Page 136 of The Oligarch's Daughter

Do NOT go into work, leave the apartment immediately, meet now.

He felt his heart whumping in his ear. Maybe they had found the tracker in Galkin’s briefcase after all. Oh, Jesus.

He dressed quickly, throwing on jeans and sneakers and a sweatshirt.

Tatyana, who was just waking up, saw him and said, “Where are you going?”

“Casual day at work,” he lied. He kissed her, wondered if this was the last time he’d ever do so.

Then he walked quickly downtown to East Houston Street and entered one of the few remaining old-style delicatessens in New York City. Addison was sitting at a table, a bagel and lox and cream cheese half-eaten on the table before him. Next to him sat a slightly pudgy young woman with short dark hair.

“Glad you made it,” Addison said. “This is Special Agent Stephanie Trombley. She’s just joined our team.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Paul said. Turning to Addison, he said, “What’s going on?”

“One of your colleagues, Chad Forrester?”

“Yeah?”

“Forrester was hit by a car early this morning. He’s dead, Paul.”

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Paul’s heart juddered. “Were you in touch with him?” he asked Addison. “Or can’t you say?”

Trombley looked at Addison, who said, “We were not in touch with him.”

That could mean only one thing: Chad was killed because they, Galkin’s people, thought he was spying on the firm. In trying to disguise himself as a generic investment guy for the CCTV, had he accidentally implicated Chad? Paul’s chest felt hollow and his stomach roiled with acid.

“The situation has escalated,” Addison said. “We’ll talk across the street.”

“Across the street?”

“You asked why I haven’t taken you to our office. Well, our unit is based across the street, and you’re going to be meeting with someone quite high up.”

They crossed East Houston Street to a narrow white-brick building that had a tourist shop on the street level. The window was filled withI?NEWYORKT-shirts and Yankees mugs and snow globes. Next to it was an unmarked door. They pressed through that door and entered a small, dusty lobby with a sign on the wall listing the building’s tenants. Without speaking, they took the elevator to the fourth floor. Right where they got off the elevator was a door with a large inset glass panel on which was stenciled, in gold leaf lettering,KNIGHT&HAWLEYACTUARIALCONSULTING.

Through the glass, Paul saw a bland, plain-looking office, metal desks and metal chairs, some cubicles. Glaring fluorescent lighting. It could have been a small insurance firm stuck in the nineteen seventies. Maybe four or five employees. Agent Addison stood at the door, and it buzzed open. He put out his hand, and Paul obligingly handed over his phone. An ordinary-looking office that took extraordinary precautions. There were to be no covert recordings.

Looking around the office, Paul said, “What is this place?”

“The offsite unit for certain financial crimes investigations.”

“Undercover?”

“Basically.”

They were standing in a conference room off the main area, a sparsely furnished room whose walls were glass down to about waist level, an old-fashioned design. As soon as they’d entered, Paul noticed the outside noise diminish to nothing. The glass walls were clearly soundproof. Maybe bulletproof, too.

“Why did you warn me not to go into work?”

“Because our intel suggests you’re about to be taken in by Galkin’s security and questioned and then . . . well, who knows?”

“Yeah, I have a pretty good idea what happens to me next. So I need to disappear.” Paul said. He then told the two FBI agents about how Tatyana’s apartment had obviously been searched and how whoever’d searched it had found the thumb drive and erased it and then left the blank drive there for him to find.

“Disappear? You’re talking about WITSEC?” Trombley said.

Paul knew that was what the FBI called the Witness Protection Program. He nodded.

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