Chapter 60: Chapter 60

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.