“An arms deal?”
“In a way. Not guns and ammunition, nothing that bald. The way this is set up, I’ll be breaking no laws.”
“Go on.”
“You’ve had a few days to check me out,” I said. “I assume you know I work for the Government?”
“Yes.”
“I’m about to retire. This deal will set me up for it. I need money to swing it, and it’s got to come from somebody like you. But let me make it clear that if you try any odd footwork on me you’ll find yourself in more trouble than you want to deal with.”
His smile was as cold as Myerson’s. “Did you come here to threaten me or to borrow money?”
I sat back. “The CIA founded, or bought, a number of private aviation companies fifteen or twenty years ago. They were used for various purposes. Cover fronts for all sorts of operations. They used some of them to supply revolutionary forces, some of them to run bombing missions against unfriendly countries, some of them to train Cuban exiles and that sort of thing. It was broken by the press several years ago, you know the story.”
“Yes.”
“All right. A few of those companies happened to be here in Arizona. I’m interested in one of those. Ostensibly it was a private air service, one of those shoestring jobs that did everything from private executive charters to cropdusting. After the CIA bought it the facilities were expanded to accommodate air-crew training for student pilots and gunners from Cuba, Haiti, South Vietnam, Hungary and a couple of African countries. Then the lid blew off and the Agency got a black eye because we’re not supposed to run covert operations inside the United States. After the publicity we were forced to close down the operation.”
“Go on.” He was interested.
I said, “The facility’s still there. Planes, ammunition, bombs, radar, Link trainers, the whole battery of military training equipment.”
“And?”
“And it’s on the market. Been on the market for seven or eight years. So far, no buyers. Because the only people who have a use for those facilities are governments that we can’t be seen dealing with. Some of those governments would pay through the nose for the equipment — far above its actual value.”
“You figure to be a go-between?”
“I know those countries. I’ve got the contacts. And I’ve recently chartered a little shell corporation in Nassau that I set up for this deal. The way it goes, I buy the company and its assets from the Government. I turn around and sell it to the Nassau shell corporation. The shell corporation sells the stuff wherever it wants — it’s in the Bahamas, it’s outside the jurisdiction of American laws. When we make the sale, the shell corporation crates up the assets in Arizona and ships them out of the country on a Bahamian bill of lading, and then they’re reshipped out of Nassau on a new ticket so that there’s no evidence in this country of the final destination. As I said, the buyers are lined up — they’ll be bidding against one another and I’ll take the high bid.”
He was flicking his upper lip with his fingernail. He looked deceptively sleepy. With quiet brevity he said, “How much?”
“To buy the aviation company and pay the packing and shipping and incidental costs I figure one million nine hundred thousand. I’d rather call it two million in case I run into a snag somewhere — it’s better to have a cushion. It’s a bargain actually — the Government paid upwards of fifteen million for that stuff.”
“Maybe. But what condition is it in now? It could be rusty or obsolete or both.”
“Obsolete for the U.S. Air Force, maybe, but not for a South American country. And it’s all serviceable. It needs a good dusting, that’s all. I’ve had it checked out.”
“How much profit do you expect to realize?”
“That’s classified. Let’s just say I intend to put a floor under the bidding of three million five.”
“Suppose you can’t get that much? Suppose you don’t get any bids at all?”
“I’m not going into this as a speculation. I’ve already made the contacts. The deal’s ready to go down. All I have to do is name the time and place for the auction — but I’ve got to own the facilities before I can deliver them.”
“Suppose we made you a loan, Mr. Ballantyne. And suppose you put the money in your pocket and skipped out to Tahiti.”
“All right. Suppose we draw up contracts. If I don’t pay the interest and principal you forclose the company. The assets will remain right here in Arizona until I’ve sold them and received the cash down payment, which will be enough to repay your loan. If I skip out with the money you’ll have the assets — and with them a list of the interested governments. Fair enough?”
“We’ll see. Two million is a great deal of money.”
“Did I ask you for two million? I’ve got my own sources of private capital who want to buy in for small shares. I’ve raised six hundred thousand on my own. The loan I need is for one million four.” That was elementary psychology: scare him with a big amount, then reduce it attractively.
Then I dropped the clincher on him. I said, “I’ll need the money for no more than six weeks. I’ll pay one percent a day, no holidays, for six weeks. That works out to just short of six hundred thousand dollars interest. You lend me one million four, you get back two million.”
“I’ll have to check this out first. The name of the company?”
I knew I had him.
* * *
MARGARET LOOKED TIRED but she covered the strain with her smile. She set out cheese and biscuits in the living room while I mixed the drinks.
She said, “They haven’t found any internal bleeding. He’s going to be all right.” She cut me a wedge of cheddar. “He’s a foolish man sometimes but he didn’t deserve this. Money’s only money. Eddie — he’s like a kid playing games. The money’s just a counter, it’s the way you keep score. If you lose a game you don’t kill your opponent — you just set up the board and start another game.”
“Foran doesn’t play by those rules, Margaret. Eddie knew that.”
She drank; I heard the ice cubes click against her teeth. “Did Foran go for it?”
“I won’t know for a while. He’s checking things out. But I think he’ll buy it. He’s too greedy to pass it up. The easiest mark for a con man is another crook.”
“If he’s checking things out, is there anything for him to find?”
“I doubt it. Most of what I told him was true. My boss set up the Nassau shell corporation for me. It’ll be there when Foran looks for it. The Arizona Charter Company exists, it’s on the Government’s books just as I told him it was, and the assets and facilities are exactly as I described them to him.”
“If you pull if off, Charlie, they’ll come after you.”
“I don’t think they’ll find me. And I don’t think I’ll lose any sleep over it.” I smiled to reassure her. People had been trying to kill me for more than thirty years and many of them were far more adept at it than the brand of thugs that Foran and his kind employed.
I knew one thing. If Foran didn’t fall for this scam I’d just get at him another way. In any case Foran was all finished. Eddie and Margaret didn’t know it but they had pitted the most formidable antagonist of all against Foran. I’m Charlie Dark. I’m the best there is.
* * *
THE RESULTS of his investigations seemed to satisfy Foran. His lawyers drew up the most ironclad contract I’d ever seen. Not a single item of Arizona Charter Company equipment was to be moved off its present airfield location until every penny of the loan had been paid back. The only thing the contract didn’t include was the vigorish — the actual usurious interest rate: on paper we had an above-board agreement at 16% annual interest with a foreclosure date six weeks from the date of signatures.
The money was in the form of a bank cashier’s check and I endorsed it over to the Government in exchange for the deed to all outstanding stock in the Arizona Charter Company. I flew back from Washington to Tucson with the deed and stock certificates in an attaché case chained to my wrist. Twelve hours later they were in a safe deposit box to which Foran had the second key, so that if I skipped out without paying, he would have possession of the documents and stock certificates. If I didn’t repay him within forty days he would be the legal owner of the company and all its assets.