Geneva Connection, The (28 page)

“Don’t worry. I understand the need for precautions more than anyone,” replied Kent.

“Follow me.”

Merriman took him to a small, windowless meeting room. The place looked shabby. Special Agents Whitlock and Young were already sitting at the folding wooden table in the middle of the room.

“Nice place,” said Kent.

“Take a seat.” Merriman pointed Kent to the seat at the head of the table so they could all see him.

“I need to call the office to let them know I’ll be late.”

“My guess is we’ll need a couple of hours,” Merriman said.

Kent took his mobile phone from his suit pocket and rang Tara. He said he’d be coming in midmorning. He gave no reason and ended the call before she could ask any awkward questions.

Merriman waited for Kent to put his phone away. “So, you’ve decided to help us, John. What changed your mind?”

Kent had already decided not to share his concerns over Wright’s impending FCA investigation. He wanted Merriman to believe he was doing this because it was the right thing to do. That way, he’d be able to extract certain commitments from him in return.

“On reflection, I just thought it was the right thing to do. I realized I needed to put aside my professional concerns as there was more at stake. That wasn’t entirely clear to me when I first learned about all of this in London. It was a lot to take in.”

Merriman smiled skeptically at his two colleagues. “It is the right thing, and I understand the risk this represents for you personally.”

“Do you?”

“You’ll be helping us bring down some of the most dangerous criminals in the world. Only a fool would think that would be risk-free.”

Special Agent Whitlock poured them all a coffee. Merriman checked the e-mails on his phone one more time then took off his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. He stayed on his feet and started pacing the room.

“We need quite specific help from you, John. I won’t sugarcoat this. Obtaining the information we need is going to put you at some considerable risk. We’ll try to minimize that risk, but we can’t eliminate it entirely.”

At least he’s not feeding me bullshit.
“What do you need me to do, exactly?”

“As we said to you in London, we’ve good evidence to link Tritona to the drug proceeds coming from the Caruana cartel through the Mexican banking system.”

“I know nothing about that.” Kent wanted to remind Merriman of his innocence in all this.

“We understand that. You’ve been duped by the cartel into helping them. We know that.”

“Make sure you remember it.”

Merriman raised his open palms. “Hey, we’re on the same side.”

“That’s not how it felt in London.”

“But you’ve come to the right conclusion now. Let’s move on.”

“Okay.”

“Only you can provide the last link in the evidence we need. Once the monies leave Tritona, our documentary trail runs cold. We know from our intelligence reports that CBC plays a key role in acquiring assets for the cartel, but we lack hard evidence. Without that proof, we can’t seize these assets and neither can we make money laundering charges stick against the senior cartel members.”

Kent wriggled about in his chair. The use of the words “only you” worried him. If he really was the only person able to provide this evidence, then it would be obvious to the cartel he was the one who talked. This was getting worse.

“Exactly what do you need me to do?”

Merriman nodded to Special Agent Young as he sat.

Young pulled his chair closer to the table and retrieved a note from his jacket pocket. “We need original signed documents establishing the SPVs being used by Tritona to acquire the assets you manage for them. We need the constitutional and title documents to the corporations and trusts which have been set up by Oakham Fiduciary Services. Finally, we need the stock certificates linking those entities to the investee companies you’ve been acquiring at CBC,” he said, reading from his list.

Kent sat upright
. These guys are not mindless muscle-heads, after all. They know what they’re talking about.
“Is that all? Sure you don’t want a signed photo of all the people at Tritona while I’m at it?”

“I know. It’s a big ask, John,” said Merriman.

“Copies won’t do?”

“No. They must be original signed documents,” said Young. “Otherwise, they won’t stand up in court. Copies could be dismissed as fakes.”

“How am I going to extract original documents without being noticed? This isn’t going to work. You’ll have to think of something else.” There was panic in Kent’s voice.

“Calm down, John. We’ve thought this through,” said Merriman. He poured them all a refill. “When you deliver the original documents to us, we’ll prepare and return to you fake replacements within forty-eight hours. You’ll be able to replace the originals with the fake ones on each file. Your exposure is just forty-eight hours at a time. These files can’t be in constant use.”

“The files you need are not in regular use, which is precisely why I’ll struggle to access them without raising questions.”

“You’ll think of something,” said Whitlock.

Merriman nodded to Young, who continued, “Once you’ve extracted the documents we need, we’ll arrange a safe location for you to drop them ready for our collection. You’ll be able to collect the replacements from the same place.”

“Where is that location?”

“We’ll get to that. How long will it take you to get hold of the original documents?” asked Young.

“It’s not a simple matter. I’ll need some files from Oakham’s offices as well as CBC’s. My guess is a couple of weeks, at least.”

“Take as much time as you need,” said Merriman. “We’re in no hurry. We want to get this right.”

“My accessing these files is going to raise a lot of awkward questions.”

“You’re the CEO. You can demand to see any file you want,” said Young.

“It’s not that simple. It would look unusual for me to request so many files myself.”

Merriman screwed his face. “You must do this yourself, John. We cannot risk involving anyone else.”

“I need to think about this.”

Kent stood and walked around the room as he chewed it all over.

This would represent an enormous personal risk. It would take just one person to see him extracting files to be exposed. But Wright’s visit was imminent, and he was bound to find out about the letter to the NCA. If Kent didn’t go along with this plan, Merriman wouldn’t hesitate to use the buried letter as a reason to have him extradited to the US. How long would he last in prison? The cartel wouldn’t take any chances. They’d certainly have him killed in prison to prevent him from making any deals. There was no choice. Kent would have to cooperate with Merriman, in spite of the risk.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

“That’s the right decision,” said Merriman.

“But there are conditions.”

“What do you mean—conditions?”

“When all this is over, I want complete immunity from prosecution.”

“No problem. You’ve done nothing wrong. Remember?”

“I want it in writing before I release any documents.”

“You’ll have it. What else?”

“I need you to find a way to draw the cartel’s attention away from me as the source of the evidence. Without this, there’s no deal.”

Merriman thought for a moment. “We could always put you in our witness-protection scheme.”

“That won’t work. I want a life after this. The evidence can’t be seen to have come from me. If you can’t find a way to fix this, then we don’t have a deal.”

“I can understand that, John. We need to think this through a little more to get it right.” He paused while he thought some more. “What if we deliberately leaked a message out, after we’ve seized the assets? Something along the lines that the key evidence came from one of the cartel’s own senior lieutenants. That way, they’ll think one of their own talked. That’ll help deflect attention away from you.”

“Something like that might work. Whatever happens, I can’t ever be called as a witness and can never be attributed as the source. Is that agreed?”

“You have my word. I’ll do whatever it takes to draw attention away from you. If you get hold of the documents we need, there’ll be no need for you to become a witness. They’ll stand up as evidence on their own.”

Kent realized that was probably the best he could do in the circumstances. At least now there was plan of action which might just work. It wasn’t risk-free, but it was a way forward, a chance to take some control back over his life.

“I have one more question.”

“Not another condition, I hope.”

Kent glared at Merriman. “Does Dieter Baumgart know about all this? I assume he knows he’s working for a drug cartel?”

Merriman laughed. “Of course. He’s been working for the cartel for years. They’re all involved.”

“I thought as much.”

“Why are you asking about Baumgart and not Kulpman?”

“Because Baumgart’s the main man.”

“Wrong. Kulpman’s on the cartel’s direct payroll. He’s Caruana’s man on the ground at Tritona. Nothing happens without his say so. He’s the one who runs the show in Geneva. Baumgart’s just the front man.”

Now it all made sense to Kent. There had always been something weird about Kulpman
. I bet that animal organized the DVD and Anton’s hit and run.

The rest of the meeting was taken up with a detailed discussion about the specific documents Kent needed to obtain. They agreed a safe place for him to drop the documents and to collect the fake substitutes.

As Kent drove to his office, he called Sarah. “I’ve finally been in to see the dentist about that pain.”

“You’ve done the right thing, John. That was never going to get better on its own.”

Both of them knew not to say anything more on an open line.

“I love you,” Kent said before hanging up.

While he was worried about the threat to his own life, he was much more concerned about the risk for Sarah. She hadn’t caused any of this—he had. Now all he wanted was to make sure his wife was safe. But he knew she was still at risk, and that fact was eating away at him.

Chapter 42

K
ENT
M
ANAGED
V
ERY
L
ITTLE
S
LEEP
over the next few days. The worst thoughts came to him in the middle of the night when Sarah was asleep. He’d wake up and stare at the ceiling for hours. How was he going to access both the CBC and Oakham files without raising awkward questions? He imagined being caught with sensitive files in his briefcase and having to explain why he was taking them home. Worse still, what if the cartel’s people following him or bugging his offices picked up his unusual activity and realized he was gathering evidence? He envisaged all manner of torture and violent threats to him and Sarah. The plan had sounded quite logical in the meeting with Merriman and his colleagues but, in the cold, dark loneliness of the early hours, it seemed like a certain route to a shortened life. It was now far from clear this was the right thing to do.

Exactly one week after his meeting at USAF Alconbury, the solution came to him. He was driving to work when he realized Wright’s imminent FCA investigation was not only a threat, but also a way through. He could use the investigation as cover for why he, as CEO, had to take a fresh look at key files. In that capacity, he had to make sure CBC and Oakham were properly prepared for the FCA’s visit. After all, Johnson had said the investigation was a completely new type of review and that CBC was the first firm in the private equity sector to go through one. It would be wrong for the CEO not to be closely involved in a high-level investigation into his own firm, particularly one being headed up by Wright. The more he thought it through, the more the plan came together. He decided to implement the plan that day. Since there were only three weeks until the inspection visit, there was no time to delay the process.

When Kent arrived at the office, he called a meeting of the partners, at which he asked Johnson to explain the significance of the FCA’s upcoming investigation. With Kent’s encouragement, Johnson played up the reputational risks to the firm and Tritona if all of the files were not in perfect shape. Johnson laid it on thick, as if the very survival of the firm was at risk. After all, it was unusual for his compliance function to play a central role in the activities of the firm. Normally, he’d quietly get on with his back-office compliance work while the other partners got to do all the exciting deal activity. This was Johnson’s moment in the limelight, and Kent did all he could to egg him on.

Kent emphasized to the partners that the head of the new investigations team at the FCA was none other than Doug Wright. He reminded them Wright was far from being a friend of the firm, having been removed from his CEO position at Henderson Wright by CBC. He was telling them what they already knew, of course, but he wanted the hidden microphones to pick up his reasons for being closely involved with reviewing the sensitive files. He was doing his best to protect CBC and Tritona, by making sure everything was in good order for the regulator’s visit.