An Almighty Conspiracy – A novel, a thriller, four people doing the unexpected

by Schäfer, Fred

  “Interesting.”

  “Her job was easier than I expected. I had arranged for her to be told how to proceed. I should add, I didn’t meet her personally; would have been too risky. First she went through his diary which she found exactly where she expected it; on a desk in a room which looked like a home office. She found several entries in the diary that contained the initials T R with a cell phone number beside it. She took pictures of every entry. Next she looked for files which were either ordered alphabetically or by dates. She found both and started with the files that were ordered by dates. She cross referenced the dates in the diary with the dates in the files and had everything I needed within thirty minutes.

  “She was told not to worry about the contents of the documents she took photos of. The idea was not to waste time. I realized if she wanted to read the documents there was nothing I could do about. That was okay. She found a printed one page document which had the words “Agreement with Terrence R” on top. The document was in a plastic folder together with a copy of the same document. She read the agreement and concluded that this was probably what I was hoping she would find. At that point she did something very smart and, you could say, hardnosed. She was wearing gloves of course so that she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints.

  “She now switched on the photocopier. Whilst the photocopier warmed up she looked and found the same plastic covers in which the agreement and the copy of the agreement were kept. She made two photocopies of the agreement and placed them in one of the plastic covers, then she replaced the original agreement and copy with the two copies of the agreement which she had made. Everything looked the same, but she was now able to take the original agreement, its copy and the original plastic cover away.

  “A few minutes later she left the office and the apartment; she had been able to unlock and lock it with K3 Smart Keys. Another two or three minutes later she met her contact outside the apartment building and gave her the camera with the pictures and the plastic cover with the original agreement and the copy.”

  “Her contact was also a woman?” Christina asked. “Do you also work with men sometimes?”

  “Only if unavoidable,” Mike said with a smile.

  “I guess you found lots of good fingerprints on that plastic cover and perhaps even on the contract.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, we read the contract and the photographed documents; let me tell you what we came across. If we had been looking for a treasure, we could not have been more successful.”

  “Ok, but who is we? You just said we read the contract.”

  “Sure, but let me come to that a bit later,” Mike replied, “for now let me finish the story of my greatest … How would you call that?”

  “Your greatest crime?”

  “No, no, no. No need to be so harsh.”

  “Your greatest success as a con artist?”

  “That’s a bit better. Maybe when you know the full story you find an even better expression; perhaps something along the lines of ‘my greatest act of welfare’ or ‘act of environmental rescue’.

  “Am I discovering a totally new Mike Thompson?”

  “Not really. I think you may just find out a bit more about him. – So, we read the contract and the photographed documents. They revealed that Terrence Richter, the wealthy man running for the office of mayor of the city of New York, and Neil McCormack, a sitting council member of the city of New York, had conspired to re-zone an environmentally protected stretch of land along the coastline of Long Island so that it could be acquired by one of Terrence Richter’s companies.”

  “To subdivide it and sell it in bits and pieces to very rich people?”

  “Yes, that was the plan. However, there was one aspect to it, which made it easy for me to give Mr Richter a very hard time.”

  Christina looked at Mike expectantly.

  “You see, so far Mr Richter hadn’t really intended doing anything murderously bad. He was just doing what crooks do all over the world every day. And don’t forget, I am also doing crooked things. So who am I, a crook, making a judgement about another crook…”

  “Fair enough. What else was in his plan?”

  “Ok. I have to step back in time to the years prior to 1524, before the French had arrived and when the land was still in the hands of the Native Americans. At that time hundreds of millions of animals, just to name a figure, lived in the area which today is that massive concrete jungle called New York. Thousands of these animals are now extinct. Some of the ones that are not yet extinct, but are close to extinction, live on relatively small patches of land like the environmentally protected land on Long Island that we are talking about.

  “You can probably imagine that it’s very hard, almost impossible, even with the assistance of a crooked council member, to re-zone such land, unless – unless! – something happens that changes things substantially.”

  “What could that be?”

  “A massive fire that destroys every living thing,” Mike replied. “That was the plan; Terrence Richter would arrange for a massive fire to break out, a fire that would cover every square foot of the land he wanted to buy, perhaps even more.”

  “More? – Surrounding residential areas?”

  “Yes. It would have been impossible to limit the inferno they had planned to that stretch of nature reserve. It could easily have spread over neighbouring land.”

  “There would have been no nature left to protect.”

  “Exactly! Millions of animals would have died. Most people have no idea how many animals live on a square mile of land, especially if you include bugs and insects. Millions! Afterwards, within a year or two the land would have been reclassified, sold, subdivided, then sold again and converted into another stretch of concrete jungle.”

  “You are a good crook, Mike.”

  “Thank you, but I have to disagree; there are no good crooks. There are only crooks and crooks.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Not sure; I heard it in a movie years ago.”

  29

  “Interesting.”

  “Why interesting?” Tony asked. “You should be shocked.”

  “I’m not shocked,” Nancy replied.

  “And why not, if I may ask. Or let me guess; could it be that in your spare time you pursue a similar profession as I do?”

  “I do deals. I am not a con artist, like you.”

  “Ah! Deals like selling fake paintings.”

  “May I point out, I did nothing illegal.”

  “No, you didn’t. What other deals have you been doing?”

  “I buy and sell modern art.”

  “I didn’t know there’s money in modern art. I mean, sure, there is money, but big money?”

  “There can be big money in modern art, but that’s not why I do it. I like modern art, which is my main motivation.”

  “You are a beautiful woman, a former beauty queen and an art dealer. Is this it?”

  “No,” replied Nancy, “this isn’t it; but I’m not sure if you want to know more.”

  “I do want to know more. Trust me, nothing can shock me.”

  “If you say so. I’m an expert in money laundering.”

  Tony said nothing.

  “What do you say now?”

  He was more than surprised, perhaps shocked. Money laundering was almost always associated with drugs and if there was one business which he had stayed away from, it was drugs.

  “You look pale?” Nancy asked questioningly.

  “Looking pale has something to do with a person’s blood circulation,” Tony replied. “Perhaps the words money laundering disturbed my blood circulation.”

  “I am glad to hear that.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course! Money laundering and drugs go hand in hand. I hate drugs and I hate drug dealers even more, but drugs are an inherent part of the beauty business. One of my best friends lost her life because of her hero
in addiction. But you can’t stop drug dealing on your own. If you try it you get killed and the police almost always seem one or two steps behind. They catch the little fish but rarely the big ones.”

  “I know, but you lost me.”

  “I do money laundering, but in the process of what I’m doing the money is not returned to the drug dealers who gave it to me, the money disappears.”

  “I am still lost.”

  “Of course you are. Let me explain. I have two associates; former actors. They are about your age and although their acting skills may not be good enough for an Oscar nomination, they are good enough to change their appearances sufficiently to pretend that they are accountants, bank managers, stock brokers, option traders, financial advisors et cetera. These are the kind of professions who know how to move money around. They know how to let a dirty ten or twenty million dollars disappear and reappear.”

  “And when it reappears it’s no longer dirty, it’s clean.”

  “That’s right. It reappears in the form of honest money which may have been acquired due to the sale of an asset, which could be art, property, a company, anything with lots of value.”

  “These transactions can’t be easy.”

  “No, they’re not easy. Well, to be honest, I think they’re not easy. We actually have never done such a transaction. We’ve never done real money laundering.”

  “Are you saying you always moved the money into one of your accounts?” Tony asked.

  “You sound impressed.”

  “I think I am impressed.”

  “The answer to your question is yes, of course, we always moved the money into one of our accounts. As I said, we are a team of three and each of us has accounts in various parts of the world. Our accounts are separate from each other. But not only that, we don’t know each other; by that I mean we don’t know our current names and our current locations. If one of us gets discovered, it doesn’t create a risk to the others. We have a system of communicating which is pretty unique and, I think, totally non-transparent.”

  “If one of you cheats, what then?”

  “There is nothing we could do. That would simply mean the end of our association as we know it today. But this hasn’t happened in over a decade and I don’t think it will happen in the future.”

  “How many of these so called money laundering transactions are you doing on average?”

  “Not many. We have done a total of eight; less than one a year.”

  “And may one ask …?”

  “Yes, one may ask,” Nancy laughed. “How much money we’ve laundered?”

  However, at this point Nancy stopped. She didn’t tell Tony a figure. She looked at him. Tony thought, She looks more beautiful than ever, but not because of her wealth; definitely not.

  He said, “You are the most beautiful and most amazing woman on this planet.”

  “Thank you. You are quite a handsome gentleman yourself.”

  They both laughed. Tony opened a bottle of champagne and filled two glasses. They sipped champagne and were happy.

  “You said you hate drug dealers.”

  “Yes, I do hate them,” Nancy confirmed. “I pick our victims carefully and deliberately. They have to be arrogant and bad; they must be top of the range non-caring assholes and murderers.”

  “Shit!” Tony couldn’t help saying. “That sounds bloody dangerous.”

  “Yes and no. All drug dealers are bloody dangerous. They would all kill each one of us without hesitation if we made a mistake. So we decided we can as well pick the ones who really deserve a message, a lesson, call it what you like.”

  “How do you keep the operational risk at an acceptable level?”

  “We hire people, criminals of course, intelligent men and women, we train them, we pay well and we share the profit with the key people amongst them. We operate like a company with a high degree of credibility, a bit like IBM used to be in the 1960s and 1970s. Maybe still are. Towards the outside world we set up offices and fake companies, we create rumours about ourselves, we establish a suitable reputation. We never approached the drug dealers we picked, not once; we always played the game in their vicinity until they decided to check us out. Once they have done that and concluded that we are genuine and can do the job, we worked out the details with them. At first we disagreed and tell them to do their business somewhere else. Nothing can enhance your reputation like telling someone to take their twenty millions or so and fuck off. They always came back.”

  “How did you split the spoils?”

  “You may find this hard to believe. The answer is we did it honestly and transparently. Let’s say we ended up with twenty million dollars. I have used this figure before, so it is as good an example as any. Now assume the total cost for setting up our business is two million dollars. This is for paying people, setting up offices, setting up fake companies, obtaining all sorts of falsified paperwork. There are thousands of tasks to be done over a period of nine to twelve months before we are ready for action. Let’s say five of the criminals we hire are sufficiently involved, which means they do the high risk jobs, that we offer them a share of the profit. I have to add here, it’s important that none of them has a complete understanding of the operation. We don’t want to train competition. We now divide the profit into eleven parts: one part for each of the five criminals and two parts for each of my two partners and me. This makes eleven parts. So in this example, each of the five criminals receives one part, which is roughly one point six million dollars, and each of the three of us receives two parts, which is roughly three point two millions. How the profit is shared is agreed in advance, so there is no argument afterwards.”

  “Sounds straightforward.”

  “In principle yes, but the work involved is substantial. We not only have to trick the drug dealer, we also have to make sure that none of the people and the criminals we employ can later identify us.”

  “I guess that’s were the former actors play their role.”

  “If you met them throughout this nine or twelve month period and then again after everything is over, you would not recognize that you are dealing with the same people.”

  “What’s your role?”

  “The same as the actors. They change me into another person. A few years ago I was disguised for several months as a very wealthy and very paranoid eighty five year old aristocratic English lady. I have to admit, I enjoyed it tremendously. Wherever I went I was accompanied by two body guards. I played a very high strung, nervous lady; a crazy old woman, really. It was my job to let it be known in certain circles that my son was a banker who did a lot of business that nobody really understood in places like the Bahamas, Moscow and South America. My so called son of course was one of the actors. I discovered that nobody doubts the semi-demented hogwash of a wealthy aristocratic old woman. Whatever nonsense I said, it was taken very seriously.”

  “I am about to envy you.”

  “Don’t. It is a thing of the past. A year ago my partners and I agreed that we’ve had enough. We decided to get out of the game whilst we are on top of it.”

  30

  Christina asked Mike, “How did you go about stopping Terrence Richter from buying the land on Long Island after you had discovered his plan?”

  “I wrote him a letter.”

  “A letter?”

  “Yes, a letter; a nice letter actually.”

  “You are kidding?”

  “No kidding. I can you give you an idea about what I wrote, if you’re interested. It was a while ago but it’s still reasonably fresh in my mind.”

  “Yes, please; I’m interested,” Christina replied. “Who wouldn’t!”

  “Ok, let’s see how I go:

  “Dear Mr Richter

  “It has come to my attention that you plan to purchase a stretch of land on Long Island. The land is known locally as Bohemia Park. At present it is classified as environmentally protected nature reserve and it contains several endangered species of non-venomous snakes a
nd lizards. It also contains rare plants and insects. It is even possible that there are insects living in this area that have not yet been discovered and classified by botanical biologists. You may be aware that less than twelve months ago Professor Ralf Cunningham, best known through his TV series “From Yesterday to Tomorrow”, had identified a new type of Coccinellidae beetle on this land that has never before been observed anywhere on this planet.

  “As far as I am aware from documents in the possession of councillor Neil McCormack, as soon as you have purchased Bohemia Park, you plan to subdivide the land and sell individual parcels to interested parties, assumedly to wealthy business people for real estate purposes. My preliminary estimates indicate that your plan, once fully executed, would result in an after tax profit for you of approximately eighty to a hundred million dollars. I do apologise in the event that this estimate differs substantially from the figure in your feasibility study. I realize, with your connections you may be able to achieve a better result, perhaps even a profit in the region of close to one hundred and fifty million dollars.

  “The problem you are faced with, of course, is the current nature reserve classification of the land concerned. A reclassification that would allow the land to be used for real estate purposes is virtually impossible – unless …

  “Unless – and please forgive me, if I come straight to the point – unless the entire reserve is engulfed in a massive torrent of fire that not only destroys every plant but also kills every living creature in the reserve, unless the creature is a bird or a creature that lives on the fringes of the land and can escape to surrounding areas or in the park’s pond. A rough estimate would suggest that your plan would kill approximately 99.98% of all living creatures in the area concerned.

  “As I indicated earlier, I am aware of your plan based on documents in the possession of Mr McCormack. I have copies of these documents. I am also in the possession of the original of an agreement between the councillor and yourself. I case you have forgotten all about this agreement, I attach a copy of it to this letter for your perusal.