To Save a Son (32 page)

All his arrangements made, Franks poured himself a drink and sat back, feeling more contented than he had for a long time. It was because he was working again, he knew at once; involved in some positive activity instead of atrophying in a prisonlike house. He looked down at his reminder pad, upon which the school appointments were the last listing. How long
would
it be before everything was finally settled and he could get rid of all the nonsense? Maria and Tina's question, as well as his. Still unanswerable. Not more than months, Franks decided positively. He didn't give a damn what the FBI or Rosenberg or Ronan said or thought, he wasn't going to go on like this for more than a few months. Already it was doing things he didn't want to the kids and to Tina and to himself. Only temporary, he reassured himself. Everything would sort itself out once things became normal again.

Although he hadn't slept at all on the plane, Franks didn't feel any jet lag. He showered and changed and was actually making for the door when he remembered the man outside and supposed he should tell Waldo and Schultz. He telephoned both their rooms and they insisted on going with him, which meant he had to wait fifteen minutes. He had another drink to fill in the time.

The companies' main office was a tower block bordering the Thames, with a view of the river on one side and the City and St. Paul's Cathedral from the other. Franks had meant to be there ahead of everyone else, but once the agents were ready the traffic was bad, and two of the six directors were already waiting. The Americans came right to the door of the conference room with him and arranged themselves on chairs directly outside. The two waiting directors, James Podmore, who was a City solicitor, and William Hunter, a lawyer, looked curiously from Franks to the FBI agents and then back again.

“Sorry I'm late,” apologized Franks, coloring with embarrassment. Responding to their curiosity, he said, “It's a long and rather unfortunate story. I think we'd better wait until the others get here.”

They arrived almost at once. Anthony Dore was an accountant who sat with Podmore on the boards of the French and Italian companies. Nigel Kenham—who, with Hunter, sat on three boards—was a solicitor and the overall company secretary whom Franks had instructed to make the Swiss arrangements. Donald Wise and Thomas Phillips were, respectively, an accountant and a solicitor, who completed the necessary nonvoting directorships. Franks greeted them individually. They were all staid, respectable professional men, chosen specifically for that reason, the necessarily solid balance to his own entrepreneurial attitude. They were going to be shocked, Franks decided. For the first time he wondered if what he was going to tell them would make them unwilling to continue with him.

To the men who came after him, Franks said, “You saw those two men outside, when you came in?”

Kenham, who was plump—although not as fat as Waldo—wore glasses and looked owlish because of them, said, “Who were they?”

“FBI,” announced Franks. He'd spent weeks sneering at theatricality and was now indulging in it himself, he thought.

“What?” said Dore.

Indicating Podmore and Hunter, Franks said, “I've already referred to it as a long story.” He paused. “And an unfortunate one. Just how unfortunate I fully intend to explain to you. I'm going to need your help and support. For how long I don't know.”

Franks sat back, preparing the account in his mind. It was going to take a long time, he realized; he wished he'd thought of arranging some drinks. It was too late now. Franks didn't spare himself, didn't try to make himself appear less naive and foolish in the eyes of a group of men who checked everything a dozen different ways and then started all over again. He withheld only one thing—the reason, which he'd confessed to no one except Rosenberg in New York, exactly
why
he'd gone along with it. Knowing there had to be an explanation, he said it was because he'd implicitly—he now realized stupidly—trusted Nicky, because of the relationship between them. At the beginning of his speech there had been shifts and movements from the assembled group—Hunter and Phillips actually started making notes—but very quickly it all stopped; they sat regarding him with expressions that Franks decided went through the whole gamut from disbelief to astonishment to amazement to horror. The varying expressions remained when he finished. For a long time the stillness stayed, too.

It was Dore—astonished—who spoke first. “Good God!” he managed.

“This man was shot down—killed—because of what he knew!” said the horrified Hunter.

“That's not going to be one of the charges, but yes, unquestionably so.”

Wise—disbelieving—said, “But you're going to give evidence against them!”

“Which is why those two men are waiting outside the door,” said Franks. “It's very embarrassing—almost laughably so—but they insist it's necessary. It's something I've got to endure.”

The reactions were subsiding and they were becoming the professional men again. “As a board—in fact as a composite of several boards—I think we should try to think beyond the immediate personal and embarrassing difficulties of our controlling chairman and managing director,” said Podmore. “I think we should consider the possible repercussions of all this upon the companies when it becomes more public than it already has.”

“I've already tried to anticipate that,” said Franks at once. Indicating Kenham he told them of his instructions to create the Swiss and Liechtenstein holding companies, effectively to remove his name from the shareholders' register in London and in Spain, France and Italy, aware as he concluded that Podmore was shaking his head.

“The City doesn't like shell companies and nominee holdings,” said the lawyer.

“The City is full of them!” Franks had anticipated the argument. “Any hesitation in any case is over investments. I'm not—we're not—seeking investment. The only confidence we've got to maintain and worry about is that of the people who book our holidays and our villas and our cruises. As far as they are concerned, I will no longer be involved.”

“How long will you have to remain under this rather peculiar protection program before you can expect properly and fully to resume control?” asked Wise.

Franks paused. “The protection program isn't particularly peculiar,” he said. “A similar system has been in operation for some years now involving witnesses and events in Northern Ireland.”

“They're called supergrasses,” said the persistent Podmore. “They're criminals who've chosen to give evidence against their former criminal colleagues to avoid prosecution themselves.”

Franks sighed, supposing he should have expected the suspicion. “I've made it quite clear to you—honestly clear to you—how my involvement arose. Just as I've made it quite clear that I faced prosecution. We have been involved for many years now. Professionally involved. You've had those many years to come to know me. I hope you do, all of you. I know of some of the publicity in the past: the stupidity about being a pirate and a high flier. And you know how that was not ever—has not ever—been the case. At most I might be guilty—if in fact it is a crime—of being unconventional. But behind that unconventionality you all know, every one of you, how I have worked. The manner in which I've worked. And the honesty with which I've worked. I have been stupid, a fool. I've already made that abundantly clear, in what I've said—but I am not nor have I ever been a crook.”

There was another period of silence in the room as each man considered.

Podmore said, “It is not us you have to convince, is it?”

“Oh yes, it is!” said Franks at once. “You, most importantly. There are going to be several months when—although there'll be some telephone contact between us—you will effectively be running the companies. That's what I meant about seeking your support.”

“Is that how long it will be?” asked Wise. “Months?”

“That's all I intend it to be,” said Franks.

“Will you be the one to decide?” said Phillips.

“The interest of the authorities is in the grand jury hearings and the trial,” said Franks. “I don't consider the need for protection will remain long after that.”

“What happens if you are assassinated?” Hunter asked. He smiled, embarrassed. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but from what we've heard today it isn't. If the holding company is formulated in Switzerland and then established in Liechtenstein—and you were to die—what access would we have? We'd have legal responsibilities to discharge. We couldn't discharge them if we couldn't find out where the parent was.”

It was a good point and one he hadn't considered, realized Franks. He said at once, “There will be a properly drawn agreement—copies of which will be deposited with each company secretary, as well as the establishing lawyer in Switzerland—ordering that all the details should be made available to you for the disposal or any other action necessary involving the companies in the event of my death.”

“It's still all extremely irregular and unusual,” objected the doubtful Podmore. “I'm not sure that I like it—like it at all.”

“Mr. Podmore,” said Franks, curbing his irritation. “Let me assure you that I like it a damned sight less. I'm caught up in a situation I'm still not sure I completely understand. What I'm doing here today—and what I'm going to be doing in the subsequent days—is to salvage and sustain something, a great deal, in fact, from an unfortunate and regrettable situation. A situation which is causing me—and I'm sure will continue to cause me—very great embarrassment.”

“I can't understand how you allowed it to occur in the first place,” said Phillips.

“Neither can I, not now,” said Franks. “The approaches I had in New York seemed very good at the time. The best—and obvious—ones to take. All I can say—utterly inadequate though I know it to be—is that I'm sorry.” There was a time, he thought, not so very long ago, when to have made such an abject admission would have been difficult for him. It didn't seem to be, not any longer.

“I don't think the confidence of our customers is the only consideration,” said Kenham. “What about our suppliers? I know there's not a lot—not like, for instance, a service industry as such—but we're involved with office staff and airlines and printers and tourist organizations in other countries. What if they start to withdraw because of any nervousness in becoming associated with some sort of crime syndicate?”

“We get other suppliers,” said Franks.

“Just like that?” said Kenham.

“What other way is there?”

“Normally, quite a few,” agreed the solicitor. “In this case I don't think there would be.”

“There are always suppliers, for a price,” said Franks.

“Which we're prepared to pay?” demanded Podmore, alert to everything.

“Which
I'm
prepared to pay,” said Franks. “I remain the controlling shareholder, don't forget.”

“You've got your wife's vote, recording that?” said Phillips.

Thank God he'd remembered it, thought Franks; he hadn't expected an easy meeting but he hadn't quite imagined such obvious opposition, either. From his briefcase he produced the notarized proxy. He offered it first to Phillips, the questioner, and there was another gap in the discussion while it was passed around the table and each man—none willing to trust the examination of his partner—steadily read through everything to ensure that it was satisfactory. Franks waited until the proxy had gone completely around the table and then demanded, careless of showing his irritation, “Well?”

“It seems to be in order,” said Phillips.

“Of course it's in order,” said Franks, still irritated. “Just as it will be in order to pay higher prices to alternative suppliers if those that already exist withdraw. The essential exercise now—the essential, vital necessity—is to protect what is after all the major part of our business.…” When nobody responded, Franks said, “And that is why I've summoned this conference here today. I repeat: I'm seeking your support. Now!” He was pleading again, Franks realized, unconcerned.

Once more silence settled upon the room, each of the gathered directors looking around, but each appearing reluctant actually to meet another's gaze. It was Podmore, the perpetual doubter, who spoke first. The solicitor said, “I take completely the point that has been so eloquently made by our chairman and managing director: of his unblemished character and reputation in every dealing with me, from the moment of our first association. While it has a direct and important bearing upon the affairs of the various companies with which we are professionally associated, what occurred in the Bahamas and in Bermuda
did
occur with separate, completely unconnected companies, apart from the extremely peripheral linkup between the hotels and the visiting of the cruise ship.…”

Got them! thought Franks, acknowledging for the first time how uncertain he had become during the meeting. Podmore was the overcautious obstacle. Once he committed himself—which was what he was doing now—the rest would obediently follow, like sheep after the bellwether.

“I therefore propose a motion in complete support of our chairman and managing director,” continued Podmore. He stopped, not for agreement from the others but to reinforce his next point; it came to Franks like a punch. “But not unconditionally,” went on Podmore. “Professionally I—all of us—have an obligation to work for the good of the companies. I do not think we can work in that capacity for an indeterminate time. I am prepared to agree to everything that has been suggested here today on the condition that it is for a period not exceeding six months from the date of this meeting. And further, that company managers are elevated—not necessarily in any voting capacity—onto the reconstituted boards of the operating companies to enable us properly to monitor the week by week, month by month, working of those companies. I will only agree to continue on those understandings; understandings which guarantee a complete and open scrutiny of each and every company if in the opinion of any of their working boards such scrutiny becomes necessary.”