Terminal Payback

Former managing director of emerging markets at Bear Sterns and retired sergeant of the NYPD, Terry Adams is the forensic investigator for a law firm catering to upper crust clients. He also maintains a detective agency in the East Village servicing the local community, mostly as a pro-bono problem solver. An intriguing telephone call thrusts him into a web of conspiracy and corruption on a global scale. The caller hires him to find those responsible for the death of Charles Gregory, an investment banker at his old firm, who was killed by an oncoming subway at the Wall Street station, even though the police pronounced the death accidental. He zeroes in on a bank in Cyprus where a trail of illicit payments to the victim uncovers insider trading at JP Morgan-Chase and leads him to massive corporate fraud in the emerging markets of eastern Europe. Investigations in Budapest and Stavropol, Russia, identify Alexei Godunov, an ex-KGB colonel, as a principal perpetrator in the scheme. Through networking he identifies the corrupt broker, who is also the agent for the Brighton Beach mob. Hacking into brokerage records, Terry discovers the mobs significant investment losses in the swindle. He concludes that the death was the mobs payback for the misdeed. When Alexei Godunov meets the same fate as Charles Gregory and Terry learns of Godunovs business connection to his client, he attempts to intercede with the mob to save his clients life.