When he woke in the morning, he jumped out of bed, strolled across to the window, drew the curtains and admired the fountain in the center of the lake whose water spouted like a gushing well high into the air. He turned to see that an envelope had been pushed under the door. He tore it open to discover a note confirming his appointment to “take tea” with his banker, Monsieur Franchard, at eleven o’clock that morning. Cavalli was about to drop the card into the wastepaper basket when he noticed some words scribbled on the bottom.
After a light breakfast in his room, Cavalli packed his suitcase and suitbag before going downstairs. The doorman answered his questions in perfect English, and confirmed the directions to Franchard et cie. In Switzerland hall porters know the location of banks, just as their London counterparts can direct you to theaters or football grounds.
As Cavalli left the hotel and started the short walk to the bank, he couldn’t help feeling something wasn’t quite right. And then he realized that the streets were clean, the people he passed were well-dressed, sober and silent. A contrast in every way to New York.
Once he reached the front door of the bank, Cavalli pressed the discreet bell under the equally discreet brass plate announcing “Franchard et cie.”
A doorman responded to the call. Cavalli walked into a marble-pillared hall of perfect proportions.
“Perhaps you would like to go straight to the tenth floor, Mr. Cavalli? I believe Monsieur Franchard is expecting you.”
Cavalli had only entered the building twice before in his life. How did they manage it? And the porter turned out to be as good as his word, because when Cavalli stepped out of the elevator, the chairman of the bank was waiting there to greet him.
“Good morning, Mr. Cavalli,” he said. “Shall we go to my office?”
The chairman’s office was a modest, tastefully decorated room, Swiss bankers not wishing to frighten away their customers with a show of conspicuous wealth.
Cavalli was surprised to see a large brown parcel placed in the center of the boardroom table, giving no clue as to its contents.
“This arrived for you this morning,” the banker explained. “I thought it might have something to do with our proposed meeting.”
Cavalli smiled, leaned over and pulled the parcel towards him. He quickly ripped off the brown-paper covering to find a packing case with the words “TEA: BOSTON” stamped across it.
With the help of a heavy silver letter-opener which he picked up from a side table, Cavalli prized the wooden lid slowly open. He didn’t notice the slight grimace that came over the chairman’s face.
Cavalli stared inside. The top of the box was filled with Styrofoam packing material, which he cupped out with his hands and scattered all over the boardroom table.
The chairman quickly placed a wastepaper basket by his side, which Cavalli ignored as he continued to dig into the box until he finally came to some objects wrapped in tissue paper.
He removed a piece of the tissue paper to reveal a teacup in the Confederate colors of the First Congress.
It took Cavalli several minutes to unwrap an entire tea set, which he laid out on the table in front of the puzzled banker. Once it was unpacked, Cavalli also appeared a little mystified. He dug into the box again, and retrieved an envelope. He tore it open and began reading the contents out loud.
This is a copy of the famous tea set made in 1777 by Pearson and Son to commemorate the Boston Tea Party. Each set is accompanied by an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence. Your set is number 20917, and has been recorded in our books under the name of J. Hancock.
The letter had been signed and verified by the present chairman, H. William Pearson VI.
Cavalli burst out laughing as he dug deeper into the wooden box, removing yet more packing material until he came across a thin plastic cylinder. He had to admire the way Nick Vicente had fooled the U.S. Customs into allowing him to export the original. The banker’s expression remained one of bafflement. Cavalli placed the cylinder in the center of the table, before going over in considerable detail how he wanted the meeting at twelve to be conducted.
The banker nodded from time to time, and made the occasional note on the pad in front of him.
“I would also like the plastic tube placed in a strongbox for the time being. The key to the box should be handed over to Mr. Al Obaydi when, and only when, you have received the full payment by wire transfer. The money should then be deposited in my No. 3 account in your Zurich branch.”
“And are you able to tell me the exact sum you anticipate receiving from Mr. Al Obaydi?” asked the banker.
“Ninety million dollars,” said Cavalli.
The banker didn’t raise an eyebrow.
The Archivist looked up the name of the Commerce Secretary in his government directory, then picked up his phone and pressed one button. 482-2000 was now programmed into his speed dial.
“Department of Commerce.”
“Dick Fielding, please.”
“Just a moment.”
“Office of the Director.”
“This is Secretary Brown.”
The Archivist had to wait only a few seconds before the call was put through.
“Good morning, Mr. Secretary,” said an alert voice.
“Good morning, Mr. Fielding. This is Calder Marshall, Archivist of the United States of America.”
“I thought...”
“You thought...?”
“I guess they must have misunderstood. How may I help you, Mr. Marshall?”
“I’m trying to trace a former employee of yours. Rex Butterworth.”
“I can’t help you on that one.”
“Why? Are you also bound by the Privacy Act?”
Fielding laughed. “I only wish I was.”
“I don’t understand,” said the Archivist.
“Last week we sent Butterworth a merit bonus, and it was returned, ‘No forwarding address.’”
“But he has a wife.”
“She got the same response to her last letter.”
“And his mother in South Carolina?”
“She’s been dead for years.”
“Thank you,” said Calder Marshall, and put the phone down. He knew exactly whom he had to call next.
Dummond et cie is one of Geneva’s more modern banking establishments, having been founded as late as 1781. Since then the bank has spent over two hundred years handling other people’s money, without religious or racial prejudice. Dummond et cie had always been willing to deal with Arab sheik or Jewish businessman, Nazi Gauleiter or British aristocrat, in fact anyone who required their services. It was a policy that had always reaped dividends in every trading currency throughout the world.
The bank occupied twelve floors of a building just off the place de la Fusterie. The meeting that had been arranged that Tuesday at noon was scheduled to take place in the boardroom on the eleventh floor, the floor below the chairman’s office.
The chairman of the bank, Pierre Dummond, had held his present position for the past nineteen years, but even he had rarely experienced a more unlikely coupling than that between an educated Arab from Iraq and the son of a former Mafia lawyer from New York.
The boardroom table could seat sixteen, but on this occasion it was only occupied by four. Pierre Dummond sat in the center of one of the long sides under a portrait of his uncle, the former chairman, François Dummond. The present chairman wore a dark suit of elegant cut and style that would not have looked out of place had it been worn by any of the chairmen of the forty-eight banks located within a square mile of the building. His shirt was of a shade of blue that was not influenced by Milan fashions, and his tie was so discreet that, moments after leaving the room, only a remarkably observant client would have been able to recall its color or pattern.