by Roman Klee
When Nathan made partner at the Trust, Human Resources issued him with a new security pass that brought additional benefits—access to the partners’ dining room, library and bathrooms on the nineteenth-floor. It also gave him enhanced user privileges on the Trust’s intranet.
Last but not least, they handed him the magic button. Roughly the size of two packs of chewing gum, whenever a partner entertained clients in any of the top-floor dining rooms, he simply pressed the little black button and within seconds a uniformed waiter appeared. It was also useful for getting refreshments during client presentations, which usually left most people impressed.
But it was no use for what Nathan needed. To start with, it didn’t help that he had not thought out the best way of returning to the office and creating the least amount of suspicion. After signing in at the lobby desk and swiping his ID card, the date and time of his entry were automatically recorded in the firm’s security log.
He went directly to his own office, to see what he could retrieve by logging onto the Trust’s intranet. His first couple of attempts failed and he was starting to wonder whether or not access was automatically barred outside strict office hours.
Then on the third try, he was in. He performed a search for Liz Wright. It showed her as a new client. There was also a flagged note that indicated Cunningham was reviewing her file. No details would be accessible for other users until he had signed it off.
Nathan checked the date of the entry—it was the same day he made partner. There were no other positive search results. And nothing that tagged Liz as being Myron Salzman’s client. So here was a problem straight away. Everything had happened at breakneck speed—Salzman’s unexpected demise, the handing over of the senior partnership to Cunningham, so that the Trust’s internal systems had not kept pace. It was a surprise, but it helped explain Cunningham’s delay in making the files available.
Janice told Nathan that a partner could decide whether or not they wanted to grant viewing rights to other people in the Trust, or whether they wanted access totally blocked. The decision was usually determined by the degree of sensitivity needed to handle a client’s affairs.
By now, nearly all the firm’s records should have been digitized, but it was not the world’s most interesting job. Whoever had been charged with the task, probably took their time.
Until the Liz Wright file was released for general partner access, Nathan would get no joy by Googling the Trust’s intranet. He would have to rely on more old fashioned techniques.
Nathan learned on his first day that the Trust stored old documents in the basement. No partner ever went down to the depths of the building to retrieve a file. If they needed to check something that had not been digitized, a junior secretary or intern was given the task. In fact, now Nathan came to think about it, he wasn’t really sure if the Trust still kept old files on site. Maybe like so many firms these days, it outsourced the job to a company in India.
But since the Trust’s intranet was not showing a positive search for Liz or Elizabeth Wright, Nathan thought he better check out the basement just in case a really old folder had been left there and forgotten about.
He began to retrace his steps to the elevator bank and was about to press button B3 when he realized what had happened.
Myron Salzman had deliberately kept Liz’s file secret.
From the first partner meeting, nearly everyone except Cunningham, expressed their surprise at having a member of the Wright family as a client. Most of them spotted the marketing opportunity that had been missed as a result, and they were not very pleased.
There was no point in wasting precious time snooping around a dusty basement late at night. And he wasn’t even sure whether he could access it or not.
Now it was looking as if all this nocturnal activity was about to give him the most meager of paybacks. He was left with just one more line of attack. If this failed, he could safely say he’d drawn a blank and would have to admit defeat.
He knew that normally Cunningham’s office door was always locked by his secretary immediately after the senior partner left for the evening. Well, it was worth a try at least. He started walking toward the opposite end of the corridor.
What he wondered were the chances of bumping into another partner working late into the night? It was unlikely. Only Nathan kept finding that the unexpected seemed to be happening much more often than the laws of probability said it should.
There were no glass doors or glass panels along the corridor, so it was not possible to detect a shaft of yellow light, indicating someone was hard at work.
It felt strange being the only person in the Trust’s offices. All the main lights had powered down to save electricity, and the place looked distinctly different. There was no buzz, no chance for human interaction, the place felt flat.
He stood before the senior partner’s paneled door, turned the handle and pushed—it was open. He entered. The movement sensor automatically switched on the lights.
Where to start? Nathan had only been in Cunningham’s office on a couple of occasions, and every time it was nothing less than spotless. No clutter on the desktop, no stray copies of newspaper or magazines, the trash can was empty. (For security reasons, a cleaning crew was employed to remove the partners’ trash once every two hours and then shred it.)
Now when Nathan looked at Cunningham’s desk, he was pleased to see that someone had let their high standards slip. But it was still a long shot. The files could have related to any number of clients and subjects.
He started with the first one that came to hand. It was not Liz Wright’s. He tried another. Again no luck. Then he picked one from the bottom of the pile—gotcha!
He flipped through the pages until he reached the section for bank accounts. He noted the most recent entries and there were some for Bangkok, Thailand.
So Nathan’s trip over to Asia had not been a total waste of time and effort. Liz had made a couple of money withdrawals around the dates he was there.
He also saw American Express, MasterCard and VISA statements for the same month. They showed the usual kind of grocery and clothes shopping expenses. Then Nathan’s eye was drawn to a larger than average charge of six thousand dollars, debited in favor of the Scatola Nera—that was some bar fine.
And it was on the same night he had been there with Ted Faulkner.
This was incredible. There he was at the nightclub, listening to Faulkner talk about L.A.Y.D.E.E.s and gurus, when Liz had been in the audience or in another part of the club all along and Ted had said nothing.
Perhaps the guy knew a lot less about her than he was letting on, or maybe they were no longer friends. But whatever the reason, Nathan had been so near, nearer than he ever imagined in making contact with the elusive Liz.
After struggling to get the Xerox machine to work—he had to enter his access code and then override the paper counter, he made copies of all Liz’s financial statements. He looked at his watch. He had to go.
As much as he wanted to copy the entire file, he simply did not have enough time. The week ahead was even busier than normal and he was desperate to get some sleep before another early start in just a matter of hours.
Nathan said goodnight to the night duty security guard and exited onto Park. He began to work out a ready excuse if anyone asked him what he’d been doing in the office outside regular hours. He eventually hailed a cab and headed back downtown to Saint James Place.
There was only one small thing Nathan overlooked.
Cunningham had installed secret surveillance cameras throughout the office. Later, he received a secure email, alerting him of a security breach. When he awoke, one of his first acts was always to check his inbox.
He opened the urgently flagged message. A link directed him to one of the Trust’s secure servers, where he accessed the remotely stored video file. From the comfort of his home, he watche
d Nathan’s every move.
Normally when a breach of security occurred, a rapid dispatch security team was sent to the scene. It would intercept the culprit and then turn over their home on the pretext it was retrieving the Trust’s property.
But in this case, Cunningham had instructed his head of security to take a hands off approach as far as Nathan DeAngelis was concerned. At least for the time being.
Now when Cunningham thought about it, his only surprise was why Nathan had taken so long.
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“You’re new to this game. You said the file was near the top of the in-tray. But the firm’s clean desk policy means all files are cleared away at the end of the day. What do you think happened here?”
It was true. Nathan was not trained to think like a detective. He replied he had no idea. But corrected Thom, insisting that the file was at the bottom of the pile.
“You just read your first piece of M and D.”
“Say again?”
“Misinformation and Deception,” replied Thom grinning.
This was the first time Nathan had heard the term, and Thom could see he needed to go into more detail because his friend looked lost.
“It happens in the media all the time. Here’s how it works. You’re an investor and you want the price of oil to multiply ten fold. So you get some independent guy who is an expert geologist on oil fields, to write a report or better still a book, about how the Saudis have overstated their oil reserves and for the past two decades they didn’t make any new net additions.”
Nathan was vaguely familiar with the argument, but he let Thom continue with it.
“Your publisher works on an eye-catching title that includes words like, biggest crisis facing humanity, oil and time running out, the return to a New Stone Age is nigh and they label the whole thing Peak Oil. Before you go live, you organize a series of off the record presentations with key hedge funds and institutional players. Many of them take positions ahead of your book release and then you press the button and publish. You agree to do interviews across the media plugging your peak oil argument. Respected analysts at Wall Street’s finest financial spin machines, pick up on your theme and add their weight to your arguments.”
Thom paused to make sure he hadn’t totally lost Nathan’s attention, and then continued, “It doesn’t take long for the whole peak oil story to be accepted as fact by the mainstream, and as if to confirm your thesis, the oil price starts to gain momentum, and before you can catch your breath, one barrel of West Texas Intermediate reaches a new peak because of some Super Cycle Spike theory and the world heads into another recession. Fortunately, the hedgies sell out in time and pocket billions.”
“But what they’re saying is true, oil is a finite resource,” protested Nathan, who was not at all comfortable with Thom’s over neat reasoning.
“Hey, I’m not here to try to figure out the truth. Who knows what the Saudis are up to? There’s probably a grain of truth to the idea, but it’s more likely we’ll come up with a way to replace oil long before the black gold ever runs out.”
Nathan looked like he didn’t want to hear theories, he was more interested in what Thom had to say about the content in Liz’s files, because he guessed by the way his friend was talking, it was not as good as he was hoping for.
“Anyway, it was just an example. Basically, everything you have here that looks like it has value, is BS. The stuff may contain a few truths, I mean the bank accounts where Liz is actually the holder, but the rest is a fictional trail, pure and simple.”
Nathan didn’t really want Thom to go on in any more detail, exposing where he’d gone wrong.
“So I didn’t find Liz’s real bank account details, or the record of her cash withdrawals and the banks she visited, right?”
“Right, you’re starting to get this.”
“So what did I get? What does all this stuff mean?”
“Here’s the thing Nathan. They got one of Liz’s friends to use a couple of her credit and ATM cards to make out she’s been to all the places you see on the bank and credit card statements. But she’s really somewhere else!”
What a scam! Nathan thought he had struck the mother lode, when in fact he’d been given a one two sucker punch. But he wasn’t ready to give up and admit he was operating out of his league and needed help. Not just yet. “I don’t get how you make that leap.”
“It’s not difficult to work out. You said you went to Thailand right? Do you remember the date?”
“Yep, it was at the beginning of February.”
“Okay, here we go.” Thom picked up the nearest statement to hand. “According to her VISA account, Liz was at the Scatola Nera on the fourth and spent six thousand dollars. Were you also at the club on the same day?’
“Er, I think it was the third actually.”
“But if you left after midnight, it would be the fourth. So do you think it likely you were both there at the same time?”
“It’s possible.”
“Sure, it’s possible, but is it likely? Who were you with that evening?”
“I went over to see a guy called Ted Faulkner. Later I met him at the club.”
“So, that’s Liz’s friend. He’s the one using her credit cards. He’s casting out the bread crumbs leading you on a false trail.”
Nathan remembered how he had left the nightclub feeling let down, and he was not at all comfortable during the meeting with Faulkner.
And then he suddenly realized Thom was not so far ahead of him as he thought. How could Faulkner have been using Liz’s credit card? Unless he had changed his name, the club would have noticed that the card belonged to a woman. He pointed this out to Thom and then waited to hear how his expert friend would explain an obvious mistake.
“Good point Nathan. But consider the following.”
And Thom then explained that in many cases the name on the card was not important. He could get cards issued using the title Dr. in front of their initials, there was no need to identify the person’s gender.
But in this case he suspected the explanation was much simpler. Liz Wright was obviously the main account holder, and she had issued additional cards in other people’s names.
That way, the name on the card could simply be John Doe, but the actual charge would appear on her account statement. It would look like she spent the money just as soon as the direct debit went through.
Thom had come across examples where the monthly statement made no reference to the spending patterns of the additional card holders, so the whole process was recorded under a single name.
And when it came down to it, who was the owner of the Scatola Nera? Ted Faulkner of course. No one was going to stop him authorizing a credit card in his own club, not if they wanted to keep their jobs.
“See, the set up works great for Cunningham. If anyone asks, he can say the Trust followed up a lead in Bangkok based on Liz’s spending habits.”
Nathan now recognized he needed every piece of assistance he could get.
“I’m not sure who Cunningham’s trying to help … but it’s not you.”
It was at that point when Nathan began to have regrets about ever taking up Antonio Orofino’s kind offer. He should have guessed it would come with more than just a couple of strings attached, it was always the way.
Then Thom dealt another blow to Nathan’s sinking morale.
“I guess you didn’t know this?”
“Know what?” replied Nathan, once again sensing more bad news was coming his way.
“Pete Cunningham … he used to work for Solomon.”
“Now you’re yanking my chain! … what did he do there?”
“He headed up compliance. His leaving was mutually agreed—the usual way.”
Thom didn’t elaborate, because there was no need. They both understood what he meant.
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Brothers had developed a habit of turning up at the right time and in the right place if one of their brethren needed help, or when the future of the firm was in jeopardy.
But Nathan thought it strange that his boss had never once in any conversation, referred to his time at Solomon. Few on Wall Street managed to suppress their desire to brag about working for the Brothers and the big shot they had once been.
And it was also odd that the Trust never mentioned Cunningham’s association with Solomon on any of the firm’s client literature or the selectively highlighted career résumés, so beloved of financial marketing departments.
“Okay, so if I have to rely on Cunningham the odds on finding Liz are not gonna be high … agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“So what would you do, if you were me Thom?”
“Now there’s a question. Well, I wouldn’t start from here, that’s for sure.”
“You’re a great help.”
“Hey, I’m kidding. Look you need to think around the issues. Assume Cunningham is working to someone else’s agenda.”
Thom joked that this time he would waive his consultant’s fee. And together, they set about crafting a new plan of action.
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Nathan wasn’t sure what to do. First of all, he had no intention of going with Carla and her husband across the Atlantic. It sounded like a lot of fun, but he could not for one minute see how it would help with the task Cunningham had given him. Certainly, the yacht had all the latest equipment and the refit had been done really well, from what he could see of it.
But he was no expert. Somehow, traveling in a vessel more than eighty years old, did not fill him with much confidence.
What happened if both engines broke down in the middle of the Atlantic, thousands of miles away from land? They may have been overhauled, but they were certainly not new, and they didn’t rely on twenty-first century technology.
What if the weather turned bad? So traveling across the Atlantic in the middle of May, was not the same as in the fall and winter when the really big storms struck. But still, that didn’t mean there were no storms in late spring.