The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,128
a wall of money.
“Jesus,” Poirier said.
Ava stepped forward. The bills had been stacked and then banded. Eight stacks were cubed and then overwrapped with plastic. Sixteen cubes were overwrapped again and then strapped around both sides to form large blocks. Ava tried to count how many blocks there were, but she couldn’t see how many rows back they went.
She looked at the denominations in the stacks closest to her. Five- and ten-euro notes seemed to be predominant. It looked like a lot of money, but if it was mainly fives and tens she wasn’t sure it would amount to thirty million.
“Will you be able to get this on your plane?” Poirier asked Aries.
“I’ll find the room.”
“This isn’t going anywhere until I can count it,” Ava said.
“How do you propose to do that?” Aries said.
“I don’t know yet. I need to open up some of these blocks and see how the money is organized.”
“I’ll have one of my men help you,” Aries said.
“Komandan,” a voice said.
Aries went to the doorway and looked out. The voice began to speak, and Ava thought she heard the names Foti and Chorico.
“The papers and credit cards and government cards on the men who are dead suggest they were all Italian,” Aries said, turning back into the plane.
“What were their names?” Ava asked.
“The pilot was Bova, the other two Foti and Chorico.”
“The one who’s still alive?” Poirier said.
“We haven’t asked him yet, and there isn’t any rush. There will be plenty of time for questions about that and many other things when we get him back to Jakarta.”
“He seems to have been the co-pilot,” Poirier said.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I will be surprised if he knows anything of value beyond what his job required. The other two, Foti and Chorico, those are the ones who we needed to take back with us.”
Aries shrugged. “It wasn’t meant to be. They chose another fate. Besides, who knows what mischief they might have caused in Jakarta. Men like them would say anything to avoid punishment.”
Ava was watching Poirier. She saw his top teeth bite into his lower lip, and then he closed his eyes as if he was trying to chase away an unpleasant memory.
“Now we need to help this young woman count her money,” Aries said.
( 49 )
Aries assigned two men to help her, or, as it turned out, to watch her. They stood by, doing nothing, as she opened two blocks and worked her way into them, her dismay growing as she did. There was an excess of five- and ten-euro notes, and at the bottom of one block, two cubes of pounds sterling. Each stack was all of the same denomination, thankfully, and after counting five of them it was obvious that they were wrapped one hundred to a stack. It was still going to be a time-consuming job.
She left the plane to look for Aries and Poirier. A police cruiser had arrived and a man with a chest full of medals and an elaborately gold-embellished hat was talking with them. They were standing over the bodies of the Italians, the tips of the policeman’s shoes touching the puddle of blood. They began to laugh and then stepped back from the corpses as an ambulance pulled up at the entrance to the hangar.
“Can I speak to you, please?” Ava said to Poirier.
“Sure,” he said, walking towards her.
“I can’t count the money while it’s on the plane. We need to unload it. I need enough space to be able to sort it by denomination and currency.”
“When we get the bodies out of here, the van will be leaving. Will that give you enough room to operate?”
“Is someone going to mop up the blood?”
“We can do that.”
“And then I’ll need a large scale. Once we’ve got the money sorted, we’ll weigh it.”
“Okay, if you think that will work.”
“It will be accurate enough.”
“Give us half an hour to get this place cleaned up, and let me see if I can run down a scale for you.”
“Thank you. In the meantime, would you mind if I went back to the Nissan? I have my notebook and iPhone in my bag. I need to make a record of what we count.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“I also want to make a phone call.”
“Your client?”
“My partner.”
“Go ahead.”
Ava walked through the back door, past a soldier who was guarding it, and climbed into the car and extracted her phone. She tried Uncle’s Kowloon number first.