Bloodmoney (39 page)

“Any other names?”

Perkins thought about Sophie Marx and the implicit pact they had made to help each other escape their situations.

“No,” he answered. “Just find Cronin.”

Perkins’s bad day wasn’t over yet. Late in the afternoon, as he was trying to negotiate a line of credit from some wealthy Saudi clients that would allow him to keep Alphabet Capital afloat, he received a visit from the senior Metropolitan Police constable who was heading the delegation that had invaded his workspace these past three days. Tarullo was down the hall, trying to fend off private litigants who were already preparing civil suits against Perkins. He raced back to Perkins’s office when the chief constable arrived.

The chief constable, followed by two of his officers, entered Perkins’s magnificent workspace. It was a glorious summer afternoon; the streets outside the local pubs were already filling with young people ready to drink away the summer’s night. Across Piccadilly at the Ritz, they were finishing up with afternoon tea, tidying up the scones and jam and cucumber sandwiches.

The policeman looked sheepish, like a doctor who was about to perform a procedure that wasn’t very dignified for the patient or himself.

“I must inform you that you are under arrest, Mr. Perkins. The Serious Fraud Office, in conjunction with my superiors in Scotland Yard and the crown prosecutors, have determined that there is a serious risk of flight in your case if you are allowed to remain at liberty. So I am afraid that we must take you into custody now.”

The two policemen stepped forward. They weren’t embarrassed in the slightest. They liked the idea of arresting a billionaire and frog-walking him down to the squad car.

“I object,” said Tarullo. “Mr. Perkins is a U.S. citizen. I demand that the U.S. Embassy be informed.”

Perkins laughed at this mention of the embassy, the first good laugh he’d had in three days. He put up his hand for Tarullo to be quiet.

“If you are prepared to come with us voluntarily, Mr. Perkins, I am willing to waive the usual formalities of handcuffs and the like. And we can take you down the freight elevator to the parking garage in the basement, where we have a car waiting. There won’t be any unpleasantness with the media that way.”

“I’ll come voluntarily,” Perkins said quickly.

“Wait a minute,” said Tarullo, repeating once more, “I object, goddamn it.”

“Shut up, Vince. A British jail is probably the safest place I could be right now. It will give me a chance to do some thinking.”

He walked toward the constable, his arms outstretched.

“Take me. I’m yours,” said Perkins with almost a laugh. There was something liberating about the act of surrender.

The two British cops were on either side of him now, grasping his arms. Perkins nodded to the constable, and they began walking out the door of the office, onto the trading floor. Most of the traders had gone home, but the ones that were left watched this little “perp walk” in astonished silence. What on earth had this brilliant man, seemingly impervious to bad fortune, done to bring about such a sudden and devastating reversal?

Perkins strode toward the back elevator, accompanied by his three escorts in their constabulary blue. As he passed the desks, he waved to several of his longtime employees. Though he had made them tens of millions of dollars over the years, they did not wave back.

MONS, BELGIUM

Joseph Sabah’s dog, Émile,
needed a walk. That was what got them out of the ivy-covered house in Waterloo in the first place. When the miniature poodle finally woke up from the drugs that had been shot into him, he did his business on the rug in the hallway. A security officer proposed to take Émile out for a quick walk, but his owner, Mr. Sabah, insisted on coming along, too, claiming that they would torture the dog if he wasn’t present. Soon a small delegation had emerged from the house into the backyard.

The poodle inevitably started barking. That attracted the attention of the neighbors, who weren’t used to a dog on the property. One of them, evidently a busybody, called the police to report that there were strange people in the house next door and that the quiet couple who usually lived there had disappeared several days before. The cops might have ignored the call, but for that.

A blue-striped Belgian police car arrived at the door. The CIA officer from Brussels station had to show his embassy ID and do some fast talking to convince the gendarme that a ring of kidnappers hadn’t taken over the house, which was, in fact, precisely what had happened.

Sabah was quickly bundled upstairs when the doorbell rang. Major Kirby stuck a towel in his mouth as a precautionary measure. That didn’t do much for rapport with the man who was the team’s only channel of contact with the Pakistani mastermind behind the killing of American intelligence officers. They would have to move from the house now to another secure location, bringing along an angry and perhaps uncooperative source.

Sophie Marx proposed that she sit down with Joseph Sabah after the barking-dog incident. During the twenty-four hours that the group had been working together, she had emerged as its leader. She argued now that the only way to regain Sabah’s confidence was to be honest with him, even at the risk of violating operational security. Otherwise, he would be useless to them. Nobody disagreed.

Sabah was in his room upstairs, still upset about how he had been manhandled, when the police arrived. Marx knocked, and when he didn’t answer, she gently pushed open the door. She was bringing a cup of tea and a plate of cookies as a peace offering.

“It’s me, Edith. I brought you a little something to eat, Mr. Sabah.” She brandished the tray. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Sabah was scowling, but she was already well into the room, and he didn’t turn her away. She set the tray down on the bedside table and pulled up a chair for herself.

“I’m very sorry for the way we have treated you,” she said. “I don’t blame you for being angry with us. I would be, too.”

“I am absolutely furious,” he answered. “Look at how you people behave. No wonder everyone hates America.”

“You’re right,” she said.

She looked over at the plate of cookies. There were some Bonne Maman
gallettes
and a stack of chocolate-covered Petit Écolier biscuits. She took one of the dark chocolate biscuits from the plate.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“Of course not. They’re yours. You brought them. You can eat them all. I am not going to help you simply because you bring me sweet biscuits.”

She ate the rest of her cookie and handed him the plate.

“Take one, for goodness’ sake. They’re delicious.”

He took a Petit Écolier and had a small bite, then a bigger one.

“You are correct. This is quite delicious. But you did not come to bring me sweets.”

“I came to explain something to you, Mr. Sabah. Maybe then you will understand why we have been treating you so strangely.”

“Go ahead. But I will not change my mind.”

“The man we were talking about before, the man who called himself George. There is something I didn’t tell you about him.”

“This is a surprise? Ha. You never tell the truth, any of you. Why should I believe you now? This is like Émile chasing his tail.”

Marx ignored his comment. She leaned toward Sabah.

“This man George tried to kill me a few days ago in Pakistan. He planted a bomb in my hotel room, which was meant for me. Instead, it killed a Pakistani soldier who was acting as my bodyguard and trying to protect me. They took him out on a gurney. One of his arms had been blown off. When I close my eyes, I can see his body.”

“I did not know that. I am sorry for you.”

“That’s not all. George killed four people I worked with. Two of them were my friends. They were good people, but they died bad deaths. That’s why this is personal for me.”

“I wish someone had said this before and treated me like a friend instead of an enemy.”

“We should have. That was our mistake. I hope it’s not too late.”

Sabah was still scrolling his catalogue of victimization.

“Those men downstairs are ignorant. They put a towel in my mouth so I could not breathe. They hurt me, but why? What did I do?”

“They’re just soldiers. And they are not in charge, Mr. Sabah, I am. That’s what I wanted to tell you. This is my responsibility. I have to do something, and you are my only hope. I know you think that we’re all liars, but I’m telling you the truth. If you won’t help me, then this man will kill more of my friends. He may kill me.”

“Is this true?”

“Yes. I need you. That’s what I am saying. We all need you. Otherwise we are in a terrible situation, and I don’t know how it will end.”

Sabah lowered his head. He was a generous man, in his way. He wanted to be helpful to people who needed him. That was why he had been so easy for the Pakistani to manipulate in the first place.

“What do I have to do?” he asked. “You said before that you wanted to use me as the bait. Is that it?”

“Yes. I want you to contact this Pakistani who called himself George. Whatever channel you used before, I want you to use it again. I want you to tell him that you have new information that you need to send him. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But I told you before: The contact information is on my computer at home.”

“Will you come with us now, so that you can get your computer from home and move to another safe place? We can’t stay here now that the police have visited.”

“Can Émile go outside at the new hiding place? He needs exercise. He gets depressed if I do not take him out, morning and night.”

“Of course, and he’s such a cute dog, by the way. So enthusiastic. But you have to promise to help me. No shouting, no calling out for help, no running away to the Belgian police. If you do that, then the men downstairs will get nervous again. That would be awful. So can you be a good helper for me?”

“I will help, but only for you. You are a trickster, too, but you are smarter. The others I do not want to see.”

They took two cars, the van in the garage and a “clean” Audi sedan provided by the station. Sabah and Marx sat in the back of the Audi with Émile, while Major Kirby and the rest of the team crammed into the van.

Brussels station had been watching Sabah’s apartment on the Avenue George Bergmann and they reported that it was clear. The Audi idled out front while Sabah and Marx went in together to collect his things. He found the laptop computer and bundled it into a case. Marx suggested that he should pack a change of clothes, too, and any medicines and personal things he might need.

“How long will we be away?” he asked as he collected his socks and underwear from his top drawer. He already had gathered Émile’s dog dish and blanket, a bag of dry dog food and a leash.

“A day or two,” she answered. “Assuming we catch him. By then you’ll be a hero and we’ll fly you to Disney World.”

“I don’t want to go to America, ever. When we are finished, I want to go home. How soon will that be?”

“Soon,” she said, leading him back downstairs toward the car before he changed his mind.

The new safe house was a freestanding brick residence south of Brussels, on the military reservation in Mons where NATO had its headquarters. The location was secure and easily guarded. It had a large fenced yard where a dog could bark until he dropped dead without attracting attention. The house had just been remodeled for one of the NATO generals, who had been evicted on short notice.

Marx sat down with Sabah in a large study that had been set aside for them on the ground floor of the villa. He was guarding the computer bag on his lap.

“Do you want me to turn it on?” He held the laptop the same protective way he did his dog.

Marx knew it was urgent to get the information, but she also knew not to rush. Once Sabah turned over these secrets, everyone would be splashing about and the water would get muddy. This was a last chance to get a clear look at the man and what he knew.

“Not yet,” she said. “Let’s talk a minute first. Tell me how you got started helping us. Remind me what year it was? And maybe you can remember who contacted you and what they asked you to do. You probably think we all work together at the CIA and know the same secrets, but it doesn’t work that way.”

Sabah smiled and shook his head. America was a very strange country. It was a miracle they didn’t have even worse problems.

“The program began in 2002, I think. But they did not ask for my help until three years later, in 2005. They were trying to follow the money flows of Al-Qaeda. They had developed software to look at patterns, you see. They would examine all the data electronically, so that they could follow anyone who had ever touched the bank account or credit card of someone in their database. Then they would look at that person’s accounts, and run the traces all over again. It was simple link analysis. They told us that the digital space was our best weapon. Everything had an address, and every event left a signature.”

“Why did they need you, Mr. Sabah?”

“Sometimes they had trouble with the Arabic names when they were doing their analysis. They needed people who were cleared into the SWIFT system who could help them make it work. We were consultants. We had to be approved by their security before they would let us into the program. One day we had a videoconference with one of the Americans back in Washington, the big boss who was running things. He gave us, what do you call it, a ‘pep talk.’ He was very loud.”

“Do you remember his name or where he worked, Mr. Sabah? Maybe I could go back and talk to him.”

“The name was a false one, I am sure. Mr. Smith. Mr. Jones. I did not take it seriously. But he told us that he worked at the Counterterrorism Center. That was real, I think.”

“Yes, sir. The CTC was running that program, with the Treasury Department. What did the man look like?”

“He was thin, tough. He looked like a soldier. I can’t remember the rest, really. The video wasn’t very clear.”

“That’s okay. I’ll try to find out who that was. Now, you said there were other consultants who were involved in this surveillance program. Do you remember where they were from?”