MONEY TREE (18 page)

She called FedEx and left the package at the reception desk downstairs. Feeling pleased with herself, she went back up to check her make-up and hair in the women’s restroom, the one that Sandi Carmichael herself sometimes used just before going on air.

‘
O
K, what are we trying to get out of this meeting, Ted?’

Erin
looked much sharper when she joined him in the meeting room. Sleep or make-up had erased the dark from under eyes. Her skin looked clearer, tighter. She was back in contact lenses, work blouse, skirt and jacket. The switch threw Ted. Here we go - back in the board room.

‘
Ramesh talked generally about the bank being under attack – from the press, the government, the competition and the like. I need more details. Specifics. This is your area. See if any of this stacks up with your insider views of Stanstead’s methods.’

She nodded.
‘He also mentioned technology attacks. That’s a different ball game.’

‘
Absolutely. Over to you. I don’t have a sense of what it means.’

‘Does
Ramesh know who I am?’

‘I had to tell him something.’

‘Like what?’

‘
I didn’t give a name. Just said you’re a senior exec in one of the lead Western banks – I didn’t say which - and that you’re struggling with your conscience.’

He waited for
her reaction.

‘
With regard to the senior exec – we might already be talking past tense. But I have no trouble with my conscience, not now.’

There was a knock on the door. It opened and a young man in immaculate whites ente
red. ‘Mr Banerjee, madam, sir.’

He stood aside and
Ramesh walked in, beaming from behind his big glasses. They all shook hands.

‘Well,
Ted, it is a start. We will convert you yet.’ He waved a copy of the Tribune.

‘Don’t get carried away
Ramesh. You’ll note I hedged my bets. I’m the original sceptic. I need more evidence, which is partly why Miss Erin Wishart is here.’

Ramesh
stood back and inspected Erin. Just as frankly, she stared back, getting the measure of this man.

‘
I’ve heard of you, Miss Erin Wishart. Global American is it not?’

She didn’t hesitate. ‘
Yes. Though it’s moot whether I still work for them. Things have been moving fast lately.’

She was confident and open, as though she’d stepped over a line.
Ramesh sucked in his breath.

‘And what would
the regional head of GA want with a humble bank manager like me?’

‘Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell
you all about it, Mr Banerjee?’

Erin
led them over to the small table with four chairs. She then took Ramesh through her story in a lucid and utterly candid exposition that left nothing unsaid – except the stuff about José Cadenza and Mrs Yeardon. Ted was impressed. There was none of the patronising, talking-down style that he expected. She was formidable without being hectoring.

Ramesh
interrupted only once or twice to check points or get elaboration. At the end, he sat back and looked at them both. He took off his glasses and made himself defenceless for a moment while he cleaned them with a fresh piece of linen taken from inside his tunic.

‘First, Miss
Wishart, I want to thank you for being so open with me. You have put yourself in a very difficult position. The question is, what do we do about it now? I am sitting on top of a bank that is about to be closed. I myself am about to stand up in court and face a trial whose outcome has probably already been decided by my government. And your bank might be responsible. What was it a French general said? Hard pressed on my right. Centre is yielding. Impossible to manœuvre. Situation excellent. Attack!’

‘
I bet it wasn’t a woman general. We like better odds. Can you give me a run-down of the main ways you’re being pressured?’

‘Pressure
d? How very British. A fine euphemism for fraud, sabotage, attempted murder, slander and libel!’

‘A
ttempted murder! Anything missing from that list, Ramesh?’ she asked wryly.

‘It will do.’ His grin showed hi
s sense of humour had survived. ‘There are three ways in which we are under attack. The first – and this is in no special order you understand – is obviously the trial.’

‘I thought you said that was just the Government with a particular grudge against you?’ asked
Ted.

‘
Yes, but someone is working on them behind the scenes – an agent provocateur if you will. Perhaps Mr Stanstead’s doing? Otherwise I would have been able to head off the Government opposition. I still have friends there, and it is not as if we are child molesters or some such. I know the men in charge. In fact if I hadn’t known them they would have issued a non-bailable warrant for my arrest and those of my officers. I would have been in prison now till the trial. As it is, they don’t answer my phone calls, they avoid me at top level receptions or I simply don’t get invited. You have to be born here to detect it, that little shift in expression, that cast of the eyes, that change in tack. They have been bribed. And they know that I know! But they also know I can prove nothing.’

Erin
butted in. ‘If money changed hands, then there should be a trace. There’s always a record somewhere.’

‘That may be true, Miss
Wishart, but how would I find it?’

‘Let’s assume that we’re talking about serious sums of money,’ she said.
Ramesh nodded. ‘And that it’s probably a reserve currency – forgive me, no disrespect to the Rupee.’ Ramesh smiled and shook his head. ‘Dollars or Euros. Then somewhere there will be a record of cash leaving a bank and going into accounts somewhere else, right? My bet is that if we could do a pass on Global American’s transactions we could spot some interesting movements to named accounts.’

‘But that’s a needle in the mother of all haystacks,
Erin! Not with all the transactions that your bank sees daily.’ Ted was incredulous.

‘GA has spent hundreds of millions on the most sophisticated data warehouse systems in the world. We have a daily volume of around 100 million transactions peaking at 250 million some days. But we have computer power that can sift the whole customer database over the past year and pick out a single transaction. If need be, we can go into the historical details up to three years back, but that takes longer.’

She looked down for a minute with a puzzled frown. ‘The only problem is getting access. Even I had only limited powers - general searches, spotting trends, and so on. This would need a dedicated slice of our computing resources for – oh I guess – two, three hours.’

Ted
thought she was going to say days or weeks. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad. Can you call someone?’

She shook her head. ‘That amount of high-priced computing power needs Warwick’s personal authority. And I guess he’s not going to play ball.’

‘What about Oscar? Could he hack in?’

She looked hard at him. ‘You really think this guy is pretty special don’t you.’ He could see her brain sifting the problem. ‘It’s possible I guess. If the Lone Ranger software we ‘installed’
at GA could be used, then maybe. . .’

‘Lone Ranger?’ asked
Ramesh with a raised eyebrow.

Ted
waved a hand. ‘Don’t ask. Why don’t we call Oscar and see what he can come up with?’ Erin agreed and she turned back to Ramesh.

‘Ok
Ramesh, what’s the next offence against you?’

‘Despite our third world image, the People’s Bank is one of the most technologically advanced in the business. We are number one for the ratio of
branches to Internet accounts accessed by mobile phones. It’s why we have been so successful in the developing and the developed world. We offer superb technical facilities to our clients along with the chance to salve their consciences.’ He smiled.

‘And the problem is….?’
Ted asked.

‘Our computer systems – our lifeblood and backbone – are under attack. We have the best firewalls in the business, and
fall-back capacity that would be the envy of our armed forces – if they knew we had it. But over the last six or so months we have come under a series of bombardments aimed at crippling us. My technical chaps can explain it better. So far we have managed to deflect them, but they tell me it is only a matter of time, Miss Wishart.’ He looked meaningfully at her.

‘GA’s work?’
Ted asked Erin.

‘
Could be. I’m sorry, Ramesh, and please call me Erin.’

‘It is not your fault –
Erin.’

‘Let’s put this on Oscar’s list as well.’
Ted said. ‘What’s the third problem Ramesh? You mentioned attempted murder?’

‘They are
inciting the villages. They say we are worse than the money lenders. That we will call our loans in and steal their land, and the dispossessed will have to go and beg in the cities. Gangs of thugs are stirring up fears and targeting workers from this bank. Some are still in hospital.’

‘Can’t you get the local police to help?’
Ted asked, with a sinking feeling about the answer.

Ramesh
smiled sadly at them and shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘We think that in many cases, it is being coordinated by the local police.’

Erin
broke in, ‘Where’s your tech centre? Could we visit it?’

Ted
’s stomach flipped. More gadding about in this mosquito zone.

‘Certainly.
In Delhi, they can tell you better about what the cyber attacks. It might make it easier for your colleague – Oscar? – to get a proper understanding. New Delhi is also where the trial starts in a week. I am meeting with my defence team there on Monday. We are going through the process of discovery of evidence.’

‘That would work,
Ted.’ Erin seemed childishly excited. ‘We could talk to the techies. And maybe some customers. We’d be back in time for the trial.’

Ted
noticed the ‘we’ commitments, but decided to save his arguments for later, when they were alone. He felt cornered. Just as he’d expected, things were beginning to run away from him. He wasn’t quite sure who was in control of this operation, but it sure as hell wasn’t Ted Saddler.

Erin
and Ramesh spent a further while talking banking – most of it over Ted’s head – while he wondered if he’d had enough shots before he’d left New York to deal with whatever was out there waiting to bite him. Then his heightened instincts for self preservation strayed to thinking about the death arranged for José Cadenza and whether there were any vaccinations against a bullet.

‘
I
feel like a voyeur.’

Erin
was walking beside him, her arms clasped around her, hugging herself. She’d felt jet lag clawing at her mind again, and needed out of the hotel to stretch her legs before dinner. He advised against it, but at her insistence, took her round the block, just like his first night. It didn’t get any better, but the big-eyed kid wasn’t there when they passed the spot. He told Erin about her.

‘You’re a funny man,
Ted Saddler.’

‘How so, Miss
Wishart?’ They were re-entering the world of privilege and air conditioning as he asked this.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve no right to make any comment about you. I hardly know you. But we can put that right. You can tell me about the real
Ted Saddler over dinner.’

She’d
better get to know something about this man if they were forced to spend the next few days together. She was aware of his resentment at being pushed around. She knew the signs. Men found her hard to be around, threatening, especially those that worked for her. And for now, that included Ted Saddler. So be it. He was going to help this bank, whether he liked it or not. She knew it would oil the process a little if she showed some interest in him. 

Ted
ducked her questions right through until his second double bourbon had chinked its way down and they’d ordered food. She pushed him again as he pulled on a large glass of wine. Tackled him while he was still more or less sober.

‘You go first,’ he countered.

‘Typical.’

‘Just being a gent.’

‘Just being a man. Never give anything away.’

‘Self preservation. The more you explain, the more women want.’

‘Hey, I’m not your therapist. What are you hiding?’ she asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘Your light?’

‘Do these qualify as bushels?’
Ted flicked the nearby potted palm. ‘Ok, ok. I’ll keep it simple. I’m 51, born and brought up in Denver, Colorado. Came to New York – a long time ago. Been a hack ever since I can remember. Started with the college journal, then three years in the Army Press Corps – embedded with the Marines. Even had to do the training and carry a gun. Just in time for the Iraq War. Gave me plenty to write about but I struggled with the house style. Not to mention the house message. With the Tribune ever since.’