Chapter 35
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
AS promised by Hurley, the border crossing was uneventful: dour, serious Anglos in nice suits, in a nice car, crossing from one efficient European country into an even more efficient European country. They continued to wind their way toward the banking capital of the world as the sun climbed in the sky and Hurley explained in more detail what they were up to. After another forty minutes they arrived on the outskirts of Zurich. Hurley told Rapp which exit to take, and where to turn. A few minutes later they pulled up to the gates of an estate.
“What’s this, an embassy?” Rapp asked.
“No,” Hurley said, smiling. “The home of an old friend.”
The car had barely come to a stop when the heavy black-and-gold gate began to open. Rapp eased the sedan slowly up the crushed-rock drive. The garden beds were bare and the manicured arborvitae wrapped in burlap to protect them from the heavy, wet snows that were common this time of year. The place must have been magnificent in the summer. The house reminded him of some of the abodes of foreign ambassadors that dotted the countryside west of D.C. Hurley had him pull the car around the back, where one of six garage doors was open, the stall empty, anticipating their arrival.
Carl Ohlmeyer was waiting for them in his library. The man was tall, thin, and regal. At first glance, he was more British-looking than German, but his thick accent washed that thought from Rapp’s mind almost as quickly as it had appeared. He was dressed impeccably in a three-piece suit. Hurley had given them the man’s brief history. They had met in their twenties in Berlin. Ohlmeyer had been fortunate enough to survive World War II, but unfortunate in that his family farm was twenty-one miles east of Berlin rather than west. He had received his primary education at the hands of Jesuit priests, who had drilled into him the idea that God expected you to better yourself every day. Luke 12:28 was a big one: “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.” Since Ohlmeyer was a gifted mathematician, much was expected of him. When he was sixteen the Russian tanks came down the same dirt road that the German tanks had gone down only a few years before, but going in the opposite direction, of course. And with them, they brought a cloud of death and destruction.
Two years later he enrolled as a freshman at the prestigious Humboldt University in the Russian-controlled sector of Berlin. Over the next three years he watched in silence as fellow students and professors were arrested by the Russian secret police and shipped off to Siberia to do hard time for daring to speak out against the tenets of communism. The once-grand university, which had educated statesmen like Bismarck, philosophers like Hegel, and physicists like Einstein, had become nothing more than a rotted-out shell.
Buildings that had been partially destroyed during the war sat untouched the entire time he was there. All the while in the West, the Americans, British, and French were busy rebuilding. Ohlmeyer saw communism for the sham that it was—a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion. Hurley recited for them Ohlmeyer’s stalwart claim that any form of government that required the repression, imprisonment, and execution of those who disagreed with it was certainly not a government of the people.
But in those days following the war, when so many millions had been killed, people were in no mood for another fight. So Ohlmeyer kept quiet and bided his time, and then after he received his degree in economics, he fled to the American sector. A few years later, while he was working at a bank, he ran into a brash young American who hated the communists even more than he did. His name was Stanley Albertus Hurley, and they struck up a friendship that went far beyond a casual contempt for communism.
Ohlmeyer, upon seeing Hurley, dropped any pretense of formality and rushed out from behind his desk. He took Hurley’s hand in both of his and began berating his friend in German. Hurley gave it right back. After a brief exchange, Ohlmeyer looked at the other two men and in English said, “Are these the two you told me about?”
Hurley nodded. “Yep, these are Mike and Pat.”
“Yes … I’m sure you are.” Ohlmeyer smiled and extended his hand, not believing their names were Mike and Pat for a second. “I can’t tell you how exciting it is to meet you. Stan has told me you are two of the best he has seen in years.” Ohlmeyer instantly read the looks of surprise on the faces of the two young men. With mock surprise of his own, he turned to Hurley and said, “Was I not supposed to say anything?”
Hurley looked far from enthused over his friend’s talkativeness.
“You will have to excuse my old confidant,” Ohlmeyer said, putting a hand on Hurley’s shoulder. “He finds it extremely difficult to express feelings of admiration and warmth. That way he doesn’t feel as bad when he beats you over the head.”
Rapp and Richards started laughing. Hurley didn’t.
“Please make yourself comfortable. There is coffee and tea and juice over there on the table and fresh rolls. If you require anything else, do not hesitate to ask. Stan and I have some work to do, but it shouldn’t take too long, then I suggest all of you get some sleep. You will be staying for dinner tonight … no?” Ohlmeyer turned to Hurley for the answer.
“I hope.”
“Nonsense. You are staying.”
Hurley hated to commit to things. “I’d like to, but who knows what might pop up after this morning?”
“True, and I will have my plane ready take you wherever you need to go tomorrow morning. You are staying for dinner. That is final. There is much we need to catch up on, and besides, I need to tell these two young men of our exploits.”
“That might not be such a good idea.”
“Nonsense.” Ohlmeyer dismissed Hurley’s concern as completely inconsequential. He looked down at the briefcase in Hurley’s hand. With a devilish look he asked, “Did you bring the codes?”
“No … I drove all the way from Hamburg just so I could stare at your ugly mug. Of course I brought them.”
Ohlmeyer started laughing heartily before turning to Rapp and Richards. “Have you ever met a grumpier man in your entire life?”
“Nope,” Rapp said without hesitation, while Richards simply shook his head.
While Rapp and Richards retired to the other end of the forty-foot-long study to get some food, Ohlmeyer and Hurley were joined by two men whom Rapp guessed to be in their midforties. They looked like businessmen. Probably bankers. The four of them huddled around Ohlmeyer’s massive desk while the silver-haired German issued explicit instructions in German. Forty minutes later the two men left, each carrying several pages of instructions.
At nine-oh-five they received the anticlimactic call that the seventeen accounts had been drained of all funds, but that was just the beginning. Over the next three hours the computers continued to execute transfers. Each account was divided into three new accounts and then split again by three, until there were 153 new accounts. The money had been flung far and wide, from offshore accounts in Cyprus, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, and across the Caribbean. Each transfer ate away at the balance as the various banks charged their fees, but Hurley didn’t care. He was playing with someone else’s money. The important thing was to leave a trail that would be impossible to untangle. With all the different jurisdictions and separate privacy laws, it would take an army of lawyers a lifetime to slash through the mess. By noon the number of accounts had shrunk to five with a net balance of $38 million.