St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

this—”
    “Yes,” Martin interrupted. “Use it.”
    Kayla shifted in the uncomfortable chair.
    “Don’t move,” Martin said. “We’re just getting to the good stuff.”
    “I’ll take it from the sale of her childhood ranch,” Thomas said.
    Kayla flinched. She really didn’t want to go through it again—the bittersweet, the simply sad, all the childhood memories tangled with adult necessities.
    Rand saw the emotions crossing Kayla’s expressive face and wanted to interfere. She’d been through the wringer enough. She needed a break before she broke.
    “No,” Faroe said softly, closing his hand over Rand’s arm, holding him.
    “Why not?”
    “News is emotional, not rational. You know that as well as I do.”
    “She needs—shit,” Rand hissed.
    “Shit indeed. We can’t change human nature, but we damn well can use it to our advantage.”
    “I’m sure that comforts Kayla no end.”
    “Grace made certain Kayla had the bathroom with the big Jacuzzi.”
    “Oh, well, that makes all the difference,” Rand said sarcastically.
    “Better than a kick in the ass with a frozen boot.”
    Martin began snapping out the commands that would once again make the bungalow a TV set. Lights dimmed. Others brightened.
    Silence.
    Then the sound of Thomas asking how Kayla had felt about selling her childhood home.
    Then he asked about how she felt when she had that last breakfast with the Bertones.
    How she felt when her boss told her to set up that account.
    Emotions, Rand thought bitterly. Screw the facts. How did you feel?
    And it was working. Kayla’s voice was more hesitant, more husky, the voice of a woman fighting tears, fighting fear.
    Thomas was sympathetic, relentless.
    Brilliant.
    Eat your heart out, Oprah, Rand thought. That white boy can pluck heartstrings with the best of them.
    “Were you aware of the source of the money that was deposited in the Aruba account you set up?” Thomas asked.
    “When I verified that the funds existed to be transferred tothe correspondent account, I spoke to a young woman with a Jamaican kind of accent. She put me through to the president of the bank. His name was Mr. Thronged. He sounded Dutch and was very efficient.”
    “Mr. Thronged,” Thomas said, glancing through the papers Martin had given him. “Did you know that the helpful woman with the lilting accent runs a small store at the north end of the island of Aruba? She makes a hundred dollars a week answering overseas phone calls like yours and putting them through to a retired Dutch banker—a Mr. Thronged—who conducts most of the Bank of Aruba, Sugar Sand branch, business from a phone and fax machine under the bar in his seaside tavern. The capital stock of the bank is all owned by Andre Bertone.”
    “I—are you sure?”
    “Yes. I’m sorry. I can see that you’re shocked.”
    Kayla fought the urge to put her face in her hands and wail. “All I was told was that knowing the source of the funds Bertone was transferring wasn’t my problem—that is, my bank’s problem. It was the problem of the bank in Aruba.”
    “Then you weren’t aware that Andre Bertone emptied accounts that John Neto had located in Basel and in Liechtenstein, as well as a seventy-million-dollar account at the Bank of Sark in the Channel Islands?”
    “No,” Kayla said.
    And even she wasn’t sure whether she was answering a question or simply denying that she could have been so badly fooled.
    Thomas tapped his finger on the papers Martin had handed him. “All told, Mr. Neto has traced more than two hundred and thirty million dollars that were wire-transferred into the Caribbean Basin.”
    “I—no,” Kayla said huskily. “My God, no.”
    “The funds went to a variety of offshore accounts, all ofwhich were shielded by bank secrecy acts in their various jurisdictions. Could Bertone be moving the funds through those secret accounts, then consolidating them in the branch bank of Sugar Sands, in order to funnel them here, into the United States?”
    “A quarter of a billion—” Kayla’s voice broke. “No. I haven’t seen that kind of money.”
    “You’ve seen some of it,” Martin said gently. “Haven’t you?”
    “I—”
    “The money from arms trafficking, oil-for-food corruption, blood diamonds, ravaged hardwood forests, children starving, children maimed, children raped and dying, you’ve seen some of that money,” Thomas said, his voice a sympathetic rapier slicing down into Kayla’s soul.