Double Interest Read online

  ODEDA YAARI

  DOUBLE INTEREST

  Double Interest / Odeda Yaari

  All rights reserved; No part of this book may be reproduced, reprinted, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any other current or future means without the prior written permission of the author or his representative.

  Copyright © 2017 Odeda Yaari

  Translation from the Hebrew: Rona Zlibanski

  Contact: [email protected]

  ISBN 978-1520788340

  1

  The lights at the offices of the research division at APC, the world’s largest manufacturer of vitamins and food supplements, were on until late into the night, and the air was filled with tension. In a way that was not at all typical of him, Bob Carrigan, the Vice President of Research and Development, was nervously roaming the halls. In two months’ time, he would have to hand in to the company’s board of directors the results of the development they had been working on for the last two years, and an investment of many millions was going to go down the drain. The last results that had come in were bad, something there wasn’t working as expected, and he was not at all sure that pushing the deadline back a few months would give them the results they were hoping for. For him personally, failure would mean losing his job at a company he had been working for many years, only a short while before it was time for him to retire, as well as the destruction of the sterling reputation he had built over the years. Bob knew that the substantial investment had been made possible thanks to a personal connection the president of the company had with the development they were working on. He stormed into his office and told his trusty assistant Fiona to call an urgent meeting with the whole team.

  I have to calm down, he told himself, and got up to pour a glass of whiskey from the impressive collection of bottles that stood on a cabinet in the corner of the room, when the phone on his desk softly rang.

  “Carrigan!” He yelled into the receiver. “What is it?”

  “Bob? Is that you?”

  On the line was Arthur, president of the company, sounding calm. Bob had been a rising star since the day Arthur had brought him into the company twenty years before, and a friendship that extended far beyond work had grown between them. He had faith in him and in his brilliant mind, which never failed.“Yes. Sorry, sir.” Bob regained his composure.“Since when do you call me ‘sir’? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, fine, thank you. You know, just a little spat with the wife.” Bob used the first excuse he could think of.

  “Women!” Arthur chuckled in sympathy. “If your wife had any idea what sort of development you’re working on, she would keep her mouth shut. She doesn’t know the surprise she’ll have in two months’ time when she finds out the man she married is going to win the Nobel Prize for his discovery, along with APC.”

  “Yes, two months’ time.” Bob sighed silently and tried to maintain a relaxed, almost humoristic tone, praying in his heart that he’d find a way out of having the president drop by his office. Since his wife’s passing, Arthur would stay at work later and later, to avoid returning to a big, empty house.

  “Sorry, Arthur, but I have to keep it short. I have the team waiting for me in the conference room. How about dinner at our place tomorrow?”

  “It’s a date,” said Arthur happily. “I’m the last person to hold you back on your way to the prize.”

  Bob put down the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. He gave a crooked look at Fiona, who was standing at the doorway, trying to make him get off the phone. “Don’t look at me like that. This is NOT a good day.”

  “I know,” she said, pretending not to notice his stare. “Your coffee’s waiting for you in the conference room, and I put a little almond cookie on the side, too, to sweeten things up for you.” She smiled at him fondly.

  In the conference room, a team of about twenty-five senior scientists, researchers, and engineers was waiting for Bob. They had received earlier warning from Fiona and sat there in tense silence, leaving aside all the jokes and snarky comments that were usually an integral part of team meetings.Bob nodded at them and got right down to business. “Two months from today, we have to present the board of directors with the project’s development results. As you know, the results we received this morning from our latest experiment are not satisfactory, and it seems we’ve come to a dead end.”Bob paused for a moment, wiping sweat off his forehead, and continued in a sharp tone. “So, starting tomorrow, and for the next two months, I expect each and every one of you to recheck yourselves. No one does anything other than think of creative solutions. All the time, at all times.”He looked across the room at the tense team members and said, “And if anyone has a problem with that, they’re welcome to get up and leave right now.”

  2

  “Uria Private Investigators. Good morning.”

  “Hi, Yoni. This is Ya’acov. I figured you’d be at the office already. It’s six forty-five a.m. there. Are you crazy?”

  “You know me, Ya’acov. I’m a workaholic. But why are you calling at this hour? Is there a crisis in Washington?”

  “There are no crises with the intelligence attaché in Washington. Only minor misunderstandings that can easily be fixed,” said Ya’acov in a pseudo-formal, humoristic tone.Yoni laughed. “How are the wife and kids?”“Same as always—loud. I miss some peace and quiet.”

  “Excuse me, but when did you ever have any peace and quiet?”

  “You’re one to talk. How’s your girlfriend?”

  “Great, actually. Nothing to complain about. How’s Yossi doing with that job you got him? That’s one hell of a position, but he deserves it. He’s a real genius, that son of yours.”

  “Yes, he just got a promotion at the research division working on some top-secret project. You have no idea the confidentiality papers they had him sign, as if it’s some new kind of atom bomb or something.” Ya’acov chuckled. “Anyway, I think he’s feeling a bit out of place. But that’s okay. It’s not every day you land that kind of a job and he knows that. If you ask me, in a month or two, he’ll be right at home there. But Yoni, let’s talk seriously for a minute. I have a big job for you.”

  “I’m glad you always keep me in mind.”

  “Are you kidding? After everything we’ve been through in the army together? So listen, a friend of mine who worked on some operations with me when he was in the CIA wants you to do some work for him. I guarantee you’ll get a fat check, providing you’re able to deliver the goods, of course.”

  “Ya’acov, you know me. There’s nothing I can’t do.”

  ***

  Yoni took a deep breath and drummed his finders on the desk, which was covered in paperwork. He was always excited to start a new investigation. It made him feel just like he had thirty years before when he’d been a young man starting his intelligence service, brimming with confidence, looking for some action and believing the sky was the limit. He lit his third cigarette of the morning, slowly taking the smoke into his lungs, and went over the details Ya’acov had given him. He picked up the phone and dialed the digits he had written on the first page in the APC file. A sleepy voice answered. I’m such an idiot, he thought. Who calls a new client in the US in the middle of the night?He had a concise talk with APC’s vice president, at the end of which they set a meeting in Israel for the following day.

  3

  The dark limousine with tinted, bullet-proof windows made its way slowly through the winding streets of Bogota. The man in the car looked through the dark windows out onto the passing images of his childhood scenery, sipping on a brandy, letting the sharpness of the drink roll across his tongue.The move from one suburb to another was
as extreme as crossing imaginary lines between different countries. One minute the limousine passed by a derelict, poverty-stricken area and in the next drove by luxurious villas guarded by armed security men. The man could see kids running after the car and had a vague recollection of what it had been like to be one of them.“Fernando, you asleep? Speed up. Why you going so slow? You’re drivin’ like an old lady,” said the man angrily. The tension in his voice was clear, evidence of how nervous he’d been since he’d gotten the call about an urgent board meeting.

  “Yes, boss,” said Fernando, careful not to cross eyes with his boss in the rearview mirror.

  The car pulled up to a large entrance gate, and two burly armed guards approached it. The limousine window rolled down and the man gave a little nod to the guards, who quickly backed away with great reverence. The large gate slid open in silence. The car moved forward slowly across the driveway leading to an extravagant villa, surrounded and partly hidden by a lush, tropical garden. In the parking lot, side by side, were four more cars. Fernando parked the limousine and ran out to open the door.“How long does it take you to park the car and get the door? You think I got all day for you?”

  “Sorry, boss,” said Fernando. The foreman is cranky today, he thought to himself. He’ll do anything not to be noticed. Quickly. Quietly. Without making eye contact, without speaking, so as to be non-existent.The foreman walked toward the wrought iron front door. As if by magic, it opened up to him and he was inside the house, walking quickly behind the butler who was leading him through, making sure not to look at the dark walls that were closing in on him. The air was dense and he found it hard to breathe. There were traces of an old, sweet smell that filled the space. He thought the sound of his footsteps echoed all around the house and a chill went down his spine. The butler stopped and opened a heavy door for him.

  The walls in the room he entered were covered with shelves and bookcases, full to the brim with books in elegant leather binding, organized in perfect straight lines. A large, antique wooden desk took up a substantial portion of the room, and on the other side of it were five stiff, straight-backed chairs. Inside the room were four men, all standing. He was the last to arrive. None of the men spoke. He wasn’t sure if he should sit or stand.

  “What will you have to drink, sir?” softly asked a butler, who appeared out of nowhere.

  “Brandy,” he said.

  Suddenly, without a sound, one of the bookcases was drawn aside and into the room came Santo, a tall, impressive man who looked to be about fifty, but was actually much older.

  His hair was sleeked back rigidly, his nose was straight but its tip leaned slightly left, evidence of it having been broken in the past. His cheeks were smooth, his lips perfectly outlined, and his chin-line tough. Silently, he went over to the single chair that was waiting for him on the other side of the desk, sat down, and nodded. All the men took their seats, waiting for him to speak. Two days earlier, each of the five men had received an invitation to arrive at the house, in one of Bogota’s wealthiest suburbs. None of them had any doubt the invitation was, in fact, an order that was not to be challenged.They had all been to the house at least once before, but had never been summoned all at the same time. None of them knew why they were all gathered there now. The silence in the room was nerve-racking for the five men, who sipped from their glasses tentatively, keeping their eyes on the rows of books waiting for Santo to start speaking.

  Santo surveyed the men with a hard, cold stare and started in a low voice, emphasizing every syllable. “I don’t understand what the hell it is that I’m paying you for. Over the past few weeks, I’ve transferred one million dollars to each one of you. Can any of you remember what that was for?”A tense silence filled the room. No one dared answer. Santo waited.“No one’s going to give me an answer? Jorje? Massimo? Rodrigo? Paulo? How about you, Mario?”

  The bulging vain in Santo’s neck and his flared nostrils were the only signs of the internal tension he was in. He spoke to the five men with alarming gentleness. His eyes dug into each of them in turn, until every man turned his gaze downward.When his eyes crossed Mario’s, Mario lowered his gaze and rose up from his chair in a sort of light bow, asking for Santo’s permission to speak.Santo nodded his consent.

  “Sir, we are trying as hard as we can to follow your commands, but the helicopters that are destroying our fields have gotten orders from high up this time. They are killing the crops for the United States government. Our president is sucking up to the president of the United States, because he thinks he can get more government assistance that way. He wants to come off like a man, to feel like he can blow us off whenever he wants. We all know most of the ministers think the president is just a puppet and refuse to cooperate with him because they get their big money from us. So maybe the way to salvage something is to ‘help’ them persuade the president gently? I don’t know, boss, maybe this whole United States thing is just too big for us.”

  Santo looked at Mario with disgust. “Santo doesn’t pay his generals and foremen to whine like pussies. You can do that somewhere else, and it better be as far away from here as possible.” He banged his hand on the table hard, and was speaking a bit more loudly now, his words cutting forcefully through the air. “Santo sees helicopters dumping their poison over our fields all over the news. They’re laughing right in our faces. Laughing right in MY face! I’m not paying my foremen so that someone dares to laugh in my face. I have a mirror for that, Mario. Where are all the military men to stop the helicopters? What the hell do I keep you ‘generals’ for, if you can’t stop them destroying the fields, and whine instead? The United States is too big for you? Since when? Mario, listen to Santo, because I think you must be deaf. I—and only I—am too big for you. Santo decides who and what is too big for you, and when. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Santo took a deep breath. His mind was racing the whole time with images of the burning drug fields, poisoned, destroyed. Several years’ work burning before his eyes and slipping through his fingers. He was mad. He was about to explode. “Does anyone have another idea?”

  None of the men in the room attempted an answer. They all knew perfectly well, as did Santo, that this time the heavy bribe money couldn’t stop the show-off action the government had decided upon a month before. They had been angry, and had felt the knife stuck deep into their backs, when a month earlier the government had the local villagers sign contracts stating they would receive grants and government support if they substituted the drugs for ordinary crops.

  Paulo cleared his throat. “Those idiot villagers! They really think the government will do what it promised them in those contracts? How is the government going to have the money to pay them off? From the United States? I mean, the government pays the villagers with the money we pay it. Obviously, the villagers are getting pennies of the money that’s supposed to be theirs. You know what? They made their bed, now let them lie in it. Now their fields are getting sprayed.”

  Santo looked at him. “I’m trying to find some kind of a solution in everything you just said, Paulo. First, Mario accuses the United States. Now you’re blaming the villagers. I repeat…” He raised his voice and stressed, “You’re blaming the villagers. With what right? You need to remember where you came from, Paulo. Blame no one but yourself for the situation we’re in today. Your lack of creativity makes me sick. The helicopters are poisoning our fields, not theirs. Make no mistake. Those fields are ours. The villagers are just good, simple people. Perhaps they’re our parents, our aunts and uncles. You need to feel angry that they’ve been cheated. These helicopters are poisoning their water, too, and their children. They’re poisoning our future, yours and mine. Santo had a loyal army of workers, growing whatever Santo told them to grow, whenever he told them to grow it. And how do you keep those workers? Have you been able to make them a better offer than that of the government? It’s one thing for them to scam the villagers, but to scam you? Well, I guess after all, you have the s
ame level of intelligence.”

  “Massimo.” Santo turned sharply to the man who was sitting first on his left, who had his eyes on the ground.Massimo lifted his head, knowing full well what the boss was about to say.“If my memory serves, you promised me a solution. You have wasted too much of my precious time. You’ve decided to disrespect me. You had me meet a bunch of bullshit lawyers, who promised to get me all my money back from the government. You tell me, you really think that if they represent some villagers whose lives aren’t worth a penny in Colombia, they’ll be able to get money? And you think that’s what’s going to get my dead fields back? I have nothing to use for shipments, and I still have orders. If you want to stay in this business, you need to try harder. A lot harder.”

  Santo was quiet. He was facing a bunch of clowns who had nothing worthwhile to say, and worse, he too had no solution that could save the industry in the short term. A tense silence filled the room. They all knew that even if the villagers started growing the crops again immediately, it would take a good long while before they could begin to make up for the amounts they had lost.

  “I demand,” Santo went on in a calmer tone, “that each and every one of you return here one week from today with suggestions and solutions. If someone needs to be paid, money’s not an issue, and you know there isn’t anything money can’t buy. The goods we have will last us a very short time, and after that the market is going to start pressuring us. I’m sure we have the power to stop the government’s actions, but we have to find a way to significantly increase our output.” He took a deep breath, stared at each of the men and said, “You are my brothers, but if you don’t deliver the goods—you will pay the price.” He ended with a threatening note.

  Santo rose up from his chair, signaling that the meeting was over. The men waited for him to leave the room before getting up from their chairs. In silence, they shook hands and left.