“Wait, I have an idea,” Robert said. “If the roadshow is on hold then maybe I should go see Spyrolaki. I just so happen to have my passport in my jacket pocket,” He said and patted the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“Do you really have your passport?” Grace said and moved toward him with outstretched hands. “You are so smart.”
“Maybe I can spend the night at home tonight,” Robert said with a wink, “and catch a flight to Athens in the morning.”
“You know what I love about you?” she said. “You are a man of action…a man who seizes opportunities when they are presented and doesn’t just sit around talking about them.”
“I have another great idea,” Robert said as he swelled with confidence for the future. “Maybe I could catch the Delta flight to Athens tonight; I think it leaves in ninety minutes. I won’t have time to go home and get clothes but…”
“…But Jack Sparrow sure looked good in dirty old clothes in Pirates of the Caribbean,” Grace finished his sentence.
“I’m on a course for adventure!” Robert said as he took his wife in his arms, dipped her back and kissed her.
Chapter 17
The Century of Gas
Sitting in his office overlooking the Saronic Gulf in the southern suburbs of Athens, a large map of the globe lined with sea routes on the wall beside him, the forbidding Prokopiou remembers how he got into the LNG game. “The idea of transporting liquefied natural gas was droning around in my brain since 2003. I could see that this would be the century of gas. There are plentiful supplies, it is half the price of oil and it is also a quick fix for pollution and CO2 emissions. This is particularly important for the cities of China and India as they expand, to keep pollution under control,” he tells TIME in a deep, gravelly voice.
George Prokopiou, Dynagas
“I am finally going home,” Alexandra Meriwether tingled with excitement as she surged past the iconic brass clock in the center of Grand Central Terminal. That she was now six months pregnant was obvious from the shape of her body but not from her brisk stride as she moved fluidly through a clutch of rush-hour commuters.
Alex’s plan was simple; after she’d purchased her ticket, she was going to buy a stack of trashy tabloids and board the 8:07 p.m. Metro North train to New Haven, Connecticut. Once she reached New Haven two hours later, she would transfer to the “Clam Digger,” a dimly-lit two-car diesel train that rumbled across the sluices and salt marshes of Connecticut’s eastern shore. She would probably be the only passenger to get off in the sleepy village of Stony Creek where she would walk down an unlit street until she saw the red and green running lights on her father’s Boston Whaler waiting to pick her up take her out to the island.
Alex was unsure how her dad would initially react when he first noticed her swollen body emerge from the foggy darkness, but she wasn’t worried about it. She knew any potential misgivings he might have would evaporate when she shared the news that his only child was going to keep the family alive.
She couldn’t wait to get home. It was time to go off the grid and there was no better place to do that than her dad’s ten-acre mound of granite – thick with cedar trees and alive with nature. It was the perfect place to exchange Chanel suits for flannel pajamas, trade wasabi-crusted sushi tuna for a big bowl of Cheerios and replace the nocturnal noise of garbage trucks and ambulances with the sound of gulls laughing and waves breaking on the rocky shore below her bedroom.
The only problem with her plan was that this trip would be a quick one, Alex thought, as she stepped into the back of the ticket line behind three little boys engaged in a spirited three-way thumb war. She had to be back in New York the following evening to join a client’s gastronomical marathon at Per Se, the French restaurant in the Time Warner Center. But once she collected her $8 million bonus in a few months and summarily retired from investment banking, she would move out to the island full time.
To help celebrate all the good news, Alex had entered the train station on Lexington Avenue and passed through Grand Central Market. Slowly strolling through the gauntlet of gourmet grocers, she had tossed a collection of her dad’s favorite items into the LL Bean tote bag she’d handed out as a closing gift for the Clear Sky IPO, a badge of honor for investment bankers and corporate lawyers.
By the time she reached the opposite end of the European- style market, the white canvas bag with long leather handles was weighed down with everything from caviar to fresh cavatelli, paper-thin Jamon Serrano to olive oil so green it was opaque. Earlier in the day, she’d also visited her neighborhood négociant in Chelsea and picked up two bottles of her dad’s preferred red – 1999 Chateau Petrus Grand Cru from the sun-soaked eastern shores of the Gironde River. At $250 per bottle, the inky Bordeaux was an extravagance that she was happy to shower upon her father before her income dramatically dried up.
“Ma’am, can I help you?” snapped a woman’s voice from the opposite side of a glass window striped with brass bars. “Do you want to buy a ticket or not because there are a lot of people behind you who do.”
“I’d like to go home,” Alex said softly to the woman in the pale blue-striped uniform.
“Join the club,” the clerk said as she looked down at her oversized watch and rolled her eyes. “Only six more hours until this girl will have her pajamas on,” she sighed.
Alex collected her round-trip ticket from the cool stone countertop, stepped out of line and gazed around the concourse. Ever since she was child visiting the city with her parents, she’d been overwhelmed by the majesty of the train station. It wasn’t just the soaring neoclassical architecture or the field of astrological constellations illuminated in gold against the vast canopy of fern green that moved her; it was the human energy. Alex could feel the profound residual energy left behind by the one billion human spirits that had rushed through the three-acre portal since its construction a century earlier.
As Alex moved toward the gate for track 25, she felt her shoulders drop; it was the first sign that the multi-step process of disconnecting from her job, and Manhattan, had begun. It would take time, maybe even weeks or months, to detox from her dependence on overstimulation, but she had to start somewhere.
Just as Alex was walking past the information kiosk in the center of the train station, the place of so many liaisons, the jingle of her BlackBerry stopped her in her tracks like a dog whose electronic collar had beeped. Alex reflexively dropped her bag on the floor, opened the handles and spotted the device sandwiched between a wax paper envelope of prosciutto and a wedge of St. Auger cheese. The name “Pearl” was buzzing on the screen like an angry insect.
Alex took a steadying breath and remembered that absolutely no good could come from answering the incoming call – particularly as she was preparing to visit her father to tell him the biggest news of her life. Enough was enough, she decided as the phone rang again. Her work was done for the day. It was time to put her feet up, read Us Magazine from cover to cover and decompress as the train moved toward the delightful darkness of the eastern shore of Connecticut.
Then Alex remembered the money; she thought about the $8 million bonus and considered how much freedom, security and opportunity for advancement such a substantial sum could provide for her unborn child. As she listened to the phone ring again, she recognized that her life wasn’t just about her anymore. It was about her child too and that meant there were going to be some things she would do even if she didn’t want to – like answering the telephone at that moment.
“To what do I owe the pleasure,” Alex cooed as she shot a glance at the departure board and confirmed her fear; the train she was about to board was the last one that connected with a Clam Digger that day. If she missed this train, she wouldn’t be able to make it out to the island that night and if she didn’t make it out to the island that night, she had no idea when she would be able to.
“They want to do it!” Piper sang out merrily. Alex could tell from his labored breathi
ng and the sound of an ambulance in the background that Piper was walking down a city street.
“That’s great; do you mean the Brazilian oil rig guys?” Alex replied with feigned enthusiasm. “I’m glad all that time we spent in that churrascaria in Rio paid off. Of course, I never want to see another piece of steak as long as I live.”
“What are you talking about?” Piper snapped.
“Oh,” Alex said and paused. Piper had sent her on more fool’s errands than she could remember and she was scrambling to recall some of the deal pitches they had made together. “Has Mr. Zuckerberg decided that he wants to buy the…”
“No,” he cut in, “which is too bad because I really like that kid,” Piper said with fatherly affection. “Remind me to buy some hoodies for myself.”
“Oh, I know,” Alex said. “The Saudi sovereign wealth fund has finally agreed to ease up on the Sharia Law restrictions and…”
“Guess again,” Piper said. “Please follow up on that because I completely forgot about that deal. I love those Arabs. They are just so cool,” Piper riffed.
“Are you talking about the Russian timber guys?” Alex asked. She was becoming increasingly frustrated by wasting precious time playing this ridiculous guessing game with Piper as the last train of the evening was preparing to depart. “But I thought Putin insisted that…”
“It’s not Putin,” Piper whined like the overgrown baby that he was. “I can’t believe you don’t even know what I am talking about. Don’t you take my ideas seriously?”
“Of course I do,” she said; dealing with Piper Pearl was good training for motherhood. “It’s just that you have so many good ideas,” Alex said tenderly. She was always careful not to bruise his sensitive ego.
Alex was only tenuously in control of her temper as she watched the minute hand on the brass clock click one step closer to her missing the last train. If she walked down the ramp toward the track, she would drop the call and risk the $8 million. If she stayed where she was, she would miss the last train of the night; either way, Piper would make sure she lost. She was trapped.
“You have to kiss a lot of toads if you want to find a prince,” Piper said.
“Who’s the toad du jour?” Alex asked as she watched a few stragglers rushing to board the train.
“American Refining Corporation,” Piper said.
“You can’t be serious,” Alex laughed as she remembered the disastrous five-minute pitch they’d made in the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel. She was absolutely stunned. Of all of Piper’s stream-of-consciousness deal ideas, selling a domestic-American oil and gas producer to the government of China was just about the most ridiculous she’d ever witnessed.
“I am serious, Alex, but the buyer has a substantial condition precedent to the purchase that’s going to require some heavy lifting,” Piper said slowly.
Alex shook her head back and forth bitterly as she realized there was no way she was going to make her train. “What is it?” Alex challenged. “What is the heavy lifting?”
“Your buddy Mr. Xing said that unless ARC gets its hands on some ships they won’t buy the company,” Piper said.
Alex didn’t yet understand exactly what Piper was talking about but she sure didn’t like the idea of ships steaming back toward her life. After that final night she’d spent with Coco on St. Bart’s the closest she wanted to come to the insane world of international shipping was her dad’s Boston Whaler.
“And how, exactly, does this involve me?” she asked even though she knew the answer.
“You, my darling, are the firm’s resident shipping expert,” Piper said, “which means you are the one who will be doing the heavy lifting.”
“Piper, Allied Bank of England has an entire shipping department in England,” Alex protested. “Alistair Gooding has been financing the shipping industry for thirty years! Let’s call him.”
“Yeah right,” Piper scoffed. “Do you really think I’m going to share our M&A fee with the London office?”
“But isn’t finding the ships ARC’s problem?” Alex asked.
“Actually, it’s your problem,” Piper said.
“My problem?” she asked. “How is that my problem?”
“Because if you don’t find the ships for my old roommate, Rocky DuBois, you can kiss your big fat bonus goodbye,” Piper said.
“What?” Alex protested despite even though she’d seen Piper motivate many of her colleagues in precisely the same manner over the years. “I earned that money fair and square.”
“Alexandra, let’s just say the firm’s Compensation Committee would not be pleased to learn that you have carnal knowledge of a client – a client I’ve recently learned is under federal investigation for doing business with some very bad people,” Piper said patronizingly. “I suppose that’s why you ‘forgot’ to do a Kroll Report on that big boy before we agreed to underwrite his disaster of a junk bond deal?”
Alex was confused by the sound of Piper’s voice; not only had the background noise vanished, but it also sounded as though his words were coming from over her shoulder – not just from the tiny speaker on her BlackBerry. When she instinctively spun around to investigate, Alex was face-to-face with her demanding boss.
“This is real simple, Alex,” Piper said as he put his hand on her shoulder. “All you have to do is call your Viking boy toy and ask him to figure out who owns those fifteen LNG boats. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal, Piper, is that I haven’t spoken with Coco in months,” she said. “I don’t even know where in the world he is these days.”
“I do,” Piper smiled devilishly as he handed her a folded section of the Financial Times.
Alex accepted the orange newspaper and studied the large photograph appearing below the fold. The enormous caption read “Energy Kings” and the photo showed Coco on a Swiss ski slope with a posse of familiar faces. His arm was draped around a famous Mexican-American actress who was wearing a revealing Bogner ski suit.
“Why on earth would Coco Jacobsen attend the World Economic Forum?” she asked. A socio-corporate boondoggle like Davos was about the last place in the world that she would have expected to find a free-trading lone wolf entrepreneur like Coco.
“You can ask him when you get there,” Piper said.
“What do you mean ‘when I get there’?” she choked.
When Alex woke up that morning, she’d been planning to spend the evening in front of a crackling fire on her father’s island sipping peppermint tea and reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, not eating shrink-wrapped cheddar cheese in a business class lounge at JFK while waiting for a flight to Switzerland. She had been hoping to enjoy the security of being in her only true home, not experiencing the anxiety she always felt before leaving on an overseas trip; the fear that she might never come home.
But even as she was shaking her head back and forth, Alex realized it was probably a good idea to make the trip to Davos. As unadvisable as it was for a six-month pregnant woman to travel internationally, she knew it was time to apologize once and for all – and at least let Coco know that he was going to be a daddy before he actually was.
“My secretary’s secretary took the liberty of booking you a first-class ticket on the last flight to Zurich tonight,” Piper said.
“Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll go.”
“I know you will,” he smiled.
Piper Pearl looked down into the canvas bag full of epicurean delights that she’d set on the ground between them. “The TSA will never let you through security with all this dangerous stuff,” he said and heaved the bag over his shoulder.
“Bon appétit,” Alex said as she watched the red lights of the last train to Stony Creek disappear into the tunnel below Park Avenue.
Chapter 18
The Greek Shipowner’s Grandmother
Listening to Nikolas Tsakos, one of Greece’s leading shipowners, talking about his grandmother reveals much about why
his compatriots control such a high proportion of the world’s ships. Even as she neared her death aged 98 in 2001, Tsakos recalls, Maria Tsakos continued to believe there was no higher calling for a man than that of a sea captain – a role which in her formative years also equated with being a shipowner. It reflected the value system during her childhood on the Aegean island of Chios in the early 1900s. “When you would introduce her to someone who was a doctor or a lawyer, she would say, ‘Oh dear, the poor man couldn’t become a captain,’” Tsakos recalls.
Robert Wright, Financial Times, 2008
Robert Fairchild was carried on a river of pedestrian traffic as he moved down the Akti Miaouli searching for the offices of Blue Sea Shipping & Trading – and Spyrolaki Bouboulinas.
As he passed by an unlikely mix of coffee shops and storefronts and crumbling office buildings comingled with modern ones, he experienced an arousing blend of jet lag, hyper-caffeination, déjà vu and anxiety. Despite having just nine days to somehow gain control of the fifteen LNG carriers under construction in Korea, being back in Piraeus, the port of Athens, made him feel surprisingly optimistic.
Nearly a year and a half had passed since he signed the MOA to purchase the elderly bulk carrier Delos Express from Spyrolaki over lunch at the Marine Club of Piraeus – a remarkable clubhouse for Greek shipping tycoons located just one block from where he was standing. That was the day Robert’s life had changed forever. It was then that he began living dangerously: eating fried minnows like they were French fries, drinking foreign tap water, smoking Marlboros with abandon and even drinking white wine at lunch.
Robert’s excitement wasn’t surging purely because the Akti Miaouli was the nerve center of the world’s biggest shipowning community – its sprawl of buildings occupied by a multitude of companies ready to provide hundreds of local shipowners with everything from Filipino crews to Liberian ship registrations to Swiss banking services all at a moment’s notice. Nor was he stimulated by his presence in a port that had been in service since 517 BC and through which nineteen million people and countless vessels passed each year. No, what moved Robert Fairchild as he strolled down the famed Piraeus street was the novel Zorba the Greek.
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