12.2 Sandstorm

In a club in Cordon neighbourhood, not far from Centro, Tony Yunis settled beside the counter in the third section and reached for a girl dancing on the surface as she lowered her balcony towards his face. In second thought, he decided to tuck the peso in her thong and wigwagged his broad hand. The dancing girl lowered on her knees and he placed it under her thong wiping a palm on her olive leg when someone patted him on the back.

“Hello there!” It was loud in there and crowded and a crowd waited outside to get in. “Good to see you!”

“Hi James!” he returned, “It has been a long time since we met. How do you do?”

“Fine, fine,” said James Sinclair, “What do you see up there?”

“I’ve been banned from this bar twice,” he replied keeping his voice over the noises.

“Why?”

“Poked a finger!” chuckled Yunis in the act flipping at the dancer, “They let me in, he’s a good guy, this manager. Get yourself a beer and we talk outside.”

“Well, Tony, where are you staying?”

“Malvín.”

“I got caught in the crowd jam outside the stadium. A football match ended and there was a fight. As usual, fight goes on after every football match.”

They strained through the crowd to the gate and pass a packed lane to the streetside. Traffic continued to flow on the broad street. They sat peacefully under the lights.

“A guy in the Spanish Embassy,” began Sinclair, “wants me to ask you if you will come to talk to someone about this missing woman. He thinks I know where you are.”

“Who is this guy?” asked Tony Yunis.

“He is a good friend of mine. This other person is that lady’s sister. And she is here in Montevideo.”

“What does she want?”

“A frank talk. She’s trying to look for a clue to find her sister.”

“Does she have dough?”

Sinclair nodded, “She’s got it.”

“Well,” said Yunis, “Tell her to stand by the Gaucho Monument, I will be there.”

“She won’t come alone.”

“Who is coming with her?”

“Nicolás, this Spanish guy.”

“Okay,” nodded Yunis, “I will talk.”

Jamal leaned on the fence beneath the Gaucho Monument in Centro, holding a large newspaper and another folded under an arm, a cone made of newspaper on his head, keenly looking forward for who’d come out from the church by the corner.

The part he loathed about these papers was that it brought bad news and never good news. He turned a page and read; MERCOSUR ADAPTATION. Jamal heard about the Treaty of Asunción signed on 26^th March to establish regional cooperation and a common market among five states. There always was an agreement of such nature existing since 1985. Here it talked about establishing headquarters and a parliament in Montevideo. Best part of it for him was that the passports and license plates would adapt to this new order; something like the European Community model. It was only a dream nevertheless he could start dreaming big. Witt said, “Settle down!” he recalled.

Jamal Carreon had not broached wisely on the matter of settling down and here he got a huge opportunity – “Our North is the South”.

After the purported Sandstorm Report submitted to the British authorities in the last half of June, BCCI branches around the globe were raided and the banks shut down in July. There was widespread fraud going on behind these doors; brokering arms, hosting dubious figures and criminals, financing international terrorism, money laundering and false loans. With all these illegal activities, it fell down as fast as it rose.

Zaid Falak became a victim, he couldn’t pull his money out of the bank. And for that matter, he could not pull anything out of the Arab World. His attempt to take a share from the Rogers Bank was actually a BCCI initiative though it never took place and his name didn’t appear in the papers. At that point he suffered heavily and abandoned the search for his wife and paid nothing to the crisis team, at least, not at that stage. Idris blamed the Argentinean police for staging unnecessary exposure that drove off the hostage-takers from showing up.

In the summer holidays, Calima taking advice from Ambassador Lino Martinez, dived deep into the Spanish embassies and came up with a contact who might be able to lead her to Jamal Carreon. Then she corresponded with Ambassador Martinez and expressed her wish to go to Argentina. It was efficiently arranged by the end of the month.