Recruiting Bastien
Raphael Mirabaud
Some conversations require whiskey
at ten in the morning.
The next day, on the first day Valerian allowed Raphael free run of Geneva Trust without Russian guards breathing down his back, Raphael leaned on the doorway of his uncle Bastien’s office. “Tell me what happened.”
Bastien leaned back in his chair and tossed his pen ontothe paperwork scattered on his wide desk as if he were throwing a dart at something slimy that had crawled in. “What are you here to destroy now, Raphael?”
“Just tell me what happened.” They both knew what he meant. He didn’t need to elaborate.
Sunlight shining through the window picked out metallic silver strands in Bastien’s gold and gray hair. “Piotr Ilyin was furious. It cost him millionsof dollars when you ran. We paid him back from personal funds, but it wasn’t just the money, of course. We had to appease him, or he would have had his Russian goons go after someone else in the family. We had to assure the police and the government that we weren’t involved with the Ilyin Bratva, but we were involved up to our necks, thanks to you. Even with that, there were some minor convictionsfor banking improprieties that we had to accept and then explain to our other customers, the ones who weren’t using us as a money laundering service. Some left, which has made us more dependent on the Ilyins and their dirty money.”
Raphael asked, “Who took the fall?”
“Wealldid! Wealltook the fall for you, after you got us so deeply involved with the Ilyins and then ran away.”
That wasn’tquite accurate.
Raphael had been twelve when the Ilyins had begun using Geneva Trust as their principal financial institution in Europe, which meant Geneva Trust had become their primary money laundering institution. Raphael had been doing nothing more nefarious than playing soccer when he was twelve.
Geneva Trust’s connections with organized crime reached farther back in time than that, ofcourse. Swiss banks were synonymous with money laundering and cash stashed away from interested governments and spouses.
When Raphael had turned sixteen, he’d gone through the bank’s computerized records back to the 1930s. Geneva Trust had millions in deposits from people who had not contacted the bank after 1939. Their descendants or family members had not been able to supply the necessary informationto claim the funds, even though it was obvious who they were and that they desperately needed the money to escape Germany or start over somewhere outside of Europe after the Holocaust. The bank had kept those untold millions in unclaimed deposits and loaned them out at interest, which amounted to a tidy profit every year.
Calling Geneva Trust innocent was disingenuous, to say the very least.
Raphael asked Bastien, “Did you know what the delivery was?”
Bastien shrugged his thin shoulders. “I’m sure it was something dastardly. Heroin?”
It didn’t matter now, over a decade later. “It wasn’t drugs. So, you guys were out some money.”
Bastien ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “It caused a lot of problems.”
“You never wanted the bank to get involved with the Ilyins.”
“Close thedoor.”
Raphael stepped into Bastien’s office and closed the door behind himself. “Did you?”
Bastien gestured to the conversation group in the corner, over by the wet bar, and walked around his desk. “If you want to talk, let’s sit down and have a drink.”
Raphael didn’t mention that it was ten in the morning. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
Bastien stood at the bar. Ice clinked in glasses,and Bastien splashed amber liquid over the cubes. He handed one to Raphael and sat on the couch opposite him. “My liver is in its best form of my life after drinking all day, every day, in Las Vegas. I could drink anyone under the table right now.”
“That must come in handy for a banker.”
“Indeed.”
“You spied on us for months in Vegas and didn’t tell Flicka who you were.”
Bastien sipped hisdrink. “Valerian and I walked into the Monaco Casino on the second day we were there, looking for you. He glanced over the crowd and declared that he didn’t see anyone who looked like you.”
“But you did.”
