“You didn’t ask us to read the take,” said Dov.
Danni regarded him from beneath her brow. Maybe she allowed herself a hint of a smile.Please.
Isaac cleared his throat. “PetroSaud is a dirty shop.”
“Smart, but dirty,” added Dov. “And greedy.”
“Essentially, they were helping sovereign wealth funds defraud their investors.”
“Encouraging them, even. Instructing the fund managers how to pull off the thefts. Phony oil leases, shell companies, the whole shebang.”
“How much?” asked Danni.
“Billions,” said Isaac.
“Lots of billions,” said Dov. “And they were taking commissions on each transaction. Big commissions.”
“Mega,” said Isaac.
“Is that right?” Danni tapped a piece of misshapen lead on the table. It was the remnants of a Syrian bullet taken from her leg. “And De Bourbon…I take it he was in on it?”
Isaac shook his head. “Turns out he was the one honest guy. They tried to lure him in. He refused.”
“But that’s not the problem,” said Dov.
“What is?”
“His bonus.”
“Explain.”
“De Bourbon stole the files because PetroSaud balked at paying him a bonus they’d promised him.”
“So this whole thing is just so De Bourbon can get his bonus?” said Danni.
“Five million Swiss francs,” said Dov. “I’d have done the same.”
Danni considered this. De Bourbon’s motivations weren’t her concern, nor were PetroSaud’s crimes. She’d been hired to retrieve information, not to deliberate on the actions of someone she didn’t know. Still, she was bothered.
“There’s more,” said Isaac.
Of course there is,thought Danni.
“Someone else is pulling the strings. Not PetroSaud.”
Danni sensed she was treading on dangerous ground. She tapped the piece of lead faster.
“The fund managers didn’t keep all the money for themselves,” said Isaac. “They wired a percentage of the money they stole to a bank.”
“The Bank of Liechtenstein,” said Dov. “Vaduz branch.”
“How much?” asked Danni.
“In total, six billion dollars.”
Danni swallowed. The numbers were making her dizzy. “Do we know who the account at the Bank of Liechtenstein belongs to?”
“Brick wall,” said Isaac.
