earlier, marked The Law Offices of Dan Gordon, Esq. She had executed it before the Swiss consul in Tehran and faxed me an advance copy. This was the original. As I instructed my assistant to messenger it to the surrogate’s court downtown, I reflected that at last, I was practicing law again. Well, not exactly. I wasn’t expecting to be paid, and my motive went beyond the need to serve a client. Also, the pleadings had been drafted and filed by a discreet Agency lawyer, not by me.
No matter. I was the one who’d signed the petition seeking my appointment as the administrator of the estate of the late Philip Montreau, aka Christopher Gonda. Wasn’t that enough?
A week later the surrogate’s clerk called me. “You have indicated in the petition a Swiss address of the decedent.”
“Yes.”
“Did the decedent have any assets in Switzerland?”
“I think he just had bank accounts.”
“You will most probably need ancillary letters of administration for a Swiss court. The Swiss banks will not honor a New York court’s order. You’ll have to convert it to become a Swiss court order as well.”
Nonetheless, he said, my appointment had been confirmed, and he faxed me a copy. In short order, I dispatched a locksmith to meet me at Nazeri’s apartment. The locksmith opened the door, replaced the lock, gave me a key, and left.
I entered the spacious three bedroom apartment. Nazeri had spent a lot of money on decor. Not to my taste, all these pink figurines and lace, but still expensive. I searched the apartment. It was clean. Too clean. I put on plastic gloves and looked around. I opened drawers and closets. Nothing. It was like a model apartment in a development for people of middling taste. There was nothing personal in the apartment, and there were no documents whatsoever, not even an old phone bill. The apartment was neat and tidy, as if the maid had just left, removing everything personal or made of pulp. I sighed. I’d have to send lab people to search for fingerprints.
I returned to my office and wrote a report to the file. Two days later the surrogate’s court issued the additional documents to be sent to Switzerland. After we had them approved with an apostille, that antiquated but still-necessary method of authenticating documents for transmission to foreign authorities, I sent them to Switzerland by registered mail. Boring, formal, but necessary.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A week later Dr. Liechtenstein, our Swiss attorney, faxed me the court’s decision. It took me some time to decipher the archaic German they used. I read it again and again until I understood that in fact the Swiss court had authorized the request of the New York City Surrogate’s Court to order Tempelhof Bank to open their archives and provide the New York Surrogate Court’s appointed Administrator Herr Dan Gordon with copies of records of deposits and other transactions of the late Philip Montreau, also known as Christopher Gonda, who resided in Wehntalerstr. 215, CH-8057 Zurich, made or occurring between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 2005, at Tempelhof Bank, or for which Tempelhof Bank acted as a banking correspondent.
The order contained additional conditions and details, but I was already celebrating in my heart. I had managed to make another small step forward.
I called Dr. Liechtenstein in Zurich and asked to arrange my visit to inspect the documents.
“I’ve already talked to them. It will have to be at their storage facility,” he said. “I’m sorry-they tell me that the physical conditions there aren’t so good.”
Five days later I was in Zurich, my court-authorized appointments and travel documents having been fully vetted. “You never know with the Swiss authorities,” Bob Holliday had said. “They’re extremely fussy when U.S. government agents visit their country, even when the visit complies with a Swiss court’s order.”
I met Dr. Liechtenstein with the bank’s lawyer, and we traveled to Bern’s Manheim Document Storage company. There were an hour and a half of formalities, which included my execution of a confidentiality agreement, in case during the course of my search I was exposed to documents unrelated to Mr. Montreau, and therefore not included in the court’s order. I signed. Why should I care if I stumbled on secret deposits of this dictator or that thug? I raced through the formalities. I had one agenda: Chameleon and his Atashbon cohorts. I wouldn’t be distracted, not even by the bureaucratic hurdles put up by the young blond man who was assigned by the bank to help me. I knew he was in there to make sure I wasn’t sidestepping my court-approved gangway, which was like the one used to herd cattle to the slaughter. My gangway here was fitted with virtual sides, railings, and other means of protection, to prevent me from looking at any other documents. Here, I thought, I was the cattle.
I’d come prepared. Before leaving New York I had met with Special Agent Matt Kilburn of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Unit, whom I’d first met at the conference in Giverny, France. Matt had been working on the investigation of Nada Management, previously known as Al Taqwa, and provided me with excellent written and oral reports on the methods of its operation.
Heinrich Andrist, my chaperone, appointed by Tempelhof Bank, was a gentle person with a very polite demeanor.
“OK,” I said as all the lawyers left. “Let’s start with 1981. Can you tell me how these cartons are cata loged?”
“By account number and by our client number index.”
“Can I see the index?”
“I’m sorry, you can’t. It contains names and details of the bank’s customers, and that is protected by Swiss law.”
“Of course. Let’s look up by name. The decedent’s name was Christopher Gonda, and then Philip Montreau. He may have also used Reza Nazeri.”
“Of course, Herr Gordon,” he said patiently. He went to the third row of the eight-foot-tall heavy metal shelves, climbed a small stepladder, and pulled out a carton case.
“That’s Mr. Gonda’s file for 1981.”
I chose that year to begin my search, although I was almost certain I’d find nothing. But just in case, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss anything.
I quickly ran my eyes over the yellowing documents. There were bank statements and deposit slips, telegraphic transfers and other documents. But there was nothing to quench my thirst or satisfy my hunger for pertinent facts. They were just old papers, seemingly irrelevant to my subject of interest. I need to see the buzzword Al Taqwa, or other similarly exciting leads telling me where the money went. An hour later I closed the box and shook my head.
“Nothing here,” I said. “Please bring the next box.”
Heinrich brought me 1982, then every year through 1987. Nothing. The documents represented typical bank accounts of a businessman who liked to travel and buy expensive gifts for himself. There were many transfers or withdrawals, but with all deposits made in cash, it was impossible to trace their origin or the source of his income. I made a record of significant outgoing transfers, all of them to other banks in Europe and the U.S. Hours went by. Heinrich looked at his watch; it was four thirty p.m. But he still said nothing.
“Please get me the 1988 box, and we’ll call it a day,” I said. He seemed relieved.
That box was bigger than the rest. As the flying dust reached my nose, I sneezed, and then, getting a better look, restrained myself from crying aloud. Lying atop the pile was a printed envelope of Al Taqwa. Inside were copies of seven wire transfers made from an Al Taqwa account in Lugano, Switzerland, through Tempelhof Bank to a McHanna Associates account at Manufacturers Hanover bank in New York. I quickly added up the amounts. They totaled approximately $7 million. The transfer orders were signed by Gonda. That was a strong indication that he had signature rights at Al Taqwa to move funds around.
I frantically leafed though the other documents in the box and felt like Ali Baba in the children’s story, breaking into the cave of the forty thieves and finding heaps of silver and gold, bales of silk and fine carpets. An inch deeper into the box, I found additional documents showing wire transfers from Gonda to Al Taqwa and from them to McHanna Associates, using Tempelhof Bank as a correspondent bank. Heinrich made me copies of the
