The Clayton Account (39 page)

Sean wanted to know how he had managed to claim the bank account and as Tom relived that triumphant day in Zurich, Sean laughed.

‘They had it in Pat’s name?’ he asked incredulously.

‘And later they transferred it to my father’s.’ Tom explained how he had tried to hand back 38 million but had been refused. The message was that whatever he did, Tom would be killed anyway. Sean asked who the threats were coming from and Tom recounted what he had learned from Dick Sweeney about the Salazar money-laundering operation.

‘What’s it like, living amongst them?’ Sean asked unexpectedly, then added as he noted Tom’s perplexed stare: ‘The English?’

‘Oh, they’re okay,’ he said, afraid it was the wrong thing to say. ‘My wife is English, you know.’

Sean nodded understandingly and stood up. He bent his elbows tight and pushed his arms back, his gaze far out to sea.

‘You think these men are going to kill you, now?’ He said it almost casually.

‘Yes.’ Tom had no doubts left.

‘Are you a man of peace, then? Like your father?’ As
Sean
turned round to face him, Tom saw that any trace of warmth had disappeared from his great-uncle’s eyes.

‘No,’ Tom replied holding his gaze. ‘No, I’m not. Not like Dad.’

‘I did not think so, Thomas Clayton. You’re like the rest of us. You’ll do as you have to do. And bloody your hands if need be.’

‘Are you asking me something?’ Tom ventured, unable to keep a tremor of fear from his voice.

‘I’m
telling
you something,’ Sean bellowed and unexpectedly burst into laughter. ‘And I’ve a good mind to put you to work. How’s that? Your life in return for service?’

Tom stared at him, speechless.

‘You don’t approve of me, do you, now?’ Sean was no longer laughing.

‘No,’ Tom thought of his father and found denials pointless. ‘Not really. Not of the way you go about –’

‘You’ve a lot of balls coming here begging for help,’ Sean interrupted him fiercely, ‘then passing judgement on matters you don’t understand. D’you think I’ll stop those dagoes with persuasion, now?’

‘Just this once, Sean?’ he pleaded. ‘For my family? For myself I do not care –’

‘And for my sins I do believe you,’ Sean said into Tom’s eyes. ‘Look behind you, Thomas Clayton. Tell me what you see.’

Tom turned and looked down along the rolling hills. The village they had come from was not visible, but beyond, to the east, he could just discern the skyline of some large town or city. He described all as he saw it, without names, of course, for he did not know them. When he finished, Sean spoke up: ‘I never look east. You know why?’

Tom remained silent.

‘To be sure to never see that bloody Union Jack flapping arrogantly in the wind. On Irish soil, across their border! And that sight,’ he said, slowly now, turning to face Tom, ‘I do not wish to see. It might just kill me!’

‘But you’ve already won, Sean,’ said Tom appeasingly. ‘The peace formula for a united Ireland –’

‘It is only words, Thomas. Just words. We Irish are supposed to be good at talking, but when it comes to words, it is the English that always look to have the final say. They are both clever and deceitful.’

‘All the same, I do believe you’ve won.’

‘That’s what they say in Dublin also. That the fight now is political. And that it will cost more money than the war. But I’ve heard it all before. So I shall help you, Thomas Clayton. I’ll sort out your little problem in New York.’

‘I am grateful, Uncle Sean. Eternally grateful.’

‘And I shall tell you just how grateful,’ Sean’s craggy old features had turned granite-hard. ‘As you have no business with that money, you will hand it over to my people.’

‘What? All of it?’

‘All of it, indeed. Pat would have liked that. Yes, very much.’

‘What about the five million I took? I told you … I used it to cover …’ Tom said nervously.

‘Well, you’ll just have to steal it back again. You are a banker, are you not?’

‘How … do you want the money?’

‘Is it still in Switzerland?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I expect we’ll take it there. I shall let you know when the time comes. Meanwhile, I imagine you’ll have it invested, yes? Earning interest and the like?’

Tom swallowed hard and admitted it.

‘Very well, then you keep the interest – for your
troubles!’
Sean chuckled. ‘And some notice, I suppose?’

‘Ninety days.’

‘That’s settled then. Three months from this day you’ll pay up. Until we are done, some of our London people will protect you. You’ll not see them, but they’ll be around.’

‘Thank you, Sean, thank you …’ Yet even as he spoke Tom was calculating how much would be left of his five million.

‘Just looking after our investment, young Thomas. But you may care to remember that, when all others deserted you, it was your homeland that lent a hand. In the future, you must come and see us every year. Bring your children, and your English wife. We’ll talk again then. Right now,’ he yelled against a sudden gust of wind as he set off back down the path, ‘it’s yourself will be buying the drinks. For the whole village, like a good Irish boy from America. I’m not a money man myself, of course. But I would have thought that three months’ interest, on forty-three million dollars, should be good for a round or two.’

17

AT ELEVEN IN
the morning Sweeney was let out of jail. He was accompanied by one of England’s finest criminal lawyers, who had called the police’s bluff. All charges against his client, a respected New York attorney, were based on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence. Richard Sweeney’s version of events, that he had come to London to give a client some advice, was the more plausible. The rights or wrongs of the actions of Mr Sweeney’s clients, be they Clayton, Salazar or anyone else, had no bearing on these charges. And, in any event, it was preposterous to even suggest that counsel to a criminal could in any manner be impeached.

‘If that were possible, Mr Archer,’ the QC had stated with authority, ‘I myself should be jailed for the rest of my natural life!’

Then he became seriously threatening: about the court action that would be taken against the police and the formal protest that would undoubtedly be lodged by the American Bar through the Foreign Office for this total disrespect towards the most fundamental of rights, that
of
individuals to be legally represented whatever their alleged crime. Then, and speaking strictly off the record, he suggested that, if anything, the matter would be best dealt with by the American courts. Since his client wanted nothing but to return home, a lot of unnecessary embarrassment could be avoided by letting him do precisely that.

Once back in his hotel Sweeney saw the message to call a Mr Salazar. A mobile phone number in America was given and he went out to the street to use a public box. He learnt that Joe had been visited by agents from the FBI who explained that his son had been involved in a kidnapping and extortion and lost his life. Salazar had told them nothing, though this had been the worst month of his life. One hundred and seventy million had marched out of his front door, and now he had lost his son.

‘So I want you in New York,’ Salazar stated ominously. ‘
Now
.’

Sweeney, anxious to leave London in any event, caught a flight home that afternoon. He declined the six-course lunch and instead asked for a second whisky, noting gratefully that the seat next to him was vacant. Sometimes first-class cabins were good for drumming up business, but that was irrelevant today. He had six hours to do some serious thinking before braving Salazar.

He could try buying his life with blackmail. Sweeney kept secret records in his vault, each file containing sufficient ammunition to put away most of his clients for a long time. But the Banker was endowed with that volatile Latin temper – he would probably cut his own nose if it came to it.

No, reasoning with Joe would never work. Sweeney would have to swallow his pride and seek help from his own father. Eamon Sweeney was old and frail but Salazar would have to listen to him; there were still outstanding
debts
from the old days. Yes, that was it, Sweeney felt. And it was not just the whisky. He called the steward and said he had changed his mind about the lunch. He felt better as he waited and pulled deep on his fifth Chivas.

They landed in New York six whiskies later. Proud of holding his liquor well, Sweeney was still aware of being drunk. He maintained a degree of decorum passing through Customs and Immigration, but once inside the Arrivals area he felt nausea threaten and went searching for a lavatory.

Later Harper admitted he had made a bad mistake. He should have picked up Sweeney as he stepped out of the aircraft, but instead he elected to wait for him outside. He guessed – wrongly – that the lawyer might go straight to the Laundry Man’s office, which by then was well and truly bugged. After twenty minutes of waiting, the DEA men became worried and ran into the building, urged on by a nasty premonition. They found Sweeney’s body slumped over a toilet bowl, his coat and shirt covered in vomit, his broken neck twisting his head macabrely to one side.

It had been the easiest strong-arm job that Hector Perez had ever done.

At the time the DEA men were running frantically around Kennedy Airport, Joe Salazar had temporarily cast Richard Sweeney from his mind. He received the full details of Morales’ unhappy ending, news that started him shouting obscenities and firing verbal vitriol at his staff. He had just let go of $71 million of the best kind. The kind belonging to a dead client. The kind you do not ever have to hand back.

‘
Hijo de puta
, Speer!’ he screamed at the top of his voice. ‘The Costa Rican son of a whore!’

No way, he kept repeating, no way in hell was Enrique
going
to get away with this. He had to get him back in town, but how? He telephoned Speer’s office in San José but drew a blank. No amount of cajoling or threatening would make Speer’s partner budge. ‘He is out of the country,’ was all Salazar could extract, so he stated vehemently that Speer was to call him back. Could the bastard be still in New York? Salazar realized for the first time how little he knew about the lawyer’s movements, where he stayed, what other contacts he had. So he was surprised when less than an hour later he picked up the phone and heard Speer’s voice.

‘Enrique, my friend,’ he greeted him cordially. ‘I have been trying to reach you.’

‘I just heard from my office,’ Speer answered him coldly. He too had heard the news from Medellín. He had first read the small column in the
Frankfurter Allgemeine
and made his own enquiries after that. ‘No names, no figures, Joe. I’m on a very open line.’

Salazar heard the humming sound in the background and wondered if Speer was taping the conversation. What he was hearing through the Skyphone was in fact the sound of four Pratt & Whitneys propelling a jumbo jet from Zurich to Panama.

‘I believe you may have heard the tragic news concerning our late friend in South America,’ said Salazar cautiously.

‘I have. It saddens me deeply.’

Seventy-one million-worth of fucking sadness, thought the Laundry Man. ‘The pressing question,’ he suggested, ‘is what are we to do with his estate?’

Speer reflected. He should have guessed it. Since learning of Morales’ killing, he had made strides in adjusting to his new circumstances. Enrique Speer was no longer embarking on a new career as sole administrator of rich men’s funds. ‘Heinrich’ Speer was rich himself now, a quirk of fate that placed his future in a totally different light.

‘I was given my instructions. I have nothing to say beyond that.’

‘Don’t fuck with me, Enrique!’ Salazar exploded. ‘We share it out is what we do. All of it.’

‘Had you any proportions in mind?’

Salazar relaxed a little. That was better. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you’re the lawyer. Think of it as a custody matter. Like we are discussing a child. The kid is … what? Eighteen months old? I’m the father that nursed him since he was born. You just … well, you just had visiting rights. I would say eighty–twenty would be most generous.’

‘Your eighty, my twenty?’ Speer said rhetorically, grimacing with distaste.

‘Hey, my friend, I’m a generous man. You take … twenty-five.’ And if he says one more fucking word, I kill him, thought Salazar.

‘On the other hand,’ commented Speer with Germanic logic, ‘the child is currently out of the country. Think then of me as the mother holding his hand. Bad scenario for a daddy wanting custody.’

‘Yeah, you’re the mother all right!’ Salazar exploded. ‘Motherfucker of all time! You’ll be hearing from me. I’m gonna have your ass!’ The Laundry Man slammed the receiver down and then threw the entire telephone at his office wall, the cracking impact causing the DEA eavesdropper in the next-door building to yank away his headset and curse the pain in his eardrums.

‘
Fuck! Fuck!
’ Joe shouted loud enough to make his security guard come charging in. ‘Has the entire world gone fucking mad?’

That week Eamon Sweeney should have celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday. Instead, he would be burying his eldest son. He sat quietly in his old armchair, a soft tartan rug on
his
lap, vaguely aware of the chatter sifting through the door. The large house in leafy Westchester County was holding a wake, and on that day Irish New York would make a pilgrimage. Eamon chose to remain alone in the den, allowing the mourners to come to him one by one. He loved Richard and had never doubted that the Lord would take the father first and spare him this inhuman pain. Not that Eamon Sweeney was a stranger to blood or vengeance, but in his quest there had always been a crusading reason, one mightier than individual men. With Salazar it was just personal, and this only added to the old man’s grief.

His next caller was a young man. He had a strong, rugged appearance and wore his suit with the discomfort of unfamiliar attire. He entered quietly and gently shut the door, then walked up close and squatted down, taking Sweeney’s limp right hand between his own hardened palms.