Page 42 of The Cellist

“Because the children start school next month. Remember?”

“I have a feeling they won’t be in school long.”

“Don’t say that.”

“A rise in infection rates is inevitable, Chiara. The prime minister will have no choice but to shut down the country again.”

“For how long?”

“Until next spring, I’d say. But once we get a sufficient percentage of the population vaccinated, life will return almost to normal. I’m confident we’ll get there much faster than the rest of the developed world.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’m the director-general of the Office. I know things.”

“Do you know who killed Viktor Orlov?”

“I tried to tell you last night, but I was too busy having my way with you.” Gabriel fished the flash drive from his pocket.

“What is that?”

“A portable storage device with a terabyte of memory.”

Chiara rolled her eyes. “Where did you get it?”

“A woman who works for the Zurich office of RhineBank. It contains a dossier written by an open-source investigative journalist named Mark Preston.”

“And the subject of the dossier?”

“A Russian billionaire living on the shores of Lake Geneva.”

“How nice. Does the billionaire have a name?”

“Arkady Akimov.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That’s probably not an accident.”

“How does he make his money?”

“He owns an oil trading firm called NevaNeft, among other things. NevaNeft purchases Russian oil at a steep discount and delivers it to clients in Western Europe at a windfall profit.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Preston is convinced that Arkady is the one who’s holding the bulk of the Russian president’s personal fortune.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I’m afraid it gets better.”

“How is that possible?”

“Many of Arkady’s employees are former Russian intelligence officers. Interestingly enough, they all seem to work for the same small subsidiary of his company.”

“Doing what?”

“Preston wasn’t able to determine that, but I know someone who might be able to help.” He paused, then added, “And so can you.”

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