on learning the news Pat Kennedy could barely conceal his joy. The vile
bastard was dead. After three months of anxiety, after his past returned to
haunt him, his most earnest prayers had been answered. As an errant
Catholic he thanked God, but it was four days before he could discretely celebrate
the event with a glass of Champagne at thirty thousand feet on an Air France flight
to Nice.
Avoiding the prying eyes of the press he had opted for a discrete scheduled flight
and on arrival in Nice he took the helicopter shuttle service to Monaco. There he
was picked up by one of a fleet of black Mercedes on standby for those arriving to
pay their respects to the evil villain and driven to his villa.
Life was full of unexpected surprises, some of them good and some of them bad.
Pat wore the luck of the Irish on his sleeve, he was blessed with more good fortune
than any man could normally expect. The news of Dermirshian’s sudden death had
caught Pat by surprise, and a very pleasant one at that. An inconvenient witness to
his past foolishness was happily dead and would soon be buried ― gone forever.
If it was a moment of incommensurate joy for Pat, but the death of the mafiosa
created problems for Tarasov and his friends, problems that needed attending to
immediately. Amongst them was the Gaddafi family fortune, which the Armenian
had been charged with putting beyond the reach of British and American
authorities. In behind the scene diplomatic circles, unhealthy rumblings over the
Gaddafi family and their incursion into capitalism were embarrassing certain
Western leaders.
Other mourners had already flown in from Moscow, Yerevan and beyond.
Dermirshian’s death was sudden; he had collapsed after a morning swim in his
pool. Certain of those present were gathered less to pay their respect to the
patriarch than to settle the question of who would inherit his evil empire.
In Armenia, the capo, little known outside of a close circle of mafiyosa
underbosses, consiglieries and corrupt politicians, was behind many major
businesses and had financed leading political figures before and after the fall of the
Soviet Union. He would be remembered for his brutal methods; those who crossed
his path often ended up dead, others were arrested by his police friends and thrown
O
into prison. Whenever unwise Russian reformers, in their crusade against
corruption, got too close to his affairs in Switzerland or in the Principality they
were discretely discouraged or eliminated.
Tarasov was present; carefully watched, as were all guests, by the DGSE, the
French secret service, in spite of his efforts to slip into the Principality unseen, to
pay last respects to his godfather and protector.
Dermirshian had been among those who, during the Wild West period following
the Soviet debacle, had diversified his criminal activities. At the outset the addition
of legitimate banking and property investment companies had been a facade, but it
soon eclipsed the Armenian’s underworld business as post-Soviet Russia
prospered. This did not however mean the end of his criminal activities, which
continued to flourish in the broader sphere of a globalised world.
The unexpected death of the no longer young mafiyosa, described as a warm and
generous man by his friends, left many negotiations in suspension. Officially
retired, he had continued behind the scene, dealing, amongst other things, with
many of the unsavoury aspects of international business linked to the dictators of
the former countries of the Soviet Union in Central Asia, and the Arab world.
Through a multitude of offshore companies and accounts he channelled revenues
from the illegal trade in oil, shady hotel and real estate deals, payment of arms
purchases, the movement of cash and bullion to dictators’ retirement funds,
commissions on government contracts, in brief all that was hidden behind the veil
of secrecy that occulted the links between organised crime and big banks
transacted via their offshore entities.
The Armenian, with his thick white hair and Stalin style moustache, had
maintained an almost grandfatherly relationship with Tarasov. He had been the
wily, intuitive leader of his вор в законе organisation, feared and respected, as Pat
Kennedy had learnt to his great chagrin.
Dermirshian counted Gaddafi amongst his friends and facilitated trade between
Libya and Europe, to which a large part of its oil and gas was exported. The
Gaddafi family were part owners of the Italian ENI oil company, holding shares in
Fiat, and in Finmeccanica; Italy’s leading aerospace and defence firm. All this,
together with the Libyan’s holdings in the UK, had to be carefully and very
discretely managed to avoid embarrassment to certain of Gaddafi’s friends, those
who were not too fastidious about who they did business with.
Gaddafi’s sons, the talk of Britain’s business magazines, fawned on by UK
politicians, bankers and business leaders competing for their favours, had been
amongst the frequent visitors to Monaco and more precisely to the Armenian’s
villa.
At the height of the crisis incomplete office towers dotted Moscow’s ‘Moskva
City’ business district. Developers were hard hit by the credit crunch and prices
had all but collapsed after Russia’s oil boom petered out. Forlorn tower cranes
watched over semi-abandoned construction sites. A couple of miles from the
Kremlin, a dusty windblown car park was all that remained of the construction site
for the prestigious 612 metre high Russia Tower. Tarasov’s new headquarters was
however an exception; work continued, be it at a somewhat slower pace, thanks to
Dermirshian’s covert funding, an arm that had enabled Tarasov, unlike many of his
less fortunate Russian friends, to survive the worst of the crisis.
Tarasov jumped in when troubled Russian banks pulled the plug on construction
projects including the half built Federation Tower. With hundreds of thousands of
square metres of office space available there were few buyers. Property magnates
found themselves fighting for their lives, forced into firesales, the greatest rush out
of property in a century, which for the INI Banking Corporation proved to be
extraordinary opportunity.