Page 84 of The Cellist

Anil inhaled his first Dunhill before they reached Victoria Embankment. By then, Isabel had outlined the basic parameters of the deal. Now, as they walked along the Thames toward the Houses of Parliament, she went into greater detail—mainly for the sake of her listening audience, which was monitoring the conversation via the phone in her handbag. Representatives of her client, she explained, would purchase blocks of blue-chip stocks from RhineBank-Moscow in rubles. Simultaneously, Anil would purchase identical amounts of the same blue-chip stocks from representatives of Isabel’s client in Cyprus, the Channel Islands, the Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands. All told, four hundred billion rubles were to be converted and transferred from Russia to the West. Given the extraordinary size of the project, it would necessarily have to be accomplished piecemeal—five billion here, ten billion there, a trade or two a day, more if there was no regulatory reaction. Eventually the money would make its way into accounts at Meissner PrivatBank of Liechtenstein, a fact she did not divulge to Anil. Nor did she tell him the name of her mysterious Russian client, only the amount of money they were prepared to pay RhineBank-London in fees and other service charges.

“Five hundred million?” Anil was predictably appalled. “I won’t touch it for less than a billion.”

“Of course you will, Anil. You’re practically salivating. The only question is whether you’re going to call Hamburg tonight to get approval from the Council of Ten.”

He flicked the end of his cigarette into the river. “What Hamburg doesn’t know . . .”

“How are you going to explain the additional five hundred million on your book?”

“I’ll spread it around. They’ll never figure out where it came from.”

“It’s good to know nothing’s changed since I left.” Isabel handed Anil a flash drive. “This has all the relevant accounts and routing numbers.”

“When do you want to start?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“No problem.” Anil slipped the flash drive into the pocket of his black overcoat. “I guess those rumors about Martin Landesmann are true after all.”

“What rumors are you referring to?”

“That he’s no saint. And neither, it seems, are you.” He gave her a sidelong leer. “If only I’d known.”

“You’re salivating again, Anil.”

“Have time for a celebratory drink?”

“I’ve got to get back to Geneva tonight.”

“Next time you’re in town?”

“Probably not. Don’t take this the wrong way, Anil, but you really do look like shit.”

By the time Isabel arrived at London City Airport, Martin’s plane was fueled and cleared for departure. The Englishman looked up from his laptop computer as she entered the cabin.

“How about that drink now?” he asked.

“I’d kill for one.”

“I think champagne is in order, don’t you?”

“If you insist.”

The Englishman entered the galley and emerged a moment later with an open bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal. He poured two glasses and handed one to Isabel.

“What shall we drink to?” she asked.

“Another remarkable performance on your part.”

“I have a better idea.” Isabel raised her glass. “To the world’s dirtiest bank.”

The Englishman smiled. “May it rest in peace.”

42

Quai du Mont-Blanc, Geneva

At eleven a.m. the following morning, a Russian stockbroker named Anatoly Bershov rang his man at RhineBank-Moscow on behalf of an unidentified client and purchased several thousand shares in an American biotech company that developed and produced a widely used coronavirus testing kit. Five minutes later the same Russian stockbroker instructed his representative in Cyprus, a certain Mr. Constantinides, tosellan identical number of shares in the company to one Anil Kandar, head of RhineBank’s global markets division in London. The first transaction was conducted in rubles, the second in dollars. Mr. Constantinides immediately wired the proceeds to a correspondent Cypriot bank—it was located in the same Nicosia office building, which was owned by anonymous Russian interests—and the correspondent Cypriot bank wired it to theCaribbean, where it bounced from one shady house of finance to the next before finally making its way to Meissner PrivatBank of Liechtenstein.