Supernotes

by Agent Kasper

  “That’s what you said, just like that?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  “And what guarantee do I have that your Colombian pal won’t come after my ass?”

  “My guarantee. Which should be enough for you.” He pauses and nods. “He flew back this morning. Fuck him. Now we have to return to serious matters. I want that flight.”

  He spreads some apricot jam over his rusk and orders another espresso. Then, smiling, he says, “Welcome back on board, Kasper.”

  “What was it that convinced you?”

  Savage gazes at him over his rusk. “I’ll never tell you.”

  15

  Dollars, Dollars, and More Dollars

  Florence

  November 2008

  The train runs through a landscape of rain and mountains, with clouds like mountains overhead. It was raining in Rome, and it’s raining now, two hours and two hundred kilometers farther north.

  Why would a man like Kasper choose to live in Cambodia? Barbara ponders this enigma as she considers the photograph she keeps with the other documents. Regular features, close-cropped hair, light eyes. A smiling, slightly arrogant expression on his face. You’re a handsome guy, she thinks, no doubt about that. And aware of it, too.

  He surely didn’t go there for the tropical climate or exotic sex. Nor to do philanthropic work for the Island of Brotherly Love. Up to now, the meager explanations she’s received from his mother and his girlfriend haven’t helped. No. There must be something else.

  Kasper has worked for the ROS, that’s for sure, but he’s also been investigated for the oddest crimes. In 1993, a magistrate even suspected him of plotting a coup that included an airstrike against the headquarters of the RAI, Italy’s national broadcasting company, at Saxa Rubra. It was later made clear that this incredible story was a hoax, but articles about it are still circulating on the Web.

  He has a right-wing past: as a boy, he belonged to a neo-Fascist youth organization, the Fronte della Gioventù. A reporter for La Repubblica wrote that Kasper used to bring a Doberman to student assemblies. On the other hand, he was for years one of the most trusted associates of Pier Luigi Vigna, the national anti-Mafia prosecutor from 1997 to 2005, a magistrate who assuredly cannot be labeled right-wing.

  Kasper obviously has CIA connections—his friend Clancy, for one—but he told his girlfriend it was Americans working for the Company who were behind his kidnapping and detention. An unusual arrest, as reported by the Phnom Penh Post: an Italian and an American who were investigating “supernotes.”

  Investigating them how? And for whom?

  That detail could explain the inertia of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice. The very Italian rubber wall Barbara has bounced off of.

  Barbara has learned that racking your brains is often useless when it comes to putting the pieces of a puzzle together. You have to go back to the beginning, to a different starting point if possible, and try again. That’s why she’s now on her way to Florence.

  To Manuela Sanchez.

  —

  The job her boss had given her seemed simple.

  He’d presented it as an important but—all things considered—ordinary task: she was to meet a certain woman and establish a plan for working with her.

  It was 1993, and Barbara had just graduated from law school. The head of her law firm was entrusting her with her first real assignment. The woman in question lived in Zurich. Barbara had joyfully planned her three days and savored the envy of the other young people in her law office. For the occasion, she’d gone to Fendi and bought a new outfit, a dark gray power suit appropriate for an up-and-coming lady lawyer, and spent three hours in the beauty parlor getting highlights put in her hair.

  Then she’d left on the train.

  The person waiting for her in Zurich was Manuela Sanchez, a forty-year-old Italian woman who divided her time between Colombia, Morocco, and Switzerland. Barbara had seen her photographs and read her résumé.

  As a young bride, Manuela had taken the surname of her first husband, a Colombian drug baron, and forgotten her Italian name. Those were turbulent years, years in which she must have visited worlds in a criminal galaxy it’s hard to return from. Drug trafficking, corruption at the highest levels, money laundering. Murders and kidnapping too, naturally. Years later she married her second husband, also a drug boss, this time in Morocco.

  Now, however, Manuela seemed willing to collaborate with the Italian authorities; in exchange for her cooperation, she would receive—like all those who negotiated their own “repentance”—a sharp reduction in her sentence as well as some economic aid.

  Cooperating witnesses were among the most important clients of the legal firm Barbara had joined. In a short span of time, not only had she seen cases involving big Mafia bosses, but she’d also perused the files of obscure criminal types whose names never appeared in the newspapers.

  Manuela Sanchez must fall into the second category, Barbara thought. Otherwise, her firm would never have sent her, the office rookie, to prepare a memorandum that would bring Manuela to the prosecution’s side.

  Barbara hadn’t the least idea how wrong her suppositions were.

  Manuela received her in her apartment, which wasn’t far from the center of Zurich. She asked none of the questions that Barbara had imagined would be the prelude to a pretty ordinary working session. There was no small talk of any kind.

  Manuela said: “I need you. Right away.”

  Barbara searched the woman’s hard, energetic face, the small, dark eyes like a starving eagle’s. “That’s what I’m here for,” she said, smiling, ready to step into her role.

  “The reason you’re here is a subject we’ll go into later. Right now we have to think about something else.”

  “Something else…”

  Manuela made Barbara sit down, poured her a cup of tea she hadn’t asked for, and explained what she would have to do.

  When Manuela had finished talking, Barbara found herself in a new world. Frightening but inescapable.

  —

  The two Sicilians wore dark suits. They were elegant, laconic men, both of them around fifty. They sat at the glass table and opened a brown leather briefcase. The stiffer of the two, the one who’d introduced himself as “the accountant,” took out some packets of documents. They reminded Barbara of Treasury bonds.

  “Here we are,” he said. He handed one packet to Manuela and another to the lawyer who’d come from Rome to represent some potential Italian buyers. That’s the way Manuela had introduced Barbara a few minutes ago.

  “Petrobras bonds, all maturing in two years,” the accountant specified.

  The other man, the one who seemed to be the boss, intervened; his velvety gestures were like those of a diamond merchant. “As you can see,” he said, “we’re offering a fair amount of pretty valuable securities. We’re prepared to negotiate a price that will let us close the deal quickly.”

  Barbara placed her hands on the table so their trembling wouldn’t be noticeable. Manuela didn’t bat an eye, nodded to the accountant, and asked, “What’s the total value we’re talking about?”

  “We’ve got five hundred million dollars’ worth of Petrobras bonds in here.”

  “Half a billion,” the other man said, in case the amount on offer wasn’t completely clear. “In American dollars.” He sniffed and went on. “We can discuss a price for a portion of the bonds, or for the whole lot. As we’ve already said, we have no intention of underselling them, but we need liquidity, so we’ll want to collect within an acceptably short period of time.”

  He allowed himself a smile and turned his eyes on Manuela. “We’ve been doing business for years, and there have never been any problems between us. Am I right?”

  “Never,” she confirmed. Then she added, “The purpose of today’s meeting is only an initial contact. My job is to facilitate the deal, and it’s in everybody’s interest to close on it as soon as possible. In the next few days, the lawyer
will report back to her clients and tell them what she’s seen here. If the conditions are right, we’ll arrange for the actual negotiations to take place within a sufficiently narrow time frame.”

  The two men nodded slightly.

  The accountant took another packet of bonds, put it on the table, and pushed it over to Barbara, almost as if increasing the quantity could increase the possibility of concluding the matter swiftly.

  The boss permitted himself a little laugh. “At this moment, my dear counselor, you have something like fifty million dollars in your pretty hands.”

  Barbara smiled and tried to control her voice better. It was an exercise she’d learned at the university in preparation for the toughest oral exams, and now she was once again finding it useful. “It certainly is quite a feeling, but you know how it goes: you wind up getting used to everything.”

  “Oh, really? Even to this?”

  “Even to this, believe me.”

  —

  They had dinner at a little restaurant in the center of town. Barbara’s hands were still trembling.

  She and Manuela were alone, and they had dropped all pretenses. Manuela revealed who she was, what she did, and why she wanted out. She thanked Barbara for helping her earlier and explained that the two Sicilians had come from London expressly to see her and to talk with a possible buyer, and she hadn’t wanted to risk disappointing them.

  “Were those two who I think they were?”

  “Emissaries from the Cupola, the Mafia high command. Among its most important representatives. They’re the ones who move funds all over the world. White-collar workers, very professional. Not the shooting kind.”

  “No, they just get someone else to shoot you.”

  “Not to worry. I’ll tell them the Italian group you represent is assessing various options. Those people never play at only one table.” She paused and looked around. “In this world, no one plays at only one table.”

  “Including you.”

  Manuela didn’t answer, but she smiled. For the first time since they’d met.

  They spent the next two days working together as planned. At the same time, to avoid arousing suspicions, Manuela continued to operate as the financial brain of an imposing drug-trafficking organization that the ROS was trying to attack from several sides. The magistrate who was leading the investigation had convinced her that they were close to fitting her inside a nice frame. Sooner or later, it would be finished. She could risk twenty years in prison, or, alternatively, she could set in motion the most difficult negotiations of her life, break off with the narcos, and change everything.

  —

  Florence is rain-soaked, but now the sun’s shining.

  Barbara’s appointment is in the Roman amphitheater of Fiesole, near the central piazza.

  Manuela Sanchez is waiting for her there.

  They sit together on one of the middle tiers of seats, with newspapers for cushions and a pair of cats for their only company. Many years have passed since their last encounter, but neither of them is the type to waste time with idle chitchat.

  Manuela has been assisting Kasper’s mother with her cancer treatments. “We can stop by and visit her afterward,” Manuela proposes. “She’d like to see you.”

  Barbara explains what she’s been working on in the six months that have passed since Kasper’s mother and girlfriend came to her office in Rome. She talks about the wall she keeps running into and what she’s been able to piece together concerning Kasper. While she’s speaking, Barbara watches Manuela’s face and realizes that nothing of what she’s saying is news to her companion.

  “What are supernotes?” she asks Manuela abruptly.

  Manuela’s eyes narrow. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “I think Kasper was investigating something to do with supernotes. He and Clancy, his American friend.”

  “Supernotes,” Manuela murmurs. “There’s been talk about them for many years, and the meaning has changed. I can tell you what the term meant in my day.”

  “In your day…”

  “Up to fifteen years ago, say. The United States has always been very casual about managing money. I’m talking about money-as-object, paper money. Since the postwar period, they’ve printed special banknotes destined for only a few, useful friends. Very special, high-denomination bills.”

  “Special in what way?”

  “Well, I can assure you I’ve seen million-dollar banknotes. Seen them with my own eyes. Not at the supermarket, obviously. To repay certain allies, the U.S. printed ‘Washingtons’ and ‘Kennedys’—as they’re called—that the recipients could cash at designated banks. American and Swiss, mostly.”

  “A million-dollar bill…That’s crazy.”

  “Not really. Basically they were promissory notes the U.S. issued to the bearer. They gave them to Noriega and Marcos, to Chiang Kai-shek in China, and in Cambodia to Lon Nol and later to Pol Pot. To Saddam Hussein, before they invaded Iraq. And to who knows how many others. All people who had big accounts in Swiss banks. Paying dictators was a way of stabilizing certain parts of the world. Politics costs a lot. I don’t know if those special notes are still in circulation. But in any case, today things are very different….”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everything changed in 2001. Including strategy. The American government has been able to do things it would never have been able to do before September 11. September 11 was a terrible, collective tragedy, no question. But it also marked a clear dividing line. Do you know what ‘wet operations’ are?”

  Barbara shakes her head.

  “Wet work. Part of the global war against terrorism. The sort of thing governments think it’s best not to talk about. Very dark stuff. And it costs a lot. Best paid for in cash.”

  “So supernotes go to pay for…”

  “I don’t know. But I do know for sure there’s an impressive quantity of hundred-dollar bills in circulation in certain parts of the world. People say the majority of those dollars are supernotes.”

  “That’s what Kasper was investigating.”

  Manuela gives this declaration a slight nod. “Actually, for years he’s been investigating Mafia money-laundering operations. It was inevitable that he’d wind up circling around supernotes too. I met him in the mid-1990s, when I was barely out of the game and still had some open contacts. I was able to get him an introduction to Rakesh Saxena, the Indian financier.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Well, we could spend a lot of time on him, but I’ll try to be brief. He and some other gentlemen of his ilk caused the Asian financial crisis in 1996 or so. He was accused of—among other things—bringing down the Bangkok Bank of Commerce. A genius, really. He worked on derivatives; he speculated on commodities. He was suspected of funding coups. The last one he’s supposed to have contributed to was in Equatorial Guinea in 2004. It was about oil, of course.”

  “Why would Kasper want to meet a guy like that?”

  “He was working his way upstream, trying to follow the money. I helped him get in by having him introduced as a former military man who could interact with the Sicilians. Saxena did big business with some Mafia organizations that were laundering money in Southeast Asia. Thanks to his enormous liquidity, he could guarantee the rapid conversion of bonds and bearer instruments into cash. For a suitable percentage, obviously. Much use was made of boiler rooms. One of them was in Bangkok and owned by Ian Travis, another of Kasper’s old acquaintances.”

  “Ian Travis. Who’s he?”

  “A New Zealander. Ex-military. He served in the NZ special forces, and then he worked as a consultant, which is an elegant way of saying a mercenary, and in the 1990s he opened a bar in Phnom Penh. But his business was in Bangkok. He was always loaded with dollars. His friends used to say he had a mint in his house. In reality, he was probably dipping into one of the great streams of supernotes. Kasper was supposed to meet him in Bangkok in March 2002, but the meeting never happened.”

&
nbsp; “Never?”

  “Ian Travis was gunned down by a couple of hit men on the streets of Bangkok. The police found tens of thousands of dollars in his car, also a notebook or personal organizer. Its contents remain unknown.”

  16

  Chou Chet

  Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  November 2008

  Chou Chet’s the only guard who never yells.

  He’s an orderly young man, always well-groomed, never brusque in his movements. Never violent. His colleagues respect him, but they don’t involve him in their collateral activities. He doesn’t participate in beatings. When he walks by, he looks at Kasper and smiles. It’s not a sneer; it’s a genuine little smile. Something that belongs to the world Kasper lost eight months ago.

  And so Kasper tries to strike up a conversation. It’s not easy; Chou Chet speaks very broken English. But he speaks. He doesn’t bark, and he doesn’t insult.

  Kasper makes him understand that he can pay him money if he helps him.

  “What you want?” the Cambodian jailer asks.

  Kasper’s aiming low, for now. He says, “Painkillers. Something to eat that’s not prison slop. And some mineral water. Yes, water in a bottle. Real water. Not this filthy stuff. It gives you the runs.”

  “I think about,” the guard replies.

  Two days later, Chou Chet tells him where he can find what he asked for. It’s all in a cloth bag hidden near the first big room. He won’t find the painkillers, however. Chou Chet smiles: those he’s got with him. He hands Kasper a little transparent plastic bag. “Paracetamol,” he says. “Good for you.”

  Kasper stares at the seven white pills. “Paracetamol,” the guard says. “Nothing else. You try, take one. Only one.”

  —

  Kasper’s feeling better.