The two men made their way to Gregorio’s private office. In a moment, Gregorio had the Bank Moor on the line. “Where do you want the money wired?” he asked.
This question had caused Gabriel a good deal of thought on the boat ride. It was his practice to wire the funds to several different banks, then spread the money out further before moving it to the pooling account. The measures took days, if not a week, and time was no longer his to spend freely. Tomorrow, Gabriel would meet the Professor. The whirlwind would begin. He would be hard-pressed to shepherd the twelve million dollars to a safe account.
“To the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden. Leichlingen branch. Account 47-20833S. In favor of the Holy Land Charitable Trust.” The Trust collected donations from around the world. Twelve million dollars from Switzerland would not raise any eyebrows.
Gregorio repeated the information. “Done,” he said, hanging up the phone. And turning, he lifted his hands and began to beg forgiveness. “I can explain,” he began. “Yes, I was gree-”
“Sit,” Gabriel demanded.
Gregorio sat down on the couch.
“For the past two days, I’ve been asking myself how the Americans got wind of our brother in Afghanistan,” said Gabriel. “For years, Sayeed operated there without any problem. A Brit, for God’s sake, and none of the locals breathed a word about him to the authorities. Suddenly, Sayeed is followed and captured. What, I asked myself, had changed in the intervening time? Do you know?”
Gregorio shook his head. He was a slim man with a very large, bald head and unattractive eyes. His underlings called him the “Mantis.”
“I know,” said Gabriel. “Because now I realize it was my mistake. You visited Sayeed. You and your big mouth. You and your greedy ideas. You and your lack of faith in my family’s plans. Somewhere along the line they picked you up. They’ve a woman on their team, I understand. She followed Sayeed for two days. I don’t fault him for failing to realize it. She’s a professional. I fault you.”
“But I said nothing… I-”
Gabriel waved away the excuse. “And now, you are running. What better proof could I have? Where did you think you could go that I would not find you? Under what rock did you plan to hide? In a week, I will have the resources of Croesus at my disposal. Did you think that I would forget you?”
Gregorio took a moment to answer. “I did not think you would succeed.”
Anger was building inside Gabriel, a virulent rage that swelled inside his head like a molten dome. Taking the gun from the waistband beneath his shirt, he threw it at Gregorio. “Do it.”
“I cannot.”
“Do it,” Gabriel repeated, his cheeks burning, lips stretched tightly over his teeth. Moving closer, he slapped Gregorio across the head. “You are one of us. You swore the oath. You know our code. Do it.”
“I cannot.” Gregorio looked at the gun, then at Gabriel. “Please,” he pleaded. “You-”
But Gabriel had no intention of easing the man’s burden. Dropping to a knee, he grabbed Gregorio’s chin and stared into his eyes. “Do it. I command you,” he shouted, so close that his spittle sprayed the man’s cheeks. “Do it!”
With surprising adeptness, Gregorio picked up the pistol and pressed it against Gabriel’s chest. “Leave me. You have your money back. Every last dime. Now go in peace.”
Gabriel laughed. “Kill me, and another will take my place.”
“Leave! I am the one making the decisions. Go now!”
Gabriel pushed his face closer, so that their foreheads almost touched, and he stared into the other man’s soul. “You are already dead,” he whispered.
Gregorio blinked. A defeated breath left his mouth.
The blast of the gunshot deafened Gabriel, the hot, deflected powder stinging his cheek. Standing, he took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. He checked his watch. If he hurried, he would still make his plane to Paris.
Chapter 29
At the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s headquarters in Vienna, Virginia, the introduction of the Holy Land Charitable Trust of Germany into their proprietary SQS, or suspicious activity query system, set off a string of alarm bells. The suspicious activity query system drew on a database of more than ten million suspicious activity reports and cash transaction reports filed by American financial institutions over the past ten years, and included all reports filed by banks, savings and loans, brokerage houses, cash-transmitting agencies, and more recently, casinos. Additionally, the SQS combed the Treasury Enforcement Computer System, NADDIS, and the Internal Revenue Department’s proprietary database.
Utilizing an artificial intelligence program, the SQS was able not only to search for precisely defined keywords, such as “Holy Land Charitable Trust” or “Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden,” but to sift and evaluate the descriptive portion of each report-the two or three paragraphs written by the teller who had actually witnessed the criminal activity-for catchphrases, partial names, and possible references to the account or individual being interrogated.
At.36 seconds, the first hit appeared on Bobby Freedman’s screen. It came from TECS, and stated that during a year 2000 investigation conducted by the United States Customs Department into software piracy, the Holy Land Charitable Trust had been linked to Inteltech, a registered Paraguayan corporation thought to be engaged in the illegal copying and wholesaling of software patented by American software concerns. The Trust’s name was listed as a beneficiary of a German account said to be a conduit for Inteltech’s funds. Due to a lack of cooperation by the Paraguayan government, the investigation had been shelved.
The second hit arrived at.78 seconds. The Trust’s name was found in a suspicious activity report filed by the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden stating that the account frequently received multimillion-dollar transfers from high criminal activity points, including Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Dubai, and Pakistan. Again, no action had been taken.
Freedman studied the reports. With Chapel’s words echoing in his ears, he phoned the head of compliance at Thornhill Guaranty at his home in Manhattan at 5:21 A.M. Stating that the terrorist who two days earlier had blown up three American law enforcement professionals had been discovered to have ties to the Holy Land Charitable Trust’s account at Thornhill’s Gemeinschaft Bank subsidiary, he requested them to supply-of their own volition, naturally-all pertinent account records.
At 7:01, a forty-six-page E-mail chronicling the Holy Land Charitable Trust’s entire banking history at the Gemeinschaft Bank of Dresden arrived in his mailbox. At 7:08, Freedman called Allan Halsey at FTAT and advised him to log on to his computer and to have plenty of paper ready for the download.
It took Allan Halsey one hour to find the connection-the irrefutable link that Chapel had been begging for. When he saw the numbers, and ran them past the ones Chapel had given him five hours earlier, and noted that “yes, they were the same, by God,” he felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach by a line drive.
For the past eighteen months, the Holy Land Charitable Trust of Germany had regularly received money from the same numbered account at the Deutsche International Bank that was funneling money to Albert Daudin at the Bank Montparnasse in Paris.
Immediately, Halsey contacted the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and requested that the Trust’s account be frozen pending an IEEPA edict. IEEPA stood for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It was the sledgehammer Halsey had promised, a broad, all-controlling measure granted to the executive branch of the United States government to deal with any unusual or extraordinary threats to the country’s national security, foreign policy, or economy.
A flurry of phone calls ensued.
OFAC called the White House. The White House called FTAT to confirm that OFAC’s IEEPA request was legit, then followed up with a call to the undersecretary of the Treasury for Enforcement to double-check. The undersecretary called the secretary of the Treasury and sug- gested he might want to contact the chairman of Thornhill Guaranty to let him know that his bank was about to be put in the same bed as a cele- brated terrorist. He then dialed Admiral Owen Glendenning, and said, “Wasn’t the Patriot Act a great thing? And it was nice working with you, too.”