Hunter, Franks said, “I’ve already referred to it as a long story.” He paused. “And an unfortunate one. Just how unfortunate I fully intend to explain to you. I’m going to need your help and support. For how long I don’t know.”

  Franks sat back, preparing the account in his mind. It was going to take a long time, he realized; he wished he’d thought of arranging some drinks. It was too late now. Franks didn’t spare himself, didn’t try to make himself appear less naive and foolish in the eyes of a group of men who checked everything a dozen different ways and then started all over again. He withheld only one thing—the reason, which he’d confessed to no one except Rosenberg in New York, exactly why he’d gone along with it. Knowing there had to be an explanation, he said it was because he’d implicitly—he now realized stupidly—trusted Nicky, because of the relationship between them. At the beginning of his speech there had been shifts and movements from the assembled group—Hunter and Phillips actually started making notes—but very quickly it all stopped; they sat regarding him with expressions that Franks decided went through the whole gamut from disbelief to astonishment to amazement to horror. The varying expressions remained when he finished. For a long time the stillness stayed, too.

  It was Dore—astonished—who spoke first. “Good God!” he managed.

  “This man was shot down—killed—because of what he knew!” said the horrified Hunter.

  “That’s not going to be one of the charges, but yes, unquestionably so.”

  Wise—disbelieving—said, “But you’re going to give evidence against them!”

  “Which is why those two men are waiting outside the door,” said Franks. “It’s very embarrassing—almost laughably so—but they insist it’s necessary. It’s something I’ve got to endure.”

  The reactions were subsiding and they were becoming the professional men again. “As a board—in fact as a composite of several boards—I think we should try to think beyond the immediate personal and embarrassing difficulties of our controlling chairman and managing director,” said Podmore. “I think we should consider the possible repercussions of all this upon the companies when it becomes more public than it already has.”

  “I’ve already tried to anticipate that,” said Franks at once. Indicating Kenham he told them of his instructions to create the Swiss and Liechtenstein holding companies, effectively to remove his name from the shareholders’ register in London and in Spain, France and Italy, aware as he concluded that Podmore was shaking his head.

  “The City doesn’t like shell companies and nominee holdings,” said the lawyer.

  “The City is full of them!” Franks had anticipated the argument. “Any hesitation in any case is over investments. I’m not—we’re not—seeking investment. The only confidence we’ve got to maintain and worry about is that of the people who book our holidays and our villas and our cruises. As far as they are concerned, I will no longer be involved.”

  “How long will you have to remain under this rather peculiar protection program before you can expect properly and fully to resume control?” asked Wise.

  Franks paused. “The protection program isn’t particularly peculiar,” he said. “A similar system has been in operation for some years now involving witnesses and events in Northern Ireland.”

  “They’re called supergrasses,” said the persistent Podmore. “They’re criminals who’ve chosen to give evidence against their former criminal colleagues to avoid prosecution themselves.”

  Franks sighed, supposing he should have expected the suspicion. “I’ve made it quite clear to you—honestly clear to you—how my involvement arose. Just as I’ve made it quite clear that I faced prosecution. We have been involved for many years now. Professionally involved. You’ve had those many years to come to know me. I hope you do, all of you. I know of some of the publicity in the past: the stupidity about being a pirate and a high flier. And you know how that was not ever—has not ever—been the case. At most I might be guilty—if in fact it is a crime—of being unconventional. But behind that unconventionality you all know, every one of you, how I have worked. The manner in which I’ve worked. And the honesty with which I’ve worked. I have been stupid, a fool. I’ve already made that abundantly clear, in what I’ve said—but I am not nor have I ever been a crook.”

  There was another period of silence in the room as each man considered.

  Podmore said, “It is not us you have to convince, is it?”

  “Oh yes, it is!” said Franks at once. “You, most importantly. There are going to be several months when—although there’ll be some telephone contact between us—you will effectively be running the companies. That’s what I meant about seeking your support.”

  “Is that how long it will be?” asked Wise. “Months?”

  “That’s all I intend it to be,” said Franks.

  “Will you be the one to decide?” said Phillips.

  “The interest of the authorities is in the grand jury hearings and the trial,” said Franks. “I don’t consider the need for protection will remain long after that.”

  “What happens if you are assassinated?” Hunter asked. He smiled, embarrassed. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but from what we’ve heard today it isn’t. If the holding company is formulated in Switzerland and then established in Liechtenstein—and you were to die—what access would we have? We’d have legal responsibilities to discharge. We couldn’t discharge them if we couldn’t find out where the parent was.”

  It was a good point and one he hadn’t considered, realized Franks. He said at once, “There will be a properly drawn agreement—copies of which will be deposited with each company secretary, as well as the establishing lawyer in Switzerland—ordering that all the details should be made available to you for the disposal or any other action necessary involving the companies in the event of my death.”

  “It’s still all extremely irregular and unusual,” objected the doubtful Podmore. “I’m not sure that I like it—like it at all.”

  “Mr. Podmore,” said Franks, curbing his irritation. “Let me assure you that I like it a damned sight less. I’m caught up in a situation I’m still not sure I completely understand. What I’m doing here today—and what I’m going to be doing in the subsequent days—is to salvage and sustain something, a great deal, in fact, from an unfortunate and regrettable situation. A situation which is causing me—and I’m sure will continue to cause me—very great embarrassment.”

  “I can’t understand how you allowed it to occur in the first place,” said Phillips.

  “Neither can I, not now,” said Franks. “The approaches I had in New York seemed very good at the time. The best—and obvious—ones to take. All I can say—utterly inadequate though I know it to be—is that I’m sorry.” There was a time, he thought, not so very long ago, when to have made such an abject admission woul
d have been difficult for him. It didn’t seem to be, not any longer.

  “I don’t think the confidence of our customers is the only consideration,” said Kenham. “What about our suppliers? I know there’s not a lot—not like, for instance, a service industry as such—but we’re involved with office staff and airlines and printers and tourist organizations in other countries. What if they start to withdraw because of any nervousness in becoming associated with some sort of crime syndicate?”

  “We get other suppliers,” said Franks.

  “Just like that?” said Kenham.

  “What other way is there?”

  “Normally, quite a few,” agreed the solicitor. “In this case I don’t think there would be.”

  “There are always suppliers, for a price,” said Franks.

  “Which we’re prepared to pay?” demanded Podmore, alert to everything.

  “Which I’m prepared to pay,” said Franks. “I remain the controlling shareholder, don’t forget.”

  “You’ve got your wife’s vote, recording that?” said Phillips.

  Thank God he’d remembered it, thought Franks; he hadn’t expected an easy meeting but he hadn’t quite imagined such obvious opposition, either. From his briefcase he produced the notarized proxy. He offered it first to Phillips, the questioner, and there was another gap in the discussion while it was passed around the table and each man—none willing to trust the examination of his partner—steadily read through everything to ensure that it was satisfactory. Franks waited until the proxy had gone completely around the table and then demanded, careless of showing his irritation, “Well?”

  “It seems to be in order,” said Phillips.

  “Of course it’s in order,” said Franks, still irritated. “Just as it will be in order to pay higher prices to alternative suppliers if those that already exist withdraw. The essential exercise now—the essential, vital necessity—is to protect what is after all the major part of our business.…” When nobody responded, Franks said, “And that is why I’ve summoned this conference here today. I repeat: I’m seeking your support. Now!” He was pleading again, Franks realized, unconcerned.

  Once more silence settled upon the room, each of the gathered directors looking around, but each appearing reluctant actually to meet another’s gaze. It was Podmore, the perpetual doubter, who spoke first. The solicitor said, “I take completely the point that has been so eloquently made by our chairman and managing director: of his unblemished character and reputation in every dealing with me, from the moment of our first association. While it has a direct and important bearing upon the affairs of the various companies with which we are professionally associated, what occurred in the Bahamas and in Bermuda did occur with separate, completely unconnected companies, apart from the extremely peripheral linkup between the hotels and the visiting of the cruise ship.…”

  Got them! thought Franks, acknowledging for the first time how uncertain he had become during the meeting. Podmore was the overcautious obstacle. Once he committed himself—which was what he was doing now—the rest would obediently follow, like sheep after the bellwether.

  “I therefore propose a motion in complete support of our chairman and managing director,” continued Podmore. He stopped, not for agreement from the others but to reinforce his next point; it came to Franks like a punch. “But not unconditionally,” went on Podmore. “Professionally I—all of us—have an obligation to work for the good of the companies. I do not think we can work in that capacity for an indeterminate time. I am prepared to agree to everything that has been suggested here today on the condition that it is for a period not exceeding six months from the date of this meeting. And further, that company managers are elevated—not necessarily in any voting capacity—onto the reconstituted boards of the operating companies to enable us properly to monitor the week by week, month by month, working of those companies. I will only agree to continue on those understandings; understandings which guarantee a complete and open scrutiny of each and every company if in the opinion of any of their working boards such scrutiny becomes necessary.”

  The bastard didn’t believe him, Franks realized at once. All the crap about unblemished character and reputation was exactly that: so much crap. Franks worked at controlling himself. Podmore was a man who existed within the square mile of the city of London and who depended upon his own reputation within that stiflingly enclosed environment remaining absolutely unquestioned. Considering it objectively—which it was essential that he do—Podmore was merely suggesting insurance to protect that reputation. It would be wrong to become annoyed—offended even—at a man doing in effect no more than he was attempting to do himself. He couldn’t argue against anything except the time limit, but he had to argue with that. Franks waited, too experienced a negotiator to rush in with offers and arguments before he’d heard all the opinions.

  “I think those observations have a lot to commend them,” said Hunter. At once Phillips and Wise nodded agreement. “I think so, too,” said the first man, and the second added, “My feelings, exactly.”

  Kenham refused to commit himself, for the same reason as Franks. The solicitor said, “I’d like to hear the reaction from our chairman and managing director.”

  Shit, thought Franks. He said, “The reason I’ve come back here today”—he gestured beyond the doors, to where Waldo and Schultz were waiting—“at considerable awkwardness and inconvenience is, as I’ve already attempted to make clear, to protect what is controlled from here and what exists in Spain and France and in Italy and in the Caribbean, with the cruise ship. If it is the feeling of these assembled boards that such protection is best provided by what Podmore has suggested—and I acknowledge and commend the sound business logic of those suggestions—then of course I would agree to them. Agree to them formally, upon a properly recorded vote and with the proxy of my wife committed also.”

  “It would seem that there is no disagreement among us, then?” said Kenham. “I’m personally in favor of Podmore’s proposals.”

  “I hadn’t finished the point I was making,” said Franks quietly.

  There had been a discernible relaxation in the room, but now the six men came abruptly back to him. “What?” demanded Podmore, the leader.

  “The time limit,” said Franks. “I agree entirely that I cannot expect you to carry on with the arrangement I have suggested today for an indeterminate time. I never intended that it should be for an unlimited period; that would have been unrealistic. Equally, I think it is unrealistic for you, today, to expect me to commit myself to a schedule as tight as six months from today’s date. I’ve told you I have to appear before a grand jury. After that there has to be a trial. And the protection in the immediate aftermath that I’ve already spoken to you about.”

  “How long?” insisted Podmore. “I will not agree to anything open-ended.”

  Franks realized he’d been backed into a corner, with little room to maneuver or escape. He said, “Six months from the conclusion of the trial.”

  The men all deferred to Podmore, the emerging leader and spokesman. Podmore said, “I had a further point to make, as well.”

  “What?” asked Franks apprehensively.

  “Although they are not public, the companies have public responsibilities. There are a great number of employees, both English and foreign nationals. There is the crew of the cruise liner. Our contracted suppliers, to which reference has already been made. And the many thousands of holiday makers and tourists who have relied upon us in the past and rely upon us for the future.”

  “What’s the point?” pressed Franks. The damned man was posturing, playing to a suddenly unexpected audience.

  “That any agreement we reach today allows the newly constituted boards to offer the companies to public subscription and public directorship to continue their running and the obligations that I believe all of us recognize.”

  Franks knew the visual impression was a misleading one, but the grouping around the conference table
made it appear to him that he was alone, confronting an opposing force led by Podmore. The response came to him automatically—instinctively—because it was in direct contradiction to the basic principle by which he’d always worked. It took a great effort of will to hold back the rejection, but he managed it. Instead he said, his voice surprisingly even, “You, all of you, know how I feel about opening the companies to any sort of public subscription or involvement.” He paused and added bitterly, “And after the American experience, I feel that way even more strongly. I can, however, see and appreciate the argument that is being advanced. I have a question. What would your reaction be if I refused the condition of going public, as I have always refused it in the past?”

  It was a demand to all of them but Franks spoke directly to Podmore.

  “We are hypothesizing extremes,” said Podmore. “Your demise—which all of us here obviously and sincerely hope doesn’t occur—or your inability to return here to pick up the running of the companies. We’ve already decided upon a formula for access to their affairs in the event of your assassination. Without you, the companies would have to go public, to ensure their continuance. Just as they would if you were unable, for whatever reason, to come back here. I imposed a time limit—and concede it from the conclusion of the trial—because I am not prepared to make the commitment necessary for me to be involved in the full-time running of the companies in your absence. You insist upon private companies; I don’t. Unless we have an agreement here today, including the public offering, then I do not consider myself able to continue in the directorial capacity that I hold. I would today have to tender my resignation, from each and every company.”

  Bastard, thought Franks again. With the controlling shareholding provided by Tina’s proxy he didn’t need any of their agreements to form the holding company and do what he intended to do. But he did need them—desperately needed them—to continue running the companies in his absence. There had to be board control over the managers, and there wasn’t anyone else who understood the companies like these men did. And they knew it; at least Podmore did. Franks said, “We’ve had the benefit of Podmore’s views. What about the rest of the directors?”