There was no certainty of that. Riccardi often forgot to ask the most basic questions. He simply didn’t care. And Kaskis always had the this-is-your-commanding-officer-and-I’ll-tell-you-what-you-need-to-know air. Presumably that came from the army. He joined at seventeen, became a Green Beret, ended up in Delta Force. He didn’t talk about it much. Once he had said the army didn’t want you to go beyond a certain stage of maturity:
‘If you’ve got the brains to grasp that, then baby, it’s time to saddle up and ride. The ones who don’t, well, they’re kids forever. Playing this fucking wonderful game with really dangerous stuff. And I’m not talking just the grunts, the cannon fodder. There are kids right at the top-the fucking Pentagon’s full of them.’
Anselm stubbed his cigarette, tested the can for beer, wobbled it, drained it.
The television showed a heavily built man getting into a car, Secret Service protectors around him. The woman on television said:
In spite of strong rumours, American Defense Secretary Michael Denoon today continued to avoid declaring that he will next year seek the Republican Party nomination for the American presidency. Gerald McGowan reports from Washington.
A solemn-looking man came on, standing in front of the White House. He put his hands into the pockets of his black overcoat and said:
White House insiders are today saying that Secretary of Defense Michael Denoon is hours away from resigning his position to begin his late run for the presidency.
Since the collapse of the Gurney campaign, Denoon is said to have been urged to take the field by powerful interests. These include the US military, which he left twelve years ago as a much-decorated four-star general, and the Republican Party’s most powerful business group, Republicans at Work.
Anselm was on the stairs when he thought about the flight to Beirut. Business class. Free drinks. He had been drowsing, cabin lights dimmed. Kaskis had taken a photograph out of his briefcase, adjusted the overhead spotlight to look at it. An 8 x 10 print, a group of men, perhaps a dozen, posing like a team, standing, some squatting or on one knee. Young men in casual clothes, jeans, T-shirts, some baseball caps. He remembered signatures-they had signed across their chests with a broad-nibbed pen, a felt-tipped pen, not full names, first names. He remembered thinking some of the signatures were childlike, immature. He also remembered thinking they all looked like bodybuilders. The thick necks, the big, veined biceps.
Anselm went to his office and found a file. He took it into the humming workroom. Inskip was reading an airline passenger list.
‘When you’ve got a moment,’ said Anselm.
‘This’ll keep.’
Anselm sat down and wrote the name ‘Joseph Elias Diab’ on Inskip’s pad. ‘I need a US Army service record. National Archives and Records Admin database. They run something called CIPS, Centres Information Processing System. To get what’s called a NARS-5 record, you need a user ID and a password. Users are federal agencies. And you can only access the record groups used by the agency you represent.’
‘Naturally,’ said Inskip. He looked at the ceiling and rubbed his chin stubble. ‘Just sticks in the mind does it, this sort of stuff?’
‘Veterans Affairs are easiest. They’re allowed to see most things.’
‘I’m going to need some handholding here.’
Anselm found what he was looking for in the file. He wrote it on the pad. ‘The procedure’s here. Carla did this one a couple of months ago.’
‘Perhaps she could do it again?’
‘She’s busy. And you need to learn. The problem is the agency’s password changes every ninety days. No indication when this one was issued. Could be outdated. Very likely. Then you start from scratch.’
‘I love scratch. What’s the US Government’s view on such invasions?’
‘On conviction, death or worse.’
‘Ah, choice. The American way. With or without fries?’
Carla rolled into view, rolled from behind her partition on her chair. She was looking at Anselm, her head back, pale forehead free of hair, an unlined expanse of skin.
‘Falcontor,’ she said. ‘When you’re ready.’
He went over.
Carla had pages of notes in her clear, spiky handwriting.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘But what we seem to have is Serrano’s business accounts going back to 1980. There are many, many transfers into the main one.’
‘From?’
‘What you would expect. Caymans, Panama, Hong Kong, Netherlands Antilles, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Isle of Man, Vanuatu. The black money places.’
‘Big money?’
‘In total, yes, millions. But many are small, a few thousand. Lots of regular transfers. A possibility is that he has set up accounts for clients and pays himself fees from them. Then there are loan accounts.’
‘Loans to Serrano?’
‘Yes. One of them is called Falcontor. Big money-forty million dollars, thereabout, in big amounts. Six million dollars three times, one of seven million. All from a bank in the Antilles over two years. But others as small as 250,000 US. My experience says these will not be genuine loans.’
Anselm studied her. ‘No?’
‘No. The bank, well, to call these paper constructions banks is nonsense, the bank is owned by a blind trust in Hong Kong. It is very likely Serrano’s own trust, his own bank. He pays interest on these loans-that would be strictly for tax purposes, a precaution. His place of permanent residence is Monaco, I doubt whether he has ever been audited anywhere. So. He lends himself money and pays himself interest. And he also makes loans.’
‘Loans? From Falcontor?’
‘No. There are transfers from Falcontor. Big sums. No details, just dates and amounts. I gave up on that and then I thought about it again and I thought these are probably internal bank transfers, so I looked for a password, tried a few dozen obvious ones, you can get lucky. And then I tried the name Bergerac.’
She looked at him, she was smiling a small, pleased smile, she wanted to be asked.
‘Bergerac?’
‘People like their names, they often look for ways to use them.’
Anselm got it. ‘Cyrano de Bergerac.’
Carla laughed, he couldn’t remember her laughing, it was a real laugh, deep. ‘Correct,’ she said. ‘I tried it. It didn’t work so I ran the anagrams. Raceberg opened the door. I got the account number. And the dates and amounts, they match.’
Anselm smiled and shook his head. He felt her delight, her pleasure lifted him. He knew the buoyancy of the moment when intuition intersected with luck. The lift-off. He wanted to put out a hand and touch her, complete a circuit.
He didn’t.
‘That’s clever,’ he said. ‘That’s very clever.’
‘Amazing luck.’
‘The clever are luckier.’
‘In some things.’
She held his eyes, and then she said, ‘It’s called Credit Raceberg. It makes loans.’
‘Not real loans either?’
‘I would be surprised. Astonished.’
‘The borrowers?’
She shrugged. ‘Banks and account numbers. But some of the banks, well, if we can’t open them we should be in another type of work.’
‘I’ll tell the client what we’ve got.’
‘More in perhaps an hour.’
‘I’ll say that.’
Anselm went to his office and rang O’Malley. ‘We’re on our way with the inquiry,’ he said. ‘Another hour or two. We should meet.’
‘I’ll bring some Polish beer. Anything else you’d like? From Poland, I mean? I have your pickled…’ O’Malley had his injunction.
‘Like that, is it? Just some ballbearings. I’ll call you.’
Forty-five minutes later, Carla was at his door, uneven on the sticks.
‘I can come to you,’ he said and he regretted it. He put fingers through his hair. ‘That was not something I should have said, was it?’
She smiled. ‘I’m not sensitive about being the way I am. Also, I like the exercise. Come and look.’