The Clayton Account (25 page)

In the morning, Cardenas went to the Embassy and was received by the Second Secretary. He explained that the Justice Department had an interest in Enrique Speer but made no reference to the DEA.

The diplomat gave him what little he could find.

Speer was apparently an upright citizen. Costa Rican by birth, with a Mexican law degree and a thriving practice. Commercial work, as far as they knew – many companies retained his services. He travelled, occasionally, around the Caribbean and the subcontinent and had never applied for a US visa.

‘Why is Justice interested?’ asked the Embassy man.

‘Not in him especially,’ explained Julio. ‘We know one of his clients to be a criminal and we know he deals with a suspected money launderer in New York. Speer? Doesn’t sound too Costa Rican.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said the Second Secretary superciliously. ‘Most have Spanish names but there are a fair number of descendants from other Europeans. East and West. Quite an influx after both wars.’

‘So what’s Speer? German?’

‘I guess.’

‘Describe him?’

‘Forty-something. Six-two, slim, fair. Always wears a suit, no matter what the weather. Single, does the full social rounds.’

‘His parents born here too?’

‘That I don’t know, and I can hardly ask the authorities here without a reason.’

‘Could you keep an eye on him for us? Send us anything you find?’

‘If a formal request was made by Justice,’ replied the diplomat distastefully, ‘it would be up to State and the Ambassador. Hasn’t your department got its own people to do that sort of work?’

‘Thanks,’ replied Julio with a wry smile. He had come across that sort of diplomat before. They lived cocooned in a world of political intrigue and cocktail parties and forgot who paid the bills.

Cardenas went along to Plaza Independencia and sat himself in a café near Speer’s office. Everyone in Costa Rica went home at lunchtime. At 1.15 Speer left his office and walked to the Land Rover parked outside. He looked preoccupied, perhaps even angry or upset. Cardenas took three pictures of him. For the moment that would have to suffice. He put the film in an envelope addressed to BID in Miami and mailed it from his hotel, then picked up his bag and caught a taxi back to the airport. When he reached Caracas three hours later he cleared customs and immigration as Julio Robles, using his official
passport
and BID credentials, then caught the Aeropostal turboprop to Maracaibo, where the DEA pilot in the Cessna Centurion stood by to take him on the penultimate leg of the journey.

They took off to the east and then turned back on themselves, flying towards the setting sun over a metropolis of oil rigs in the shallow waters of the massive lake that gave the city its name. They gained height to clear the Sierras de Perija, marking the border with Colombia. Equipped with a satellite navigation system, even the little Cessna had no difficulty locating the small landing strip at Cesar’s Mines. The same manager was on duty and his face lit up when he saw the two bottles of Black Label, delivered with a smile by the man from
EL BID
.

‘Park here any time,’ he said jovially, handing over the car keys to Julio.

For Robles a long drive lay ahead, almost four hundred miles on bad roads, but already he was looking forward to rekindling his friendship with the Mayor of Medellín in the morning.

Speer was very preoccupied indeed.

He had telephoned Banesto in Seville and he knew from Sweeney that the transfers from Geneva had been made. Though annoyed by the unexplained delay, he decided not to make an issue of it. But Speer had told Morales all was well and that morning he had wanted to make sure.

Then the bombshell dropped.

Twenty-four million dollars had indeed arrived from Switzerland to complete the required twenty-five. Unfortunately, the account of Malaga Construction was frozen – not one
duro
could be withdrawn – by order of the Ministry of Finance. Speer had asked why, but the manager was unable to be precise. There was an
allegation
, he said guardedly, that certain funds might have a connection with illicit money-laundering. The matter was being dealt with from Banesto’s head office in Madrid. Dr Speer should really direct his questions there.

Speer took down the number and the name of the person he should speak to, but did not intend to follow it up immediately. Next, he called Banco Nacional in Montevideo. The situation there was the same, though the manager he spoke to was more blunt: ‘The authorities here believe it is hot money. Drug money, to be precise. No funds may be removed until the investigation is concluded.’ He did, however, corroborate that the funds from Geneva had arrived and that at the time the account was blocked its balance stood at over $25 million.

Speer put the phone down and considered the implications. Malaga had been clean; there was nothing that could link it to Morales. Speer himself had set up the company early on in his relationship with the Colombian. He had purposely chosen Spain as he did not believe in obscure offshore companies once the money had been laundered. Serious banks viewed such firms with suspicion and, in most countries, would answer any questions put to them by the authorities. Spain and England were the best. In the former, the administration was second-rate and no one cared what a Spanish company did outside the country. Money could be remitted from different parts of Latin America masquerading as proceeds from bogus projects and so long as some profit was shown and a little corporation tax paid, you were left to get on with your business.

In England you could set up a company in five minutes with an outlay of less than a hundred pounds. Name-plate offices in London were a penny a score, and genuine administrators would not ask too many questions when given
names
of non-existent directors all residing outside the United Kingdom. The companies would file accounts on time, maybe show a profit of 6 per cent on turnover, and pay 20 per cent of that in tax. A real cost of one and a half cents in the dollar for giving dirty money a credible pedigree. Speer had anticipated that over the next year Morales would need to find a home for another hundred million. Malaga was only one of a dozen hollow companies Speer needed for that purpose.

Now it was all going wrong and he could not understand how. At the most, four people were aware of the Malaga connection: Speer, Salazar, Sweeney and Morales himself.

At the moment the bulk of Morales’ money was managed by Salazar. He was useful and had ways of cleaning money. Morales would deliver his suitcases to a bank in Grand Cayman and three months later the cash would turn up elsewhere. Having made what journey?

Speer did not know. Nor did he care. But Morales had also left his legitimate money with Salazar, and that aspect Speer believed he would be able to change. He was as smart as Salazar any day and his schemes were better. One day he hoped to see Morales transfer the management to him. Let Salazar do the laundry by all means, but after that leave it to Speer. He had served Morales well and was sure that eventually it would happen. Then Dr Heinrich Speer would establish a low-profile office in Bavaria and make his fortune investing clients’ money in Europe. The opportunities were vast; Morales would merely provide the launch funds.

But now this.

Someone had established the link between Malaga and cocaine money and it had not been him – nor Morales, for that matter. That left Sweeney and Salazar. Had they
been
careless? There was nothing left to do but tell Morales his money would not come. Speer did not relish the prospect. He could easily guess how his client would react to the loss of fifty million dollars.

That same morning Tom Clayton went to work in his study one floor above his bedroom. He sat at his desk at seven-thirty and drafted two documents. The first was an agreement for Sweeney to sign. It made reference to the Clayton Account and recognized that this account had been held by his grandfather and a partner, a client of Sweeney Tulley McAndrews, who did not wish to be named. It further recognized that, on his grandfather’s death, title of the account had passed to his son Michael Clayton and, upon the latter’s death, to Tom. As executors to the wills of both Patrick and Michael Clayton, Sweeney Tulley McAndrews attested to these facts.

The agreement further recognized that the balance of the Clayton Account was not shared by the parties to it equally, but that the portion to which Thomas Clayton was entitled amounted to five million US dollars. As this amount had already been disbursed to Thomas Clayton, the remaining balance was now the property of Patrick Clayton’s unnamed partner and Richard Sweeney accepted responsibility for its safe delivery to that client. The agreement made clear, and Tom underlined that point, that neither Michael nor Thomas Clayton had any dealings with the silent partner, nor did they know his name or the nature of his business. Due to banking technicalities, the funds would be released to the attorneys in ninety days’ time.

The second document was a personal affidavit. In it Thomas Clayton stated that while exercising his rights under the provisions of his father’s will, he had visited
United
Credit Bank in Zurich to collect a balance held there in his father’s account. He had been surprised to find that, in addition to the $5 million he expected, a further $38 million had been paid into the account. Unable to understand the source of such a vast sum, he had left it untouched and asked the executors of his father’s will, Sweeney Tulley McAndrews, in the person of Richard E. Sweeney, to provide an explanation. Mr Sweeney had confessed that one of his clients, José Salazar, had been using that account for years by forging the signatures of Patrick Clayton and Michael Clayton. Mr Sweeney further stated that the funds in question originated from criminal activities. Mr Sweeney, who was a party to the deception, had arrived in London to collect not 38 million but $43 million from Thomas Clayton, stating that his client wanted all of it and failure to deliver this would result in the taking of Thomas Clayton’s life.

By eight-thirty Tom had finished both drafts. After a second reading he placed them in his briefcase. He returned to his computer and noted with some puzzlement that he still had access to the bank. The Swiss franc was up another six cents on the pound. This pleased him on two counts. In the first place, the £25 million authorized by his employers had been leveraged into 500 million and was showing a paper profit of nine cents. That was a return of £18 million sterling, or 72 per cent of the money put at risk. It would give Tom further ammunition when confronting Grinholm.

It also meant Tom’s own potential losses through Taurus were now reduced by over one million dollars. He wished he had the guts to double up immediately, but opted for caution. There was still time.

At nine Tom called Stuart Hudson, apologized for the short notice and asked for an urgent appointment to discuss
a
couple of documents he needed right away. They agreed ten-thirty at Stuart’s office.

He then phoned Scotland Yard and eventually got put through to Chief Inspector Archer. He explained who he was, that he had an urgent matter to discuss, and that Pete Andrews had suggested his name. Archer sounded friendly, asked about Pete, and said he would be very happy to receive Tom Clayton at the Yard around two.

Tom did not wish to argue with Dick Sweeney over the phone, so he scribbled a fax to him saying he’d be there at three-thirty, marked it
Urgent
across the top, and sent it to Claridge’s.

‘Not bad,’ said the solicitor with a smile after reading the first document. ‘Not bad at all. For a banker, that is.’

‘As I said on the phone, Stuart, I need it now,’ Tom reminded him.

‘No problem,’ replied Hudson and set about marking up the agreement with his pen. He crossed out a few lines and rewrote them, changed a word here, a sentence there and after a short explanation to his secretary he sent it off to be typed. As she left the room, he turned to the affidavit and the smile gave way to a frown. All along, Tom tried to make light of it and amused himself by throwing darts at the board that hung on his friend’s office wall.

‘What do you intend to do with this?’ Hudson asked, putting Tom’s draft down.

‘I would like to leave it with you, just in case,’ Tom replied, launching another three darts.

Hudson read the four handwritten sheets once more.

‘Tom,’ he enquired gravely, ‘do you think Sweeney meant it? What he said about this man Salazar? That he would kill you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tom answered frankly. ‘I expect I shall find out.’

‘Is it worth it?’

‘Hey, five million bucks! It’s bloody well mine.’

‘I could lend you five million, if you’re short,’ Hudson offered half-jokingly.

‘Piss off, Stuart,’ replied Tom, feinting in his direction with a dart. ‘Write the thing up.’

‘Have you thought of going to the police?’

‘I’m going there after I leave you. I have an appointment at Scotland Yard.’

‘Are you intending to give them copies of these documents?’

‘No,’ said Tom firmly. ‘And I’m just going to show Sweeney the affidavit so he can tell Salazar that a copy of that will surface if I cease to be around. I would wish to leave it with you, actually. Let you do the honours, if it came to that.’

‘In that case,’ declared Hudson positively, ‘and if all this is for insurance, I think you need to fill the gaps.’

It was Tom’s turn to look puzzled.

Hudson explained: ‘I mean that you should tell me the lot. Names, addresses, dates, amounts. Then show Sweeney you mean business. If they’re as nasty as you say, it might help to keep you alive.’

Tom agreed. For the next thirty minutes he spoke into his friend’s dictaphone. He told the story from the beginning, Pat’s bootlegging and his partnership with Salazar, the deceiving of his father and the manner in which Tom had come across the bank account. He showed Stuart the statement from United Credit Bank and narrated all his conversations with Sweeney, holding nothing back.

As soon as he finished speaking, Stuart’s secretary arrived with the printed agreements. Hudson gave her the
recorded
tape and asked her to get it transcribed. Tom looked uneasy but Stuart assured him she had heard much worse in her time. They examined the first document once more and Stuart handed Tom two copies: one for Sweeney to take to New York, the other for Clayton to keep for himself. A third copy was to be filed in Hudson’s office.