Monkey Games
By Vince Coyner
Chapter 12. Zurich
They landed at Zurich International and immediately taxied to general aviation. They quickly pulled into the journeyman section which was reserved for fliers who were not based there and who typically did not stay for more than a couple of days. They definitely didn’t plan on staying long at all. They weren’t sure where they were going to go, but they knew that after tomorrow they would have to leave very quickly. It was 10:00 AM Tuesday when they touched down. They would go to the bank the next day as Tuesday was a bank holiday, one of those opaque holidays that no one ever seems to know what is being celebrated but every bank in the country seems to celebrate. At least they would be able to get some much-needed sleep before they headed to the bank. Laura taxied the plane to a spot just north of one of the general aviation hangers. As she opened the door and dropped the stairs, an official from Swiss customs came out to meet them. He was not happy with the fact that they had not filed a flight plan before they left Martinique. He became distracted and much less disagreeable when he discovered they had flown in from the Azores. It was too bad that they didn’t get a chance to stay there longer he volunteered. He loved the Azores and had a home there he and his wife had been going to on vacation for 25 years. He discovered the wonders of the island when he and his wife were on a honeymoon cruise to New York and the boat stopped on San Miguel for a day of sightseeing. They bought a house two years later and had been going back ever since. Did they get to see any of “The Green Island” as San Miguel is called? They may have even flown over his house, which lays just two miles from the airport just outside of the capital, Ponta Delgada. Were they going back soon? Did they want the names of some very good restaurants? There is a hotel that he could recommend. Laura considered trying to refocus the conversation on them but given his animation and enthusiasm she decided instead to let him continue expounding on the virtues of the islands. After about five minutes she was lulled into thinking he was done but he quickly disabused her of such thoughts. Just when his knowledge of the islands and his willingness to impart that information seemed endless, he abruptly stopped. “I’m sorry, I’m certain you have to get going,” he said smiling at both of them. “Well then, if you have nothing to declare then I’ll return these to you and enjoy your visit to Zurich” he said as he handed the passports he had been holding in his hands for fifteen minutes back to Laura. He had them both sign customs declarations and wished them well. “Thank you” they both said. “Before you leave” Laura asked, can you tell us where the general aviation reception is? We need fuel and a couple of other things.” “It doesn’t seem to be in the same place as it was the last time I was here a couple of years ago” she said pointing to a bare concrete foundation that was sitting just beyond the hanger she was parked beside. “Sure” he said, pointing to a new building just across the Tarmac. The old one caught on fire about two years ago and they decided to build a bigger one a little farther from the hangers. “Go over there and see Jacob. He is a good man. He should be able to help you with just about anything you need, and probably some stuff you don’t need” he said with a smile. “Well, thank you once again Mr.... I’m sorry, I didn’t even get your name.” “Helmut” he said, “Helmut Brown” and it was my pleasure. Enjoy your stay!”
They walked into the reception and asked for Jacob. Helmut was indeed right; it was obvious that Jacob was probably capable of getting them just about anything they wanted, legal or otherwise. In this case however they needed only two things and both were legal. The slightly more difficult of the two was a pilot who could fly their plane. Although Laura knew it was not a difficult plane to fly, they needed someone for that night and who could be gone for a week or so and who might not be put off by a little “adventure”. Once it became clear that money was not really a problem, Jacob was certain he had someone who could help them out. His name was Hans and he had been a pilot in the German Air Force during the late eighties and early nineties. When the German economy fell off a cliff after reunification, many pilots were given their walking papers and Hans was one of them. While he was a great pilot, he was far too much of a daredevil for his rather straight-laced superiors who came of age during the rather benign seventies. (Benign in that the only war going on was cold, which didn’t leave much “action” available for fliers.) Once the cold war was over and budgetary constraints made reductions possible, there was no compelling reason to continue putting up with Hans’es mischief. So he was out. After bouncing around for a while in the late nineties he bought an old Cessna and began giving flying lessons. He was always looking for something more exciting but his pocketbook never seemed able to allow him too many options. Jacob thought this might be just the thing for Hans, even though it probably wouldn’t last too long. “Nonetheless” Jacob thought to himself “At least it will be something and it will get Mary off my back” Mary was Jacob’s wife and coincidentally the sister of Hans’es mother Karol. The two of them were constantly badgering Jacob about using his “influence” at the airport to get Hans something that he liked to do. Jacob could honestly say this was the first time he had ever found anything he thought Hans would go for. Jacob was right. Hans leapt at it.
After spending 20 of the last 30 hours on a plane, she would love to have been able to curl up in front of a fire at the Zurich Marriott, but she knew better. Although she thought it unlikely that Alexander had anyone here looking for them here yet, the possibility of accidentally encountering someone she knew had to be avoided. She therefore decided on the Hotel Sternen Oerlikon, a bed and breakfast in an industrial area about five miles from the city. They registered under Michael and Anne DuPont, roughly a French equivalent John and Jane Smith. It was almost noon when they arrived. The room was about 10 X 14 with a shared bath. They were so tired and jet lagged that they didn’t even take the time to get undressed. They lay down on the bed, entwined in each other’s arms and both were asleep seconds after their heads hit the pillows.
Laura was the first to wake. They had been sleeping for almost eight hours and the sun was setting behind the mountains. Its reddish purple rays danced through the window and illuminated Jonathan’s face like the flashing neon lights on Time’s Square at midnight. Once again she was struck by the feeling that she was staring into the face of an angel. She wondered what must be going through his head. He had spent twenty years on an island smaller than her uncle’s Dallas ranch exposed to nothing more violent than reading about the Capulets and the Montagues. Now, here he was half way around the world in a place he’d never seen, experiencing temperatures he could never have imagined and he was getting a far too personal introduction to the evils of mankind from someone he had never met but to whom he was inexorably tied. It must have been like he had been swept up and taken to another planet. For him, she thought, this is another planet.
She gently brushed the hair from his face with the back of her hand as she slowly leaned down to kiss him on the corner of his lips. She kissed him again on his cheek and again on his shoulder. He began to stir and instantly reached out for her. Without opening his eyes he pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer and kissing her stomach. As they kissed and caressed one another, eventually every piece of clothing they had was on the floor except for Laura’s socks. Finally Jonathan opened eyes so that he could gaze upon this beauty in his arms. She was beyond a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes on and while he knew the world that awaited him might hold a universe of wonder, he was sure that there were no wonders that could surpass the one that was in his arms right now. They spent the night making love with an unrestrained passion that took them both by surprise. The combination of the dramatic events of the last 48 hours had left them both unsure about what the future held, but conversely, equally sure that whatever it was they were going to face it together. They finally fell asleep wrapped around one another and drenched in sweat, despite the frost on the window from an unusually early burst of cold.
Morning coffee... Making love... Orange Juice... the Alps....They both knew the morning could not last, but they enjoyed it while they could.
The bank was Alpine Zurich, one of the most respected firms in the world of private banking. When measured against some of the world’s largest consumer banks, Alpine Zurich at first appeared to be an anachronistic anomaly that had somehow survived the consolidation that shook the industry during the last decade of the 20th century. Regional banking giants merged to become national giants and national giants to become international. Alpine Zurich was neither a regional nor an international powerhouse. It had always been a simple family owned bank that had one branch in Zurich and one in Geneva. While many banks could provide financial security and insurance against loss, none could do what Alpine Zurich did best, which was protect both assets and anonymity. If a billionaire businessman wanted to ensure his progeny didn’t squander his hard earned money after he was gone, there were dozens of banks to which he could go to who would happily provide his heirs with insurance, banking and financial management services. If, on the other hand he wanted to ensure that the Rolodex listing his maze of interlocking government and private contacts, (which was likely irreplaceable and therefore far more valuable than any cash in his bank account) would be accessible to only one person of his choosing, he would go to Alpine Zurich. Likewise if he wanted accounts that were accessible by ATMs across the planet and whose activities could be traced back and forth across the electronic universe, any international bank would suffice. Again, if on the other hand he wanted a bank where someone would have to show up in person, present irrefutable evidence of identity and walk in with true anonymity, Alpine Zurich was the bank.
Alex had Laura approach Alpine Zurich approximately four years before, with the specific purpose of establishing an account that would be accessible only by he and Albert and would have no names attached to it. Alpine Zurich allowed clients to establish any identification threshold they wanted, from signatures and passports to thumbprints, retina scans or voice recognition. Alex decided he wanted the highest level of security possible and required that thumb prints and retina scans would be necessary to access the account. There were no names, no billing information and contact information associated with it. Alpine Zurich’s clients were by default amongst the richest people in the world. Establishing an account required prepaying 50 years worth of account fees, which totaled $2.5 million, cash, when the account was opened. After the fifty years, if the fees were not paid, the account would sit dormant for another twenty years. If after that time no one stepped forward to pay the accumulated fees, the bank had the right to seize the contents of the account and sell whatever was in it to cover the outstanding amount. Once the contents were sold, and the arrears covered, any remaining balance would be returned to the box for another twenty years and this 20 year cycle would continue until the contents of the box could no longer cover the fees.
Laura could not be certain what Alex had been doing since they left the island, but she knew he wouldn’t be standing still. She was sure that he had mobilized every resource within his reach to find them. Police, Interpol and private “contractors” were no doubt looking for the two of them right now. Luckily, he would be loath to inaugurate a massive well-publicized manhunt that could lead to the exposition of his nefarious dealings. Instead he and Albert would no doubt work through back channels to keep the search inconspicuous, however one with a substantial reward. Such a request, essentially a rather precarious highwire act between an official manhunt and a private search could only have been possible because of Alex’s very strong public connections and relationships with law enforcement agencies across the west. He had purposely, and very publicly, given hundreds of millions of dollars to police and law enforcement agencies from Vancouver to Vienna over the last two decades. Laura was sure that Alex was now calling in all of those chips from across the international law enforcement community and there was no way she and Jonathan could just walk in the front door. One thing working in their favor however was the fact that there was no way for Alex to contact Alpine Vienna and have them put a lock on the account. It was simply not possible. As Alex had decided on fingerprints and retina scans, there was simply no way to identify the account in question. While the medical technology available on La playa Arena made it simple to get digital renderings of both Alex’s and Albert’s fingerprints and retinas, luckily, Alpine Zurich had never allowed such digital access. Its clients chose it for a reason, and that was security. Given that mandate, the bank required clients that utilized biometric factors for identification to be physically present in the bank in order to access or change the status of any accounts. As such, the advantage was theirs. She still had to figure out how they would get into and out of the bank however.
Although with a bank like Alpine Zurich, a banker was available 24 hours a day, Laura decided that she did not want to draw any attention to them by requesting special access while the bank was closed. She could not take the chance that Alex had somehow alerted the bank’s staff. While it was impossible to access or identify the account, he could have easily alerted the bank to their descriptions, suggesting that they were trying to employ illegal tactics to steal from an account that was not theirs. She therefore decided they would go to the bank just before it closed at 4 PM so that they might take advantage of the fact that in winding up the day the staff would perhaps be less focused than they would be otherwise. There were two other things she needed to accomplish before she could focus on the bank. The first had to do with a question Jonathan had asked her while she was falling asleep in his arms last night. “Laura” he had asked “What if there are others like me?” As they were both in the hazy neverland between conscious exhaustion and restful sleep she did not give it much thought. She must have been contemplating how to answer it during her sleep though because she now had a plan without even realizing it. The second was communication. She needed phones.
Jonathan was right. They had to find out. She knew that if there were others, there would be records at South Centre. There was no way she could go back there herself. It was impossible. She knew that the moment she left the island red flags went up everywhere throughout the Alexander Resources empire and beyond. There was only one person she could call. Felix, a paradoxical young research scientist who she had befriended soon after she arrived at South Centre. Having spent much of his youth as an anarchist, he surprised even himself when in college he became a finance savant, earning his doctorate in accounting at 23. The two shared an affinity for things outdoor and frequently spent weekends rock climbing, skiing or biking. Although it had always been obvious that he wanted more, they were simply very good friends and he was certainly the only person who was remotely connected with Alexander Resources to whom she could turn for help.
While Jonathan was taking his shower she walked to the Phone House, a mobile phone store that was about two blocks from the hotel. As she walked the sun was beginning to shine through the dissipating clouds and would no doubt begin to take the slight edge off the cool crisp morning air. The sidewalks were bustling with shoppers. She reached the Phone House just moments after it opened. She knew she needed to communicate with no chance of identification. She purchased six separate phones. Three were from Bouygues Telecom, the independent French company and the other three were from T-Mobile, the German giant. She bought two 1000-minute cards to go with each phone and made sure that each would work both with GSM, the European standard as well as CDMA, common in many other parts of the world. The four thousand Euros she spent was more than the 19-year-old store manager had ever sold in two whole days, nevermind to just one person. Technology was a great thing she thought to herself as she walked out of the store with her two bags of phones. Nokia and Samsung had done unbelievable things when it came to phones, each of the ones she just purchased weighed less than 3 oz and all six combined weighed less than half of what her first mobile phone did twenty years before. If they could just do something about the packaging they came with, which completely filled the two bags in her arms.
On the way back to the hotel she stopped at L&H, a department store, to get a few personal items and some clothes. For Jonathan she picked up a couple of pairs of jeans, some shirts and a pair of Doc Martins, the most comfortable shoes she had ever worn. Shirts were not really a problem and for the pants she guessed he wore a size 32, so she bought both a pair of 32s and a pair of 34s just to be sure. Buying shoes for someone else would present a problem in most situations but Laura remembered that when they were at the lagoon they had been playing in the sand and Jonathan made her put her foot up against his to see how small it was. And it was small. She remembered clearly that his foot was about an inch and a half longer than hers, so it was easy to figure out his size by simply putting her foot into one of those foot-shaped measuring gauges that seem to be unique to shoestores. She also purchased a heavy brown leather jacket for him as the cool fall temperatures were much lower than he was used to. For herself she purchased the same, a couple pairs of jeans and a variety of shirts and sweaters to go with them. All of this, including various underclothes and socks for each of them required two more rather sizable bags and she became a little concerned at the conspicuous nature of a woman carrying so many bags from two rather expensive outlets, but she decided that there was nothing she could do about it, and besides she was only one block from the hotel. Luckily, when she returned to the hotel there was no one in the lobby so she was able to walk up to the room without attracting any attention. When she returned to the room Jonathan was sitting naked on a chair staring out the window. He stood as soon as she walked in. She had to stop and stare for a moment at how beautiful he was. Noticing she was looking at him and with not a hint of self-consciousness, he walked over to her and kissed her as she stood holding the bags with the door still open. As the warmth spread through her body she involuntarily dropped the bags and wrapped him in her arms. For a moment she could think of nothing but shedding her clothes and making love to him right there on the floor but she knew they had work to do. As she reluctantly pulled away from his grasp she realized that the door was still open and became flushed with red at the idea that someone might have walked by. She quickly closed the door and went to take her shower. While she was taking her shower Jonathan went through the clothes in the bags. It was pretty easy to figure out which ones were for whom, as the first pair of jeans he tried on he could not even get on past his knees.
He was standing in front of the mirror looking at himself when she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. He stopped looking at himself and could not take his eyes off of her. The towel hung from her breasts like a curtain of clouds obscuring a full moon. You can make out the beauty behind it and you’re transfixed until you can see the real thing. He did not have to wait long. She dropped the towel and walked over to him and stood in front of him. She reached for his hands and wrapped them around her as she turned to face the mirror. They both looked at the mirror where she was standing naked in front of him, with his arms wrapped around her. They looked at one another in the mirror and smiled. She turned her head to the left and he kissed the right side of her neck. Slowly he moved his hands up from her stomach to her breasts. After caressing them for what seemed far too short a moment to Laura, he put his hands around her neck as she turned to face him. As they began kissing it was now he who wanted to take her right there, but again she pulled away. She stepped back and looked at him in the mirror. “What do you think?” she asked. “They are great,” he said, “although these are a lot different than anything I’ve ever worn. The shoes are pretty stiff, but the socks are very comfortable” “Good!” she said, “I’m glad you like them. How do the pants fit? That was the only thing I was worried about.” “Perfect” he said turning around and showing her. She noticed that he was wearing the 32-inch pants and smiled. As Laura dressed she could not help feel like she was doing a striptease in reverse, as Jonathan never took his eyes off of her. She was amazed. It was not that she was a particularly self-conscious person who gets embarrassed when naked in front of a lover with the lights on. No, what struck her was simply the fact that it all felt so natural. It was not an absence of uncomfortableness, but rather a true feeling of serenity. She looked over at him as she was bending over to put her shoes on. She actually felt a bit of pride, a little bit proud of herself for what she had picked out for him. He looked fantastic in those clothes, although she knew he looked even better out of them. “Damnit!” she said to herself “Focus! She had to call Felix.”
The first thing she had to do was to call Felix. She knew his mobile phone number by heart and knew that he never went anywhere without it. Sometimes she was sure he considered having it surgically attached to his head.
“Felix here” as he always answered the phone. “It’s Laura, Sweetheart, how are you? “Obviously much better than you. Where are you? What the hell is going on with you? Two days ago a message came down from the top that you were to be barred from all Alexander Resources facilities, anyone hearing from you was instructed to contact Alexander’s office immediately. What is going on?” he asked again. “It’s too long a story to go into right now.” She said. “Are you at home?” “Yes” Felix replied. “Are you alone?” she asked. “No, but I can be in about 15 minutes.” “OK” she said, sure that he was with Tabitha, the young lady he had met two months ago when they were biking on the grounds of the Trinion at Versailles. “I need you to do me a favor. I need you to go to South Centre and find something for me.” “Anything!” he replied. She continued “There is an island called Aislado which is not far from our facility on La playa Arena. Its records might be under that name or the name Jonathan or maybe even Monkey Games. I need you to do an analysis of that facilities’ cost profile for the last twenty years and then find out if there are any other islands with a similar pattern. If there are, I need you to find me the map coordinates for each of them.” “What do you want me to do with them?” he asked. “I want you to bring them to me.” I’m not sure where I’ll be, so save this number and call me when you find them.” “We’ll figure out where to meet then.” “Laura,” Felix said slowly, “Is everything all right? Are you in some kind of danger?” She responded with a “No on the first” and a “probably on the second.” “I can’t talk right now, but we’ll talk later.”
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