I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes Read Free Book Online Page A

adjustmenttotheorbitofaUSsatellitemonitoringtheBalkansprovidedphotosshowingthefamily’s compoundinstunningdetail.
    Set amid rolling acres of lavender, the complex of seven luxurious homes, swimming pools and lavish stables was surrounded by a twelve-foot wall patrolled by what we believed to be Albanians armed with Skorpion machine pistols. This was strange, given that the family was in the wholesale floristry business. Maybe flower theft was a bigger problem in northern Greece than most people realized.
    Wetheorizedthat,likeColombia’sMedellíncartelbeforethem,theyhadadaptedthecomplexhigh-
    speed air and road network needed to transport a perishable product like flowers to include a far moreprofitablecommodity.
    ButwhatdidafamilyofGreekdrugdealershavetodowithmypredecessor,andwhywouldhebe
    sending the eldest son a box of cigars at a seven-star hotel in the Middle East? It was possible the former Rider had had a drug habit and Christos was his dealer, but it didn’t make much sense: the Greeksweredefinitelyonthewholesalesideofthebusiness.
    I was about to dismiss the whole investigation as another dead end – maybe Christos and my predecessorwerenothingmorethanfriendlyscumbags–when,bygoodluck,Icouldnotgettosleep
    onagrimLondonnight.IlookedacrosstherooftopsfrommyapartmentinBelgravia,thinkingof
    how the two men probably ate together at one of the area’s Michelin-starred restaurants, when I realizedthattheanswertoourmostdifficultproblemmightbestaringmeintheface.
    What if the Russians weren’t responsible for paying our rogue agents at all? Say Christos Nikolaides and his family were responsible for making the payments. Why? Because they were running drugs into Moscow and that was the contribution they had to make to the cash-strapped Russiansforthelicencetodoso.Callitabusinesstax.
    ItmeanttheGreekswouldbeusingtheirblackcashandmoney-launderingskillstotransferfunds
    fromtheirownaccountsintoonesinthenamesofourtraitors–andtheRussianintelligenceagencies wouldn’tshowupanywhereneartheprocess.Undersuchascenario,somebodywhohadreceiveda
    largepayment–theRideroftheBlue–mightsendanexpensiveboxofcigarstothemanwhohad
    justpaidhim:ChristosNikolaides,onvacationinDubai.
    Iputallthoughtsofsleepaside,wentbackintotheofficeandlaunchedanintenseinvestigation–
    with the help of the Greek government – into the Nikolaides family’s deeply subterranean financial arrangements.
    ItwasinformationdiscoveredduringthisprocessthatledmetoSwitzerlandandthequietstreetsof Geneva.Despitethecity’sreputationforcleanliness,that’sadirtylittletownifeverI’veseenone.
    ChapterTen
    THEOFFICESOFtheworld’smostsecretiveprivatebankliebehindananonymouslimestonefacadein
    thecentreofGeneva’sQuartierdesBanques.Thereisnonamedisplayed,butClémentRicheloud& Cie has occupied the same building for two hundred years, counting among its clients countless Africandespots,numerouscorporatecriminalsandtherichdescendantsofafewprominentmembers
    oftheThirdReich.
    Richeloud’swasalsotheGreekfamily’sbankersand,asfarasIcouldsee,offeredouronlyway
    forward. They would have to be persuaded to give us a list of the Nikolaides family’s transactions over the last five years – documents which would show if Christos was acting as the Russians’
    paymasterand,ifso,whichAmericanswereonthepayroll.
    Of course, we could make an application in court, but Richeloud’s would claim, correctly, that it was illegal to divulge any information because of the Swiss government’s banking secrecy laws –
    legislationwhichhasmadethenationafavouritewithtyrantsandcriminals.
    ItwasforthisreasonthatIcontactedthebankastheMonaco-basedlawyerforinterestsassociated with the Paraguayan military and arrived on their marble doorstep prepared to discuss a range of highly confidential financial matters. Carrying an attaché case full of forged documents and the