Arbitrage

by Colette Kebell

  ‘A nice gesture, Romanov’s,’ said Anders.

  ‘Interest’s at fifteen per cent for that loan, I’ve just finished paying off debts.’

  ‘Would you have accepted a gift?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Maybe your father leaving you the bank is a preparatory gesture,’ continued Anders.

  ‘I don’t think so. My sister is incompetent, and my dad doesn’t trust Price. There were no other choices.’ Her father was well aware of the hatred that flowed in her veins; he knew she would never want to deal with that bank, with whatever came from her father. Romanov’s letter confirmed her feelings. But maybe he also knew that Amelia was basically honest.

  ‘He tricked me, no doubt about it. If I refuse to take control of the bank, I do what he expected of me, if I keep it, I carry on a past I always denied. There is no exit.’

  ‘What does that letter say?’

  ‘Read it.’ Amelia handed him the papers that were on the coffee table in front of the couch.

  Dear Amelia,

  If this missive reaches you, it means I’m dead. It may be that I died under natural circumstances, or of a heart attack. Or perhaps in a car accident. Don’t believe it, I have been killed.

  I worked for the Mortcombe Bank for a lifetime, and I curse myself for having spent all that time accumulating money for others instead of thinking about my own family, my beloved ones, and especially of my daughter.

  As you may have guessed, Mortcombe Bank is not what it seems to be on the surface. They launder money on behalf of the Russian mafia, and so it has been since the beginning. Bruno was an ambitious man who wouldn’t have stopped for anything to succeed. Some people are motivated by love and want to get rich, to give hope and a future for their children. Or just because they have enough talent to do it. Bruno was different, he always sought success as an end in itself, for his own pleasure. Nothing in the world could stop him in his quest, he would (and did) falsify papers to succeed, to feel important, to be able to drink from the cup of success one more time.

  Sorry if I’m hurting you with my words, your father was a good friend to me for all these years. But I’m at a point in life where what I say is no longer relevant. Now that I am a dead man, I think I can afford to express whatever I feel.

  I met Bruno during the merger with Saunders, Whitehall & Passmore and we met again in London several years later when we were looking for our own space in this corrupt and brutal world. Before the Mortcombe Bank, Bruno worked at Ranfald & Co and had already made a name for himself in the financial sector. He was a person with few scruples, even then, and he was considered a shark that wouldn’t back out of anything. He took incalculable risks and bet ridiculous amounts of money, other people’s money, and for some years he was admired. Young people regarded him with respect, a model to aspire to. Until he made a lousy investment borrowing money from an American bank. What you may not know was that the bank was a cover for a Russian underworld organisation in New York. He made bad investments in another bank of Ohio, who later went bust. They could have killed him for that mistake, but instead, he came out, as always, being the winner.

  He managed to find a way to hide funds and earning the esteem of people who rarely have respect for anything or anyone. Needless to say, maybe you’ve already guessed, that Bruno had managed to do so through illegal practices. The result was to bring back the money lost by the Russian mob and keeping a substantial amount for himself. Thus, the Mortcombe Bank was born.

  He needed trustworthy people, with strong ambition and I was one of the first directors to whom Bruno turned to, after the merger. I didn’t have many scruples at the time, although I feel ashamed now, and I started working for him. Slowly I learned about racketeering, but I closed one eye. Then both.

  The same lust for power which had taken Bruno had also taken possession of me. But over the years I started feeling the weight of what I did, and I changed my mind about what was important in life.

  If you are reading this letter, it means that they found me and I’m a dead man. Please apologise to Ryan for what I did. I’m a scumbag and always have been. But they will never find the money I stole. The money is suspended in a sort of financial limbo, and even if they capture me, they will not be able to get the information because even I don’t know where the money is. I split the account numbers and passwords into three sections. I attached one part to this letter, the second I sent to my daughter. This information alone is not enough, I paid a hacker to take the third piece of information. This person will receive a letter like this. It will be his decision whether to run the risk of contacting you or ignoring the question. If he chooses to contact you, I promised him an additional million dollars, as compensation. Of the remaining nine, I leave it to you and my daughter to take the decision of how to use it.

  I’m sorry to have brought you this news, you probably still remember me as Uncle Albert who came to visit you laden with gifts at Christmas. I’m sorry I’ve ruined that memory.

  If you decide to meet my daughter, tell her she has always been in my heart, though I’ve never shown it, even though she may not believe a word of what I’m saying.

  Uncle Albert.

  Landau Bank, Cayman Island – 674566456-34 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  Messner & Co, Zurich – xxxxxx xxxxx 456123/xxx/

  Colman Affiliates, Panama – Chris Xie x xxxxx/xxxxxxxxxx/Mrs. Belkin

  36331232/xxxxxxxx xxxxxx XXXXX Financial Holding, –/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Mr. Johnston

  Anders laid the letter on the table and, for a few minutes, did not know what to say. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t want a bank that’s associated with the Russian mafia, of that I’m sure. What were my father’s plans, it doesn’t matter at this point.’

  ‘And the ten million?’

  That was a more difficult question. She could understand Albert’s gesture, she’d thought several times about disappearing, although she couldn’t tolerate the challenging position he had put her in; the options she had were dwindling fast.

  ‘Nine. I have to think about it.’

  ‘If it’s the mafia’s money, they will want it back.’

  ‘It’s nobody’s money at this point, we don’t even have the full information necessary to retrieve the loot.’

  ‘And then,’ Anders repeated, ‘what are you going to do?’

  ‘I should at least get in touch with Albert’s daughter. Let her know how things are. I will decide what to do at that point. You know, I don’t even remember her? She was a young, brunette girl who sometimes came to dinner for Christmas when I was growing up, but I don’t even remember her name. Her parents sent her to Switzerland to study; my mother always threatened me with the same when I was acting up, to send me to a boarding school in Switzerland … Damn, what was her name … Dimitra. Being sent to Switzerland was mine and my sister’s bogeyman.’

  ‘Do you have an address?’ asked Anders.

  ‘No, we have never been close, I barely remember her. Maybe I can do a search, with all these social networks and Google, you can’t really hide anymore.’

  ‘Even from the Russian mafia, for that matter.’

  That too was a valid point. Not that she knew much about the subject, apart from something she’d read sometimes in books, or seen in Hollywood movies, but disappearing completely, even for individuals with resources, wouldn’t be an easy task.

  ‘What do you know about the mafia?’

  ‘Not a damn thing, but if what you say is true, you’re in trouble up to your neck.’

  Amelia began to feel uncomfortable and stood up for a second cup of coffee. Having all those millions or not wouldn’t have made any difference. If anyone knew she had a key to that money, she would be in danger.

  ****

  Margot slipped her phone out from her jacket and dialled a number.

  ‘Robert Price,’ said an irritated voice from the other end.

  ‘I’ve got news.’ Margot tol
d him about Romanov’s letter, of the suspended accounts, and the ten million. She hadn’t gotten her hands on Romanov’s letter, but it appeared there were partial instructions to recover lost funds.

  ‘Are you sure Romanov’s daughter has the remaining instructions?’ asked Price.

  ‘So it seems, although the only certainty would be to read that damn letter. We could kill those two immediately and take that, and then introduce ourselves undercover to Romanov’s daughter.’

  ‘It might not work, we don’t have all the info,’ objected Price, upset by being called while he was having dinner with his family. He had kept this double fronted face for years, kind and thoughtful with his family and cruel and unsympathetic at work. ‘Let’s avoid any risks; follow them and take action when you have all the information available.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘As I was saying, Mr Logan …’

  ‘You can call me Ryan, let’s cut short the formalities.’

  ‘Well,’ Splinter continued, ‘I won’t beat around the bush. We are interested in your ability to make money disappear and have it magically reappear somewhere else, without anyone knowing or have a way of tracing it back. Of course, for a fee.’

  ‘This can be done,’ said Logan pensive. They had chosen the easy road, oiling the wheels was always more effective than blackmailing. The fact that these guys weren’t greedy made the proposal most interesting.

  ‘And in addition to making them disappear, we’d also like to have a system to make them multiply,’ interjected Hank.

  ‘If I knew how to multiply money, I would have my own personal investment fund, and we would speak on a beach in the Caribbean.’

  They all laughed except Logan.

  ‘Let me explain. The idea is to set up a system, an investment system which appears to be bulletproof. You don’t really have to multiply the money, it just has to look like it, even under an expert’s analysis.’

  Logan was beginning to understand. ‘A scam aimed at a few individuals or at a large number of people? Because there is a world of difference.’

  ‘We’ll limit it to one individual,’ said Splinter.

  ‘I need something more, who he is, what does he do for a living, how much money are we talking about,’ insisted Logan fondling his chin, as he always did when a situation was intriguing him. ‘It’s not that we can improvise such things.’

  ‘We will let you know the details in due course, but just to give you an order of magnitude, think about tens of millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds.’

  ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Laughed Logan. ‘To invest tens of millions you have to have a real organisation behind you. Don’t get me wrong, you might be very good at what you do, but here we need people in the trade.’

  Hank did not scare from those claims, but Logan continued, ‘And then it takes funds just to start. You cannot create money from nothing.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we have funds for that.’

  ‘Don’t you even consider the insider trading story. That story is as old as Noah, and only the pensioners fall for it.’

  They looked at each other. Someone in the gang had actually proposed it, but then the idea had been rejected because having to cheat people who worked in a bank wouldn’t have been feasible. In fact, they were almost to despair, they could easily pull off a con from a few million, but that wouldn’t have changed anything. What they wanted was the final blow, one that would allow them to retire and make a good life forever. No matter what industry people operate in, the dream of winning the lottery was always the same, equal for everyone.

  The fact Logan had agreed to take part and provide his expertise was unexpected luck, maybe the only opportunity to carry on that scam, that last one, the one that would make history.

  ‘According to you, Ryan, how could we defraud a guy like Robert Price?’

  At that point there was no need to drag this out too long, thought Splinter. Sooner or later they had to reveal the target’s name and equivocating wouldn’t be useful to anyone.

  ‘Price or the Mortcombe Bank?’ asked Logan, half amused and half dissatisfied.

  ‘Does it make any difference?’

  ‘I might have a conflict of interest; Mortcombe’s daughter is my employer and maybe the new owner of the bank.’

  Domino interjected, ‘Would this conflict be removed, let’s say, by a generous compensation or a percentage of the profits?’

  ‘We should think about it. You know that old Mortcombe was in cahoots with the Russian mob, right? You don’t mess with those guys.’

  That was a piece of information that took the crooks by surprise. They had come to the point of understanding that Robert Price was working with Russian clients, but that the bank was colluding with the Russian mafia was news, something they had not considered. Domino kept to herself and moved toward the window, thoughtfully. Hank said nothing, but it was evident he was thinking about a possible response, which didn’t arrive.

  Splinter was the one to save the day at the last minute. ‘We are aware of the risks, but there are ways to disappear, or at least to let the cheated think it’s not worth chasing us.’

  Logan was doubtful, and he made no effort to hide it. It was at that point that Splinter decided to explain the basics for a scam.

  The first rule is that you can’t cheat an honest man. There are types of people that are best suited for a scam. Greedy people, with a dark soul. The idea is to let the target think he faces a unique opportunity. This must happen by chance, or at least must appear as such. Every move must be assessed as if you played a game of chess, and convincing a target becomes an art. The target must maintain its ability to decide, to accept a risk or to call it out; we have to anticipate every possible move the target might take. When the prey makes a choice, he has to do it with his own head; the main work of the scammer is in helping him make that decision, relying on his weaknesses and his desires.

  Splinter showed confidence in front of Logan but had not yet recovered from the news about the Russian mafia. They would have had to revise their plans, make sure they covered every possible detail. No one wanted to end up in the hands of those types.

  ‘As I said, I have to think it over. Not only for what binds me to Amelia Mortcombe. Finding a way to fool a banker and convince him to invest won’t be a cakewalk.’

  Logan stood up, to make it clear that that meeting was over, and, after the usual pleasantries, he left.

  ‘It sounds more complicated and riskier than any scam we’ve done before,’ said Domino, ‘are we sure we want to continue?’

  ‘Marcus, if we are not careful, we’ll end up in a lot of trouble.’

  The elder fraudster poured a drop of brandy, and for an interminable period he remained immersed in his own thoughts, rotating the liquor in the glass he held with both hands. Eventually, he spoke, much to the relief of everyone.

  ‘The bigger the risk, the higher the reward, my dear friends. I don’t have the strength anymore to continue making hundred thousand pounds scams at the time. This could be an opportunity to end this game and get over with this life.’

  Each of them was immersed in their own thoughts about how their life could change. Someone would have loved to go to live on the west coast of the United States, someone else thought about an apartment in Central London and maybe at a villa in the Kent countryside. The dreams were always the same, although people were different; they all wanted the same things: recognition, stability, and security. The difference was in how much they were willing to risk obtaining those rewards.

  They went back to work, the concern clearly visible on their faces.

  CHAPTER 21

  That Saturday morning, Amelia received another message.

  She cursed herself for having forgotten to turn off her mobile phone. They were back in bed, and she was still in Anders’ arms. She reached to the bedside table to see who it was. A message from Quentin inviting her for a stroll along the seafront and then to lunch. Sh
e glanced at the clock on her phone, it was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning.

  Quentin.

  She had completely forgotten about him, but he was continuing to pursue her relentlessly and she would have to tell him bluntly where her mind was. Why not do it now? Of course, she couldn’t consider Anders a boyfriend, and he might not even want to be that. What’s wrong with dreaming a little and getting carried away by events? she thought. For an instant she felt alive again, in the middle of an adventure, taking risks while life around was screaming at her not to. To hell with Quentin, she thought, for now, I want to live, and I don’t care about the consequences.

  Quentin, stop texting me, I don’t want to see you anymore…

  How much had it cost her to write that message? Little. She had acted on impulse, but once she pressed the ‘send’ button, she was sure. Quentin wouldn’t be part of her life.

  Are you sure?

  I am through with you. For good.

  She waited for a few minutes for a response that did not come, and so she turned off the phone, resting once again in Anders’ arms.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said stretching himself in bed.

  ‘Good morning to you. Do you want some breakfast?’

  ‘I’m starving, why don’t we go out instead of tinkering with pans and stoves?’

  It wasn’t a bad idea, and slowly they got up to go to the bathroom for a shower. Anders pulled her to him and kissed Amelia hungrily. They were still half asleep but already willing to make love again. The lukewarm shower jet washed over the two tangled bodies and became hotter and hotter. Anders lifted her up and pushed her against the wall, holding her weight, while Amelia wrapped her legs around his hips. They made love again while the water rushed in their mouths. Amelia was the first to reach orgasm, nailed to the wall by a bundle of muscles that moved her like a twig in the wind. Anders gave her no respite, he kissed her and held her, moving slowly against her body until it was all over. They washed each other, exploring each other, looking into each other’s eyes like two old lovers, without actually knowing anything about each other.