A Twist in the Tale by Jeffrey Archer

our
Ambassador to close our Embassy in Geneva and I shall declare your Ambassador
in Lagos persona non grata .”
    For the first
time the chairman raised his eyebrows.
    “Furthermore,”
continued Ignatius, “I will hold a conference in London which will leave the
world’s press in no doubt of my Head of State’s displeasure with the conduct of
this bank. After such publicity I feel confident you will find that many of
your customers would prefer to close their accounts, while others who have in
the past considered you a safe haven may find it necessary to look elsewhere.”
    The Minister
waited but still the chairman did not respond.
    “Then you leave
me no choice,” said Ignatius, rising from his seat.
    The chairman
stretched out his arm, assuming that at last the Minister was leaving, only to
watch with horror as Ignatius placed a hand in his jacket pocket and removed a
small pistol. The two Swiss bankers froze as the Nigerian Minister of Finance
stepped forward and pressed the muzzle against the chairman’s temple.
    “I need those
names, Mr Gerber, and by now you must realise I will stop at nothing. If you don’t supply them
immediately I’m going to blow your brains out. Do you understand?”
    The chairman
gave a slight nod, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. “And he will be
next,” said Ignatius, gesturing towards the young assistant, who stood
speechless and paralysed a few paces away.
    “Get me the
names of every Nigerian who holds an account in this bank,” Ignatius said
quietly, looking towards the young man, “or I’ll blow your chairman’s brains
all over his soft pile carpet. Immediately, do you hear me?” he added sharply.
    The young man
looked towards the chairman, who was now trembling but said quite clearly, “ Non , Pierre, jamais .”
    “ D’accord ,”
replied the assistant in a whisper.
    “You can’t say
I didn’t give you every chance.” Ignatius pulled back the hammer.
    The sweat was
now pouring down the chairman’s face and the young man had to turn his eyes
away as he waited in terror for the pistol shot.
    “Excellent,”
said Ignatius, as he removed the gun from the chairman’s head and returned to
his seat. Both the bankers were still trembling and quite unable to speak.
    The Minister
picked up the battered briefcase by the side of his chair and placed it on the
glass table in front of him. He pressed back the clasps and the lid flicked up.
    The two bankers
stared down at the neatly packed rows of hundred-dollar bills. Every inch of
the briefcase had been taken up. The chairman quickly estimated that it
probably amounted to around five million dollars.
    “I wonder,
sir,” said Ignatius, “how I go about opening an account with your bank?”

À LA CARTE
    A RTHUR Hapgood was demobbed on November 3rd, 1946. Within a month he was back at his old workplace on the
shop-floor of the Triumph factory on the outskirts of Coventry.
    The five years
spent in the Sherwood For-esters, four of them as a quartermaster seconded to a
tank regiment, only under-lined Arthur’s likely post-war fate, despite having
hoped to find more rewarding work once the war was over. However, on returning
to England he quickly discovered that in a “land fit for heroes” jobs were not
that easy to come by, and although he did not want to go back to the work he
had done for five years before war had been declared, that of fitting wheels on
cars, he reluctantly, after four weeks on the dole, went to see his former
works’ manager at Triumph.
    “The job’s
yours if you want it, Arthur,” the works’ manager assured him.
    “And the future?”
    “The car’s no
longer a toy for the eccentric rich or even just a necessity for the
business-man,” the works’ manager replied. “In fact,” he continued, “management
are preparing for the ‘two-car family’.”
    “So they’ll
need even more wheels to be put on cars,” said Arthur forlornly.
    “That’s the
ticket.”
    Arthur signed
on