Wilson smiled. “I grew up in the States.”
“I thought as much.” The banker completed the paperwork, then handed it to his new client. “If you’ll just sign at the bottom…”
Wilson signed d’Anconia’s name, and gave Eggli his account number and password at the Cadogan Bank.
The banker got to his feet, and crossed the room to the door. “I’ll just be a minute.”
Wilson made a gesture, as if to suggest that he had all the time in the world. In reality, he felt as if he were about to implode. It had just occurred to him that the feds might not be as stupid as he’d supposed. If they were on to him, if they were watching the Cadogan Bank, they might very well let the wire transfer go through – after alerting the authorities in Vaduz.
A minute later, the door swept open, and Eggli swept in. “No worries.” He resumed his seat behind the desk. “The wire should clear overnight, so the money will be available in the morning. Ten-ish, I’d guess.”
“That’s great. You’re very efficient.”
“We try. Even if, technically speaking, we’re not Swiss, we try. And now, is there anything else I can do?”
“There is,” Wilson said. “If you could recommend a hotel-”
“Of course!” Eggli exclaimed.
“And a stock.”
“Excuse me?” The banker seemed befuddled.
“The bank invests its client’s monies, does it not?”
“Absolutely,” Eggli said.
“Well, then, I’d like you to invest mine.”
Herr Eggli was delighted. “Yes, well, we have quite an array of instruments. Bonds, shares, mutual funds. May I ask your objective?” He sat with pen poised above a clean sheet of paper.
“My objective,” Wilson told him, “is to walk out of here with three and a half million dollars in stock.”
The banker chuckled nervously. When he saw that his client wasn’t laughing, he said, “You’re speaking figuratively, of course.”
Wilson shook his head, slowly. “Not at all. I want you to buy shares in… whatever. Nestlé. Roche. I don’t care, really, as long as they’re publicly traded. When you’ve made the trades, I’d like the shares couriered, on an expedited basis, to my hotel.”
Eggli winced through the explanation. “Typically,” he said, “we act as a repository for our clients’ shares. It’s safer that way. We’re a bank, after all. And we have a vault. If you’d like to see it-”
“I’m sure it’s sturdy, but… can I be candid?”
The banker looked surprised, but said, “Of course.”
“I’m in the midst of a very unpleasant divorce-”
“I’m sorry.”
Wilson shrugged. “It happens. And when it does, I can promise you it’s a lot better to be liquid than not. So I’d feel more comfortable if I held the shares directly.”
Eggli nodded understandingly, but he wasn’t buying it.
“Let me ask you a question,” Wilson said.
“Of course.” Eggli put the pen down, and folded his hands on the desk.
“How much is the bank’s commission?”
The banker blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Your commission! For executing trades. How much do you charge?”
Eggli pursed his lips. “Three-fourths of one percent.”
Wilson did the math. “So that’s… twenty-seven grand.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your commission on the trade will be twenty-seven thousand U.S. dollars.”
Eggli’s expression never changed. He sat where he was, as he was. And then, with a shrug of surrender, he got to his feet and shook hands. “I think you mentioned Nestlé, Roche?”
“Whatever,” Wilson told him. “They’re all good.”
Standing in the Immigration Control line at JFK, passport in hand, Wilson felt tense, though he told himself there was nothing to worry about. He’d left the United States a couple of months before, using his Jack Wilson passport to enter Ireland. After that, he’d used the d’Anconia passport. Anyone looking at Wilson’s real passport would assume that he’d flown to Ireland and stayed there for the past two months.
But there was a problem, nevertheless. When the immigration officer swiped Wilson’s passport through a magnetic reader, something popped up on her computer screen. Wilson couldn’t see what it was, but it was enough to generate a phone call.
“If you’ll just take a seat over there…?” It wasn’t a question, really.
Soon, a good-looking Homeland Security agent arrived on the scene. She spoke with the immigration officer for a moment, then beckoned for Wilson to follow her to a cubicle.
When the door closed behind them, she gestured for Wilson to sit down at a small table. Wilson read her name tag: Carolyn Amirpashaie. What kind of name is that? he wondered, unable to guess her ethnicity. “Is there a problem?”
She leafed through his passport with a frown. Finally, she said, “I don’t know.” Looking up, she said, “Is this your real name?”
Wilson acted as if the question took him aback. Finally, he said, “Yeah… Jack Wilson.”
“Is that a nickname? ‘Jack’ for ‘John’?
Wilson shook his head. “No, it’s ‘Jack’ on my birth certificate.” He smiled. “My mother was a big fan of the Kennedys.”
“How nice…” She leafed through the passport again, but this time much more quickly. “So, what countries did you visit, Jack?”
“It’s on the form,” he told her. “I was in Ireland for a couple of months, and then a couple of days in Switzerland.”
“Right.” She glanced at his Customs & Immigration form, which showed his arrival on a flight from Zurich. “And what were you doing there?”
“Nothing, really. Saw some friends. ‘Explored my Celtic roots.’” He chuckled good-naturedly, but his hands were clammy, and the peripheral vision in his left eye was beginning to flutter.
“In Switzerland?” she asked.
Wilson’s laughter sounded forced, even to himself. “No,” he said. “In Ireland.”
“But then you went to Switzerland?”
“At the end of my trip, yeah. I was only there for two or three days.” He watched as she picked up his passport, and leafed through its empty pages a second time.
“They didn’t stamp it,” she said.
“Who?” he asked.
“The Swiss.”
“No, they just waved me through.”
She nodded. “They’re like that,” she said. Then she cocked her head.
“You don’t look Irish.”
Wilson took a deep breath. It suddenly occurred to him that whatever this was about, it couldn’t have anything to do with Bobojon or Hakim. If it did, Homeland Security wouldn’t leave him alone with someone named Jill. Which meant, what? Why had they stopped him? There was no way for Wilson to know, but it might have been as simple as the fact that he’d paid cash for his ticket. Either that, or they’d integrated some of their databases, making data from the Bureau of Prisons accessible to customs and immigration officers. If so, it was no skin off his nose. He’d done his time, and he’d gone to Ireland. So what?
Relaxing, he turned on the charm. “Actually,” he said, “I do… look Irish, I mean.” Leaning over the table, he lapsed into a playful brogue. “As a matter of fact, darlin’, you’re looking at the map of Ireland.”
She tried not to smile. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“You’re not sayin’ you never heard of the ‘black Irish,’ are you?” Certainly, Wilson had. His college girlfriend had written a master’s thesis on the Celtic diaspora.
The Amirpashaie woman shrugged. “Well, I’ve heard the phrase, but-”
“You’re looking at a direct descendant of some poor castaway whose ship went down with the Spanish Armada. Some of the Spaniards washed up on the Emerald Isle. Married the local colleens. And why not? They were all Catholics. And this is the result: my smiling mug. Dark hair, dark eyes. Mediterranean skin. Y’know,” he said, “some people think the Melungeons are descendants of that same Iberian blood.”