The Ethical Banker Page 2

derivatives, they call them,” he said and paused for effect, “ very colourful and impressive financial graphs that blinded all bankers and financial whizz kids to the fact that we live in the real world.”

  Laughter again in the house!

  “Imagine! Imagine with all those tools, super computers and risk management experts and now all you can hear is the world is running out of money and we may end up lining for bread and water like 1933!”

  More laughter and boos.

  “To cut the long story short, all I am asking is that our banking institutions have some level of decency and integrity which brings us to Global Capital Bank.

  The President of Global Capital is a suspected criminal and I am asking he stands down until he can prove his innocence. We cannot have a suspected criminal running a state bank.”

  Laughter and confusion in the House Of Commons.

  Some already knew about the seedy details of DSK and the gagging order( Super injunction) he had taken out to protect himself but others were in the dark and the latter decided to listen carefully.

  “Donald Solomon Kenyon, President of Global Capital is suspected of raping a hotel maid two weeks ago at the luxurious Grand Hyde Hotel. And the fact that he has failed to speak out on the matter and explain himself but has instead taken on a Super injunction to stop any one from reporting the facts makes him a person of interest in the matter.” He glanced at his watch: 4:40pm, he had been talking for twenty minutes and knew that was enough.

  He waited for the murmurs and noise to die down before driving in the last nail.

  “Global Capital is now a national bank and that's why the behaviour of its President becomes a matter of public interest. I am calling upon Mr Donald Solomon Kenyon to resign or stand down until the investigations are finished and he is fully exonerated. I am also calling upon the speaker to have a say in this, the home secretary too and the Police to fully investigate these allegations. Thank you Mr Speaker,” and then he sat down.

  That was the spark. Journalists, TV crews, photographers all came in droves and waited at the parliament.

  Other journalists and TV crews ran to the headquarters of Global Capital Bank in search of DSK but he had already left. He was at London City Airport with his fellow bank executives. They were already on the luxury chartered plane having a casual meeting and having some champagne as they prepared for take-off at 5:15 pm.

  At the House Of Commons, the whole session was thrown into chaos. Jackson Collingdale was pressing the speaker and home secretary by telling them that the suspect, Mr Donald Solomon Kenyon should be taken into custody immediately as he was a “ flight risk.”

  Neil Edwards was shocked by the developments. He locked himself in his office and turned on BBC news on the television.

  Global Capital Bank had been besieged by journalists and photographers.

  He sat down, kicked off his penny loafers and stretched his legs on his desk, then tried to wonder how this chap had managed to humiliate his client on the floor of parliament. Legal action. He was going to sue his ass.

  But, wait a minute.

  Wait a bloody minute.

  And it all came back. He had forgotten that actually Members Of Parliament had Parliamentary Privilege to sidestep super injunctions and gagging orders and that's what the rascal had just done. He had outfoxed them!

  “Bloody hell,” he swore as he picked up his phone to call DSK.

  It was 5.10 pm, five minutes before take-off when the captain of BA01, a special chartered service to JFK informed his passengers that their clearance for take-off had been suspended.

  Behind the scenes, the chief of Police for The London Metropolitan Police had called the CEO of London City Airport after learning that DSK was on a plane at London City Airport and had ordered the plane carrying him and his colleagues to be held until his officers took off a suspect criminal.

  A warrant of arrest had already been drafted and the judge at The Royal Courts Of Justice was reading through the text. He picked up a fountain pen from his desk and signed it off and handed it back to the two Police officers.

  Once the warrant had been signed off, Police cars headed for the Motorway to London City Airport with sirens on and blue lights flashing.

  In twenty minutes, police patrol cars branched off the Motorway, approached the airport and headed for the runway, surrounding the Airbus A318 jet.

  The Media was at the airport in full force and had convinced the airport authority to let them onto the runway where they waited with their cameras and TV crews.

  Police Officers got on to the plane and minutes later emerged with DSK.

  He was in handcuffs with a police officer on either side and two others following closely behind.

  For photo journalists, the moment when DSK emerged from the plane in handcuffs was gold dust, and they snapped away.

  As the suspect and officers descended the steps, journalists snapped away and others attempted to extract a word or two.

  But DSK remained silent and made no comment on any of their questions.

  He was bundled into the back of a Police car with an officer on either side and the patrol car sped off followed by three more police cars, sirens blaring and blue lights flashing. In the words of a tabloid reporter, “ It was surreal, just like in the movies when Police is taking a drug Lord and gangster off a plane.”

  There was nothing else on the news that night. DSK was the only topic and even the people who had never heard of him before were now discussing the events.

  Bloggers started speculating about the events claiming his arrest had been over dramatized. There was no need for a Police convoy armed to the teeth to go arrest a harmless, unarmed man and so forth.

  Then a debate on super injunctions and their impact on society got under way on television.

  Rumours on twitter were rife that Jackson Collingdale MP was to be questioned by Police and could be arrested too.

  The next morning, The Moonlight, a trashy tabloid based in London that actually commanded millions in readership put DSK on the front page and dedicated another three pages to his story.

  “Morality In Banking”, the tabloid's front page screamed in a sarcastic play on the speech that DSK was going to give on Wall Street. Below the headline was the now infamous photo of DSK in handcuffs and being led off the plane by Police. The tabloid went on to report that the “world of banking” was already awash with too much sex and that currently, the “sex and adult entertainment industry” was suffering since the 2008 financial recession that led to many bankers losing their jobs and others taking pay cuts.

  The tabloid further reported that DSK had not used a condom during the sexual encounter with the hotel maid which could have compromised his health as the hotel maid came from a “high risk country.”

  On page two of The Moonlight was a picture of HM Prison, Belmarsh where DSK had spent the night and below the picture was the grim description of the conditions at the Maximum security Prison: The food was mostly mashed potatoes and sausages, there was one hour of outdoor activities so DSK would get an hour to spend outdoors in the exercise yard after spending twenty three hours indoors. There was also a small TV set in his cell with four channels and there was no chance of accessing satellite TV, no internet, no air conditioning. His BlackBerry had been confiscated by the authorities but that there was a daily supply of newspapers in the prison Library.

  The tabloid also wrote about DSK's cell mate, a thirty five year old career criminal from the east end who had been in Belmarsh for the last two years and had previously run a string of brothels and seedy massage parlours in Tottenham and Bow. He had also run a gang that smuggled women from eastern Europe and the Balkans into Britain to work as prostitutes and escorts. All his activities had almost gone unnoticed until he had made the grave mistake of trying to set up a Red Lights District in the Kings Cross Area, an idea he had got from his frequent trips to Amsterdam. That's the time he was picked off the streets by The Metropolitan Police a
nd his criminal empire dismantled. His bank accounts too were frozen and he had already been worth five million pounds, proof that the sex business in London was gold dust.

  It was obvious the tabloid had wasted no time in digging out all information about DSK's cell mate.

  J.W Harold, a brash and ambitious reporter for Herald TV got off the train at London bridge station as he headed to work. Already his BlackBerry was buzzing with emails. He fished it out of his crumpled Burberry trench coat and there were five emails and four text messages waiting. He opened the email application and read one from his research assistant first.

  “Hey Harold, I know you never read that trashy tabloid- Moonlight, but it's worth checking out page two. Can we get a prisoner on the same block as DSK to appear on an interview on live Television? We have to keep surprising the viewers and make the most of every situation. Last night when you reported live from the gates of Belmarsh, you pulled in seven million viewers. Imagine! Now if you could smuggle a TV crew inside the grounds of Belmarsh, I guarantee it will be a first and you could pull twenty million viewers. But your report at Belmarsh was great. Just don't forget me when you become rich and famous!”

  He immediately walked along the platform and headed for a newspaper stall.

  He paid a pound for the thirty pence paper and walked away without waiting for change. He went straight to page two and there it was. The bloody fools had beaten him to