Page 71 of The Atlas Maneuver

They kept speeding down the road.

“Those guys were CIA?” he asked.

“Like the one yesterday in the consulate. We appreciated that gesture too, Malone-san.”

She was there, and knew him?

Okay.

But was this friend or foe?

CHAPTER 38

CASSIOPEIA STOOD AT THE DECK’S STERN. SHE, KOGER, ANDCITRONEwere back aboard Citrone’s V-hull powering across Lake Geneva. The sky had carried through on its earlier threat. A soft morning drizzle had turned into a light gale, the wind moaning across the surface, coiling the fog around like a snake. Definitely not a day to go fishing.

“That vault was empty,” Citrone told them. “Which means we have to explore other possibilities. One of those is here, on the lake.”

Koger swung the bow around toward the southeast, taking the swells. Water pecked at the windscreen. He kicked up speed, the engines responding with a surge of power hurling the boat ahead with a smooth dull roar. Citrone had explained that the gold belonging to the Black Eagle Trust had been held in various vaults around Switzerland from 1950 until sometime in the late 1990s. That was when the bullion was moved to Geneva and the underground vault. With the location’s conversion to a wine repository the gold was supposedly left in place. Or that’s what Citrone was led to believe.

“I heard various stories that conflicted,” Citrone said. “That’s why I suggested a firsthand look inside the wine vault. Now thatwe know it’s empty, there is one other possibility. A story that can no longer be discounted as fiction.”

Bank secrecy in the Swiss region can be traced back to 1713 and the Great Council of Geneva, which outlawed the disclosure of any financial information about the European upper class. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 formally established Switzerland’s international neutrality. Landlocked, the Swiss saw banking secrecy as a way to build an empire similar to the use of armies and navies by France, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

And it worked.

The mountainous terrain provided the perfect place to excavate secure underground vaults for storage of gold, diamonds, and other valuables. During World War I, when European countries began to increase taxes to finance the war, the wealthy moved their holdings into Swiss accounts to avoid taxation. The French banked in Geneva, the Italians in Lugano, the Germans in Zurich. Banking secrecy was codified in 1934 by the Swiss Federal Assembly, which quelled all controversy over the alleged tax evasion of wealthy French businessmen, military generals, and Catholic bishops. That law also protected Jewish assets from the Nazi party and Nazi assets from the world.

After the 2008 financial crisis pressure increased to eliminate Switzerland’s long-standing banking secrecy. But the Federal Assembly resisted the lobbying and increased the prison sentence for violations of secrecy from a maximum of six months to five years. Eventually Switzerland signed the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which required Swiss banks to disclose non-identifying client information annually to the Internal Revenue Service, but only if the client consented.

Which rarely happened.

More laws were passed in 2015 and 2017, which allowed for additional disclosures, but nothing far reaching. Most dealt with ongoing audits and the level of cooperation that a Swiss bank could offer. In the end secrecy remained an integral part of Swiss banking. So much so that the Justice Ministry declared that thatdisclosure of client information in any pending court case was subject to federal espionage and extortion charges, in addition to charges relating to banking secrecy laws. Employees working in Switzerland and abroad at Swiss banks had long adhered to an unwritten code, similar to that observed by doctors or priests.

Never. Reveal. Anything.

Since 1934 Swiss banking secrecy laws had been violated by only four people. Christoph Meili in 1990, Bradley Birkenfeld in 2007, Rudolf Elmer in 2011, and Hervé Falciani in 2014.

“Those breaches of secrecy sent shock waves through Swiss banking,” Citrone said. “They were deemed unthinkable.”

Koger stood at the helm and kept them powering ahead through the storm.

“That was particularly true for the Bank of St. George,” Citrone said. “They took extreme measures to guard their Swiss assets. I was there and participated in those efforts. Since the gold is no longer in that wine vault, and if the story I was told is to be believed, they moved it south, across the lake, to a new underground vault.”

“And why was this not mentioned before?” Koger asked.

“Because it was just a story, until yesterday. Now it may indeed be a fact.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Citrone shifted his bulky frame over to the GPS navigation unit. The boat was equipped with a variety of electronics that included a satellite radio, high-frequency radar, and a sonar unit. Citrone removed a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and stepped close to the GPS display. He then tapped in a set of numbers and the boat’s compass projected a course on the screen before Koger at the helm.

“Follow that route,” Citrone said.

Koger tossed her a look that asked what she was thinking. So Cassiopeia said, “Is the story over?”

“Are you enthralled?”

“You do seem to enjoy its telling.”

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