“You could say that, mate. Talk to you later.”
AT SEVEN THE NEXT MORNING
, Faisal al-Assad and his four guests headed north in his black SUV. From Manhattan he’d taken the Cross Bronx Expressway and then the Hutchinson River Parkway. From there it had been a straight shot up to the Connecticut border, and directly through Danbury and Waterbury. By this point they had covered a hundred miles and were deep in the New England countryside, with the terrain growing more and more hilly as they made their way up toward the distant Berkshires.
Their new highway was Route 8, and there were no more towns, just rolling hills leading into the mountains, thirty-five miles of woodland and farmland, a bucolic green joy for tired New Yorkers’ eyes. Except city-boy Faisal hated it, and his passengers could not have cared less if they were driving through a ghetto. They had other things on their minds.
It was almost 10:30 when they ran down the steep hill to the old mill town of Torrington, which lies in the heart of the Naugatuck River Valley up in the far Northwest part of the state. The outskirts of the town stretch
right up into the hills, and driving from one side to the other feels like a U-shaped section of the Rockies.
But it’s a thriving little town, with a great amount of redevelopment and surrounded by spectacular countryside and medium-range mountains. It is also home to a large number of banks and real estate offices, which are apt to spring up in these progressive communities within striking range of New York.
Faisal found a parking place in one of the town’s open lots. He instructed his team to find breakfast on Main Street, and that he’d join them in an hour. He gathered his brief case and set off across the street to the Connecticut State Bank, where he opened a new account. Faisal explained he was planning to buy a farming property in the area, and then produced his social security number, New York address, driver’s license, U.S. passport, and printed stationery from his place of business, the
Anglo-Saudi Oil Corporation
of which he was a director, listed on the headed paper. He showed two credit cards and the name and phone number of an eminent Saudi Prince in the embassy in Washington as a reference.
He pulled out $300 in cash with a banker’s draft from Citibank for a further ten thousand dollars. He filled out the official signature card, adding one more name, for which he would take a spare card and have it delivered back to the bank. The name was Ibrahim Sharif, whom he explained was a colleague from Saudi Arabia who was transferring to New York for a year.
Faisal collected a temporary checkbook and details of his account number that would allow him to wire a substantial sum of money in during the next few days. Faisal concluded the transactions and walked further down Main Street to the newish offices of the Bank of New England. There he conducted the exact same operation, walking out with a second bank account in the town of Torrington, a place that was somewhat richer since his arrival from along the banks of the swift-flowing Naugatuck River.
At this point he went in search of Ibrahim, Yousaf, Ben, and Abu, who were ensconced at the Sugarloaf Café, drinking coffee and eating blueberry pancakes with Vermont maple syrup and bacon. Faisal joined them and ordered fruit salad, dry toast, and black coffee. Faisal explained to the men that he needed to find a real estate office, and that it would be inappropriate for them to be seen anywhere near such a place, or indeed a bank. He told them to return to the car and wait for him, and no one
opposed this cautious approach. Faisal paid the check and walked out onto the sidewalk alone.
So far as Faisal could tell, there were more real estate offices in Torrington than there were diamond dealers on West Forty-Seventh Street. He looked in the windows and noted that many of them were principally involved in the new developments in the downtown and outlying areas. The one he chose was Cutlers and Sons, the oldest (established 1903), which displayed pictures of country houses and farmland.
Faisal entered and introduced himself. He told the broker, a cheerful young girl of about twenty-two, he was looking for a small farm in a specific area, up to perhaps two hundred acres. He was given a local map and asked to detail the area he wanted. Faisal drew a circle around a stretch of land close to the 1,700-foot-high Haystack Mountain near the village of Norfolk.
“Sir,” asked the girl, who turned out to be Miss Aimee Cutler, greatgranddaughter of the founder, “do you want to farm the land or just own it for privacy? Because farming up here is difficult.”
“It is?” replied Faisal, who had never even seen a plough or a wheat crop in his entire life. “Why is it so hard?”
“Do you know Norfolk’s nickname?” asked Aimee, smiling. “It’s called the Icebox of Connecticut—very high elevation, freezing winters, and cool summers. It’s the last bit that people like.”
“That’s the bit I should like,” said Faisal. “I’m used to the heat, but New York is stifling in July and August.”
“I’m sure you understand that property around here is surprisingly expensive, although it’s a lot cheaper now than it was four years ago. Right here we’re talking millions. We have a 160-acre farm in your area, with an eighteenth-century farmhouse for $1.5 million. And a real nice contemporary house standing in twenty-two fairly isolated acres for $1.3 million. Others run up to $3.5 and above, if you’re looking for a grand residence.”
“Actually, it’s more the privacy I’m looking for,” he replied. “And since I own a large part of a construction company I’m happy with an unobtrusive residence that I can develop. But I do need outbuildings.”
“Almost everything around here with land has outbuildings, so that’s not a problem. You really can’t leave stuff out in the winter because of the cold and snow.”
“I won’t be here in the winters, I assure you,” said Faisal. “But I expect I’ll have equipment—mowers and tractors—and I would like them locked up.”
“Exactly,” said Aimee. “Now let me take down your details, and I’ll give you some brochures to look through. And then we can fix a day, and go out and see a few properties. How much of a hurry are you in?”
“Big,” said Faisal. “I plan to make some decisions very quickly on this trip. Perhaps we could do something this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
“Of course. Will this be a cash sale, or do you need to sell first, or arrange a mortgage?”
“Cash,” said Faisal, utilizing the magic word that is apt to put a rocket under the backsides of all real estate brokers.
“Can I ask why the hurry?”
“Of course,” replied the Saudi financier. “I have a daughter going to the Canaan Academy in the next couple of weeks. Flying in from Riyadh. I would like to have a place near her, for her mother and I to visit, and for her to entertain her friends.”
Aimee Cutler could scarcely believe her luck. Big sale, big hurry, big commission. The broker’s paradise.
Leave it to me,” she said. “Please sit down over there by the fire and I’ll bring you some coffee and reading material.”
Faisal sat facing the window. He stared out to the west, toward the distant peaks of the Canaan Mountains, which towered over the same academy about which he had just told such a thunderous, and, in a way, deeply ironic lie.
FAR AWAY FROM
the evil unfolding below the Canaan Mountains, one of the midtown branches of Gotham National was moving its daily mountain of wire transfers. And, as in all major banking organizations, there were senior bank officers keeping a careful eye on those transfers.
Generally, they were searching for stuff like obvious money-laundering, drug money being ferried around between suspected dealers and banks in Colombia and Panama. They noted big amounts of cash being deposited, and they watched for U.S. nationals moving heavy sums to tax havens on various tropical islands.
They were not especially keen to make reports to the FBI, except in cases of blatant dishonesty or danger to the population of the United States. But they liked to know what was going on, principally because it suited them to be particularly helpful when the big government agencies came trawling for information.
The current financial climate did not encourage bankers to risk looking ridiculous, or unaware, or too greedy, or even furtive. These days it was
necessary to be right up front. And the scions of Gotham National, which had darned nearly gone bankrupt in the Crash of 2008, were making absolutely certain they had their fingers on their own pulse. At all times.
There was something striking about a transfer made this morning, which had been phoned in to the most senior banking officer in the building, Jarvis Goldman. Goldman took personal care of this major account, which was utilized by the Saudi businessman, Faisal al-Assad, a client known personally to Jarvis.
Faisal had instructed the sum of $2 million to be wire-transferred—$1.5 million to a small branch of the Connecticut State Bank in Torrington, and $500,000 to the Bank of New England in the same town.
This was not corporate money. This was money from Mr. al-Assad’s own deposit account, into which $3 to $4 million was deposited every few months from the Anglo-Saudi Investment Bank on Olaya Street, Riyadh.
It was not unusual for large sums to be moved around the country, or indeed the world, by Mr. al-Assad, but these were bigger amounts than usual. And Jarvis Goldman wondered what was going on in the mountains of NW Connecticut, which was proving so very costly.
Still, it was not really his business if a multimillionaire Saudi businessman was buying something expensive up in the cool mountains on the New York-Massachusetts border. Nonetheless he made a note of the transfers, and entered them on his personal computer file, the one labeled, simply, “Unusual.”’
He formally authorized the wire drafts to go through to the two modest Torrington banks, but then he called the Connecticut State Bank and verified the basics of the account—that it was a personal deposit in the name of Faisal al-Assad, and that the personal details matched those in the Gotham files. He checked the social security number and verified Mr. Faisal was the sole signature on the account. The Torrington officer said at present this was so, but that a new signature, Mr. Sharif, from Saudi Arabia, was expected to be added in the next couple of days.
Jarvis Goldman knew there was no other signature permitted on the other al-Assad accounts. And he had never heard of anyone named Sharif, except for Omar in
Lawrence of Arabia.
Again he made an entry in his “Unusual” file. And still he wondered what the smooth and sophisticated Faisal al-Assad was buying, up in the remote and chilly mountains of northwest Connecticut.
He probably would not have bothered so much had that second signature been an obvious American. But there was a general terrorist alert in
New York City after the bomb at Penn Station. And John Strauss had e-mailed a page to hundreds of people detailing the names and identities of four Arabs he wanted located.
Among those hundreds was a select group of around thirty New York bankers, including Goldman. He could not remember offhand the precise four names. But Jarvis Goldman was a devoted member of the Sayanim. Four minutes later, the phone rang in the front showroom of Banda Fine Arts.
SHORTLY BEFORE NOON
, Faisal checked his four-man team into the Royal Inn in Torrington. He ordered chicken sandwiches and coffee to be delivered to them at one o’clock, and asked them to stay in their rooms and watch television for the afternoon. They should not under any circumstances be seen around town.
He walked back to the real estate office and waited for Aimee Cutler, who drove her car around to the front and picked him up. Aimee headed for the Norfolk area by a direct but narrow network of passes and country lanes, never even seeing a main road. She covered the distance pretty quickly, too, before stopping at a large farm on the south side of the village.
“This is the one you liked in the brochure,” she said. “It’s a very nice house, and sits in eighty acres of farmland. They’re asking $2 million plus, but they probably won’t get it,” she said.
Al-Assad feigned interest, but this house was to close to a group of houses on the edge of Norfolk. He wanted seclusion, a place where comings and goings would not be noticed. He did not care particularly about the price, but it ought not to be ostentatious.
The next property they saw was ideal except for the entrance. The house itself was situated at the end of a long driveway, and more or less surrounded by mature trees. Its outbuildings were perfect, and it had four bedrooms. But that driveway emerged onto the principal road in and out of Norfolk, less than four hundred yards from the start of the built-up area. And it had enormous black wrought-iron gates with gold-painted tips on the upright struts.
The price was $1.4 million, and if it had had a rough old post-and-rail farm gate Assad would probably have bought it. But these gates were only a couple of ticks short of neon-lit, and they were electrically operated. Traffic in and out of that house would be too public, and there would be a lot of waiting around for the electric mechanism to kick in. Aimee and Faisal waited for almost a minute to drive in.
The sale died in that minute, and they moved on to the next house, which Aimee had warned was a little run down—real estate code for “absolute wreck.” Mountainside Farm stood in the foothills of Haystack Mountain, which rose to its north.
The house was within thirty acres of the south bank of the Blackberry River, which could be crossed by road from West Norfolk, and it was less than two miles from Canaan Academy.
The property met all of Faisal’s requirements. For a start it did not even have gates. Its entrance was on a lonely road, through a gap in the woods onto a cart-track. The woods were probably fifty yards deep when you drove in, and from there the drive was blacktopped and ran another three hundred yards to the house, which was, as suspected, a wreck.