Page 51

They shaved.

A fraction here. A processing fee there. A currency spread widened by a decimal point. A loan-servicing charge nobody questioned because the amount was too small to justify the legal hours required to challenge it.

Parasites are clever that way. Kill the host and the meal ends. Take so little that the host never notices, and you can feed for years.

I open another destination account.

Currency conversions.

This one takes longer because foreign exchange records are a special circle of hell designed by people who hate both numbers and joy. The Crown moves enormous amounts of money across borders. Euros into dollars. Dollars into pounds. Pounds into francs. Pesos into dollars. Rubles routed through enough intermediaries to make my eyes ache.

Each conversion contains a spread.

Each spread is slightly wrong.

Not enough to trigger an audit. Not enough for an executive to care. The difference on a single transaction might buy dinner.

Across billions?

It buys something else entirely.

I calculate the discrepancy and add it to my running total. My stomach tightens. This isn't fifty-seven million.

Not remotely.

I push away from the desk and walk to the window, mostly because if I stare at another number right now, I might start accusing arithmetic of organized crime.

Athens stretches below me, bright and indifferent. Somewhere inside this city, people are buying lunch. Complaining about traffic. Arguing over parking spaces. Normal human concerns.

Meanwhile, somebody has built a financial circulatory system beneath five criminal empires and siphoned blood from all of them without anyone feeling the needle.

I turn back to the screens. There is one obvious question.

How?

Stealing from Adrianos is dangerous.

Stealing from Volkov is suicidal.

Stealing simultaneously from Greek, Russian, Italian, Irish and Colombian criminal organizations should require either extraordinary courage or a medically significant absence of survival instinct.

Yet somebody has done it for years. Which means the theft itself is only half the problem. Access is the other half.

I sit again and begin identifying which companies feed each stream. A shipping insurer connected to Adrianos. A real-estate holding company linked to Italian interests. Currency transfers passing through Russian-controlled businesses. An investment fund containing Irish capital. Loan-servicing payments attached to Colombian companies.

I stop.

Then check everything again. The pattern survives.

"Well, that's terrible."

"What is?"

I don't jump this time.

Progress.

Adrianos stands in the doorway, jacket gone, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He carries two coffees, which means either he has developed consideration or somebody on his staff has informed him that caffeine is the only safe way to approach me before lunch.