of anything. Or maybe it was just that he knew nothing that came next would ever be quite so bad. It was a confidence thing. That’s it, that’s the vibe I’m getting.”
I decided it was time to cut off the conversation entirely. Either that or start talking about the Greeks.
“You’re wrong,” I said curtly. “I never fought in a war.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”
And then we settled into one of those uncomfortable silences she had been talking about earlier.
Patti had been good enough to set us up at a hotel near the airfield after the first leg of the trip. Separate rooms, of course. As soon as I was alone, I arranged a call to Switzerland.
As you may have already guessed, I’m sort of terrible about money. I can never really keep decent track of what is, and isn’t, a lot of it, which is just not my fault. Seriously, I remember when I could buy a horse with what a loaf of bread costs now. So when I first called the Swiss bank from Clara’s apartment and gave them the necessary account information, I learned two things. The first was I now had my own private banker, Heintz, whose only job was to kiss up to me. This was because of the second thing. The exact balance in my account. Heintz had to read it to me five times because I’d never heard a number that large before, and I frankly didn’t know what to make of it. “That’s a lot, isn’t it?” was about all I could muster.
So the money was nice, but far more important was what that money got me, i.e., a Swiss banker who wanted to keep me happy at all times. Which was why I felt comfortable having him look into Robert Grindel’s finances.
What I learned on my follow-up call from the hotel room was that Clara and I had been correct about at least one thing. Grindel was indeed swimming in venture capital money.
The question was, what was Grindel offering his current investors? Heintz’s best guess put the project somewhere in the field of medicine, based mainly on the types of projects these investors had previously shown interest in.
“For us to learn more, we must first show an active interest in investing,” he said. “Would you like for me to make the necessary arrangements?”
If I were at that moment sitting on a beach in Fiji, I’d have said yes. But as I was about to get the answers I needed on my own, it seemed superfluous. Plus, this was in all likelihood the last chance I would have to speak to Heintz for some time.
“No,” I said. “But I am interested in how one gets this sort of money from these sorts of people. How fluid is the situation?”
“I am not sure I understand.”
“I assume one has to provide the investors with solid evidence that one’s project is worth investing into. How much proof? And what would constitute a breach of contract? What would make the investors decide to ask for their money back?”
“Ah,” he said. “That varies wildly from circumstance to circumstance. Mostly, it is up to each venture capitalist as regards their personal comfort level in the arena of standards of proof. A person who has shown past success in a particular avenue, and who has a new idea that merely looks good on paper, can do quite well. For others, a prototype, or an experiment proving the viability of a theory. It depends on the hypothetical product. And again, on how stringent the investor’s vetting procedures are.”
“And breach of contract?”
“That would take quite a lot. One would need to prove not only did the concept that initially warranted the investment fail to bear fruit, but the party which proposed it was consciously aware the product would not succeed. This is exceedingly difficult to prove. Investors are notoriously skittish for just this reason. Most arrangements involve a gradual influx of funding contingent upon pre-established goals being met along the way. Using this Mr. Grindel as an example, he could have his funding cut quite suddenly from one or all of the investors if at one point he failed to deliver an aspect of the project as promised.”
“All right,” I said. “I think I understand. Now let me ask you something, Heintz, understanding first that this is an entirely hypothetical question.”
“Of course.”
“Let’s just say I wanted to destroy Robert Grindel, immediately. Can this be done?”
“Do you intend ‘destroy’ to mean financially or some other way?” His tone did not change in the slightest, even when discussing what had to be an allusion to murder. I so very liked this whole personal Swiss banker thing. I made a mental note to pay more attention to my money in the future.
“I mean financially,” I said. “Is he vulnerable?”
“Most assuredly. Any time the bulk of one’s finances comes from a source outside of one’s own fortune, one is vulnerable. Immediacy is another matter.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Things do not happen quickly in high finance,” he said. Heintz had very rapidly come to grips with my naïveté. Actually, given that according to my account I was roughly a hundred-and-forty-seven years old, he’d come to grips with a large number of seemingly impossible things already, so my lack of financial acumen was probably comparatively minor. He continued, “Even were I to devise a way to cut off all of his funding today, in all likelihood he would have access to several months of advanced funds. And it would take years for the investors to successfully reclaim their initial investments, if at all.”
“Even in a case of fraud?”
“At this level, that word is effectively meaningless. And realistically, the worst I could do was inspire his investors to apply a more hands-on approach to his project. Enforce timetables, that sort of thing. It would be a nuisance, but that’s all it would be, provided he has a viable product.”
“And we can’t find out what that product is,” I reiterated.
“Not without some time. I would be happy to make inquiries.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. I would have told him I just wanted some idea of what I was walking into, but that might have welcomed more questions than I needed to answer.
The second leg of our journey was much shorter, and took us to within fifty miles of the designated landing site. It was there that Patti topped off her gas tank for what would be a very quick round trip into the veritable middle of nowhere.
“Here,” I said, as she climbed back into the pilot’s seat and started up the engine. I was handing her a wad of cash.
“What’s that, a tip?” she said. “I’ve already been paid.”
“It’s a little extra. For your discretion.”
She shrugged it off. “Give it to me when we get there.”
“Take it now,” I urged. “When we land, I want you to slow down enough to let me off and then get out of there.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m very serious. I don’t want them to see you. If it’s at all possible, I want you to pick a landing point at least a quarter mile off target. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Why is this, again?”
“If someone sees the tail numbers on your plane they can trace it back to you, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, let’s make sure nobody can do that, shall we?”
She fixed me with a quizzical look but didn’t pursue the point any further. And maybe I was being unduly paranoid but, as I’ve said, sometimes paranoia is worth the trouble. It got me through most of the fifteenth century.
We covered the last leg in under an hour. As requested, she put us down a good distance from the meeting point.
