Dulac sat in his office waiting for Sabine Autissier, Interpol Agent, Financial and Economic Crimes Research Section. He’d been waiting for the past twenty minutes. He looked at his watch, picked up the phone and dialed her number.
“Yes Mr. Dulac.”.
“You’re late.”
“I… I’ve been buried in another file. But I do have that info you requested on the P & W officers.”
Ten minutes later, a fortyish woman with short cut, dark brown hair and striking pale blue eyes entered Dulac’s office, a thick file under each arm.
“All that?” said Dulac.
“Many of the documents are just legwork to get access to the actual trades.” said Autissier. “The London Market Access Rules are very strict, to protect client confidentiality.”
“Please,” said Dulac, offering her a seat in front of him.
“Thanks.” She deposited the files on Dulac’s desk and looked at him quickly, avoiding eye contact, before sitting hesitantly. “Anything the matter?” said Dulac.
Autissier cleared her throat. “You realize that technically, we have no authority to investigate internal financial matters of British subjects.”
“That’s what Arlberg keeps telling me. I disagree. If these transactions are connected to crimes under our jurisdiction, then we have the right to investigate. Unfortunately, we’ll only find out once we probe.”
“Sort of a chicken and egg situation, I guess.”
“We’ve got to start somewhere. So what is your overall assessment?” Dulac swiveled his chair in the direction of the window, got up and closed the blind.
“There are many small trades in P & W stock by various officers during the past two years. I can’t see a pattern here. However, we did some digging on some significant transactions.”
“Significant?”
“Transactions where five percent or more of the stock is traded.”
Dulac returned to his desk and sat down. “And?”
“A shareholder called Mirolet SA, a Swiss corporation with Head office in Zurich, shorted 6, 775,000 Class A shares valued at 9 pounds per share on—”
“What do you mean ‘shorted’”?
“Shorting shares is betting the stock of a company will go down. A borrower, in this case Mirolet, borrows a number of the company’s shares from a broker and sells them immediately. The broker keeps the money. When the borrower decides that the shares have gone down far enough, he ‘covers the short’. He buys an equivalent amount of the shares borrowed and gives them to the broker. The borrower then makes his profit on the difference. To our knowledge, Mirolet has not covered yet.”
Dulac scratched the back of his head, then ran a hand through his hair. “So if I understand correctly, the borrower never actually owns the shares borrowed, only their replacement, and only owns them briefly before handing them over to the broker.”
“Exactly.”
Dulac leaned forward, forearms on his desk. “So why hasn’t Mirolet covered the short?”
“They’re probably betting the shares will drop even further.”
“And if the shares go up in value?”
“They lose. There’s no limit to their potential losses.”
“Interesting. Very interesting. So when did this shorting of P & W shares happen?”
Autissier looked at the front page of her report. “On September 26th.”
“That’s about two weeks before the hijack.”
“Correct.”
“And right about the time Bolding and Hays sold their shares.”
“I also noted that coincidence in my report. If Mirolet exercised the short on the shares today, they would make approximately 3 pounds per share, or 20.1 million pounds.”
Dulac emitted a loud whistle. “Not exactly chicken feed. Any guesses as to who owns Mirolet?”
“None. It has an answering service and a postal address on Banhoffstrasse in Zurich.”
“Someone has to pay the rent.”
“We’re looking into it.”
“Anything else?”
“Apart from buy-sell transactions in the normal course of business, nothing that stood out.”
Dulac leaned back in his swivel chair and pushed himself slightly back, away from his desk. “So we have an absentee Swiss tenant who doesn’t want to be disturbed, making a pile of money after the sinking of a ship.”
“It could be a coincidence.”
“That’s what people keep telling me. I don’t for one second believe it.”
“It’s going to take a lot of digging to find out who is behind Mirolet. The Swiss will require proof of a link between a crime and the otherwise perfectly legal stock transaction.”
“I think we owe it to ourselves and those dead passengers to do just that. Anything interesting in the emails or other communications of P & W’s officers?”
Autissier recoiled slightly, a look of surprise on her face. “Mr. Dulac, you of all people should know that kind of information is strictly off limits without a court order.”
“Yes, of course. I just thought you might have had some of it spill over, so to speak. Never mind. Just keep digging on Mirolet. Let me know and thanks, Sabine.” He eyed the thick pile of documents. “I’ll need only the summary.”
Still visibly uncomfortable, Autissier gathered her documents and left.
Dulac knew he’d tested the limits of Autissier’s willingness to probe and perhaps gone a bit too far. It was time to try another tack.
* * *
Dulac returned to his two bedroom flat and made himself a scotch. Glass in hand, he went to the Steinway and sat down on the small wooden bench next to it. He took a sip, swirled it delicately with his tongue and swallowed. He parked the glass on the side table and opened the Chopin Preludes partition at Prelude Number 5. In his youth, he would have played it by heart. Impossible now, without the score. Alcohol, cigarettes and age had wreaked their inexorable havoc in his memory cells. Yet paradoxically, just the right mix of Glenmorangie Single Malt and piano playing would trigger the neurons and synapses and often produced clarity of thought. That’s what he needed right now. He started to play, his long fingers flying over the keyboard effortlessly. That is, until the difficult middle section, when his hands began faltering, refusing to follow the commands of his brain. False notes fell one after the other and Dulac winced. I’m getting too old for this. He stopped and took another swig of scotch. Meanwhile the image of Henri Messier crept into his consciousness, then came into full focus.
Dulac hadn’t heard about his former Montpelier University classmate Messier since the latter had made front page news in Le Figaro two years back. Messier had been acquitted of hacking into the security system of the City of Lyon’s Department of Pensions and Benefits and trying to steer money into fictitious retirement accounts. In their zeal to catch Messier, the Sureté had crossed the line, planted false evidence and been accused of entrapment. Messier had gotten away scot-free.
It was known in the world of cyber-espionage that Henri le Geek as he was called, could do marvelous things with computers. Dulac, along with other constabulary forces in Lyon had used his services more than once. The problem was that some of Messier’s methods were sometimes far from legal. Because of his usefulness to the police, they more often than not turned a blind eye to Messier’s minor transgressions.
Dulac decided it was time to renew their old acquaintance. He gave Messier a call, recognizing immediately his former classmate’s sing-song Marseillais accent.
“Of course I’m open this evening. Can’t afford to retire yet,” said Messier.
“You’re still on Rue D’Amboise?”
“Same old place. Same old me. But the cat died last week.”
Dulac finished his scotch, went downstairs to the garage, entered his Renault and proceeded to Messier’s electronics repair shop, a small place with the neon sign Microbytes Messier illuminating its storefront. An assortment of computers and related accessories filled the window display helter-skelter, with no discernible attempt to attract eventual customers.
“If it isn’t my good friend and Interpol agent Thierry Dulac.” Messier stood behind his counter in a rumpled grey shirt and baggy brown pants. “How are you?”
Dulac couldn’t help but notice that Messier had gone almost completely bald, a far cry from the mane of thick brown hair he’d had during his time at the university. “Trying to keep out of trouble. And you?”
“Fine, fine. What brings you to this part of the world, or should I ask?”
“I need a favor, from one of the best computer wizards I know.”
“Coming from you, not much of a compliment.” Messier smiled, letting show a set of rotten, dark-yellow teeth.
“I have a challenge for you.” Dulac well knew Messier’s incurable taste for cyber-adventure.
“Official, or unofficial?”
“Just helping an old friend.”
“That doesn’t put food in the refrigerator.”
“Could help bring some criminals to justice.”
“Noble thought, but I am rather busy. What’s it about, anyway?”
“It’s about getting the details of telephone calls and e-mails of key personnel of a British shipping company, say for the last three months.”
“Surely you’re joking.”
“That difficult?”
“On the contrary. Piece of cake. I thought you said you had a challenge for me.”
“I suppose the challenge is keeping this under wraps.” Dulac thought he shouldn’t remind Messier of his past misadventure. “How much?”
Messier rubbed his chin with his right hand. “Well, since this is ‘unofficial’, say 2000 euros cash and a laptop. “
Dulac emitted a loud whistle. “Not cheap.”
“And that’s because you`re a friend. Market price is double.”
“How long?” said Dulac.
“About a day to get an untraceable black-market computer, then another couple of days max to do the work.”
“I’ll need a receipt. Label it ‘computer repair’. At Interpol, creativity with one’s expense account has its limits.” Dulac reached in his pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a list of P & W’s key personnel. And by the way, we’ve never had this conversation.”
“Of course.” Messier winked.
* * *
The following afternoon, Dulac received a call from Messier.
“I have the goods.”
“That was quick. I’ll be right over.”
“Don’t forget the 2,000 euros.”
“Have it with me.”
Dulac put the envelope in his pocket, went downstairs to the garage, jumped into his Renault and drove to Rue d’ Amboise. He parked in front of Messier’s shop. Messier was at the door and showed him in.
Messier went behind the counter, opened a side drawer and reached in. “Voilà,” said Messier, handing two USB sticks to Dulac. “One for the emails, the other for the phone calls and numbers.”
“That’s it?”
“What did you expect? Gift wrapping and sworn affidavits of authenticity?”
Dulac grinned, pulled a white envelope from his coat pocket and handed it to Messier.
Messier folded it and shoved it in his pants pocket.
“Aren’t you going to count it?”
Messier smiled at Dulac. “If one can’t trust an Interpol agent—”
Dulac looked at the USB sticks. “Anything in particular?”
“I didn’t have time to check thoroughly, but one thing piqued my curiosity.”
“Which is?”
Messier reached down, took out a dust cloth and wiped the glass countertop. “There are calls made to Switzerland to a company answering service. I tried to get someone on the line, but no one answers. It’s Mira something.”
“Mirolet?”
Messier stopped dusting and looked at Dulac. “That’s it. Mirolet SA.”
“Jesus.” Dulac’s mind reeled, absorbing the impact of the news. “Who called?”
“That’s what’s strange. The other calls were made either through the company’s switchboard or direct dialing, but the calls to Mirolet were made through an encrypted number, so I couldn’t trace the calls.”
“Very interesting. What does it take to find out?”
“Can’t do that without the company log.”
“And that means a search warrant.”
“Yes, but you might get the number through cross-references with emails.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”