"What did you do after you were hired by Benny Aricia?"
"Several things. I immediately flew to Nassau in the Bahamas to meet with the bank where the theft occurred. It was a branch of the United Bank of Wales. My client, Mr. Aricia, and his former law firm, had established a new account there to receive the money, and, as we now know, someone else was waiting on the money, too."
"Is Mr. Aricia a U.S. citizen?"
"Yes."
"Why did he establish an account offshore?"
"It was ninety million dollars, sixty for him, thirty for the lawyers, and nobody wanted the money to appear in a bank in Biloxi. Mr. Aricia lived there at the time, and it was agreed by all that it would be a bad idea for anyone locally to see the money."
"Was Mr. Aricia trying to avoid the IRS?"
"I don't know. You'll have to ask him. That was none of my business."
"Who did you talk to at the United Bank of Wales?"
The lawyer snorted his disapproval, but said nothing.
"Graham Dunlap, a Brit. A vice president of some sort with the bank."
"What did he tell you?"
"Same thing he told the FBI. That the money was gone."
"Where did it come from?"
"Here, in Washington. The wire began at nine-thirty on the morning of March 26, 1992, originating from D.C. National Bank. It was a priority wire, meaning it would take less than an hour for it to land in Nassau. At fifteen minutes after ten, the wire hit the United Bank, where it sat for nine minutes before it was wired to a bank in Malta. From there, it was wired to Panama."
"How did the money get wired out of the account?"
The lawyer was irritated by this. "This is a waste of time," he interrupted. "You guys have had this information for four years now. You've spent more time with the bankers than my client has."
Underhill was unfazed. "We have a right to ask these questions. We are simply verifying what we know. How did the money get wired out of the account, Mr. Stephano?"
"Unknown to my client and his lawyers, someone, Mr. Lanigan we presume, had accessed the new offshore account, and had prepared the Malta wiring instructions in anticipation of the money coming in. He prepared bogus wiring instructions from my client's lawyers, his old firm, and rerouted the money nine minutes after it landed. They, of course, thought he was dead, and had no reason to suspect anyone was after the money. The settlement which produced the ninety million in the first place was extremely secret, and no one, with the exception of my client, his lawyers, and a handful of people at the Justice Department, knew exactly when or where the money was wired."
"As I understand it, someone was actually at the bank when the money arrived."
"Yes. We're almost certain it was Patrick Lanigan. On the morning the money was wired, he presented himself to Graham Dunlap as Doug Vitrano, one of the partners in the law firm. He had perfect identification-passport, driver's license, etc.-plus he was well dressed and knew all about the money which was about to be wired from Washington. He had a notarized partnership resolution authorizing him to accept the money on behalf of the firm, then wire it to the bank in Malta."
"I know damned well you have copies of the resolution and the wire transfer authorizations," the lawyer said.
"We do," Underbill said, flipping through his notes and paying little attention to the lawyer. The FBI had tracked the money to Malta, and from there to Panama, where all trails vanished. There was a blurred still shot taken from the bank's security camera of the man who presented himself as Doug Vitrano. The FBI and the partners were certain it was Patrick, though he was wonderfully disguised. He was much thinner, his hair was short and very dark, he had grown a dark mustache and worn stylish horn-rimmed glasses. He had flown in, he explained to Graham Dunlap, to personally monitor the receiving and transferring of the money because the firm and the client were quite nervous about the transaction. That was certainly not unusual in Dunlap's view, and he was happy to oblige. He was sacked a week later and returned to London.
"So we went to Biloxi, and spent a month there looking for clues," Stephano continued.
"And you found the law offices to be wired?"
"We did. For obvious reasons, we were immediately suspicious of Mr. Lanigan, and our task was twofold: first, to find him and the money, and, second, to determine how he had pulled the heist. The remaining partners granted us access to their offices for one weekend, and our technical people picked the place apart. It was, as you say, infested. We found bugs in every phone, in every office, under every desk, in the hallways, even in the men's rest room on the first floor. There was one exception. The office of Charles Bogan was completely clean. He was fastidious about locking it. The bugs were high in quality; twenty-two in all. Their signals were gathered by a hub we found hidden in a storage file box in the attic, in a spot no one had touched in years."
Underbill listened but didn't hear. This was, after all, being recorded on video, and his superiors could study it later. He was quite familiar with these preliminaries. He pulled out a technical summary which analyzed, in four dense paragraphs, the bugging scheme installed by Patrick. The microphones were state of the art-tiny, powerful, costly, and manufactured by a reputable firm in Malaysia. Illegal to buy or possess in the United States, they could be purchased with relative ease in any European city. Patrick and Trudy had spent New Year's in Rome, five weeks before his death.
The hub found in the attic storage box had impressed even the FBI experts. It was less than three months old when Stephano found it, and the FBI reluctantly admitted it was at least a year ahead of their latest wizardry. Made in Hungary, it could receive signals from all twenty-two bugs hidden in the offices below, keep them separate, then transmit them, one at a time or all at once, to a satellite dish nearby.
"Did you determine where the signals were being relayed to?" Underbill asked. It was a fair question because the FBI certainly didn't know.
"No. It has a range of three miles, in all directions, so it would be impossible to tell."
"Any ideas?"
"Yes, a very good one. I doubt Lanigan was foolish enough to set up a receiving dish anywhere within three miles of downtown Biloxi. He would have to rent space, hide the dish, spend lots of time there monitoring hours of conversations. He has proven to be quite methodical. I've always suspected he used a boat. It would be much simpler and safer. The office is only six hundred yards from the beach. There are a lot of boats in the Gulf. A man could drop anchor two miles out and never speak to another soul."
"Did he own a boat?"
"We couldn't find one."
"Any evidence he used a boat?"
"Maybe." Stephano paused here because he was now entering territory unknown to the FBI.
The pause quickly irritated Underbill. "This is not a cross-examination, Mr. Stephano."
"I know. We talked to every charter outfit along the Coast, from Destin to New Orleans, and found only one possible suspect. A small company in Orange Beach, Alabama, leased a thirty-two-foot sailboat to a man on February 11, 1992, the day Lanigan was buried. Their rate was a thousand dollars a month. This guy offered twice that if the transaction could be done in cash with nothing in writing. They figured he was a doper, and said no way. The guy then offered a five-thousand-dollar deposit, plus two thousand a month for two months. Business was slow. The boat was insured against theft. They took a chance."