The Geneva Connection

by Martin Bodenham

  “So what style is this one?”

  “The old style which means it can’t be legit.”

  “Are you absolutely certain about this?”

  “When this passport was made two years ago, no old-style passports were being issued by Sweden. Whoever created it did a great job at replicating the old format, but they cocked up by not following the new format.”

  “How confident are you that your contact is right about this, Bill? It’s massively important.”

  “There’s no doubt.” Chapman smiled. “Let’s just say counterfeit passports are his specialty, but I’d prefer to leave it at that.”

  Kent was not about to press Chapman any further. He was in enough trouble already. “I’m not sure I wanted to hear it’s a forgery, but thanks for your help on this. I know you’ll keep it to yourself.”

  Chapman nodded. “Is there anything else you want me to do on this?”

  “You’ve been a great help. I owe you one.”

  Kent spent the rest of the day in his office thinking about the counterfeit passport and Andreas Kvarnback.

  What does it all mean? Does Tritona know the passport isn’t authentic? Have they been misled by their Swedish investor, too? What if the Swede isn’t an investor at all? What if Tritona are hiding the real source of their money? His mind ran wild with theories. Whatever the explanation, he knew it was suspicious and that he’d have to notify the matter to the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, or SOCA for short.

  The penalty for not filing a report of a well-founded suspicion was fourteen years in prison, and Kent wasn’t about to risk that. He wanted to discuss the matter with Baumgart first, but that was a nonstarter. It was also a criminal offense to tip-off the party under suspicion. Kent knew Tritona may be as innocent as CBC in all this but, under the law, he had no choice but to report what he knew.

  Could there be a legitimate explanation for all this? Either Kvarnback’s up to something or Tritona are, he thought. Either way, it’s bad for CBC. He decided to sleep on things before taking any action. It was too important a matter to make a snap decision only to regret it later.

  Early the following morning, after a restless night, Kent was sitting in his quiet office, before any staff had arrived. He’d reached the conclusion that someone had tried to deceive him and that there was no innocent explanation. He realized this could spell the end of his profitable relationship with Tritona. The implications of that for his firm were unimaginable.

  It’s a complete fucking disaster.

  He was certain of one thing: the law required him to notify the authorities. He took out a pad of paper and began drafting the letter he’d send to SOCA. He wondered how to start. He wanted his words to concentrate less on whom he suspected, as he was still not sure about that, and more on the details relating to the passport. He decided to make no mention of Chapman or his army intelligence contacts.

  The authorities don’t need to know how I found out about Swedish passports, he figured. Keep it brief; stick to the facts.

  Kent told Tara to hold all his calls when she arrived for the day and then closed his office door. He wanted some peace to concentrate on the letter without interruptions. It took him most of the morning and several drafts.

  It’s got to be right, he thought. This letter may be CBC’s death warrant.

  He wasn’t hungry at lunchtime so he took a walk around the Science Park to get some air, and to chew over the letter in his mind. When he returned to his office, he read his draft one more time and decided it was ready.

  Once I let this go, there’s no going back.

  He called Tara into his office. “I need you to type up a letter for me, but you need to keep the subject matter in strict confidence. You can’t mention it to anyone.”

  “What’s it about?” she asked.

  “Listen, I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He handed Tara the letter. While she had no idea about the significance of the document she’d just received, Kent had no illusions as to the massive step he’d just taken.

  “Okay. Do you want me to drop what I’m doing now to work on this?”

  “Please. Do it straightaway. It’ll be obvious why when you read it.” Tara returned to her desk and began to read.

  “Dear Sir/Madam

  I am the CEO of Cambridge Buy-Out Capital (CBC). CBC is a private equity fund manager. The firm is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

  More than 90% of the funds managed by this firm have come from one investor. This investor is a multifamily office called Tritona, based in Geneva. When CBC accepted Tritona as an investor a few months ago, we were informed that there were three families whose wealth is managed by Tritona. These families are the Needmeiers, Deutchmans, and the Kvarnbacks, all of whom are well known amongst the business community in Europe.

  As part of our due diligence and compliance procedures, we examined a number of documents to confirm the identity of Tritona and the families behind them. It is in this connection that I wish to file a suspicious activity report.

  It has come to our attention that Swedish passports changed in format three years ago, moving to the new EU format. However, one of the passports we have received to confirm the identity of Andreas Kvarnback, a Swedish national, is in the old format and yet it is only two years old. Furthermore, the spelling of his name on the attached photo page of Mr. Kvarnback’s passport is incorrect.

  I confirm that I have not raised the matter with either Tritona or Andreas Kvarnback so as to avoid ‘tipping off.’

  Please contact me should you require any further information.

  Yours faithfully,

  John Kent

  Chief Executive Officer”

  Kent held up his palms when Tara came back into the office. “I know. It’s a bloody nightmare,” he said before she could say anything.

  “What does this mean for the firm?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” he lied. It wasn’t right for him to discuss with Tara what it meant for CBC before he’d sat down with his partners first.

  “When do you want the letter to be dated?”

  “Put tomorrow’s date on it. I want to mull over the wording once more before it goes out. I’d like you to set up a partners’ meeting for tomorrow afternoon, so I can brief everyone on this too.”

  “I’ll set it up.”

  “Don’t mention the letter. Just tell them an important matter has come up, but don’t tell them what it is.”

  I need to work out how I’m going to break this to them, he thought.

  That night, Kent again struggled to sleep. He kept searching for possible explanations for the suspect passport. The best theory he could come up with was that Andreas Kvarnback had supplied Tritona with a false passport to hide some form of personal embarrassment. The worst was that Tritona had knowingly supplied CBC with the forgery in order to mask the real identity of their investors. He suspected the worst.

  What if none of the named investors behind Tritona is real? The money’s real enough; it’s coming from somewhere.

  By the time he fell asleep it was four a.m. He slept through his alarm and only woke at seven thirty when Sarah’s alarm went off. He had breakfast with her, but didn’t mention anything about the previous day’s events.

  She’ll be horrified, he thought. I’ll tell her when I get to the bottom of it all.

  Kent arrived at CBC midmorning. “You look tired. Can I bring you a coffee?” asked Tara as he walked by her, heading straight for his office.

  “Make it a strong one,” he said. “Did you arrange the meeting with the partners for me?” he asked, trying to force a smile.

  “I did. I’ve set it up for four p.m. It’s in your diary.”

  “Thanks. Can you print off copies of my draft letter ready for me to hand out at the meeting?”

  “Sure. Did you have any further changes to make to it first?”

  “No. I think it’s pretty much there, subject
to any comments from the partners.”

  He sat staring at the screensaver on his PC. What’s the point of doing any work if the business is about to go off a cliff?

  Tara brought in his coffee. “This came for you by courier first thing this morning,” she said, handing him a large brown envelope marked Private and Confidential.

  Kent sipped the coffee. “Thanks,” he said as Tara walked back to her desk. He ripped open the envelope. Inside he found a DVD case and a typed note. It read:

  “You may wish to reconsider sending your letter after watching this.”

  What the hell’s this? He stared at the DVD on his desk and then reread the note. There was no signature, and the envelope gave no clues as to the identity of the sender. It took a few moments before his brain engaged. He stood up, shut his office door, and then inserted the DVD into the drive of his PC. His hands were shaking.

  The machine whirred as it launched the disc. The PC screen went black, and Kent could see the reflection of his face, wide-eyed and frightened. A moment later, the screen lit up.

  “Oh my God!” he said out loud.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  On Kent’s PC screen was a large room with a double bed. He recognized it immediately as Hotel Morgana. He heard the muffled voices of a man and a woman before they entered the room. They were kissing each other as they moved fully into view. The DVD caught every last detail of Kent and Tara.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said, covering his mouth with his hand.

  Kent ejected the disc and threw it into his briefcase with trembling hands. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt cold. In that awful moment, Kent realized he was dealing with serious criminals. The revelation hit him like a wall.

  If these people have the resources to set up cameras in the hotel, they must have my office bugged. Other than Tara, no one knows about my letter to SOCA.

  He sat motionless, staring at his PC screen. What am I going to do? He held his head in his hands, elbows leaning on the desk. His shallow breath caught in his chest as a chilling thought jumped into his head. Could these people have been behind Anton’s death? It was a hit and run, after all. Henning had been in this office when we were discussing Andreas Kvarnback. The next day, he was dead.

  This office has to be bugged, he thought. Is Sarah at risk? This is a fucking nightmare.

  He stood, picked up his briefcase and rushed out of his office. “I’m going out for an hour,” he said to Tara, without stopping.

  Kent drove away from Cambridge as fast as he could. He needed to place some distance between him and the office and whoever was watching him. He drove onto the M11 motorway and put his foot down. Could they be following me now? He kept looking in his rearview mirror. He caught sight of his appearance as scanned the mirror again. His face was white and his eyes were slightly glazed. He took the car up to ninety before he realized he was going too fast and slowed down. Twenty miles south of Cambridge, he stopped at a motorway service station. He got out of the car and walked into the coffee shop, bought a strong coffee and sat in a quiet corner looking out of the window. He was in a public space. Surely, it’s safe here?

  He rang Sarah’s mobile, but it went to voicemail. He left a message asking her to call him. I need to know she’s safe, he thought, though he knew she was probably with a patient.

  He nursed his cold coffee for two hours, ignoring his cell phone calls from the office. For the first hour he sat numbly staring out of the window at the traffic rushing by on the motorway. His mind was blank. The people coming and going in the coffee shop seemed to be in another world, as though none of this was really happening.

  As the shock began to fade, he took out a sheet of paper from his briefcase and began writing down the characters in this nightmare.

  Who am I dealing with? What do they want now they’ve declared their hand? CBC must be of some ongoing value to them. It would be just as easy to kill me as they did Anton.

  Seeing the whole thing on a sheet of paper helped him collect his thoughts. He knew one thing for sure: he could no longer file his suspicious activity report with SOCA.

  I’ll bury the letter, he thought. I can’t go to the authorities. These people wouldn’t hesitate to ruin my marriage or harm me or Sarah. Anton’s death must have been a warning. I’ll have to carry on until I can find another way out.

  He rubbed his chin and closed his eyes for a moment. I can’t mention this to Tara, either. They’ll hear any conversation in the office. I can’t burden her with this on top of the problems with her mother. What good would it do, anyway?

  He picked up his voicemails. Still nothing from Sarah. He rang her office and was told she was still in with patients. Thank God.

  Tara had rung several times. He rang her and said something had come up on the personal front. He asked her to leave the letter facedown on his desk and to cancel the partners’ meeting arranged for that afternoon. “Just tell the partners something’s come up and apologize on my behalf,” he said.

  Kent had to make sure the letter never saw the light of day.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Doug Wright had developed a leathery tan; the kind you get from spending too much time on the golf course. He was a good ten pounds heavier, too. Since leaving Henderson Wright as senior partner, he’d taken on a couple of nonexecutive director positions: one with a major oil company and the other with a firm of management consultants, where he was now chairman. Both roles combined took up only one day a week, so he’d spent the last few months improving his golf swing and taking long vacations in the Mediterranean. The boredom was killing him. Apart from golf, he had no real interests or friends with whom he could spend time. Even retired partners from the old firm found excuses to avoid him when he called them suggesting they meet up for lunch or dinner. His wife was anxious for him to find another challenging role so he’d be out of her hair. It was never part of the deal that she would have to spend sixteen hours a day listening to him rant on about this and that. He was becoming a pain, and he knew it.

  When he received a call from a well-known headhunter asking if he’d consider taking on a part-time role as head of a new, high-profile division at the FSA, he took all of a nanosecond to decide he wanted it. He knew the FSA was beefing up its activities following the financial crisis and that part of this involved taking on senior figures from commerce and industry to head up some of its new units. It was the mention of “high profile” that turned his head. Wright didn’t need the money, but he still missed the kudos that went with being the head of a Big Four global accounting firm. He missed his stage.

  The headhunter laid it on thick. He’d already tried several other senior business people before calling Wright, but none of them would remotely consider taking on a quasi-government role; they had no desire to become a regulator and they saw the pay as pitifully low. By now, the headhunter was working his way down the B-list.

  “My client is adamant that you’re the perfect fit for this position, Mr. Wright. They’re impressed with your track record at Henderson Wright and have asked me to do everything in my power to persuade you to consider taking on this pivotal role,” he said. “They know you’ll do a great job for them. In many ways, the role was designed for you.”

  Wright did not need persuading but tried to appear nonchalant. “I may have time to fit it in. It just depends on the position itself. Tell me more about the new division.”

  “The new team will take a proactive approach to investigating regulated financial services firms rather than simply waiting for regular reports to come in from those firms and reacting to problems. Since the demise of Lehman Brothers, the regulator has wanted to investigate actively those firms that don’t appear to be in any trouble. They call it ‘pro-active regulation,’ and they recognize that they need a City heavy hitter to set out this new strategy, build an appropriate team, and then head up these new investigations.”

  Wright couldn’t contain the smug grin on his face. “Yes, I can certa
inly see how my background and experience would fit.”

  “They’d really like to meet up with you to explore this further, if you are interested, of course.”

  Wright was salivating over the role. “I see no harm meeting the people,” he said, coolly. In his mind, the job was already his. He didn’t care about the money or the other details. He was relishing the power of it all. Each time he found a firm up to no good it would be all over the newspapers, and Wright would have his name right there in the middle of the story. He couldn’t wait to start.

  When Wright told his wife about the call, she was very supportive. “Do you really have to take it, Doug? I’ll miss spending the time with you,” she said, almost convincingly.

  A week later, Wright found himself back at Canary Wharf for the meeting at the FSA. He’d researched the background to the regulator and the history of regulation of financial services firms in the UK. He’d read all the articles he could find online relating to the challenges of financial services regulation. He’d even asked his wife to play the role of the interviewer most evenings so he could anticipate the questions and rehearse his answers. He was well prepared. Although he craved the position, his challenge was not to let it show.

  He walked right past the Henderson Wright tower on his way to the FSA’s headquarters. He still missed his time there and would never forgive John Kent and CBC for forcing him out. He smiled as he thought about how they’d come to regret making an enemy of him once he was in his new role. He’d do everything possible to use his new position to give CBC a good kicking. He wouldn’t be satisfied until Kent was ruined.

  When he arrived at the regulator’s office building, he was shown to a large meeting room on the twenty-second floor, where he faced a panel interview. The chief executive of the FSA led the meeting. Wright had already decided if the position wasn’t sufficiently senior to warrant the CEO handling the discussion, then it wouldn’t be the right role for him. It was his test to see how senior the position was.