Page 138 of The Oligarch's Daughter

She nodded. “Let’s sit down.” She gestured toward the conference table, motioned for Paul to sit at its head, and she sat on his right side. “Tell me everything you know about Arkady Galkin, from the beginning. From the first time you met him. Actually, why don’t you start with how you first met his daughter.”

“Why?” Paul said. “What’s the point? I’ve already told Special Agent Addison everything I know. Don’t you guys talk to each other?”

“If you’ll indulge me. I’m told you’re a first-class noticer, and I want to hear everything from your own mouth, including all the nuances. So much gets lost in interoffice memos.”

He took her through how he’d met Tatyana, at the charity function, how they started going out, how he’d had no idea who she really was, no idea that she was an oligarch’s daughter. The ridiculously over-the-top anniversary party at Galkin’s town house. How he and Galkin had bonded right away. How Galkin had lured him with a huge salary and bonuses. His growing suspicions that Galkin’s firm was engaged in insider trading, how Galkin clearly had sources inside the U.S. government. And how he was probably working for Moscow.

She nodded. “Whom did you tell your suspicions to?”

“Special Agent Addison.”

“I mean, apart from him.”

“Nobody.”

“Not even your friend Rick Jacobson?”

He momentarily startled. He’d never mentioned Rick to the FBI. She’d evidently done some background investigation.

“No, not Rick.”

“You drove to the offsite storage facility where Galkin’s firm keeps old records,” she prompted. “Is that where you found that flash drive that was labeled ‘Phantom’?”

He nodded.

“How did you know it would be there?”

“I didn’t,” Paul confessed. “It was just a lucky guess.”

“No grass grows under your feet. What did you do with it?”

“Eventually, I gave it to Special Agent Addison.”

“And did you keep a copy?”

Paul hesitated a beat. “Yes, I made a copy.”

“Can I ask you why?”

“Why I made a copy?” He thought for a moment. Why had he? “In case anything happened to it,” he said, which he knew wasn’t an adequate explanation.

“You hid a copy in your—in your wife’s apartment,” she said.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“It was the best place I could think of to hide it.”

“But they found it anyway.”

“Right.”

“So you don’t have a copy anymore, is that right?”

Paul hesitated, thinking of the copy he’d put up on SoundCloud. “Right,” he said, though he didn’t sound convincing.

An expression of distrust flickered across her face. “Do you know what’s on that drive?”

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