Mortal Bonds

by Michael Sears

  “Listen, I need you to stay on for one more night.”

  “I thought this might happen.”

  “Is it a problem?” I could still make the afternoon flight.

  “Nope. I can use the money.”

  “I’m on the early flight. I’ll be there when he gets out of school.”

  • • •

  “HMMPF?” SKELI ANSWERED her phone on the fourth ring.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No.” She paused. “I’m eating breakfast. Dancers are called for ten, so I have to be there. How’s my boys?”

  “The Kid’s great. Heather told me he ate three peas last night.”

  “Woohoo! Wait. So where are you?”

  “Zurich.”

  “Zurich? What are you doing in Zurich?”

  “Breaking and entering. Grand theft, if I’m lucky.”

  “Very funny. All right, don’t tell me.”

  “When do I get to see you?”

  “We have tech-in tonight, dress tomorrow, and we open on Saturday. But by about six p.m. Sunday I am free, and don’t have to be anywhere until Tuesday night.”

  It might work. It would make for a busy weekend tying up loose ends, but the Kid had no school and no camp the next week.

  “We’ll come down to D.C. for two days. We can see the cherry blossoms.”

  She laughed. I loved her laugh. “You are about two months too late for cherry blossoms. But did you know the Smithsonian has a Tucker 48?”

  “Didn’t he paint all those smoggy sunsets?”

  “Oh, god. That’s Turner. This is a Tucker. Ask the Kid.”

  “It’s a car, then.”

  “Call me this weekend.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  “And bring me some Swiss chocolate.”

  “Come on. You can get Swiss chocolate anywhere.”

  “Fine. Then bring me a watch.”

  “What kind of chocolate? Dark, white, or milk? I think the Swiss invented milk chocolate.”

  “Or just some gold. They make gold there, don’t they?”

  “I’ll see you Monday. If I don’t show, it’s because I’m back in jail.”

  We signed off.

  That took care of the calls I wanted to make. Next were the calls I had to make.

  • • •

  “AGENT BRADY’S LINE.”

  “He’s not there?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Tell him it’s Jason Stafford. He’ll want to talk to me.”

  “He’s not in, but he left instructions.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Let me get the note.” Papers rustled. “Here. He said to tell you to come home. Today. Not tomorrow. That he just spoke to someone named Guelli. This is interesting. He says Guelli knows exactly what you’re thinking. Any of this making any sense?”

  Too much. Guelli had figured out what I had planned and told Brady. If I went ahead anyway, I could be sticking my head in a noose.

  “Yes. I’ve got to run to catch the plane.”

  • • •

  I OWED my employer a call.

  “Virgil’s line.” A woman answered.

  “I’m looking for Virgil.”

  “He’s in a meeting. May I take a message?” The words were polite, but the tone said she didn’t care whether I left a message or hung myself.

  Only Virgil or Everett had ever answered on this line before. I did not want to risk leaving a message with a secretary.

  “It’s sensitive,” I said. “And important. Can you break in on him for just a minute?”

  “This is his sister,” she said, her voice now as commanding as the Red Queen’s. “You may leave a message with me or not.”

  “Morgan? My apologies.” Was Blake really boffing this White Anglo-Saxon Princess? I’d known derivatives traders with more humanity. “It’s Jason Stafford. How are you?”

  “Is there a message?”

  “I’ve enjoyed talking with you, too. Yes, please tell Virgil—or Everett if you can’t get him—that I will be another day in Switzerland. I’m booked on the first Swiss International flight tomorrow morning. I’ll talk to him tomorrow or over the weekend.”

  “Does that mean you have been successful?”

  I had nothing but a plan at that point and had no intention of discussing it with her or anyone else. “Sorry. You’re breaking up. Must be all the mountains here. My regards to your mother.” I hit the disconnect button.

  • • •

  I WENT OUT to the duty-free and bought forty Swiss francs’ worth of the same chocolate I could have found at Fairway for twenty dollars, half a block from my apartment. Then I agonized for a few minutes over the handsome miniature Swiss police car, finally deciding against it because it wasn’t Matchbox and the scale was too large. It had doors that opened and closed, front wheels that turned, a bouncy suspension, and a spring-powered motor that loaded by pressing down and pulling the car backward. When you let go, it could scoot the length of a room. I loved it, but the Kid would look right through it. Too big. Then I picked up a zippered canvas tote bag and a mini-flashlight, both with the Swiss International logo. Then I went back and bought the police car anyway. It was cool. The chocolate and car went into my briefcase, which I left with the concierge back in the lounge. The little blonde changed my ticket. I tucked the tote bag under my arm and headed out to the taxi line.

  “Bahnhofstrasse, please.”

  | 32 |

  I circled the surrounding blocks, looking for any sign that Guelli and the police were waiting to trap me and also to give myself time to get rid of my jitters. The first part worked just fine. There were no SWAT teams hiding down any of the winding lanes. The jitters weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I resolved to keep them under control. I used a mantra: “I’m doing this to protect my son.” It helped a little. It was long enough—and emotional enough—to keep me from thinking too much about what I was about to do.

  I swung the door open and stepped into the waiting room. As before, it was empty. I took a deep breath, made myself ignore the mini-camera in the molding, and walked to the elevator, trying with body language and attitude to give the impression that I belonged there.

  I reminded myself to exhale.

  The elevator clicked and hummed. I waited. The door slid open. I was halfway there. I stepped in, put in the key, and pushed the bottom button. Click. Hum. When the door opened, I stepped into darkness.

  I waited for the elevator to close again before turning on the flashlight. The light switch was set to a timer by the door. If I turned it on, I wouldn’t be able to turn it off again in a hurry if I heard the elevator coming. I went to work with the flashlight.

  It took me ten minutes to realize that searching through those mountains of files with nothing but a Victorinox 4.8-watt flashlight just wasn’t going to make it, even if it was an LED with a pretty white cross on the handle.

  The elevator still lurched, banged, and hummed at times—it was early for junior lawyers in the middle of the week. The possibility that someone might need to visit the dead files still loomed and threatened. There was no way to explain my presence. On the other hand, the probability that anyone would have to research some forgotten case after six p.m. on a Thursday night in the first week of summer was not great. Easily far out on the tail end of the bell curve. In trading you don’t hedge against the unlikely, no matter how disastrous. There is always the “end of the world as we know it” trade out there, which has the potential to blow up your whole portfolio, but the standard preparation for the end of the world is to ignore it. When the end of the world shows up, as it does from time to time, everyone takes their lumps equally. A trader manages risk, he does not insulate himself from it. He calculates probabilities and takes his chances.

  If I cont
inued to work with the lights off, I stood to have an extremely low chance at finding anything—if in fact anything was there to be found. If I turned on the damn lights and got to work, I might have a small chance of getting caught, but a much greater chance of success.

  I turned the lights on.

  Herr Kuhn’s files seemed to take up all of the first two rows, until I realized that more than a third of them must have belonged to his father. His were the oldest files, and for forty years he had been remarkably productive, if the mark of a lawyer is how much paper he creates. Then, thirty years ago or so, he had begun to slow. The last file box was from 1988.

  I edged around the huge shredding machine and looked around the corner. Most of the following row was devoted to the files of the long dead partner, Lauber, and to other lawyers whose names I did not recognize. Various junior members of the firm, I imagined.

  And along the back wall, and running nearly the full length of the room, were Herr Biondi’s files. Hundreds of boxes. Thousands of files.

  My nose itched. Dust and the smell of decades-old paper were beginning to get to me. I realized I had neglected to bring food or water. I could be here all night.

  There was nothing for it but to begin.

  An hour later, I was frustrated. I had been through the most recent file boxes and found nothing. I mentally kicked myself. Those were the files that were least likely to have something hidden away in them. Someone might need to research a case from the last few years. It was much more likely that if the bonds were there at all, they were hidden in a box from longer ago. There were plenty to choose from. The labels all the way in the back on the bottom shelf were from the late 1950s. I got down on my haunches and looked them over. The dust hadn’t been touched in decades, and the cardboard itself appeared ready to disintegrate. Not a chance.

  I stood up, stretched, and walked back to the end of the aisle. Searching each box by hand wasn’t going to cut it. There was no time for that. I needed to think like Biondi. Where would he have hidden them?

  The elevator started up again. Click. Hum. I froze. I realized that the sporadic noises from the elevator had almost ceased in the last half-hour. The building must be near empty. But now the elevator was moving again. The elevator stopped. I exhaled. I ran to the light switch. There was no way to override the timer. If someone came down, they would have to find the lights on.

  Click. Hum.

  It was going up, the sound fading slightly.

  I went back to work with my heart hammering against my sternum. At that rate, I was going to age a decade in one night. I worked on my mantra. “I’m doing this to protect my son.”

  Somewhere, I was sure, there was a list of the cases with corresponding file numbers, but even if I had it, I would still be in the same situation that I had described to Guelli. The bonds could be hidden under any name at all.

  An idea occurred to me. One billion dollars, or so, in bearer bonds would make for a thick file, even in denominations of one million. So unless Biondi had spread them out, which would have made it more likely that someone else might at some point stumble over them, the box I was looking for would have fewer case file numbers on the label.

  It was a Hail Mary pass, but that’s what I was down to.

  I began pulling out the boxes with the least number of file numbers listed.

  The files in each box were individually contained in covered, expanding file folders, so that searching through a box entailed taking each folder out, unsnapping the elastic, examining the enclosed documents, and reversing the process. Each folder had a small label with the file number and the case name printed in large black letters.

  A sneezing fit doubled me over, and I sat for a few minutes waiting for the stars to disappear from my vision. Dust, in varying degrees, covered the top of every box. And the faster I tried to work, the worse it got.

  But I found them. It was just as Vinny had said—you hide sand at the beach.

  There was no great genius to it. Anyone might have found them—if they were looking. But Castillo’s people—and anyone else who might have been sent to find them—would have focused on the obvious. The bank. A safe-deposit box, or something similar. A lockbox. Security.

  But security was not what Castillo’s clients valued. They needed anonymity, and here it was. Buried among thousands of numbered, faceless brown file folders, all nearly identical save for thickness or age, were three thick expanding files, all with the same label. They may have been a decade or so less ancient than the rest of the folders in the box, but maybe not. The box may have had a lighter patina of dust than others on the shelf. Or not. But I knew as soon as I opened the box what it held.

  The folders were all labeled EVANS, MISTLETOE.

  I opened the first folder and removed the stack of documents inside. The bonds were printed on thick paper, and they were bound together in a block.

  I pulled out a box from the bottom shelf, sat down on it, and began examining the bonds. The Honduran bonds were batched by series and denomination. Some had redemption dates three years out, others longer. Within each series, the bonds were clipped together by denomination. Quarter-million, half-million, and one million. All in U.S. dollars.

  The other two folders held bonds by other issuers as well. Other Central American countries. U.S. corporations. All of these had their physical coupons still attached—perforated bits of thick paper, like the markers you might get for rides at an amusement park. Only these markers were promises of payment for thousands, or tens of thousands, of dollars apiece. In some cases there were two or three or even four coupons that should already have been redeemed. Someone, and I could only presume it had been Biondi himself, had carefully harvested the Honduran bond coupons, but had left the others intact. Not every bank in the world would redeem coupons off bearer bonds, but many would, and there were plenty of offshore banks that would be less careful about keeping records about who proffered them for payment. And to a few banks that catered to certain clients, they were as good as cash.

  Click. Hum. This time, almost literally sitting on a billion dollars, my heart stopped. I waited, listening to the elevator rise up another floor and halt. My heart thudded painfully against the inside of my chest. I had to finish and get out. I did not have the constitution to be a burglar.

  The three folders made a heavy load in the tote bag, but I grabbed a few other smaller files without examining them and put them on top for camouflage. Then I put the boxes back in place. Someone else might come along behind me and be able to determine that something was missing, but there was no way they could ever know for sure what had been there.

  Click. Hum.

  I ignored it. Mentally, I was already halfway out the door. Job completed and one million a year for life almost in my pocket. If there was still someone in the building, then the alarm would not have yet been set on the front door. I’d be gone with only a single chime before the door closed behind me. A taxi to the airport and I’d treat myself to a vodka martini in the Swiss First lounge. Maybe two.

  A traders’ rule—never calculate the profit on a trade before you’ve booked it. Shit happens.

  The lights clicked off. I had forgotten the timer. I turned on the flashlight and made my way down the aisle to the elevator door. I waited until I could hear it stop before I inserted my key in the lock.

  The elevator door opened.

  I don’t know who was more frightened—me or the African man with the tribal facial scars. I registered that he was wearing a khaki uniform and was carrying two clear bags of paper trash—cleaning staff. He began speaking quickly in broken bits and phrases. It wasn’t in any of the Swiss languages, as far as I could tell. He laughed in relief and pointed to his heart and laughed again—his meaning obvious. I did the same, though my laughter had a more sickly tone to my ears. He gestured with one of the bags. I stepped back out of his way and flipped the light switch
for him. He smiled and nodded in appreciation, then held up one index finger and made a pleading look. I looked at my watch and gave him one raised index finger in reply. He took the two bags of trash and hurriedly loaded them into the big shredder. I waited, holding the elevator door. He was finished in less than the one minute requested.

  As he came back to the elevator, now carrying a single bag of compacted, shredded paperwork, he nodded repeatedly in thanks. He thought I belonged there. I was a lawyer working late. It was unusual to find a lawyer working in the basement after hours, but it wasn’t outside the realm of normal possibility. I was using up a lifetime’s worth of luck.

  We rode up to the first floor together, me with my tote bag full of loot, he with his bag of trash. I gave a short wave and headed directly for the front door. I was about to touch the doorknob when he called out in concern. He was shaking his head. I stopped. He came over, stepped between me and the door. What now? How had I blown it?

  There was a small plastic box halfway up the wall behind the door. The man flipped it up to reveal a small numerical keypad. He touched a series of numbers and the box gave a small beep. I had been an inch, a tenth of a second, from setting off the alarm.

  I gave a big grin in thanks. He grinned back. Two unlikely conspirators, both working after hours. He would remember me. He might remember the bag. There was nothing I could do about it. On the other hand, who would he tell? Why would he? I waved again and left.

  They really did need to upgrade their security.

  | 33 |

  The first-class passengers streamed off the plane and out of the gate, as though there was a prize for beating everyone else through customs. I hung back just a step or two on the off-chance that there was an inspector who wanted to take down the rich folks. By the time I had my passport stamped and was heading for customs, they were waving everyone through. What contraband were they going to find coming in first class from Switzerland?