The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [76]
"Some money trades that afternoon. Looks pretty routine," Jack said, scrolling through the transactions. I'm looking for something small and harmless, he reminded himself. But small, harmless things were, for the most part, small and harmless. Uda moved money around every day, in large and small amounts. Since he was in the wealth-preservation business, he rarely speculated, dealing mostly in real-estate transactions. London-and Britain in general-was a good place to preserve cash. Real-estate prices were fairly high but very stable. If you bought something, it might not go up very much, but it sure as hell wasn't going to have the bottom drop out. So, Uda's daddy was letting the kid stretch his legs some, but not letting him run out and play in the traffic. How much personal liquidity did Uda have? Since he paid off his whores in cash and expensive handbags, he must have his own cash supply. Maybe modest, but "modest" by Saudi standards wasn't exactly modest by many others. The kid did drive an Aston Martin, after all, and his dwelling was not in a trailer park so "How do I differentiate between Sali's trading his family money and trading his own?"
"You don't. We think he keeps the two accounts close, in the sense both of being covert and near to each other. Your best bet on that is to see how he sets up his quarterly statements to the family."
Jack groaned. "Oh, great, it'll take me a couple of days to add up all the transactions, and then to analyze them."
"Now you know why you're not a real CPA, Jack." Wills managed a chuckle.
Jack nearly snarled, but there was only one way to accomplish this task, and it was his job, wasn't it? First, he tried to see if his program could shortcut the process. Nope. Fourth-grade arithmetic with a nose attached. What fun. At least by the time he finished, he'd probably be better at entering numbers into the numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard. There was something to look forward to! Why didn't The Campus employ some forensic accountants?
They turned off Route 2 onto a dirt road that wound its way north. The road had seen a good deal of use, some of it recent, judging by the tracks. The general area was somewhat mountainous. The real peaks of the Rocky Mountain chain were off to the west, far enough away that he couldn't see them, but the air was thinner here than he was accustomed to, and it would be warm walking. He wondered how far that would be, and how close they were to the U.S. border. He'd heard that the American-Mexican border was guarded, but not well guarded. The Americans could be lethally competent in some areas, but utterly infantile in others. Mustafa and his people hoped to avoid the former and to make use of the latter. About eleven in the morning, he saw a large, boxy truck in the distance, and their SUV headed toward it. The truck, he saw as they came closer, was empty, its large red doors wide open. The Ford Explorer came to within a hundred meters and stopped. Pedro switched off the engine and got out.
"We are here, my friends," he announced. "I hope you are ready to walk."
All four of them got out, and as before they stretched their legs and looked around. A new man walked in their direction, as the other three SUVs parked and disgorged their passengers.
"Hello, Pedro," the new Mexican greeted the lead driver, evidently an old friend.
"Buenos dias, Ricardo. Here are the people who want to go to America."
"Hello." He shook hands with the first four. "My name is Ricardo, and I am your coyote."
"What?" Mustafa asked.
"It is just a term. I take people across the border, for a fee. In your case, of course, I have already been paid."
"How far?"
"Ten kilometers. A modest walk," he said comfortably. "The country will mostly be like this. If you see a snake, just walk away from it. It will not chase you. But if you get within a meter, it can strike you and kill you. Aside from that, there is nothing to fear. If you see a helicopter,