The Holcroft Covenant Read Online Free PDF Page A

protection. For the three men understood that sums of the magnitude they had stolen could not be sunk in a lake or buried in vaults. The hundreds of millions had to exist in the financial marketplace, not subject to discontinued currency or to brokers who would have to convert and sell elusive assets.
    Hard money had to be deposited, the responsibility for its security given to one of the world’s most revered institutions, La Grande Banque de Genève. Such an institution would not—could not—permit abuses where liquidity was concerned; it was an international economic rock. All the conditions of its contract with its depositors would be observed. Everything was to be legal in the eyes of Swiss law. Covert—as was the custom of the trade—but ironbound with respect to existing legalities, and thus current with the times. The intent of the contract—the document—could not be corrupted; the objectives would be followed to the letter.
    To permit corruption or malfeasance was unthinkable. Thirty years … 
fifty
years … in terms of the financial calendar was very little time, indeed.
    Noel reached down and opened his attaché case. He slipped the pages of the letter into a compartment andpulled out the document from La Grande Banque de Genève. It was encased in a leather cover, folded in the manner of a last will and testament, which it was—and then some. He leaned back in the chair and unfastened the clasp that allowed the cover to unfold, revealing the first page of the document.
    His “covenant,” Holcroft reflected.
    He skimmed over the words and the paragraphs, now so familiar to him, flipping the pages as he did so, concentrating on the salient points.
    The identities of Clausen’s two associates in the massive theft were Erich Kessler and Wilhelm von Tiebolt. The names were vital not so much for identifying the two men themselves as for seeking out and contacting the oldest child of each. It was the first condition of the document. Although the designated proprietor of the numbered account was one Noel C. Holcroft,
American
, funds were to be released only upon the signatures of all three oldest children. And then only if each child satisfied the directors of La Grande Banque that he or she accepted the conditions and objectives set forth by the original proprietors with respect to the allocation of the funds.
    However, if these offspring did not satisfy the Swiss directors or were judged to be incompetent, their brothers and sisters were to be studied and further judgments made. If all the children were considered incapable of the responsibility, the millions would wait for another generation, when further sealed instructions would be opened by executors and by issue yet unborn. The resolve was devastating:
another
generation.
    THE LEGITIMATE SON OF HEINRICH CLAUSEN IS NOW KNOWN AS NOEL HOLCROFT, A CHILD, LIVING WITH HIS MOTHER AND STEPFATHER IN AMERICA. AT THE SPECIFIC DATE CHOSEN BY THE DIRECTORS OF LA GRANDE BANQUE DE GENÈVE—NOT TO BE LESS THAN THIRTY YEARS, NOR MORE THAN THIRTY-FIVE—SAID LEGITIMATE SON OF HEINRICH CLAUSEN IS TO BE CONTACTED AND HIS RESPONSIBILITIES MADE KNOWN TO HIM. HE IS TO REACH HIS COINHERITORS AND ACTIVATE THE ACCOUNT UNDER THE CONDITIONS SET FORTH. HE SHALL BE THE CONDUIT THROUGHWHICH THE FUNDS ARE TO BE DISPENSED TO THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST, THEIR FAMILIES AND SURVIVING ISSUE .…
    The three Germans gave their reasons for the selection of Clausen’s son as the conduit. The child had entered into a family of wealth and consequence … an
American
family, above suspicion. All traces of his mother’s first marriage and flight from Germany had been obscured by the devoted Richard Holcroft. It was understood that in the pursuit of this obscurity a death certificate had been issued in London for an infant male named Clausen, dated February 17, 1942, and a subsequent birth certificate filed in New York City for the male child Holcroft. The additional years would