ON A FINE CLEAR SUMMER MORNING, when the outlines of the mountains seem to have been painted on glass, Finn walks up a pleasant leafy road in Cologny, a suburb of Geneva reserved for the world’s wealthy, and its diplomats and the lords of the international agencies and organisations that have taken root in the city. Here they huddle halfway to heaven on a rolling hill above the lake. Above them, neat domestic vineyards embroider the fields all the way to the sky, while below them the city of Geneva stands at the head of the flat blue lawn of its lake.
Finn has parked a small white van at the top of the street, killing the reverberating volume of Elastica as he cuts the engine. In the stunned silence, he walks across the road, turns into a cul de sac that curves in an arc rejoining the road further down from where he’s parked. He wears old blue overalls and carries a metal workman’s box.
He’s already seen the car he is looking for as he drove by. It is a silver grey Lexus with diplomatic plates, parked on the kerb outside white wrought-iron gates. As he walks back up the hill, without breaking step he takes a roll of black electrical tape from the box, bites into the plastic-tasting end, and pulls off a two-inch strip. When the car is level with him he places the strip in a vertical position at the side of the curved back window and walks on, continuing up to where he parked the van twenty minutes earlier.
He throws the toolbox into the back, switches on the engine and with it the blasting music, and drives back down the hill and into the city. He returns the van to the hire company less than two hours after he’s rented it for cash from a bored representative, and boards a tram by the shopping plaza on the west bank. The tram winds its way up and around a hill, offering glimpses of the lake through side streets, and on to another suburb, south of the city this time, called Chêne Bougeries.
Finn steps off the tram, along with some Scandinavian backpackers, just a few hundred yards from the French border. He walks across the road unchallenged by the border guards, and into the Bar des Douanes, where he sits at a table in the back and orders a black coffee.
It is just after ten o’clock in the morning and the striking blue summer day is visible like a cinema screen from the dark gloom at the back of the bar.
Five minutes later a short, tubby, bearded man wearing jeans and a faded grey T-shirt, and carrying a battered leather knapsack slung over his left shoulder, enters the bar. When they see each other Finn rises from the plastic seat and they embrace in the surprised way the English have, no matter how many times they’ve embraced foreigners. The man grunts an indecipherable and half-suspicious greeting. He sits, orders a coffee and brandy, unrolls a newspaper and slaps it with the back of his hand.
‘Read that,’ he says and, as Finn reads, the man takes a pouch from the leather knapsack and rolls a cigarette from some dry Drum tobacco he grumpily scrapes up from the corners of the pouch.
‘They’re trying to get rid of Stelzer,’ the man says, gesticulating at the newspaper. ‘He’s doing his job too well.’
Finn has met Jean-Claude many times in the past five years. He’s a man at home in one environment and completely at odds with all others. His plane of existence is a dark bar or, best of all, the wreck of his windowless office where he sits on a swivel chair with a torn and dirty nylon seat and hunches over a plywood door that is his desk and is piled with paperwork, ashtrays, half-empty beer bottles, scraps of paper scribbled with telephone numbers, half-drunk cups of coffee and thousands of coloured paperclips he seems to collect like semi-precious stones. His beard is dappled with the white blossom of cigarette ash from the cigarettes he wedges, until long after they’re burnt out, between two brown and very crooked front teeth. His bulbous nose is somehow fitted on to his face, red and greasy, and it doesn’t appear to obey the normal physics of noses.
In any environment other than his office or a bar, Jean-Claude is diminished. Finn walked with him once into the mountains outside Geneva and up there he looked like an ugly troll, with his nose and straggled beard, who’d had his fairy tale ripped out from under him. He seemed to be struggling to come to terms with a landscape that once, in another world perhaps, was his, but had now been tamed by roads and bridges and gas stations and hotels and all the other human forces more progressive than his own.
But in the dark cave of a bar, or of his study, he lost the uncertainty, the unease he felt in the wider, brighter modern world. Finn is the only person who calls Jean-Claude ‘Troll’ to his face.
‘And they’ve just killed my documentary,’ Jean-Claude puffs while Finn finishes reading the article. ‘Help me sell it in England, Finn,’ he says. ‘They’re serious in England,’ he continues, with a nostalgia for British investigative journalism that is at least thirty years out of date. ‘Anyway, why are you here? What do you want?’
When he senses Jean-Claude has finished with his tirade, Finn looks up from the newspaper, the Zürcher Zeitung, and grins broadly. ‘Hello, Troll,’ he says.
‘What the fuck is there to say “Hello” about?’ Jean-Claude grumbles. ‘You’ve read that, haven’t you?’
‘It’s two years,’ Finn laughs. Jean-Claude looks at him in astonishment, as though time is some devilish human construct which now even this, one of his few remaining and trusted friends, has fallen for.
Jean-Claude, Finn told me, would spend a year, two years- ten years, even–tracking one secret money trail through a hundred different destinations until he found where it all began, the hidden owner, the motherlode. He could follow a financial pipeline as a water diviner traces water. His fellow enthusiasts, who Finn imagined as a band of trolls, lived in other Swiss mountain towns, as well as in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Channel Islands, the Cayman and Virgin Islands. Jean-Claude had spent nearly fifty years obsessed with secret money.
First it was Nazi gold and the stolen cash hoards that found their way out of Germany at the end of the war, then the Camorra-the Naples mafia–and their Sicilian cousins, and then the KGB and Stasi secret money pipelines from East Germany. He has been spending fifteen years by the time Finn meets him on this morning in the Bar des Douanes, looking at the financial networks of Russian front companies and banks which were said to have been wound up when the Wall came down, but which were constructed so intricately, bound so tightly, that no one could be sure- and Jean-Claude, for one, didn’t believe- that they had really been wound up at all; companies like Exodi.
Time was nothing to him. Time, he once told Finn solemnly, was invented by the devil to clog the smooth-running machine that was God’s natural world. ‘And that,’ Finn had told me, ‘was when he was sober.’
‘Well?’ Finn says. ‘What’s new?’
‘Nothing’s new, you fucking idiot. That’s the point. What do you want?’
‘Maybe this is a good place to start,’ Finn says smiling and looks down at the front page of the Zürcher Zeitung.
Jean-Claude orders a large brandy the second time around, as if the single one hadn’t really done the trick, and he orders two more coffees and then he remembers he’s forgotten he’s out of tobacco and walks over to the counter and buys another pouch. When he is comfortably surrounded by these props, he looks at Finn balefully.
‘Stelzer’s the best chief prosecutor this country’s ever had,’ he says. ‘So what do they do? Intrigue against him. They’ll have him out by the end of the year. He’s prosecuting the wrong sort of people. Rich crooks, in other words. He’s trying to clean up this sewer of a country. The burghers are aghast. Stelzer’s been stopping dirty money coming over from the East. Russia itself; Kazakhstan and the other central Asian republics; the Caucasus. Tens of billions of laundered cash is getting held up by Stelzer from joining all the other cash that the world’s murderers and half-mad potentates and mafiosi and intelligence creeps like you wish to deposit in our beautiful vaults. Two weeks ago Stelzer said to the parliamentary financial committee–in other words, interested bankers who run the country–that if we accept all these huge, unprecedented sums of black money, we’ll choke on it. They didn’t listen then and they aren’t now.
‘Last week was the final straw. Stelzer had four men arrested coming over the border from Liechtenstein with nearly four billion dollars’ worth of bonds. And you know what they’re saying down at the border post? That Putin himself is a nominee for some of it. I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it. Are they that brazen in the Kremlin? Anyway, Stelzer had them all arrested, along with that Russian mafioso Mikhas, and locked them up and photographed everyone, as well as the documents.’
Jean-Claude puffs his cigarette, which has gone out a while before. ‘Walking over the fucking border!’ he says, amazed.
Jean-Claude takes a delicate sip from his brandy glass, a gesture that is somehow inappropriate next to his brutal verbal assault.
Jean-Claude only ever drinks less than half of what he buys or what he pours. He simply likes to know it is there.
‘And do you know what I know?’ Jean-Claude demands. ‘Of course you don’t. They’ll replace him with Hutzger. You know Hutzger. Harvard Business School, the Swiss Economic Committee, then the Principality’s financial adviser in Liechtenstein. He’s been in charge of hushing up their criminal activities in Vaduz–perfect training for Switzerland. You know Hutzger, Finn?’
Finn pauses and looks at the surface of the table, as if at some imaginary stain. Hutzger is the name he’s heard from Dieter a year before, the man who laid the false trail for the German intelligence services in their investigation into Exodi.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, what do you know about him?’ Jean-Claude asks sourly.
‘We believe he has contacts with the KGB,’ Finn says.
For the first time, Jean-Claude looks wrong-footed.
‘What did you say?’
Finn doesn’t reply.
Jean-Claude replaces the brandy glass on the table and stares at Finn.
‘Show me that’s true,’ he says at last.
‘Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. But with your help I can do a lot more than that. Putin’s personal funds are a sideshow. I need you, Troll. I need your help.’
There is no indication of assent or otherwise.
‘I have a friend in the mountains,’ Jean-Claude says. ‘He makes one wristwatch a year. Just one. He spends ten, twelve hours a day perhaps, for a whole year and makes one watch. Then he sells it for two or three hundred thousand dollars. I love this man. He’s a perfectionist, there is madness in him. Switzerland is a perfectionist country, if you hadn’t noticed. It has perfected the art of looking after other people’s money. There are more people employed in Switzerland with the sole purpose of hiding money than there are coal miners in Ukraine. The Swiss are genetically programmed to hide things. The lines of banks along the lake and all the ones dotted around the cantons are just the physical manifestation of what is going on inside their heads.’
He looks directly at Finn. ‘Apart from my house, have you ever been invited into the house of a Swiss out in the mountains?’
‘No.’
‘You see. They hide everything, even when there’s nothing to hide except IKEA furniture. They can’t help it, it’s a disease.’
‘And where there are perfectly hidden things there are also people who are perfect at finding them,’ Finn says.
‘Exactly,’ the Troll says proudly. ‘You make one thing and you make its opposite at the same time. That is normal. Bullets and armour; missiles and radar; tax laws and tax evasion; life and death.’
‘That’s why I want your help.’
‘But will you hide things from me too? I know you and your profession.’
‘You’ll have everything I have.’
‘Then I’ll help you.’
He doesn’t question Finn’s word.
Jean-Claude rummages in his knapsack and takes out a videotape.
‘There,’ he says. ‘That’s my documentary which Swiss TV has refused to broadcast. Look at it soon. But you must go to Liechtenstein. Speak to Pablo in Vaduz. You know Pablo?’
‘I’ve met him with you.’
‘He has an interesting story about Hutzger.’
‘Is Pablo like us?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. I think he can’t help playing both sides. That’s his disease.’
‘Thank you, Jean-Claude.’
Once again the Troll looks at Finn in amazement. He has no concept of gratitude.
‘I need something very specific from you, Troll,’ Finn says. ‘There’s a set of companies. They’re called Exodi, and there’s one of them here in Geneva. I want to know whatever you can find for me about Exodi in Geneva.’
‘Exodi?’ the Troll murmurs. ‘No. I don’t know it. Call on me in a week and we’ll see where we are.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Finn says.
Finn sits on a stone bench by the neatly landscaped quay reserved for Lake Geneva’s pleasure boats. Here the lake narrows to the width of a bridge span and runs off through a lock and into the Rhone.
He watches the man in the light brown polo shirt and Burberry slacks who ushers two small children in front of him and on to the ferry. Sergei must have seen the strip of black tape on his car screen within an hour of Finn leaving it there.
The Russian has been waiting on the far side of the road from the quay, buying ice creams and balloons for the kids until the ferry is almost ready to depart. He joins the end of the now-depleted queue, so he will know there is nobody boarding behind him- or, if anybody does board, he will have a picture of a face clearly in his mind. And he will know to abort.
But nobody comes on behind him and the ferry churns the water with its bow propeller and, crablike, leaves the quay in a white wash, heading up the lake for several stops on the way to Vevey.
Finn notes the ferry’s destination again, folds the tourist map he’s needlessly carrying, stands up and tucks it into a back pocket. He walks across the intersection of three roads that filter towards the bridges that join Geneva’s two parts at the lake’s apex and picks up the one taxi that stands at the rank.
They wind out of Geneva to the east and pass through its satellite towns and villages that dot the lake. He pays off the taxi a few miles before his destination and takes a bus the rest of the way.
The restaurant stands on a sloping lawn that meets the lake in a grass beach. Nearby is a quay where the ferry stops on the way up the lake. There is a large worn-out play area administered by two young women, probably itinerant workers from Eastern Europe. There is plenty of brightly coloured plastic equipment to amuse the children while their parents eat or drink in a modest wooden building that opens only in the summer.
Sergei sits by the window, facing towards the road with the beautiful lake view behind him.
‘You were quick,’ Finn says, and sits down.
‘You were slow,’ Sergei says. ‘We don’t have a lot of time. Life here isn’t so safe for me any more. Not since Dobby’s been in power.’
Sergei uses the insulting KGB nickname for President Putin, a name taken from Harry Potter’s goblin.
Sergei had come up through the Forest’s training school at the same time as me. In 1992 he started a trading company in Moscow which imported sugar at first, then branched out into other foodstuffs. He became acquainted with the trading floors of Western Europe, made his millions and then moved to Geneva.
After Yeltsin had made Putin his prime minister and when the various KGB clans rivalled each other to put their man in position to win the elections, Sergei was working on behalf of one of Putin’s opponents, one of the KGB’s four or five chosen candidates to win the elections, before the list was finally whittled down to Putin. Sergei ended up funding a losing candidate.
A successful businessman, now worth several hundred million, Sergei continued his work as a KGB informer and reported directly to the KGB’s officer at the Russian delegation of the United Nations in Geneva. Sergei was riding high in Geneva for several years, making millions from KGB-backed trading contracts and his own private business. But his one mistake- a mistake that was to cost him and many others dear- was that he had backed the wrong horse. His candidate was now an ordinary MP in the Russian Duma and Putin was president.
‘Things will pass,’ Finn says. ‘Just ride it out, Sergei.’
‘I don’t know if I’m under surveillance but safe, or on the list and not safe,’ the Russian replies. ‘That’s how they like it best. Keeping everyone in fear.’
‘How bad is it?’ Finn says.
‘Terrible. The Petersburg clan are triumphant in their victory last year. Putin himself, Ivanov, Sechin–the lot of them. And now they’re ironing out their enemies-or anyone they feel like ironing out. Not just in Moscow either. They’re already turning to the outside world. Putin’s Petersburg clan-these damn Peterski-they’re even more ruthless than we thought.’
Sergei gulps from a plastic glass of transparent liquor.
‘They’re putting out contracts, for Christ’s sake,’ he continues. ‘It’s not enough that Putin’s won, now they want to erase anyone who’s got under their skin. I put nearly five million dollars on the losing ticket in the election campaign and now my whole fucking body’s above the parapet.’
Sergei drinks heavily again from the plastic tumbler and leans across the table to Finn.
‘I’m glad you’re here. You know, I may want to come over. Maybe it’s my only choice now.’ He sits back. ‘I hear you’ve left Moscow. You’ve got trouble too?’
Finn thinks about suggesting that Sergei go to the Americans as a safer haven, rather than the British. But he needs Sergei where he is for now, in the field, not in some CIA safe house in Connecticut on a two-year debriefing.
‘No, no trouble,’ Finn says. ‘Just a change of job.’
A waitress comes and takes Finn’s order for a glass of wine and another vodka for Sergei.
‘We can take you in, of course,’ Finn lies. ‘But now’s not a good time. Give it a few months when we can demonstrate more clearly what Putin’s doing. Then my people in London will really appreciate your value. But I need your help for that. Right now you’ll be coming up against my government’s love affair with Putin.’
‘I can’t last much longer like this,’ the Russian says plaintively, and Finn watches the alcoholic self-pity well up in his face. ‘They’re watching me, sticking pins in me, hounding me. An article appeared in Izvestia, naming me in some scandal. Inspired, of course, by the dogs in Putin’s clan. There are people in his clan who hate me in Moscow.’
‘But, as you say, Sergei, they’re putting the frighteners on everyone, not just you. What they want you to do is run. That will prove your treachery. And then they catch you before you can get to safety.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘I’ll help you when it’s time,’ Finn says, lying easily again. He has no power to help Sergei or anyone else.
‘Putin has spent a year gathering Russia’s money,’ Sergei continues. ‘It’s going to be a great harvest. He’s put all his own people into the state economy, the state oil companies, where they drain a fat percentage for themselves on the inside. And the oligarchs, our once-new independent businessmen, are now cap in hand. They’re all afraid, even the most powerful. Putin has told them they must share their wealth. Share it with the KGB, with the Forest, of course, but not with the country. Geneva, you wouldn’t believe it! It’s crawling with operatives. Back in Moscow they’re activating agents who’ve been asleep for years. There are sting operations against certain banks…’
‘Which banks?’
‘Which ones? There are half a dozen. All old KGB sympathisers who have long fallen into disuse. Asleep.’
Finn says nothing.
‘A month ago,’ Sergei says, leaning in towards Finn again, ‘the president of the Banque Leman was invited to Moscow. He has a weakness from a long time back. But this time they photographed him indulging in this weakness–for underage girls–in an apartment in the city. Now they use the pictures to tell him what to do.’
‘What’s new?’ Finn says.
‘This is what’s new. The regime isn’t only interested in funding the Forest’s operations abroad any more. It has very big plans, very big money from business, mafia sources, billions. There are accounts being opened up in the Banque Leman in the name of foreigners who hold very senior positions in the West. So they say. Bribe money is bottomless. That’s just one bank. There are others.’
‘Why’s it different from their normal Forest operations?’ Finn says calmly.
‘This time they plan to use their vast capital like the West does,’ Sergei says. ‘They’re in a no-limit poker game with the markets as the pot.’
The small children Finn has seen with Sergei on the quay earlier run into the restaurant and look at Finn.
‘What’s the name of this bank’s president?’ Finn says.
‘Naider. Clement Naider.’
‘Can you get me the pictures, the photographs with these underage girls your side has of him?’ Finn says.
‘You ask too much,’ Sergei says. ‘I tell you, I’m watched.’
One of the boys tugs his arm and his brother comes in to join them.
‘I’m taking too big a risk just by being here. I have to go,’ Sergei says. ‘You will help me?’
‘Soon. When it’s time. I need the pictures, Sergei,’ Finn says. ‘Naider and the girls.’
‘No more now please.’
Finn stands up as Sergei does. ‘I’ll help you if you do this,’ Finn promises. ‘We’ll have you in a nice big house in Surrey, near Boris, all yours, with a brand new passport.’
‘There isn’t much time for me,’ Sergei says, and drinks back the tumbler of vodka. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Finn leans in to the Russian.
‘No one’s interested in helping you, Sergei,’ Finn says harshly. ‘Not us, not the Americans. They’re in bed with Putin. If you want me to get you out, find the pictures.’
Beads of sweat break out across the Russian’s forehead. Then he takes the boy’s hand and leaves the restaurant without a word.
Finn watches the small boy looking back at him. Who’s that man, he seems to hear him say. They step out on to the warm lawn, and Finn wonders how much grace Sergei really does have left with the Kremlin.