by Moulton, CD
He spoke in almost one long sentence, but in a slightly jerky manner with a fairly strong accent. It reminded Clint of his author friend’s super-computer that “spoke” without paragraphs.
“Mucho gusto – I think. I’m trying to find out what’s going down with that bunch who tried to run a scam with Bathner et al where even he came out with a huge profit. He even donated two million for a school on Isla San Cristóbal. Too bad he didn’t live to spend his part.
“What is it? For real? I know it’s not about an oil well scam. Not really.”
“When one seeks a thing he sometimes will find there is something else. Something he never expected. In this case it was never about making more, it was about removing several billions from one place where it was not legitimate to another place where it could be made legitimate. The scam, as you call it, was meant to be discovered soon and the seven or eight millions were the expenses for moving five billions. That’s all. Then some crazy and very stupid – if clever – people tried to steal the five billions and everything went straight to hell in a handbasket on a greased slide. I was for the five billions. To move. I was not for the extremely excessive bringing in of minor and stupid people who started killing people because that is all they ever knew from the stupid TV shows and movies pictures. It is not any longer in my hands. I have tried to distance myself from those people.”
“By eliminating the worst of them.” It was a statement. Clint wouldn’t play games anymore than Smednoff would. Smednoff was scared by this.
“When one enters a game he must know the rules by which the game is played and must know that the rules apply for the whole game, not for only one side. I am always surprised when stupid people fail to grasp such an obvious fact. They knew the rules when they entered the game. They were, as you say, with their eyes wide open.”
“Sally Wallace?”
“The woman from California. She was far more than you knew or know. I will not say more.”
“Vern?”
“Simply her property. He is very stupid, but maybe very smart. He did not and does not know ... things. It is smart not to know. Those things. He was trapped and found a way out. I think he is a true patriot to the United States. I think he will become as true a patriot to Panamá. He is a very simple person who sees all things as black or white except morals where sex is concerned. He saw she had to be stopped and is very glad that she was stopped.”
“Don’t tell me he was behind her murder?”
“Yes and no. He had warned some people about her and about another place. Some people in the United States Intelligence Service knew of her ties and her insanity. He would do nothing to harm her unless that became of a much higher priority. He did not like her after a year and a half of marrying her. He found what she was. She wanted to be a queen. She wanted control. She wanted only more and more possessions. She drank and became a very evil person. More evil than when she did not drink. She was a very evil person, but because she was insane. He suspected she was insane, I believe. It was a solution, but it leaves a very large question as to what will become of the situation now. Her family is not what you think her family is as she was not what you thought she was.”
Clint thought for a few seconds. “Syria? That was for real?”
“Yes and no. Not directly. Syria was ... is ... being used for if something goes wrong.”
“But if this was from moving funds spent on arms from the cold war, how did Syria ... oh, Christ! What happened to those arms and what were they?!”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, holy SHIT! Which one has it? Them?”
“Three countries. They are involved only after because they are afraid the substances can now be traced, which will eventuate some dangerous and strong reactions from NATO and the USA.”
“And Israel?”
“Israel is a distraction of their own making. I have no sympathy of any kind for your Israel. They could be annihilated by this and I would not care except that it could contaminate too much else. You see, I am becoming more concerned about world problems caused by a few. I want a better world for my children and grandchildren. I have less and less sympathy for a country that allows a George Bush and a Cheyney to exercise such destructive control of its affairs.”
“Are your methods any better?”
He shook his head. “They are made necessary. I offer no apologies for doing what I must do.”
“I wish I could argue the point. Thanks. We don’t think in alien ways, one to the other, on some things,” Clint returned, stood, offered his hand and left.
Well! He had something to investigate now – and it was something that he wouldn’t even have considered a day ago.
He called Marko. “I have to know everything there is to know about Sally Wallace’s family. Where did they get their money? What are they up to?”
“Wallace? The one who was murdered?” Marko asked.
“Uh-huh.”
There was a silence. Marko said he’d know every time they so much as farted at a party within twenty four hours.
He then called Vito and said he had to know everyone Sally Wallace had said as much as two words to when she was in Panamá City.
He called Judi Lum. She had an uncanny talent for digging up information.
Then he headed for David, stayed what was left of the night at the Occidental and went on to Bocas.
Life on a Bus
More and more his life was being spent on buses. That would have to stop. He came here to retire. Still, it made for a far more interesting life. He was accomplishing a few things.
Now he was tied into some crazy international intrigue. Terrorists, he wasn’t close to being equipped to counter.
Yet, the adrenalin rush was something he’d always sought. Maybe he wasn’t exactly sane, himself. Here he was trying to reform crime lords while also sympathizing with their methods to much too far a degree.
Why did he come back to Bocas?
Only thing now is to get on with it. There would have to be some kind of final resolution. Billions could only mean one thing he could think of. Radioactives that could be spread in large cities or used to make nuclear weapons. The economy of the USA was already in the dumps because of the abject stupidity of its leaders. Terrorism had worked perfectly against it. The object was to make the government waste much or most of its funds and resources fighting against an invisible enemy – which was exactly what it did.
Off that track. There wasn’t much to do until Marko called with what he could find about Sally’s family, the Davises. He’d take a few minutes to catch a few fish for the freezer and his supper. He took his gear, got in his boat and headed out past Bird Island to see what was running. He was out for a little more than an hour when Marko called to say he’d gotten a bit on the Davis family. More later, but Clint had to know a few things.
Number one was that Edgar, the father, and Bruce, the brother were in Panamá City demanding the body of Sally be sent back to the states. They wanted to know exactly where Vern was – which they wouldn’t find out until more was known about them. Vern might be in serious danger because of what they may think he knew.
He could work with that.
“Manny, let them get the word that he’s somewhere in the Bocas Town area. He can stay on San Cristóbal until we see what they try. He’ll be glad to be bait for a bit of a trap, I think. I’ve been thinking about what this is about. It’s too much like a spy movie in a lot of ways and, considering the methods, a violence flick. It’s surreal. I’m dealing with what I thought was the Russian Mafia – and it might even be – but even they seem more in touch with reality than what this family is supposed to be up to.
“Can we trace back to find what would cause them to do this?”
“Done, to an extent. It seems Sally Davis was in college with some students from Saudi Arabia. They’re back there now, but one of them went directly to Oman, one to Iran. One is in Pakistan. The other is back in Saudi Arabia. They could see right away
that she was a totally self-centered type and wanted money enough to compete with the richest of the rich. She was easy to rope into a scheme where they could get millions of dollars to finance some people in Iran and Afghanistan in an oil deal. They ran a couple of minor scams that did net them some hundreds of thousands, then they said they had contacts in Russia to get weapons for next to nothing and resell them to the highest bidder.
“That worked very well, thank you. She got her father and brother into the act, then. They were moderately well-off until that time. After that they suddenly had too much money coming in from foreign investments – in the millions.
“Then they told her they could get the nuclears, but would have to launder literally billions. They got half they would split among the group.
“She married Vern Wallace, someone she knew from college, and started traveling around the world. The two Saudis that went to Iran and Oman are lost from the records, probably dead. An attempt was made on the life of the one in Saudi Arabia just after she was put in charge of the laundering. She had something over five billion stashed somewhere. That’s the big reason the family wants to find Vern, I suppose. They think he knows where the money is. I think he doesn’t and doesn’t care.
“Gimme a sec. Something coming in on the comp ... The one in Pakistan disappeared just two weeks ago. Went to a little town near the border and had an accident or something vague. The little lady was determined to guarantee the money wasn’t split with anyone.”
“Lovely lady. She was reasonably goodlooking, but a bit repulsive for some undefinable reason. You could sense something about her. Vern might actually know where that money is hidden while not being conscious of that little fact.”
“Could be. Want to come over for the afternoon? We can discuss the rain and all that kind of stuff.”
“Gimme an hour or so to clean the fish and I’ll be over.”
“She has the whole deal stashed somewhere. She didn’t send the connection in Russia, the half they agreed on,” Manny reported. “That’s, after the exaggerations and war stories, something over seven and a half billion, total. They’ve already laundered over a billion.”
“Lovely people. Vern probably knows a lot more than he has the vaguest idea he might know. I tend to trust him. He really wants to be a surf bum.”
“Not many fool me. That’s why I’m still alive. I think the thing he would know has to do with where he’s been with her and who she’s met, not with anything more specific.”
They strolled down to the dock where Vern was trying to teach a few of the Indios how to care for a surf board (Which they couldn’t care less about). After a few minutes the Indios went on and Clint and Marko sat on the dock with Vern to discuss a lot of nothing. Clint soon said they had to fish around with his mind to learn what he knew that he didn’t know he knew. He grinned and said, “Go for it!” Clint said they had to know where he had been with Sally and who she met and talked with.
“I sort of figured there’s something important in that. What was she into?”
“We’re afraid she was working with a terrorist group. They may have gotten their hands on some old nuclears because of her. They can do a contamination bit with them.”
“No shit? That would mean you want to know about the trip to Israel to see the religious spots – when she was a lot of things, religious not among them.
“We met some dude I was suspicious about in Haifa. It wasn’t much, but we saw him in Paris and again in London. Muhammed al Himbra or something that sounded like that. She gave him a little money. Maybe a couple thousand. He was supposed to introduce her to some people. I wasn’t included in that part.”
“Did you know of anyone she met because of him?” Marko asked.
“Well, in London. A man called ‘Coyote’ was hanging around a bit too much. I did check on him because I felt he was trying to get her to finance something shady.”
“And?”
“His name’s Johnathon Gordon. He’s a sort of second-rate con man, but he knows people. His name’s also Jon LeGrande in France. He seems to run back and forth between the two countries.”
“I can check on him,” Clint replied. “Maybe he’s the contact between her and who set the deal up. Do you know anything at all about the seven billion?”
There was a pause. “Seven BILLION?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You have GOT to be kidding!”
“Huh-uh.”
“I knew she was doing something with those people, but I swear I didn’t have a clue as to billions! Christ! I don’t need this shit! I just want to live a simple life of dissipation! Christ!
“Okay. I didn’t think it was really important and had just about put it into a sort of ‘who cares’ file in my mind.
“She met with a man in Sydney. Carl Marks. I think he was the only person in the world she was scared of. I never knew why. I knew the name was phony. He was a very scary person. He could look at you in a way that made your blood run cold, as trite as that seems.”
“With reason,” Marko said. “I know who you’re talking about. He’s a sociopath with so much money no one can touch him.”
“We’ll have to touch him,” Clint suggested.
Early in the morning the phone buzzed. Clint picked it up and noted it was from Marko. He reported that Marks was in Panamá City meeting with the Davises.
“And?” Clint asked.
“They’re stupid. He’ll ask about the money and they can’t give him answers. They don’t HAVE any answer because they don’t have a clue as to what’s going down.”
“Manny, what did she do with that much money? Is it in cash? Where is it?”
“We may never know or we may be able to work backward with Vern. It’s our only chance.”
“I’ll go to Panamá City to offer my sympathies to the bereaved family.”
“Do NOT turn your back on Marks!”
“Not even maybe!”
Clint sighed, got up, swam for ten minutes, fixed breakfast and packed. Another trip. He could get the direct bus in Almirante and would be in Panamá City in nine hours. It wouldn’t do to take a flight that would be checked if anyone was interested. Someone would rather definitely be interested.
Clint didn’t waste a lot of time. He knew where to find the Davis family. That would lead him to the Carl Marks character. This had to be over – and fast. They were are The Europa. Suite 309.
He didn’t care much for Edgar when he opened the door. He was a wheedler. Bernice, the wife, was a schemer. Greed was dripping off both of them. Bruce, who he met when they invited him into the room, reminded him very much of Sally.
“We thank you for your concern about our daughter,” Bernice said. ”She was always the rock who held the family together. We owe most of what we have to her.
“Did you know her well? You are a friend of her husband? We can’t understand why he isn’t here.”
“He wants to stay alive and knows perfectly well he was a toy-boy to make her sorority friends jealous. He doesn’t have a clue as to the crap she was into. I doubt you do, either.”
“WHAT?!” Bruce cried. “Crap she was into?! She didn’t say what it was to ... I resent that! I resent it very much!”
“Yeah, yeah. You resent it almost to the point you would toss me out if you didn’t suspect I knew where the money is.
“Marks won’t allow any of you to live once you find it. You’re out of your league. Sally was a lot more savvy than the bunch of you combined – and she’s dead. You might want to consider that little factor.
“I don’t care about you. I want to get Marks. You can go back to the states with the certain knowledge the FBI or CIA or whatever will be watching you every minute for the rest of your lives. If any of those nuclears are ever used you’ll be eliminated in seconds.”
They were showing shock a hell of a lot better than the Cartworthys ever did. This was very real. Bruce was dead white and looked like he would keel over.
Clint sigh
ed, shook his head and asked where he could find Marks. They said he would call them to set up a meeting. They didn’t like Clint, but were undecided as to whether or not to trust him.
“Fine. As a very powerful man told me just this morning, ‘When you’re in the same city as Marks, watch your back.’ I pass that on to you.” He walked out and went to the lobby to wait. They got out of the elevator twenty five minutes later and hailed a cab. Clint got another one and followed at a short distance. They went directly to a very expensive section of town, to the golf and country club and into the bar-restaurant. They asked the waitress something and she pointed to door “B” of the private dining rooms.
Clint sat at the bar and ordered coffee and a heated pecan Danish. This was the one place you could get that that Clint knew of.
Twelve minutes later the Davises left. Clint sat for another three minutes until an intense little man came out carrying a briefcase. There was no one else in the room. Clint followed the little man, who went directly down the street to a Mercedes and a climbed in. Clint waved for a cab and followed it to a large condominium complex near the causeway. The man got out and went inside. Clint was there in time to watch the little man go to the elevator to the Penthouse Suites.
That one was a lawyer or bookkeeper. Marks was in the penthouse ... except that the elevator stopped four floors below, according to the number lights. It started back down immediately.
Clint turned to see a thin man in an expensive suit watching him.
“Looking for me, Mr. Faraday?”
“Yes. Carl Marks – and I found you. They don’t have a tiny clue as to where she stashed the money.”
“As I have learned from the meeting – or they may know exactly where it is. One of them reacts in the strangest places. The case Harold carries has a video/audio transmitter of most exceptional quality inside. I didn’t really believe for ... well! It seems you have me figured for the locating part. I should have left immediately as you came in. Following my representative did find me.