The Financial Terrorist

by John Gubert

  The plan had been to lend out some two billion to two billion and a half by this time. So great was the enthusiasm of the stool pigeons that they had soon pumped out over three billion of new loans in the US alone. That meant that they could be lending almost five billion in total across the bank to phoney companies by year end, and all that was being washed into accounts owned by Charles in various parts of the world.

  McGarth and the others wanted to take on these loans so that the bank could earn the associated fees; therefore, they became ever laxer in their judgements. Big deals meant a big bonus for them, irrespective of their abilities and the long term harm they would wreak on the bank.

  As McGarth started the sales drive for their US funds, Charles and Jacqui quietly exited the existing funds’ management. They put in their place some incompetents from within PAF and a couple of their own people. Salesmen were recruited with special incentives to sell to the client base.

  There were five million financial illiterates out there, all clients of PAF, who would buy their funds. And there were four key incompetents within their US operations who would agree the investments of the new money flowing into the funds. And those investments would all be drawn from the holdings prepared by Jack Ryder himself.

  The investments had cost them under a billion in total, but, through careful market manipulation, now had an apparent value of over four billion already. And. as the market was rising all the time, so was their value. If they sold the shares at current prices to the funds, they would have skimmed off at least three billion.

  Their final act was to appoint a specialised trader in PAF. He was one of Stephens’ people. He was not that good but knew the basics. He would accept their valuations of the different products he was given and, once again, could push them to their selected clients. They got McGarth to give him a contract with a sales related target. The trader would make money on the amount of deals he did. It didn’t matter if they made losses or profits. That was both outrageous and totally unusual. And Lord Dunkillin and Sir Brian jointly signed off on this arrangement. The hole they were digging themselves grew deeper.

  At the same time, Charles and Jacqui pushed a few more questionable deals through IBE in London. They all had several things in common. They made money. The bank lost money. And they were authorised by Dunkillin, Sir Brian or the Honourable James.

  Stephens again walked into Charles’ office. He started yelling at him about the pathetic amount of money he was making. He was unhappy that he was only in for two per cent of the scam. “That’s peanuts relative to the amount of money I’m generating. I’m the one doing the trading. I’m there at all hours. I find the deals. I make the millions. I want a fair share or I quit.” Charles calmed him down, reminded him he could not quit but said he understood his anger and would look into it.

  “Perhaps you’re right. Let me talk to the others. Leave it with me. After all the more you have the less they’ll get. It’s not my choice alone. But I think we’ve done better from your side than we thought. So I guess they’ll sympathise.”

  The eyes lit up with greed. The man exuded self-confidence. He was blind to the dangers he was facing. He was consumed in the belief in his own invincibility. He had not noted that they had given him deputies whom they could trust to do as told. One had gone to America. The other could be depended on in London. They were far from rocket scientists; in fact one was a Dunkillin nephew who had inherited some of that family’s unfortunate genes. They would not question the flawed computer programme. They would definitely not understand it. And yet they would continue to use it. Charles had no further use of Stephens. He had done his bit. The pieces were in place. He could be disposed of soon.

  Charles summoned a board meeting and explained that he had a problem with Stephens. He had to make sure nobody was surprised when he disappeared. He mentioned that Stephens wanted a bigger share of the bonus pool. He intimated it was an outrageous quarter of all dealing profits.

  “The man wants us to pay him around a hundred million a year. But that’s ridiculous. We have a sound deputy in your nephew, Lord Dunkillin. He will be able to run the department and he would do it at Stephens’ existing salary. That’s just a million a year plus bonus.”

  Dunkillin nodded. Ffinch-Farquar nodded. The Honourable James nodded. They acquiesced because they liked the ideas of the promotion of one of their own, even if he was not up to the job. And they nodded because the bonus pool applied to them as well. Every penny given to Stephens would have been one less for them to grasp.

  Giovanni agreed from his video link up, sensing that Charles was going to dispose of an awkward partner now that his role was done. The investments had been created, the computer programmes had been set up to produce the answers they wanted. The scam was running. They no longer needed the inventor. Jacqui also agreed.

  “Who will tell him?”

  “I’ll talk to him tonight. I had anticipated needing to talk to him and have suggested a meeting this evening. I suspect it might be better to see him alone.”

  Everybody was quick to acquiesce. Nobody wanted to handle a situation like that. In any case, tomorrow was an important day in the hunting, shooting and fishing calendars that featured so prominently in many of their lives.

  “I will offer him up to five million as a break clause. I’ll tell him there isn’t a penny more, and, if I can make it, a few pennies less.”

  Everyone laughed. The sums they were talking about were astronomical, but not in the world of high finance. This was a cheap option to rid them of a problem. Charles knew that the money would never get to an account of Stephens except to pass through it. It would end up back in one of the secret accounts, with a good bit as a bonus for Maria who would help them in the disposal.

  And the meeting took place with Stephens, ostensibly to agree his price for staying. He was told that the agreement had to be kept secret to avoid others asking for more. “One mention of this in or out of the office and the deal will be off. I don’t want a stream of requests for similar treatment,” noted Charles. Stephens would be seen in public over the next day or so. And indeed he was, celebrating his apparent good luck. Charles had had to ensure they were not the last people to be seen with him.

  That Sunday, Charles and Maria laid watch on Stephen’s flat in Bayswater. He wandered out and headed to his local pub at lunchtime. They let him go in. Maria, in careful disguise, walked in calmly.

  A scruffy looking student type in that locality is a good disguise and nobody even gave her a second glance. She didn’t look terribly wholesome or attractive. Everyone assumed she was one of the students, mainly from Australia, who lived in one of the vans, parked nearby and which plied their way around Europe with their unwashed and dishevelled cargo.

  While at the bar, next to Stephens who ignored her, she slipped a few drops of liquid into his glass. In an hour or so, when he was likely to be out of the pub and heading for a small flutter in one of the Mayfair casinos, he was going to feel under the weather. They would then pick him up for disposal.

  The drug would make it look as if he was drunk. He wouldn’t be falling over though; just meandering from one side of the pavement to the other and feeling rather heady. The British, with their dislike of scenes, would ignore him. That would help make them invisible as they snatched him.

  This would be away from his home. It would be out of sight of friends. It would be unnoticed by all. He owned his flat. His bills were all paid. His time of disappearance would be unknown. And once the scam was found, several months later, it would be evident to all that London had got too hot for him. He had done a flyer.

  Luckily, Stephens was a man of habit. On the Saturday he had gone to the nightclubs he frequented. He had picked up a girl there and spent the night with her. But she had left the flat, looking angry, the next morning. Now was his lunchtime drink. Then he would gamble, before ending the weekend with some cocaine to help him through the following week. The futility of his
existence had always amazed them. His life had no meaning.

  They watched him exit the pub unsteadily. For one who frequented it on a daily basis, he was remarkably unpopular. Hardly anyone seemed to talk to him. The barmaid ignored him and left him to the landlord. He seemed to sit in isolation, eyeing up the occasional girl and leering at the chance sight of a thigh.

  He walked along the side streets and Charles followed on foot. Maria jumped into the van and followed in their direction. There were too many one way streets and dead ends in that part of the world to tail someone on foot from a van. When Stephens stopped wearily at a bench by one of the small streets that run up from Hyde Park, Charles called Maria to come for a pick up.

  The street was empty. The houses were quiet. It was ideal. The van was turning into the street. Charles walked to the bench and sat next to Stephens. He ignored him. He just sat there with his head in his hands. Charles jabbed the hypodermic needle into his thigh. In his semi-drugged state, he was too slow in his reactions. Charles pulled out the needle and slipped it back into his specially prepared boot.

  He put his arm around Stephens and walked him to the kerb, pushing him quickly into the van through the sliding door on its side.

  The van protected them from the view of houses opposite. There were no CCTV cameras in the vicinity. There were still no people around. There was a vague chance that someone had seen them, but the odds were low and nobody reacted. Maria shoved the van into gear and pulled off again, driving up towards Paddington and the wastelands of London beyond.

  Charles looked at the unconscious form of Stephens and bound him and gagged him for safety. He then climbed through to the front and sat next to Maria.

  “We pumped him with enough stuff to keep him asleep for a good few hours. Let’s head down to Beachy Head.”

  Two hours later they were at the Sussex Beauty spot. It was a high cliff overlooking the sea. The cliff overhung the full tide, eroded at its base by the sea and up its sides by the wind and the spray from storms over the years. In the back of the van, they tended to Stephens. He was still out for the count, but they topped up the injection as a precaution.

  They bundled him into a car Douglas had parked in the cliff top car park earlier. The timing was perfect. It was five in the evening. Nobody else was around at that time of year. They had changed from their scruffy clothes. Charles was in slacks and a blazer with an open necked shirt. Maria was in trousers and a sweater.

  She slipped into the van and adjusted the engine. They had attached to it a neat device that would automatically start the engine in ten minutes time, switch on the headlights and put it into gear. The handbrake was off. The van would roll forward and crash into the sea below. Thirty seconds after the engine started, the device would blow up. And with it would go the van. Nobody would find it. And nobody was going to examine carefully a half-derelict hippie van with nobody in it. They would assume that it had been dumped. It was an annoying pastime of people in that area who used Beachy Head as a dustbin for unwanted or stolen goods.

  They headed round the coast to the boat. It was simple putting Stephens on board. Again, there was nobody there at this time of the year. The mooring was deserted. The boat owners were far away. They knew that as they knew the owners. Indeed, they had the keys to the boat. Neighbours in London had asked Charles and Jacqui to keep an eye on it from time to time when they were down in Sussex. And they were free to use it.

  Stephens was down below as Charles started the engines. The noise reverberated round the shore but nobody lived near enough to take any interest. In minutes they were slipping out to sea. By now Stephens was coming round. They had kept him alive till then as it is easier to move a drugged man than a dead one. But he was no use to them now. Maria drew her stiletto and ended him there and then. They pulled the body on deck, tying up the fine wound to avoid any blood spilling. There was surprisingly little.

  The cement was there in the two large tubs they had prepared earlier that weekend. All it needed was water and they added that quickly. It was cold. Charles was in shirtsleeves. Maria had her sweater. But they both shivered in the cold breeze as the automatic control took them further out to sea.

  The cement was quick setting and strong. They covered the deck with an old tarpaulin and placed the dead man’s feet and thighs on it. Two large blocks of cement were soon around his legs. There was some left over and they placed that around his chest. It fitted tightly. They picked up the tubs, almost empty now but quite heavy. In a moment, one after another, they tossed them overboard.

  Later, having put the boat into a wide ark, they checked the cement. It was firm and solid. Charles indicated to Maria and together they heaved the body to the side. It was incredibly heavy. It was no easy task. They scanned the horizon. There was no light in sight.

  With one more heave they lifted him and dropped him over the side. He fell to the depths of the English Channel. He sank straight down to the bottom, some ten miles off the coast. He would lie there for some time, sinking into the sand and stone at the base of the sea. His chances of being found were remote.

  They took off the gloves they had used and collected the tarpaulin and other implements. They checked for any odd lumps of cement. Everything went into a plastic bag. It was weighted with stones and after leaving Stephen’s grave some ten minutes behind at full throttle, they also tossed that into the sea. They checked out the boat with a torch. There was no blood. No evidence of any struggle.

  They had dumped him well away from London. And there, where nobody would look and he was unlikely to be found, he would lie. Once he had lain there for a few more months and the scam was over, even if found and identified they had no concerns. It would be assumed that he met his end because he dealt with the world of crime. There was no reason for anyone to suspect them.

  They went below. Maria checked Charles out. She removed some cement from his shirt cuff. There was nothing else. He checked her out. The short crop of black hair was still neat and tidy despite having been teased by the wind. The eyes were soft and calm despite the killing. The skin was rosy rather than red from the biting wind outside. The dark sweater was spotless, falling smoothly down her body and moving gently with the rise and fall of her breasts. The trousers still bore their creases, but nothing else.

  Charles put his arms around her shoulders and turned her towards him. They both knew what they needed to do. They both realised what they wanted to happen. He walked over to the motor at the front of the lower deck. There was one above deck and one at cabin level. He switched it off and allowed the boat to drift. They would come to no harm here.

  They shut the door and he moved to Maria. She moved to him. He kissed her on the back of the neck and felt her lips move over his throat and then her face was buried into his chest. Her face was cold even against the coldness of his body. The wind and the sea had chilled her just as it had chilled him.

  His hands moved up her back and he eased her sweater up. He felt her breasts taut and desirable against his half-opened shirt. The sweater came off without resistance as she raised her arms to help him.

  He fumbled at the fastening of her clothes. She had no such trouble with his and carefully moved apart to pull them down in one eager movement.

  He sensed the growing heat of her body as they moved together in that tight cabin. Its windows steamed up and the new-found warmth quickly dispelled all memory of the icy breeze up on deck. He felt excitement as he waited for her. He felt anguish as he fought for control. He felt then the surge of pleasure in her, which acted as an immediate release for him. They came almost brutally, driving their bodies together with all the force they could muster, pushing themselves together with all the strength that they had and crushing each other with a passion that frightened yet pleased.

  They lay there for ten or fifteen minutes. They kissed each other gently. They stroked each other’s faces. They kissed each other on the neck, the ear, and the eyes. They felt peace come over them.
Then it was over. Then it ended. They drew apart and knew they would return to normal. Time goes on and there was no end to a relationship such as the one they had. But there was also no beginning, no middle and no reality. It was a relationship that existed in its fleeting moments. It never died. But it never survived. It had its memories but it had no past. It had few expectations and no future.

  They were half-dressed when they heard someone hail us. “Ahoy there, is there anyone on board?”

  Charles grabbed his gun and pulled open the cabin door. He saw the uniform and the coastguard immediately. He slipped the gun back although Maria still held hers behind him. That was a good precaution. The tall ruddy man on the coastguard vessel looked at Charles, “What are you doing here? Has your engine failed? You were spotted on a random radar search floating here with your engines switched off. Is everything all right?”

  Then Maria came out and he grinned.

  Charles said, “We were resting below. We’ll head back to shore now. We felt like a spin on the boat to get some sea air.”

  That was a stupid explanation and the coastguard definitely did not believe it. He jumped immediately to the conclusion that they had been making love. He had been curious as to why they were there. He had not been suspicious. Charles breathed a sigh of relief. The coastguard said they would follow them back to see they returned safely.

  So Charles went up to the deck and started the boat up. She purred into full speed and they headed inland. The coast became clearer, lit by the full moon as it edged itself from between the clouds. Then they came to the cove and turned in. The coastguard vessel gave them a cheery wave and headed off. It must have checked the boat’s home port and now saw that they were returning to it. They had not questioned if they were entitled to be out in it, but Charles wondered if there would be a reception committee for them when they returned.