The Columbus Code

by mike Evans

  As Snowden crossed the office, she slid the folder into the top drawer and pushed it closed. “I was marveling over what was in here,” she said. “Elena must have bought out Staples before I came.”

  Snowden seemed oblivious to what she was talking about. She was babbling, but he was obviously not focused on her or what she was doing. He looked as if he had veered off course on his way to somewhere else.

  “Everything okay?” Maria asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Lying, clearly. His face was pale, playing up a five o’clock shadow she’d never seen on him before.

  “I’m missing some paperwork,” he said. He looked at her expectantly.

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “You’d know it if you saw it—seeing how it doesn’t have anything to do with the acquisition.”

  Maria was surprised he didn’t go straight to the desk drawer because the words It’s in there! must surely have been written across her face.

  And yet she wasn’t sure. The notes were about the acquisition, private meeting or not. If she pulled them out now, he’d want to know why she was keeping them and why she had hidden them when he entered the room.

  She could feel Snowden peering at her.

  “I’m thinking,” Maria said, “but I’m not coming up with anything. If you want to give me more details I can keep an eye out for it.”

  “Never mind,” he said. “It’s probably in my office somewhere.”

  “I can lend you Elena to look for it,” Maria offered.

  Snowden nodded absently.

  “You lucked out hiring her.”

  Snowden looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Hiring Elena for me. That was a good call.”

  “You’re talking about your assistant?”

  “Yes. Of course. Who did you think?”

  “I didn’t hire her,” Snowden said, already halfway to the door. “Molina did.”

  “Molina?” Maria was astounded. “The security guy?”

  “He does the staffing for Tejada. Makes sure everybody’s vetted.”

  Maria felt prickly. “Tejada doesn’t trust you to bring your own staff?”

  Snowden looked prickly. “I wasn’t going to get you an assistant. It was Tejada’s idea.” He ran his hand over his stubble as if he’d just realized it was there. “Forget about that paperwork. It’ll turn up.”

  He turned away with no good-bye but left the door hanging open to reveal Carlos Molina waiting for him in the hall.

  What in the world? she thought. Snowden needed the head of security to escort him to visit his own staff?

  When they were gone and she heard the elevator doors shut, Maria took the file from the drawer, removed Snowden’s notes, and tucked them into her briefcase.

  Tejada had his secretary set up coffee in his office before she left for the day. He wanted to handle Philippe Prevost differently this time. Not that he wanted to enable the whining and wheedling. He couldn’t abide that. But he needed whatever information his nephew was bringing back from China.

  The tentative knock on the door came at the stroke of seven. Prevost’s punctuality always seemed like groveling to Tejada. From anyone else he deemed it considerate.

  When his nephew came in, Tejada greeted him with the customary hug he’d left out the last time they’d met, poured him a cup of coffee, and ushered him to one end of the couch. Tejada occupied the other end. “Tell me of the Chinese,” he said.

  Prevost rubbed his eyes. He had come straight from the airport as Tejada had requested.

  “I met with Zhang Yo,” he began.

  “Head of the Bank of China. He is a young man.”

  “Late thirties, but make no mistake, Emilio, he is genuinely gifted and incredibly intelligent.”

  “No more so than you,” Tejada said.

  “All of that is beside the point.”

  “Why?”

  “The old guard leaders.”

  “What about them?’

  “They think the US dollar will decline anyway and they want to hold out for the day when China becomes the dominant global economic force.”

  “You reminded Zhang Yo that day is not as close as the old guard thinks?”

  “I did.”

  “You told him that in the meantime China may be exposed to fluctuations in the price of commodities due to domestic US decisions—the ones we’ve talked about?”

  “I did.” Prevost’s cup rattled on its saucer and he set them both on the table. “It was not the message he was opposed to, Emilio. It was me.”

  Tejada motioned for him to go on.

  “Yo was actually in agreement with me, but he says many in the Chinese government are doubtful of my ability to deliver. They say I won’t be in office long enough to get the job done. Rumor has it that I might be replaced this month.”

  “Rumors from whom?”

  “The Russians. And the Americans.”

  Tejada waved him off, but Prevost leaned forward, eyes watery. “Is that true, Emilio? Is there a movement afoot to have me removed?”

  If there was, Tejada knew nothing of it, but the idea was disturbing. “No,” he reassured. “But there is a power play by the world’s three strongest economies to wrest control of the IMF from my influence.”

  “From your influence?” Prevost said, his voice winding up. “This is my head we’re talking about.”

  Tejada forced himself to relax. Even though they both knew Tejada was the real controller of the IMF, he couldn’t lose his temper with Prevost. At least not until he knew all he had to tell. “I trust you talked to someone in the Chinese government,” he said.

  Prevost looked offended. “Of course I did. I had a meeting with the premier, Wang Peng.”

  “I know who he is,” Tejada responded.

  “He says they’re still in discussion about the idea, but they had hoped I would be in favor of the yuan rather than your plan. I told him switching to the yuan creates more problems because other countries are as suspicious of China as China is of the US.”

  “And you presented that with complete diplomacy, I’m sure,” Tejada said drily.

  “What would you have me do? There is enough bowing and scraping with those people as it is. You want me to mince words too? Because they sure don’t.”

  Prevost went into a spasm of coughing that stopped only when Tejada had poured him a glass of water and watched him drain it. His greatest concern about Prevost was apparently coming true. He wasn’t strong enough for this.

  When Prevost was able to continue, he said, “The premier kept bringing the conversation back to how long I would be with the IMF and how much control you have over me and, as a result, the Fund itself.”

  “And you reassured him, of course—”

  “That’s not all. He said if I vote for the yuan instead of a new—” Prevost looked around the room and lowered his voice.

  Tejada smothered a groan. No one could be more obvious about not saying what Tejada had told Prevost not to say aloud. If anyone had a hidden camera in here they would know immediately what they were talking about. He could feel his patience thinning.

  “If I do that, they will see that I remain on at IMF because they like my vision and loyalty.”

  They liked his malleability. Tejada was about to say so when Prevost went on.

  “The premier wants me to say your—our—plan is not workable at this time and then in a few weeks he wants me to give my support to measures proposed by China and the OPEC nations that would move oil contracts from dollar-denominated transactions to yuan-denominated. When I pointed out that would show disloyalty to you, he pointed out that compromise is inevitable.”

  “Compromise is weakness,” Tejada said. “How did you leave it with Peng?”

  “We discussed your offer to guarantee their losses if they are generated by general market forces, not from losses generated internally.”

  Tejada nodded in surprise. “Good call, Philippe.�
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  “He didn’t think so at first. He said that would protect them from US whim but not from an IMF interpretation of how their losses occurred during the transition. He feels they are being asked to trust but are not being trusted in return.”

  That was why Peng was premier. Tejada felt the stirring of disappointment, and anger, with Prevost.

  “I said, ‘A simple guarantee to cover your losses during the transition is what I have to offer.’” Prevost pulled himself up to his full but diminutive height on the couch. “He said, ‘So you are going to remain loyal to your uncle.’ When I said yes, he said, ‘It is that loyalty which I admire about you. The guarantee of our debt would be most welcome.’”

  Tejada hid his relief. “He played you.”

  “Yes. He tried to play me.”

  “But we won.”

  “This round at least.” Prevost picked up his coffee cup, looked into it, and set it back down.

  “What else, Philippe?”

  Prevost sighed. “Next time we talk, they will want us to offer them something new to make things right.”

  “Then we’ll give it to them.”

  “And it will be one more thing after that. It will be a never-ending cycle. What we need is something dramatic to force their hand.”

  Once again Tejada was reminded of how Prevost had achieved his status. Here was another flash of his oft-hidden brilliance.

  “Go on,” Tejada said.

  Prevost’s pale eyes glimmered. “We need something that forces them back to us. An event that makes them want this deal and want it fast, rather than dragging out negotiations to see how long they can delay us or how much they can get out of us.”

  Tejada sat back. “An event like that would not be beyond the realm of possibility.”

  “You’re not going to tell me what it is, of course.”

  “In time.” Tejada rested his elbows on his knees. Time to end this before Prevost started to whine again. “You should gauge the Russians’ reaction to all this. But don’t meet them in Moscow. Some other location. Someplace less . . . obvious.”

  “I have to go to Brussels for a meeting of the G8 finance ministers. I’ll see Dmitry Koslov there.”

  “Good,” Tejada said. “See what you can find out.” Tejada resisted the urge to pat him on the head. “You have done well, Philippe. The Brotherhood is indebted to you.”

  Prevost’s eyes indicated the compliment fell short of what he expected, but he was gracious in making his exit from the room. Tejada sat looking at the closed door long after he left. The coming days would bring difficult decisions about his nephew, of that he was certain, but he did not look forward to what he already knew would be the result.

  Maria walked from the hotel to the Catalonia Financial campus the next morning, a brisk ten-block trek. She’d been up most of the night and neither the coffee nor a four-mile run cleared her head enough to face what she had to do.

  Around her the city bustled as produce appeared in bins on the sidewalks and the usual tempting aromas wafted from the cafés. She liked it here, and yet there was something—a feeling—as if what Abuela used to call “no-see-ums” were pressed into the shadows, lying in wait.

  Maria shook out her hair and stood up straight. That was just lack of sleep. And the conclusion she had come to after studying Snowden’s notes last night with a magnifying glass she’d borrowed from the concierge. She’d managed to get it out of him without having to promise to have a drink with him.

  Her phone rang in the depths of her briefcase and she stopped at a sidewalk bench to fish it out. She caught Elena’s call just before it cut to voice mail.

  “Morning,” she said, voice bright as usual. “I got your text. You still want to meet at El Magnifico?”

  “Actually I changed my mind,” Maria said. “I’m on a bench about a block from Catalonia, on Fontanella. Why don’t you bring coffee here?”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah. I just want to discuss something with you and I feel like those walls have ears.”

  “They do,” Elena said. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  While she waited, Maria took Snowden’s notes out of her briefcase and scanned them once more. Even without the magnifying glass, Maria had noticed something late last night. The date at the top was the same as the day of their first meeting with Belgium Continental, the day she’d arrived. How could Snowden have written that the acquisition was a done deal when they’d only started the real negotiations that day?

  The notes had to be about something other than Belgium Continental.

  That in itself wasn’t such a big deal. Gump, Snowden and Meir represented all of Catalonia’s dealings and Snowden was involved in most of them. The veiled references in the notes could refer to anything, not necessarily the Belgium Continental transaction. But why would Snowden take notes if he wasn’t trying to be specific? It wasn’t like him to write down things he could just throw at her on his way out of the office for after-work drinks.

  Maria looked across Fontanella. No sign of Elena yet. Either there was a long line at the café or the girl had cut and run. Maria had no reason to think she would, except for what the study with the magnifying glass had revealed. With some bright light and magnification the erasures were clear.

  The original words were replaced with new ones. The less-condemning ones. And in Snowden’s handwriting. Or someone who knew how to imitate it well enough to fool her.

  It wasn’t Snowden who did it. He was looking for the notes, Maria was convinced of that. He had never intended for her to get them in the first place.

  Only one person knew Maria had them. Only one person knew she’d questioned them. Watching that person approach, coffees in hand, Maria resolved to find out why and what that could mean.

  “Here you go—two creams, no sugars.” Elena handed a cardboard-sleeved paper cup to Maria and sat on the bench next to her. “I like the way you eat and I like the way you drink coffee. Most Americans bring their latte habit with them.”

  “Does Molina hire assistants for all Americans who come here?” Maria said.

  “That was an interesting segue.”

  “He did hire you, though.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “To do what?”

  Maria hadn’t meant for it to come out so much like an accusation, She was reminding herself of her father.

  Elena looked bee-stung.

  “I’m sorry,” Maria said. “I’m confused and I don’t do well when I feel out of control. Let me start over.” She set the coffee on the ground beside the bench. “Were you really hired by Señor Tejada to be my assistant, or to keep tabs on me?”

  “Keep tabs on you?” Elena’s eyes filled with tears and her voice quivered. “Why would he do that? Why would you think that?”

  “I just want you to be straight with me.”

  Elena looked as if she wanted to run.

  “Are you afraid of somebody?” Maria asked, pressing the point.

  “Señor Tejada didn’t hire me,” Elena replied. “He doesn’t even know me or anything about me. He probably thinks Mr. Snowden hired me.”

  “Look, I know Molina is the one who actually gave you the job, but I’m sure Tejada told him to do it.”

  “No,” Elena said, shaking her head. “I’m just as certain he didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Molina is blackmailing me.”

  The words came out so softly Maria almost missed them. “Blackmailing?” she whispered.

  Elena’s eyes darted from side to side, checking suspiciously. Maria took her by the hand. “Come on,” she said, “let’s walk. Pretend we’re talking about guys or something.”

  Elena looked bewildered, but Maria pulled her up and slipped her arm through Elena’s. She grabbed her briefcase with the other hand and tugged at Elena to get moving.

  “Your coffee,” Elena protested. The cup still sat on the bench.

  “Forget about it. Talk to me.”
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  Elena waited while two men in shiny silk suits passed them, then she began. “I don’t know what to do. He hired me—”

  “Molina.”

  “Yes. He hired me to watch your work and tell him if you came across anything ‘unusual.’”

  “He didn’t tell you what to look for?”

  “No. He just said to get close enough to you that you would tell me about any aberraciones. Aberrations.”

  Maria stiffened. “How would you know what you saw was an aberration if he didn’t tell you what he was looking for?”

  “Look,” Elena said. “I didn’t try to become your friend because of that. All right”—she shrugged—“maybe I did at first, but the more we worked and did things together, the more I respected you and I didn’t want to do what Molina said. I didn’t think I had to really worry about it. Everything was going so smoothly and nothing came up that looked suspicious to me.”

  “Until I found that information in Snowden’s notes and started asking questions.” Maria still didn’t know whether to trust Elena now, but she needed to learn as much as she could before they reached the office. She gave Elena a nudge. “Laugh.”

  “What?”

  “Pretend you’re laughing. It can’t look like you’re telling me this.”

  “You think he’s watching?”

  “You think he’s not? Laugh,” Maria insisted once more. Elena broke into a phony guffaw and they both giggled. “So, what happened when I asked you about Snowden’s notes?” Maria said. “What did you do?”

  Elena started to cry and Maria pulled her closer. “You can’t break down,” Maria said. “Keep smiling.”

  Elena didn’t smile, but she took a deep breath and choked back the tears. “I went to the filing cabinet and got the notes. I was going to take them to Molina, but I couldn’t.” She glanced over at Maria. “Honestly, after all we’d done together and the friendship we’ve developed, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  “Why?” Maria said. “I wouldn’t be the one in trouble. We didn’t even know if anyone had done anything wrong.”

  Elena bit at her lip.

  “Elena, what is it?”