Jaws of the Tiger Page 18

“Suit yourself.”

  London, Giovanni’s restaurant, 1.30pm.

  Humphreys drove the Bentley at 140km an hour and made the trip to London in less than two hours. Bolding spotted Hays at Giovanni’s entrance and waved him over.

  Hays, preceded by his two bodyguards, smiled briefly at the maître d’ and walked towards Bolding’s table. Bolding felt a slight easing of the numbing pressure on his brain. At least he’ll hear me out. The bodyguards went to the bar and sat down.

  Bolding got up to greet him.

  “Afternoon Adrian.” Hays usual smile had been replaced by a funereal glower.

  “Thanks for coming.” Bolding tried to maintain composure.

  They sat down and Bolding signaled the waiter, who came over with lunch menus.

  “Glenlivet straight up, if I recall?” Bolding eyed Hays.

  “I’ll have a vodka-tonic, no ice.” Hays looked at the waiter, not at Bolding. “Do you have Ultimat?”

  “Yes sir, we do.”

  “Make that two,” Bolding said.

  The waiter handed them the menus and left with their drink order.

  “Afraid I can’t stay long.” Hays put aside the menu and clasped his hands. “I’ve a meeting back at the Shop at 2.30.”

  Bolding felt the thin rays of hope fading quickly. He had to make his move.

  “Here’s my idea,” said Bolding. “Instead of cash, the Government offers Berkeley’s an irrevocable letter of credit guaranteeing the 68 million. That way it doesn’t have to disburse, and the Bank has a guarantee—”

  “We’ll get to that in a moment,” interrupted Hays. “By the way, I spoke to Geoff Archer at Lloyds. He said he won’t budge unless the Swiss reinsurance boys back him up. Otherwise he’s willing to go to court on the cross-default.”

  “Bastards.”

  Hays shuffled in his chair and Bolding leaned forward expectantly. For a moment, Hays avoided looking at Bolding, letting his gaze wandering around the room. Finally he couldn’t avoid Bolding’s insistent stare any longer.

  “There is another problem, Adrian. Jim Finch and Llewellyn Parsons are on the Cunard Board and they’ve made noises that if we help you, they’ll withdraw their contributions to the Party. I don’t have to remind you—”

  “We’re talking of over a thousand jobs at P & W alone, Terry, not to mention the indirect jobs. Come election time, you can be damn sure they won’t forget you if they’re left high and dry on the street.”

  The waiter came back with their drinks.

  “Thanks.” Hays turned and threw a supercilious smile at Bolding. “We’ve already factored that in. You see, the other problem is your balance sheet, Adrian. We’ve been told by our people at Avesons’ that we’d be throwing good money after bad. I don’t have to remind you that when White Star folded, P & W and Cunard were only too eager to pick up the slack.”

  “That was over forty years ago.”

  “Still a precedent.”

  Numbness began overtaking Bolding’shis brain. “So you won’t back me up.”

  “It’s not only up to me, Adrian. I’m but one voice in the choir. The exec has to be—”

  Bolding leaned over and looked at Hays, ice shooting from his eyes. “Cut the crap, Terry. You and I know damn well that you convince the PM on a one-on-one, and the exec will follow suit. I’m not going under alone, Terry. That I swear.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You know very well what I mean, Terry.”

  Hays looked askance at Bolding. “I don’t think I do. Moreover, I don’t like the tone of this conversation.” Hays started to get up.

  “I’m going to call the PM.”

  “Don’t bother. He’s been advised not to take your call.”

  “Really. I’m telling you, Terry. I won’t go down alone.”

  “Do what you will, Adrian. Do what you will.”

  Hays got up and walked towards the exit, his bodyguards closing ranks behind him. Bolding sat dumbstruck, jaw agape. He’d played his last, desperate card and lost. He felt the pangs of failure invading his soul, gripping his every fiber, and squeezing inexorably all will to fight out of him. He downed his vodka and signaled the waiter over. He didn’t see Hays take his cell phone out of his pocket and dial MI 6’s Special Branch number as he walked through the door.

  * * *

  Bolding exited Giovanni’s six vodkas later and nearly fell on the sidewalk. His chauffeur helped him into his Bentley and two and a half hours later, aided by Higgins, Bolding teetered precariously up the entrance stairs of his mansion.

  “Vodka on the rocks. I’ll take in the music room.” Bolding’s speech was slurred. “While you’re at it, make it a double.”

  “Yes, sir.” Higgins slipped innocuously into the shadows of the oak paneled hallway.

  Bolding went to the library, pulled out an early edition of Hamlet. Book in hand, he entered the music room and sat down at his desk.

  Moments later Higgins walked in. “There you are, sir.” He deposited the fine linen napkin on the desk and the glass of vodka atop it.

  “Will you be having anything else, sir?”

  “That’ll be all.”

  “Thank you sir. Good night sir.”

  Bolding got up, walked over to the far side of the room, raised his glass, and looked up at the large oil painting of Sir Jeffrey Bolding. He couldn’t help noticing for the umpteenth time the family resemblance between them. Wavy white hair, high forehead, small, stubby nose, fleshy lips with a curl in the upper lip, and a dimple in the middle of the chin. The image of his late father crossed his mind briefly. Funny how genes sometimes skip a generation.

  “Here’s to you, you old fart. Nothing else I could do, could I?” And no use crying over spilled milk. Tomorrow morning, they’ll seize the ships. The Hanover Star will be first. She’s an easy mark, right here in Southampton. Bolding brought the glass to his lips and half-emptied it.

  Once the ship was seized, the gunpowder would be lit. Bolding knew that. Tour operators would advise their clients, cancel the rest of his contracts, and hustle to find alternate packages with P & W’s all-too-willing competitors. By midmorning the next day, the press would smell blood, and their news sharks would be marauding at the doors of P & W’s offices, waiting for a scoop. Bolding turned, walked over to his desk, deposited his glass and sat down. Elbows on his desk, he clasped his head with both hands and closed his eyes. Tears welled forward, and for a brief moment, he fought the urge to let go. An uncontrollable sense of panic started to form at the core of his gut, worked up to his chest and made its way into his head. The room swirled and his shoulders started to convulse. After a while, the convulsions stopped and he regained his composure. Without looking down, he opened the desk drawer. He fumbled briefly to the right and felt the cool metal. His left hand shook slightly as he pulled out the .38 Smith and Wesson. Its polished surface immediately caught the sharp light from the desk lamp. He cocked it and put it carefully down on the desk, next to the empty glass.

  Chapter 50

  Interpol HQ, same day

  Dulac sat in his office waiting for Sabine Autissier, Interpol Agent, Financial and Economic Crimes Research Section. He’d been waiting for the past twenty minutes. He looked at his watch, picked up the phone and dialed her number.

  “Yes Mr. Dulac.”.

  “You’re late.”

  “I… I’ve been buried in another file. But I do have that info you requested on the P & W officers.”

  Ten minutes later, a fortyish woman with short cut, dark brown hair and striking pale blue eyes entered Dulac’s office, a thick file under each arm.

  “All that?” said Dulac.

  “Many of the documents are just legwork to get access to the actual trades.” said Autissier. “The London Market Access Rules are very strict, to protect client confidentiality.”

  “Please,” said Dulac, offering her a seat in front of him.

  “Thanks.” She deposited the files on Dulac’s desk and looked at him quic
kly, avoiding eye contact, before sitting hesitantly. “Anything the matter?” said Dulac.

  Autissier cleared her throat. “You realize that technically, we have no authority to investigate internal financial matters of British subjects.”

  “That’s what Arlberg keeps telling me. I disagree. If these transactions are connected to crimes under our jurisdiction, then we have the right to investigate. Unfortunately, we’ll only find out once we probe.”

  “Sort of a chicken and egg situation, I guess.”

  “We’ve got to start somewhere. So what is your overall assessment?” Dulac swiveled his chair in the direction of the window, got up and closed the blind.

  “There are many small trades in P & W stock by various officers during the past two years. I can’t see a pattern here. However, we did some digging on some significant transactions.”

  “Significant?”

  “Transactions where five percent or more of the stock is traded.”

  Dulac returned to his desk and sat down. “And?”

  “A shareholder called Mirolet SA, a Swiss corporation with Head office in Zurich, shorted 6, 775,000 Class A shares valued at 9 pounds per share on—”

  “What do you mean ‘shorted’”?

  “Shorting shares is betting the stock of a company will go down. A borrower, in this case Mirolet, borrows a number of the company’s shares from a broker and sells them immediately. The broker keeps the money. When the borrower decides that the shares have gone down far enough, he ‘covers the short’. He buys an equivalent amount of the shares borrowed and gives them to the broker. The borrower then makes his profit on the difference. To our knowledge, Mirolet has not covered yet.”

  Dulac scratched the back of his head, then ran a hand through his hair. “So if I understand correctly, the borrower never actually owns the shares borrowed, only their replacement, and only owns them briefly before handing them over to the broker.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dulac leaned forward, forearms on his desk. “So why hasn’t Mirolet covered the short?”

  “They’re probably betting the shares will drop even further.”

  “And if the shares go up in value?”

  “They lose. There’s no limit to their potential losses.”

  “Interesting. Very interesting. So when did this shorting of P & W shares happen?”

  Autissier looked at the front page of her report. “On September 26th.”

  “That’s about two weeks before the hijack.”

  “Correct.”

  “And right about the time Bolding and Hays sold their shares.”

  “I also noted that coincidence in my report. If Mirolet exercised the short on the shares today, they would make approximately 3 pounds per share, or 20.1 million pounds.”

  Dulac emitted a loud whistle. “Not exactly chicken feed. Any guesses as to who owns Mirolet?”

  “None. It has an answering service and a postal address on Banhoffstrasse in Zurich.”

  “Someone has to pay the rent.”

  “We’re looking into it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Apart from buy-sell transactions in the normal course of business, nothing that stood out.”

  Dulac leaned back in his swivel chair and pushed himself slightly back, away from his desk. “So we have an absentee Swiss tenant who doesn’t want to be disturbed, making a pile of money after the sinking of a ship.”

  “It could be a coincidence.”

  “That’s what people keep telling me. I don’t for one second believe it.”

  “It’s going to take a lot of digging to find out who is behind Mirolet. The Swiss will require proof of a link between a crime and the otherwise perfectly legal stock transaction.”

  “I think we owe it to ourselves and those dead passengers to do just that. Anything interesting in the emails or other communications of P & W’s officers?”

  Autissier recoiled slightly, a look of surprise on her face. “Mr. Dulac, you of all people should know that kind of information is strictly off limits without a court order.”

  “Yes, of course. I just thought you might have had some of it spill over, so to speak. Never mind. Just keep digging on Mirolet. Let me know and thanks, Sabine.” He eyed the thick pile of documents. “I’ll need only the summary.”

  Still visibly uncomfortable, Autissier gathered her documents and left.

  Dulac knew he’d tested the limits of Autissier’s willingness to probe and perhaps gone a bit too far. It was time to try another tack.

  * * *

  Lyon, Rue des Forgeron

  Dulac returned to his two bedroom flat and made himself a scotch. Glass in hand, he went to the Steinway and sat down on the small wooden bench next to it. He took a sip, swirled it delicately with his tongue and swallowed. He parked the glass on the side table and opened the Chopin Preludes partition at Prelude Number 5. In his youth, he would have played it by heart. Impossible now, without the score. Alcohol, cigarettes and age had wreaked their inexorable havoc in his memory cells. Yet paradoxically, just the right mix of Glenmorangie Single Malt and piano playing would trigger the neurons and synapses and often produced clarity of thought. That’s what he needed right now. He started to play, his long fingers flying over the keyboard effortlessly. That is, until the difficult middle section, when his hands began faltering, refusing to follow the commands of his brain. False notes fell one after the other and Dulac winced. I’m getting too old for this. He stopped and took another swig of scotch. Meanwhile the image of Henri Messier crept into his consciousness, then came into full focus.

  Dulac hadn’t heard about his former Montpelier University classmate Messier since the latter had made front page news in Le Figaro two years back. Messier had been acquitted of hacking into the security system of the City of Lyon’s Department of Pensions and Benefits and trying to steer money into fictitious retirement accounts. In their zeal to catch Messier, the Sureté had crossed the line, planted false evidence and been accused of entrapment. Messier had gotten away scot-free.

  It was known in the world of cyber-espionage that Henri le Geek as he was called, could do marvelous things with computers. Dulac, along with other constabulary forces in Lyon had used his services more than once. The problem was that some of Messier’s methods were sometimes far from legal. Because of his usefulness to the police, they more often than not turned a blind eye to Messier’s minor transgressions.

  Dulac decided it was time to renew their old acquaintance. He gave Messier a call, recognizing immediately his former classmate’s sing-song Marseillais accent.

  “Of course I’m open this evening. Can’t afford to retire yet,” said Messier.

  “You’re still on Rue D’Amboise?”

  “Same old place. Same old me. But the cat died last week.”

  Dulac finished his scotch, went downstairs to the garage, entered his Renault and proceeded to Messier’s electronics repair shop, a small place with the neon sign Microbytes Messier illuminating its storefront. An assortment of computers and related accessories filled the window display helter-skelter, with no discernible attempt to attract eventual customers.

  “If it isn’t my good friend and Interpol agent Thierry Dulac.” Messier stood behind his counter in a rumpled grey shirt and baggy brown pants. “How are you?”

  Dulac couldn’t help but notice that Messier had gone almost completely bald, a far cry from the mane of thick brown hair he’d had during his time at the university. “Trying to keep out of trouble. And you?”

  “Fine, fine. What brings you to this part of the world, or should I ask?”

  “I need a favor, from one of the best computer wizards I know.”

  “Coming from you, not much of a compliment.” Messier smiled, letting show a set of rotten, dark-yellow teeth.

  “I have a challenge for you.” Dulac well knew Messier’s incurable taste for cyber-adventure.

  “Official, or unofficial?”

  “Just helping a
n old friend.”

  “That doesn’t put food in the refrigerator.”

  “Could help bring some criminals to justice.”

  “Noble thought, but I am rather busy. What’s it about, anyway?”

  “It’s about getting the details of telephone calls and e-mails of key personnel of a British shipping company, say for the last three months.”

  “Surely you’re joking.”

  “That difficult?”

  “On the contrary. Piece of cake. I thought you said you had a challenge for me.”

  “I suppose the challenge is keeping this under wraps.” Dulac thought he shouldn’t remind Messier of his past misadventure. “How much?”

  Messier rubbed his chin with his right hand. “Well, since this is ‘unofficial’, say 2000 euros cash and a laptop. “

  Dulac emitted a loud whistle. “Not cheap.”

  “And that’s because you`re a friend. Market price is double.”

  “How long?” said Dulac.

  “About a day to get an untraceable black-market computer, then another couple of days max to do the work.”

  “I’ll need a receipt. Label it ‘computer repair’. At Interpol, creativity with one’s expense account has its limits.” Dulac reached in his pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a list of P & W’s key personnel. And by the way, we’ve never had this conversation.”

  “Of course.” Messier winked.

  * * *

  The following afternoon, Dulac received a call from Messier.

  “I have the goods.”

  “That was quick. I’ll be right over.”

  “Don’t forget the 2,000 euros.”

  “Have it with me.”

  Dulac put the envelope in his pocket, went downstairs to the garage, jumped into his Renault and drove to Rue d’ Amboise. He parked in front of Messier’s shop. Messier was at the door and showed him in.