Numbered Account

Suddenly, Nick was accosted by a memory of his parents quarreling. One of countless spats that had poisoned the house the winter before his father's murder. He heard his father's commanding baritone echoing through the hallways and up the stairs to where he sat perched in his pajamas, listening. Eerily, he remembered every word.

"He's left me no choice, Vivien. I keep telling you it's not about my authority. I'd wash the floors if Zurich told me to."

"But you don't even know that this man's a crook. You've told me yourself. You're guessing. Please, Alex, stop fighting this. Don't be so hard on yourself. Just do as you're told."

"I won't work with him. The bank may choose to do business with criminals. I will not."

What criminals had his father meant?

"That's why I'm telling you," Sprecher was saying. "Keep your nose clean. Do as you're told and Schweitzer will stay off your back. If rumors about our cooperating with the authorities are true, it will be his job to clamp down on all portfolio managers. He is compliance."

Nick sat bolt upright on his stool, his attention rooted once again in the here and now. "What are you talking about? What rumors?"

"Nothing official," Sprecher said quietly. "We'll find out Tuesday morning. But it seems there's too much hue and cry about our conduct these days. The banks have reasoned that they'd prefer to cooperate voluntarily rather than face some form of mandatory regulation. I don't know the p's and q's of it, but for a little while at least, we'll be helping the authorities gather some information about our clients. Not about everybody, mind you. The federal prosecutor will examine evidence presented him and decide which numbered accounts the authorities have a right to examine."

"Jesus Christ. It sounds like a witch hunt."

"Indeed," agreed Sprecher. "They're looking under every rock for the next Pablo Escobar."

Nick caught his friend's gaze, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. Or the Pasha. "God have mercy on the bank who's hiding him," he said.

"And the man who turns him in." Sprecher raised two fingers at the barman. "Noch zwei Bier, bitte."

"Amen," said Nick. But he wasn't thinking about the beers.

CHAPTER 6

At 8:30 A.M. the following Tuesday, a convocation of portfolio managers was held on the Fourth Floor. The subject was the bank's response to escalating demands it formally cooperate with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and other international agencies like it. The meeting constituted Nick's first invitation to set foot on the hallowed Fourth Floor, known throughout the bank as the Emperor's Lair- in deference to the Chairman- as well as his first visit to the executive boardroom.

The boardroom was cavernous. The doorway was twelve feet high, the ceiling twenty. Nick walked solemnly across a plush maroon carpet whose borders were inlaid with the symbols of Switzerland 's twenty-six cantons. At the carpet's center, under a prodigious mahogany conference table, lay the seal of the United Swiss Bank: a black Hapsburg eagle rampant dexter on a mustard yellow field, its broad wings outstretched and three keys grasped in its talons. A swirling golden ribbon, captured in the eagle's prominent beak, advertised the bank's dictum: Pecuniat Honorarum Felicitatus. Money welcomed gladly.

Nick stood with Peter Sprecher at the room's far corner, near the windows that overlooked the Bahnhofstrasse. He knew he should feel intimidated, but he was too busy watching the other portfolio managers. To a man, they gawked at the room's trappings like a bunch of nervous tourists- pinching the port leather of the conference chairs, running a discreet hand along the burnished wood paneling, puffing up with pride as they studied the bank's elaborate seal. It was the first visit to the Fourth Floor for many of his colleagues, too.

He shifted his view to the doorway and caught sight of Sylvia Schon entering the boardroom. She wore a black skirt and blazer. Her hair was pulled back severely into a tight bun. She looked smaller than he remembered, though not the least bit vulnerable in this sea of male executives. She moved around the room greeting her colleagues, smiling, shaking hands, and exchanging a hushed word here and there. It was a textbook display of working a room, and he was impressed.

Abruptly, the boardroom fell silent. Wolfgang Kaiser entered and strode to a chair positioned directly beneath a portrait of the bank's founder, Alfred Escher-Wyss. Kaiser did not sit down but stood with one hand placed on the table before him. His eyes traveled the room, a general of the army appraising his troops before a perilous operation.