“That could be,” Juan agreed. “They could use the port of Vladivostok. Dump the Chinese there, then send ’em across on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Once in Moscow or Saint Petersburg it’s a simple matter of some forged documents, and they’re on their way to Berlin, London, or New York. I’ve heard that customs police all over the world have closed a lot of the old back channels, so this could be their new route.”
Cabrillo was already thinking ahead. He didn’t know many people in the cold water port city of Vladivostok, but he still had contacts in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. In fact, several of his old Cold War foes worked in private security for the new-generation capitalist oligarchs, and more than a few were wealthy oligarchs themselves.
“So I’m headed to Moscow,” Juan said.
“Not so fast, Chairman,” Mark countered. “You might end up there, but there could be another way.”
“I’m listening.”
“I thought about how hard it would be to track down forty Russian gangsters and what leverage we could use to get them to talk. Mike Halbert and I talked about it at length, and we both came to the conclusion that the Russians probably don’t have a clue what these companies do. It’s likely that whoever set up D Commercial Advisors and Ajax Trading and the others paid the Russians a fee to use their names, and they know nothing beyond that.”
“You’re talking a dummy board of directors for a dummy company.”
“Exactly. Complete deniability.”
“So where does that leave us?” Juan asked, slightly irritated that Murphy seemed to be leading him along.
“The guy who set up the companies.”
“Wait. Guy? You said guy?”
“Yup.”
“They screwed up,” Cabrillo exclaimed, irritation turning to excitement as he grasped what Murph had just said.
“Sure did, boss.” Mark agreed, a smile in his voice. “Every one of the dummy companies had two things in common. They all own part of the Maus, actually on the documents it’s called Mice, but I think it’s a translation problem. And the other thing is they were all set up by the same lawyer in Zurich. Guy by the name of Rudolph Isphording.”
“Never heard of him.”
“No reason you should have, at least not until a few months ago.”
“What happened a few months ago?” Juan had suddenly become wary.
“Isphording was named as a star witness in the biggest financial scandal to hit Switzerland since it was discovered they had hoarded gold for the Nazis. He was caught up in a money laundering net, quickly saw the writing on the wall, and made a sweetheart deal with Swiss prosecutors. The scope of the investigation is expanding every day. A few bank presidents are under indictment, a couple of government ministers have tendered resignations, and now the investigators are looking into the Swiss representatives at the United Nations for potential bribe-taking. And there might be a link to the billions of dollars the late PLO chief Yasir Arafat hid away in Swiss banks that has yet to surface. It seems there’s no limit to how high or far the scandal goes.”
“All because of this Isphording character?”
“He had a very long reach into some very dirty pockets.”
“If the PLO is involved, I’m surprised he hasn’t been killed by now.”
Max Hanley spoke up with a low chuckle. “He’ll get a grateful hug by a suicide bomber only after the Palestinians find their money.”
“So where’s Isphording now?”
“Under protective custody at Regensdorf prison outside Zurich. The only times he’s been seen in the past five months is at special prosecutorial court sessions. He’s driven to the courthouse in an armored van. The media aren’t allowed anywhere near him, but one telephoto shot that might be him shows a figure in a flak vest with his face covered in what looks like bandages. Rumor circulating in the Swiss press is that he’s undergoing plastic surgery during the proceedings and will be given a new identity after he’s finished testifying.”
“An armored van?” Cabrillo asked, just to be sure.
“With a police escort. I said this was an alternative to tracking down forty Russians who may or may not know anything,” Mark replied. “I didn’t say it was an easier one.”
“Is he allowed visitors?” Juan asked, already thinking about what he could use as leverage over the attorney. Isphording was getting a great deal from the Swiss authorities. Why would he jeopardize that by talking to the Corporation about a handful of dummy companies he’d helped establish? Juan would have to get creative.
“Just one. His wife.”
That shot down his idea of trying to intimidate him in the prison’s interview room. If they couldn’t talk to him in jail, and he doubted Isphording would be allowed to speak to anyone in the courthouse, Juan saw his options as severely limited. He played a hundred different scenarios in his head and came up with nothing. Well, not nothing — but what sprang into his mind was one hell of a long shot.
“How sure are they about a PLO connection?” he asked.
“Reports are sketchy,” Mark said, “but it fits with his pattern of corruption.”
“That’ll have to be good enough. Even rumor can work to our advantage.”
“What’s happening in that scheming mind of yours?” Hanley asked.
“I’m too embarrassed to tell you yet. It’s that nuts. Are there any pictures of Isphording’s wife?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to dig one up in newspaper archives.”
“Okay, get on it. I’m going to Zurich, get the lay of the land to see if my idea could even work. Where are you guys now?”
“We’re in the East China Sea about two hundred miles north of Taiwan,” Max said.
“And the Maus?”
“Twenty miles ahead of us. We’ve determined this is the limit of her radar. We send up the UAV every twelve hours just to put some eyeballs on her and make sure nothing’s changed. So far it’s just a regular tow job. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Except the ship in her hold was stolen off the high seas.”
“Well yes, there is that.”
With the Mausonly covering 150 miles a day, they were only a day and a half out from Taipei, although Juan was still convinced the vessel would change course and head someplace else. Taiwan was a modern democratic country and was too well-regulated for the pirates to use it as their base of operation. He was sure they’d continue on to Vietnam, the Philippines, or Indonesia.
That meant that if he was going to get to Rudolph Isphording, it would be without the Oregonas a base of operation. But he would need her unique capabilities if he was going to pull off what he’d been thinking. He calculated distances and times, factoring in the range of the Robinson R-44 in her protected hangar belowdecks. If he wanted to get equipment or personnel off the Oregon,he had a short window as the ship steamed past Taiwan in which to do it. Once she reached the South China Sea, they’d be too far from land to make any transfers. With a sinking feeling, he figured he had just two days after reaching Zurich to determine who and what he wanted off the Oregonbefore she was out of range.
They had needed three weeks to get everything set up to pull off the job in North Korea, and even then they had been rushed. And that caper was a piece of cake compared to what Cabrillo had in mind now.