Mike Smith Is Dead—Pt. 19

“What do you mean it’s already been done?” Giles sat before a banking regulations manager in the government building in San Jose. She had already addressed the subject with her boss but was pressing the manager for information.

“Ma’am, like I told your Secretary of State’s office earlier. Your government sent in a team to audit and clear out the accounts which had been stored in the Publica bank. As you know, that bank served to support United States efforts throughout Central and South America especially in the late twentieth century.”

Giles fumed. “I have the direct order to audit and retrieve the funds. Who was sent here?”

“I’ll have to find that information, however, it was a director and four auditors, and I heard they brought two other security people; all with papers authorizing the re-patriot of the funds. I can have a copy of those authorizations sent to you.”

“Good, I am in my hotel through Sunday. Today, I think I will visit the bank. Who should I ask for there?”

“Well, after the last audit we lost a lot of people. But, Teresa Arriva, the vice president of the bank should be able to help you. She has about the same information as I do. We sent Teresa in to check up on some irregularities about the time of the audit; when Ms. Ortiz left Teresa took over.”

Giles thanked the manager, shook his hand and virtually stomped out the door.

She took a taxi to the bank, walked in and was greeted by a smiling young woman.

“I’m Teresa Arriva, I had a call you were coming. You must be Miss Giles by the description I got.”

Giles suppressed a grin. “Just Giles, yes, I need to ask some questions about the last State Department audit that happened here recently.”

“Certainly, come into my office.” She stood aside for Giles to enter then closed the door behind her. “I presume you were told I was sent in to watch this branch.”

“Yes, the gentleman at the government office informed me of such, I guess there was a problem.”

Teresa moved to the other side of a round table from where Giles sat. “The regulatory commission noted some irregularities, shall we say. Like in the US when large amounts of money move, it perks up ears. Well, that’s what happened here. We had a bank manager in Publica Bank, Jorge Salas, for more than twenty years. He alerted the commission that there had been inquiries about a large investment account belonging to one of our customers, who just happened to be an American State Department operative. As it turns out the account held monies belonging to the U.S. Mr. Salas thought the inquiries were odd, and a bit insinuating considering his work with the State Department in the past. Anyway, Salas left the bank about the same time as a bank clerk was murdered in Florencia. Here’s where it gets funky, the clerk was murdered on the property of the customer who happened to be a State Department Operative.”

“Former, he was retired.”

“Okay, I guess I didn’t know that. So, the bank promoted Juanita Ortiz to Salas’s position, she had been a director here for a number of years.”

Giles cringed at the sound of her middle name. “So, Ortiz was there during the audit.”

“That’s also right after I came to the bank. The regulatory commission had not been informed of the multiple changes in the bank. I actually met the customer we talked about when he and his wife came in to clear out a personal box. The customer had seven boxes in total, six remained after he cleaned out the first. He put all the contents of the first box into a satchel so it wasn’t too much. I have no idea what he took out. He it did that in the little room, then turned the box keys in. However Ms. Ortiz watched when he came back to check on the other boxes, although he only looked into one. I saw her watching the monitor. Oh, to my knowledge, the customer never accessed the principal account or the other boxes. The interest from the principal account was paid into a regular account, however the tax code was changed on that account to make it a retirement account for a realty company. The government has very strict regulations regarding the disposal of a retirement fund.”

“Yes, I know, do you know how much is in it?”

“I do, but I will have to check with the commission before I can relate that information. But, I will tell you it is self sustaining, there are no new monies being accumulated other than its own interest; and like I said, that principal was derived from interest on the original US amount. Miscellaneous monies are now going into a Christmas savings fund.”

“I understand. Let’s go back to this principal US account.”

“Okay, let me digress a bit. Ms. Ortiz got a call and a follow-up letter detailing the audit. I did not see the letter, but was told about it, and she shredded it immediately after receiving it. However, the team arrived, we officially closed the bank and the police sent a guard team. We alerted our regular depositors it was for an internal audit. The men came in and took over the desks, I simply was told to step aside, indeed me and the clerks, who were on duty, were more or less pushed to a corner of the bank behind the teller cages. There we sat on stools and couldn’t really see what was going on. We had police outside and inside the bank. But, I know they brought in a lock man who drilled out the boxes of the customer.”

Giles mouth dropped open. “Really?”

They took out boxes of stuff; it looked like Costa Rican money and put one of the boxes in an armored truck, some of the box contents they simply put in shopping bags. Then they, including Ms. Ortiz, sat and transferred the US principal account into another account. I assumed in the US; and then they purged the records. I know all this, because another clerk and I stood behind a teller area and tried to follow on a computer. But, we didn’t see much, other than 475 million moving. Then the screens went blank. But there was a lot of shouting and angry voices. I heard one of them say that some of money had been sent back to the US previously.”

“Wow. I don’t know about repatriated funds though.”

“I think it was a program Mr. Salas and Waller originated.”

“Oh.” Giles made a note.

“The men then gathered out in the foyer and talked. Four of them left and one came back into this office with Ms. Ortiz.”

Giles put a finger up. “What did he look like?”

“Tall heavy set man, round face, very white, and sweating like he was in a shower.”

“Sessions.”

“I suppose, we weren’t introduced, but I heard him tell the others he was going to take a domestic flight.”

“Interesting, then he wasn’t on the plane that went down.”

“Uh, what plane? I guess that’s something else I didn’t know about.”

“A group of State Department employees apparently died when their airplane went down in the Gulf.”

“That’s terrible,” said Teresa.

“Okay, something else to look into. What happened after the group left?”

“Well, the bank was closed, and this man you called Sessions, and Ms. Ortiz put the shopping bags into the back of a car, then got into a car and followed the armored truck.”

Giles was on her phone calling. A minute later she looked at Teresa. “Can I use a private office?”

To be continued ....