MONEY TREE Read online

  He’d left plenty of room for rowing back in the light of new facts but it was still a tonal shift. It had been a wrestling match to begin with; Stan sceptical of the softer line and muttering how hard this would play on the top floor. But say what you like about Stan, he was an old-style newspaper man and he didn’t like being dictated to from on high. He always backed his boys down on the street, especially unfriendly foreign streets.

  Ted began his prowling again, wondering if Erin would appreciate his new angle, or even detect it. He pulled out of his waistband the light-weight sports shirt he’d unearthed from his discard pile in the spare room. Better - cooler and less constricting. He kept casting around. There was a fresh eddy of arriving passengers chugging behind their piled trolleys. He almost missed her.

  Then he caught the smile and the eyes behind the glasses. She looked like her younger, smaller, less threatening sister. She was in sneakers, and like him, shirt loose outside blue jeans. As she closed in on him he saw the gaze of the tough executive he’d met in New York. For a second, all his doubts flooded back, and he wondered what the hell this stranger had got him into.

  So he was glad of the smile. It might have been all that was on offer, but it was at least a recognition that they were in this together. He didn’t know whether to shake hands, embrace her, or do air-kisses like they were in a Chi-Chi Manhattan restaurant. In the paralysis of their forced relationship they mustered a couple of self conscious waves from way too close.

  ‘Hi, Ted! My god, that’s a long haul.’

  ‘Thought you were used to it? Can I push that?’

  He took over the recalcitrant trolley holding her one case and smart leather backpack. They pushed through the doors into the steam-bath outside. He fended off the touts and beggars – feeling positively like a local - and waved to the car he’d hired from the hotel. It was a small Merc with a bright young man driving. He was out the door and hauling her case into the car before they knew it. They fell into the air-conditioned luxury of the back seat and Erin was immediately on the attack.

  ‘So what have you been up to? When can I see Banerjee?’

  ‘It’s midnight. Don’t you ever sleep?

  ‘I like to plan the day ahead.’

  ‘Fixed for tomorrow morning. Do you get sick in cars if you read?’

  ‘Nope. Travelling is catch-up time between meetings.’

  ‘Try this.’ He handed her the Tribune, folded at the place.

  She read it once, then again. She smiled, genuinely this time.

  ‘Not quite on the side of the angels yet. But progress. What was he like?’

  ‘Ramesh? A combination of prophet and financial whiz. Is he really that good? Is anyone?’

  ‘We’ll see tomorrow. But my research says so.’

  He heard the challenge. ‘Let’s keep the notion open. But I still need hard evidence, so maybe I’m more Thomas than Paul.’

  ‘Why’s it so hard?’ She wasn’t asking it of Ted in particular.

  He thought for minute.

  ‘Altruism embarrasses us. Too unsophisticated, too heart-on-your-sleeve. Too naïve for us Western sophisticates?’

  She was silent for a while, looking out the window. They both gripped the door handles tightly as the car braked and dived through the traffic, still manic at midnight.

  ‘So why are we here?’ she asked turning back to him and inspecting him.

  ‘I’m just trying to keep my job.’

  ‘One of us should. I’m hoping that it doesn’t matter how it started out. That what counts is how we take it from here and what we make of it.’

  Ted didn’t like the way the conversation was going. It sounded too much like a quest for his liking, and he’d given up all that tilting at windmills stuff.

  They dropped the philosophical discussions and pointed out the poorly lit streets to each other as they drove to the Oberoi Grand. It was like passing an endless series of Caravaggio tableaus; lives lit by cooking fires, neon tubes and cigarette glows. She mentioned how nice it was to be travelling on the correct side of the road for a change. He pointed out the irrelevance of that remark given the chaos outside.

  By the time they got to the hotel her face was showing the strain of the last 24 hours flying and the last few days of playing spies. There were red spots on her pale cheeks, and behind her glasses her eyes were dark ringed. They agreed to meet at breakfast prior to seeing Ramesh together in a small conference room at the hotel. Ted had convinced Ramesh it would be good to get some real privacy. But he was also thinking of air conditioning and imported coffee.

  In the meantime there was his bed, CNN, and a restocked minibar.

  TWENTY FOUR

  Carly Sofersen got her first real job just three months after graduation. Her heart had been set on becoming a news reader – she had the right voice and looks, all her friends had told her. It was there in her year book Carly Sofersen, the next star of stage and screen! And Carly, CNN’s anchor! So it would be true.

  Her father had pulled a few strings with some old marketing buddies who in turn had mentioned it to a news executive. Carly had taken the train into New York, all the way from her home in Albany, to be interviewed for and offered the job of trainee journalist at the New York Tribune. Carly’s initial sense of awe at living and working in Manhattan, and being on the first rung of the ladder to news reader was beginning to wear off. Sure, she’d now seen plenty of her heroines in the flesh. And sure there was a buzz about the place. But essentially her job was a glorified office junior.

  It had been particularly humiliating to be told by two of the older journalists and one sub editor that she couldn’t write. What that had to do with news reading was beyond her. All she wanted was the chance to get in front of those cameras and she’d show them. So she wore smart two-piece suits, bought for her by Mommy after a huge expedition to Madison Avenue, and she kept a clip-board under her arm at all times and made sure she was often in the sightlines of the top executives. It was only a matter of time.

  Meanwhile, she fielded odd jobs for some of the senior journalists, like Ted Saddler. She liked Ted, even though he scared her at times. But he was friendly without wanting to get too close, like some of the other men. Ted always seemed more interested in her; his eyes didn’t automatically go to her legs or her chest. He looked her straight in the face. Like her father. He kept telling her she’d make it; it just took time. Occasionally he would let her work on a piece so that she could get the ‘feel’ of the words, he said. In return, Carly did helpful things like check his mail or get him a sandwich if she was heading to the canteen too.

  So when she noticed the flat, book-sized package on his desk, she picked it up and looked at the labels. It was from Florida and it was marked Urgent, Private and Personal, Theodore Saddler. She knew he was over in India doing something big about a bank, so she let it sit for a day or two. Then, as no-one else seemed to care about it one way or the other, she decided to show some initiative; which would please Ted, she was certain. She put the package inside a FedEx envelope and, after checking with Travel, addressed the package to Ted’s hotel in Kolkata. Before she closed the envelope, she stuck a post-it note in the shape of a heart on the original and wrote in a big round hand, Thought this was important, love, Carly.

  She called FedEx and left the package at the reception desk downstairs. Feeling pleased with herself, she went back up to check her make-up and hair in the women’s restroom, the one that Sandi Carmichael herself sometimes used just before going on air.

  TWENTY FIVE

  ‘OK, what are we trying to get out of this meeting, Ted?’

  Erin looked much sharper when she joined him in the meeting room. Sleep or make-up had erased the dark from under eyes. Her skin looked clearer, tighter. She was back in contact lenses, work blouse, skirt and jacket. The switch threw Ted. Here we go - back in the board room.

  ‘Ramesh talked generally about the bank being under attack – from the press, the government, the competition and
the like. I need more details. Specifics. This is your area. See if any of this stacks up with your insider views of Stanstead’s methods.’

  She nodded. ‘He also mentioned technology attacks. That’s a different ball game.’

  ‘Absolutely. Over to you. I don’t have a sense of what it means.’

  ‘Does Ramesh know who I am?’

  ‘I had to tell him something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I didn’t give a name. Just said you’re a senior exec in one of the lead Western banks – I didn’t say which - and that you’re struggling with your conscience.’

  He waited for her reaction.

  ‘With regard to the senior exec – we might already be talking past tense. But I have no trouble with my conscience, not now.’

  There was a knock on the door. It opened and a young man in immaculate whites entered. ‘Mr Banerjee, madam, sir.’

  He stood aside and Ramesh walked in, beaming from behind his big glasses. They all shook hands.

  ‘Well, Ted, it is a start. We will convert you yet.’ He waved a copy of the Tribune.

  ‘Don’t get carried away Ramesh. You’ll note I hedged my bets. I’m the original sceptic. I need more evidence, which is partly why Miss Erin Wishart is here.’

  Ramesh stood back and inspected Erin. Just as frankly, she stared back, getting the measure of this man.

  ‘I’ve heard of you, Miss Erin Wishart. Global American is it not?’

  She didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. Though it’s moot whether I still work for them. Things have been moving fast lately.’

  She was confident and open, as though she’d stepped over a line. Ramesh sucked in his breath.

  ‘And what would the regional head of GA want with a humble bank manager like me?’

  ‘Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you all about it, Mr Banerjee?’

  Erin led them over to the small table with four chairs. She then took Ramesh through her story in a lucid and utterly candid exposition that left nothing unsaid – except the stuff about José Cadenza and Mrs Yeardon. Ted was impressed. There was none of the patronising, talking-down style that he expected. She was formidable without being hectoring.

  Ramesh interrupted only once or twice to check points or get elaboration. At the end, he sat back and looked at them both. He took off his glasses and made himself defenceless for a moment while he cleaned them with a fresh piece of linen taken from inside his tunic.

  ‘First, Miss Wishart, I want to thank you for being so open with me. You have put yourself in a very difficult position. The question is, what do we do about it now? I am sitting on top of a bank that is about to be closed. I myself am about to stand up in court and face a trial whose outcome has probably already been decided by my government. And your bank might be responsible. What was it a French general said? Hard pressed on my right. Centre is yielding. Impossible to manœuvre. Situation excellent. Attack!’

  ‘I bet it wasn’t a woman general. We like better odds. Can you give me a run-down of the main ways you’re being pressured?’

  ‘Pressured? How very British. A fine euphemism for fraud, sabotage, attempted murder, slander and libel!’

  ‘Attempted murder! Anything missing from that list, Ramesh?’ she asked wryly.

  ‘It will do.’ His grin showed his sense of humour had survived. ‘There are three ways in which we are under attack. The first – and this is in no special order you understand – is obviously the trial.’

  ‘I thought you said that was just the Government with a particular grudge against you?’ asked Ted.

  ‘Yes, but someone is working on them behind the scenes – an agent provocateur if you will. Perhaps Mr Stanstead’s doing? Otherwise I would have been able to head off the Government opposition. I still have friends there, and it is not as if we are child molesters or some such. I know the men in charge. In fact if I hadn’t known them they would have issued a non-bailable warrant for my arrest and those of my officers. I would have been in prison now till the trial. As it is, they don’t answer my phone calls, they avoid me at top level receptions or I simply don’t get invited. You have to be born here to detect it, that little shift in expression, that cast of the eyes, that change in tack. They have been bribed. And they know that I know! But they also know I can prove nothing.’

  Erin butted in. ‘If money changed hands, then there should be a trace. There’s always a record somewhere.’

  ‘That may be true, Miss Wishart, but how would I find it?’

  ‘Let’s assume that we’re talking about serious sums of money,’ she said. Ramesh nodded. ‘And that it’s probably a reserve currency – forgive me, no disrespect to the Rupee.’ Ramesh smiled and shook his head. ‘Dollars or Euros. Then somewhere there will be a record of cash leaving a bank and going into accounts somewhere else, right? My bet is that if we could do a pass on Global American’s transactions we could spot some interesting movements to named accounts.’

  ‘But that’s a needle in the mother of all haystacks, Erin! Not with all the transactions that your bank sees daily.’ Ted was incredulous.

  ‘GA has spent hundreds of millions on the most sophisticated data warehouse systems in the world. We have a daily volume of around 100 million transactions peaking at 250 million some days. But we have computer power that can sift the whole customer database over the past year and pick out a single transaction. If need be, we can go into the historical details up to three years back, but that takes longer.’

  She looked down for a minute with a puzzled frown. ‘The only problem is getting access. Even I had only limited powers - general searches, spotting trends, and so on. This would need a dedicated slice of our computing resources for – oh I guess – two, three hours.’

  Ted thought she was going to say days or weeks. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad. Can you call someone?’

  She shook her head. ‘That amount of high-priced computing power needs Warwick’s personal authority. And I guess he’s not going to play ball.’

  ‘What about Oscar? Could he hack in?’

  She looked hard at him. ‘You really think this guy is pretty special don’t you.’ He could see her brain sifting the problem. ‘It’s possible I guess. If the Lone Ranger software we ‘installed’ at GA could be used, then maybe. . .’

  ‘Lone Ranger?’ asked Ramesh with a raised eyebrow.

  Ted waved a hand. ‘Don’t ask. Why don’t we call Oscar and see what he can come up with?’ Erin agreed and she turned back to Ramesh.

  ‘Ok Ramesh, what’s the next offence against you?’

  ‘Despite our third world image, the People’s Bank is one of the most technologically advanced in the business. We are number one for the ratio of branches to Internet accounts accessed by mobile phones. It’s why we have been so successful in the developing and the developed world. We offer superb technical facilities to our clients along with the chance to salve their consciences.’ He smiled.

  ‘And the problem is….?’ Ted asked.

  ‘Our computer systems – our lifeblood and backbone – are under attack. We have the best firewalls in the business, and fall-back capacity that would be the envy of our armed forces – if they knew we had it. But over the last six or so months we have come under a series of bombardments aimed at crippling us. My technical chaps can explain it better. So far we have managed to deflect them, but they tell me it is only a matter of time, Miss Wishart.’ He looked meaningfully at her.

  ‘GA’s work?’ Ted asked Erin.

  ‘Could be. I’m sorry, Ramesh, and please call me Erin.’

  ‘It is not your fault – Erin.’

  ‘Let’s put this on Oscar’s list as well.’ Ted said. ‘What’s the third problem Ramesh? You mentioned attempted murder?’

  ‘They are inciting the villages. They say we are worse than the money lenders. That we will call our loans in and steal their land, and the dispossessed will have to go and beg in the cities. Gangs of thugs are stirring up fears and targeting worke
rs from this bank. Some are still in hospital.’

  ‘Can’t you get the local police to help?’ Ted asked, with a sinking feeling about the answer.

  Ramesh smiled sadly at them and shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘We think that in many cases, it is being coordinated by the local police.’

  Erin broke in, ‘Where’s your tech centre? Could we visit it?’

  Ted’s stomach flipped. More gadding about in this mosquito zone.

  ‘Certainly. In Delhi, they can tell you better about what the cyber attacks. It might make it easier for your colleague – Oscar? – to get a proper understanding. New Delhi is also where the trial starts in a week. I am meeting with my defence team there on Monday. We are going through the process of discovery of evidence.’

  ‘That would work, Ted.’ Erin seemed childishly excited. ‘We could talk to the techies. And maybe some customers. We’d be back in time for the trial.’

  Ted noticed the ‘we’ commitments, but decided to save his arguments for later, when they were alone. He felt cornered. Just as he’d expected, things were beginning to run away from him. He wasn’t quite sure who was in control of this operation, but it sure as hell wasn’t Ted Saddler.

  Erin and Ramesh spent a further while talking banking – most of it over Ted’s head – while he wondered if he’d had enough shots before he’d left New York to deal with whatever was out there waiting to bite him. Then his heightened instincts for self preservation strayed to thinking about the death arranged for José Cadenza and whether there were any vaccinations against a bullet.

  TWENTY SIX

  ‘I feel like a voyeur.’

  Erin was walking beside him, her arms clasped around her, hugging herself. She’d felt jet lag clawing at her mind again, and needed out of the hotel to stretch her legs before dinner. He advised against it, but at her insistence, took her round the block, just like his first night. It didn’t get any better, but the big-eyed kid wasn’t there when they passed the spot. He told Erin about her.